While the Yankee/bosox rivalry hasn't been all it's been cracked up to be the last few seasons, boston's new skipper Bobby Valentine is attempting to rev it back up single-handed. And while it's clear that he's doing it more to deflect attention from the 2011 choke and from the less than up to snuff 2012 club, it has been pretty entertaining. Jeter & A-Rod the main subjects of his jabs realized them for what they were and didn't take the bait. Perhaps if George M. Steinbrenner was still "The Boss" there would be more a battle of words on the back pages of newspapers both in New York and beantown, but he's not so you're stuck with @GeorgesGhost, Jeter claiming Valentine is "bored," and A-Rod saying that his press secretary, Reggie Jackson, will handle his comments and/or retorts.

And while I can't say that reading this morning that AJ Burnett injured himself fouling a ball off his face during spring training BP yesterday, seeing him referred to as "Pirates SP AJ Burnett" did bring an upturn to my mouth and a settling in my stomach.

If Phil Hughes makes the starting rotation over Freddy Garcia, the Yankees will have 3/5 of their starting rotation twenty-five years of age or younger along with Pineda and Nova. It's not quite the Rays staff, but it is a very big step in a very good direction should they shoulder the burden along with CC and Kuroda.

In other news, the literary manager referred to me as "his client" in an email pitch that I was cc'd on and sent another of my screenplays out. I can get over the fact that he keeps misspelling my first name (he blamed that lousy auto-correct as the real culprit and I believe him) I am pretty psyched about material finally going out. There were cobwebs growing on the screenplay drawer (I know, I put them there; even "watered" them) and it's good to be pulling that open.

It is ironic, funny that as I am finally concentrating on putting "Rose" out into the world and had been turning my attentions to the novel next, I am being pulled back into the screenwriting world, but that is not a complaint. Not at all...

Okay, off to the word mine.

Brian