A columnist for the Post since November 2002, Mike Vaccaro has reported from four Olympics, 12 World Series, 10 Super Bowls, eight Final Fours and five U.S. Opens, among the hundreds of events he has covered in his 20-year newspaper career. His "Open Mike" and "Vac’s Whacks" are regular Sunday features, and he has written three books, the latest -- "The First Fall Classic," about the 1912 World Series between the Giants and Red Sox -- is out Oct. 6.
There are plenty of things you can take issue with when it comes to the manager of the Yankees, on just about any night of the week. You can argue on either side of Joe Girardi’s decision to bunt Derek Jeter in the...
August 24, 2011 1:35 AM
MINNEAPOLIS — Alex Rodriguez is not going to win the American League’s most valuable player award this year. But he’s won three of them already, and could easily have won three more. He knows what an MVP season looks...
August 22, 2011 1:04 AMMINNEAPOLIS — See, the thing that aggravates you about A.J. Burnett isn’t just that he’s a relentlessly underachieving mess so much of the time. It isn’t just that he’s stubborn, and bullheaded, and oblivious to...
August 21, 2011 2:28 AMThere are some athletes who were born to the broadcast booth, who belonged there even long before they belonged there: David Cone. Ron Darling. Phil Simms and Boomer Esiason. Keith Hernandez and Al Leiter, Paul O’Neill...
August 21, 2011 1:43 AM
MINNEAPOLIS -- This was always going to be the gravy, remember. This was always going to be the second cherry on top of the banana split, Stars and Flix and Encore on your cable package. Russell Martin has been a...
August 20, 2011 12:00 AM
MINNEAPOLIS — The version of Alex Rodriguez that exists in memory is one that even a blue-cloaked hack like Dana DeMuth wouldn’t have been able to interfere with. When Rodriguez hit a baseball, it stayed hit. Ground...
August 19, 2011 3:11 AMAfter a while, it was easy to forget that Osi Umenyiora wasn’t simply a football player who has plied his wares for the Giants mostly (though not always) with distinction since 2003. After a while, as all the talk and...
August 17, 2011 12:29 AM
A good friend of mine, Mike Rodman, passed earlier this summer. He was a newspaperman to his core and a sports fan to his soul. He grew up in Maplewood, N.J., and spent a lot of time working other jobs before finding...
August 14, 2011 1:02 AMJerry Reese has been the general manager of the Giants for four years. The Giants are 40-24 in those years, not including playoffs. If you would like to include the playoffs, you should probably mention the fact that...
August 12, 2011 2:58 AM
All season long, it seems, the Yankees have been taking a crash course reminding them of the one dynasty in sports that has been more reliable than they’ve been across the last 90 or so years. The Yankees have won 27...
August 09, 2011 2:00 AM
BOSTON — One more time, it would be Mariano Rivera against the Red Sox, the Yankees one run to the good, needing three outs to slip back into first place. In the epic history of these teams, you could devote three whole...
August 08, 2011 2:57 AM
We fall in love with smart players, with sharp players, with heady players. That’s true in any sport, of course. We write poems about “cerebral” quarterbacks, compose paeans to basketball players who “anticipate” and...
August 07, 2011 1:04 AM
BOSTON -- You never know what happens when the dark clouds start to form. One day, for instance, Chien-Ming Wang was going to be an anchor of the Yankees rotation for years to come, with back-to-back 19-win seasons...
August 07, 2011 12:00 AMBOSTON -- It could mean nothing, OK? We've seen enough baseball games, you and I, heard ourselves proclaim far too often that this is the game you'll remember come October the first or so, that this is the moment that...
August 06, 2011 12:00 AMBOSTON — Look, on a certain level, it wouldn’t matter where in the standings the Yankees and the Red Sox happened to reside on any given day they collide. You throw that uniform on one collection of players, and that...
August 05, 2011 2:39 AMThe first part was the easiest part, because it involved Rex Ryan’s personality alone. Ryan replaced Eric Mangini, and so that first summer, and that first season, everything Rex said sounded like a greatest-hits...
August 03, 2011 2:07 AMThe last time we’d seen them all together, their sweat was frozen to their cheeks, their road-white uniforms were covered in the muck and misery of a western Pennsylvania wasteland. The temperature on Jan. 23 was 10...
August 02, 2011 1:05 AM
In the whirl of activity that turned the NFL’s first week into a maelstrom and a hail storm of speculation and hope and dread and impatience, a week capped by Plaxico Burress trading in blue for green, there was one...
August 01, 2011 1:55 AM
I remember when “Twin Peaks” was on the air, and every single one of the friends with whom I share copasetic entertainment tastes insisted I had to watch. I had to watch. I was crazy if I didn’t watch. It was right down...
July 31, 2011 2:07 AMRemember when Philadelphia was that quaint town sitting on the other side of the Turnpike, non-threatening the way a younger cousin is non-threatening? Philly was the Big Five, and a cool basketball building called the...
July 30, 2011 3:53 AM
OK. At the top, let's make sure we get a few things straight: 1. The Mets are on the periphery of the National League wild-card race. They are not yet what you would call in the wild-card race. 2. The Mets are...
July 29, 2011 12:00 AM
This was July 5, so of course the Mariners were going to figure out a way to win. "For a long time this year," Eric Wedge said, "that's what we did." That night, in front of a sparse gathering of friends and...
July 26, 2011 12:00 AM
Allow me to preface this with a disclaimer: I don’t wish ill on anyone in the workplace, I really don’t. I’ve been fired before. I know what that feels like. I know what it is show up at the office one day, be summoned...
July 24, 2011 12:56 AM
This one really felt like the end was lurking on the other side of the ninth inning. One more time, the Mets threw out a lineup that would struggle to score runs in the International League, and one more time they...
July 19, 2011 12:00 AM
There are no medals for trying at this level, especially in this city, and the Mets know that as well as anyone. There is no such thing as a plucky big-market team, not even one that started the season 5-13 and has...
July 18, 2011 12:00 AM
Let's make a pact, you and me. When we watch the finals of the Women’s World Cup today, between the U.S. and Japan, let’s simply enjoy the game. Let’s watch as the Americans try to win their first Cup since Brandi...
July 17, 2011 12:05 AMWell, it turns out we wasted all of our cheap quips and cheaper one-liners on the wrong lawyer, didn’t we? Rusty Hardin seemed like such an easy target. For one thing, he has a bully as a client, a guy who may go down...
July 15, 2011 2:19 AM
It is the All-Star break, and the Yankees have spent a good chunk of the first half in first place. They have pitched above expectations. They have played a mostly entertaining brand of baseball and were even able to...
July 13, 2011 1:39 AM
Everyone has an idea of what they would do if they were Christian Lopez, if they had been sitting in Section 236, Row 1, Seat 19, just behind the red State Farm sign in deep left field Saturday afternoon. Everyone has...
July 12, 2011 12:00 AM
The killjoys will tell you it’s just a number. They will tell you that the Derek Jeter who circled the basepaths at Yankee Stadium just past 2 o’clock Saturday afternoon was precisely the same player he’d been a few...
July 11, 2011 2:27 AM
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