Chien-Ming Wang is a pitcher who plays for the Yankees.

"You watched the game last night between the Yankees and their personal tormentors, the West Coast Angels, and it reminded you that the Bombers are still missing something important, after all that money and all these years.

They're missing Joe Saunders, a young, homegrown lefty with a world of promise."

Chien-Ming Wang is a righty, but he's still young, homegrown, with a world of promise, and quite a bit of that promise has already been realized.

21-9 career record.

13-4, 3.69 era, 161 innings pitched in 2006. Among the leauge leaders.


"The Yanks produced one of these guys a decade ago, Andy Pettitte, and they never replaced him when he packed his bags for Houston."

Is Bondy really fixated on the fact that Wang is a righty and Pettitte is a lefty?

If it helps, Wang leads the league in ground ball double plays.


"Too many trades, not enough material left in the minors."

The Yankees should have kept Ted Lilly. But Ted Lilly is merely good, not great.

You know who else is pretty good? Jake Westbrook.

The other trades? No worries.

Brandon Claussen is 16-27; Randy Choate is a so-so middle reliever; Ben Ford is out of baseball; Randy Keisler has a career era of 6.82.


"They lean hard on mercenaries and pickups along the way, getting as far as October but no longer to the Canyon of Heroes."

The Yankees have not won the World Series in five whole years. That much is true.

Maybe Bondy would prefer a starting rotation of Claussen, Ford, Keisler, Brian Boehringer, and Ed Yarnall. Sounds like the World Champs.


When I say "Brett Jodie," you say "Canyon."

When I say "Jorge Depaula," you say "of."

When I say "Craig Dingman," you say "Heroes."


Everybody's a mercenary. Young players and old players, minor leaguers and Hall of Famers. The Yankees who won the World Series were mercenaries and the Yankees who lost in the playoffs were mercenaries. Andy Pettitte is a mercenary and so is Joe Saunders and so is Filip Bondy, who spells his first name with an "F," instead of a "Ph."


"This revolving-door system worked well enough for the Yanks in the late '90s, with Pettitte there to anchor things."

Oh, I forgot. Pettitte was the anchor. Not Wells winning 20 games, not Cone winning 20 games, not Clemens winning the Cy Young, not El Duque and his .999 winning percentage in the playoffs.

Listen up, everybody: The 1998 Yankees were a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It was also eight years ago.


"It turns out the Yankees haven't won the AL East in August, after all. They haven't won anything yet."

He's joking, right?


"It appeared for a few days this week as if the race might end a bit earlier than expected ... "

To whom did this appear?

Because the Yankees amassed a whopping three game lead in early August? The race appeared to be over?


"Meanwhile, Saunders, a rookie, mixed his stuff like a veteran, like Pettitte, until his fielders let him down in the seventh, on an error by third baseman Maicer Izturis and a miscommunication on a simple foul pop near first."

Why are we still talking about Andy Pettitte?

Andy Pettitte is no longer on the Yankees, Andy Pettitte is 11-12 with a 4.86 era in a league where the pitchers hit.

I'll take Chien-Ming Wang. He wears number 40 and plays for the Yankees.

Maybe Filip Bondy should check out a game sometime. They play on the YES Network during the week and on Channel Nine on Fridays.