Yankees: Don’t ever do what Knicks did

Let me start off by saying a trade like the Knicks pulled off last night would never happen in baseball because basketball is a completely different game.

A star like Carmelo Anthony makes much more of a difference in a basketball game than Alex Rodriguez can make in a baseball game. If Melo goes off for 50, the Knicks are winning — plain and simple. If A-Rod hits three homers, there’s no guarantee the Yankees’ pitching is going to hold that lead.

2010 baseball salaries & wins correlation [Charts]

The Yankees led the majors in luxury tax for the eighth year in a row (every year in its existence), but they’ll pay more than $7 million less than they did last year.

The Yankees and Red Sox were the only two teams hit with the competitive balance tax this year, and thus will have to send the commissioner’s office checks for $18 million and $1.49 million, respectively.

Jeter on recruiting LeBron: ‘I don’t play basketball. I have nothing to do with that.’

The few unrelated to the Yankees posts I’ll make usually will be about the New York Knicks. This is one of them.

Just about every Knicks fan I know wants their team to sign uber free agent LeBron James. Knicks president Donnie Walsh is looking for any New Yorkers to help him recruit James to The Big Apple. “If there’s Yankees that want to help us, we would involve them,” Walsh told the New York Post on Sunday.

To no surprise, Yankees captain Derek Jeter wanted nothing to do with recruiting James.

“If I were going to another baseball team, how would a basketball player help?” Jeter said. “I don't play basketball. I have nothing to do with that.”

Shocker.

On the other hand, as a New York fan, don’t you want Jeter to sound a little more welcoming?

Why does Jeter always have to play dumb? Jeter certainly would have a lot of helpful information for LeBron about the city of New York and could be a good recruiter.

This is a perfect example of Jeter avoiding any major press item. There’s just no way any reporter is going to get Jeter to talk about his personal life or anything unrelated to winning games for the Yankees.

Even if Jeter is in contact with LeBron (I think he will be), he will do his very best to keep that away from the media’s hands. That’s just the way he is. And that’s why we love him. Right?