“Other things I’ve never seen before: a $4 apple being sold at the new Yankee Stadium fruit stand…yes, it was a “large” apple…but a $4 apple is new to me! Didn’t they sell apples during the depression for 2 cents?”   So asks the YES Network’s Suzyn Waldman via her new WFAN.column, but if you’re afraid the Lady Goodness Gracious has devolved into a distaff Larry King, fear not. With the Bronx Bombers having won a season high 7 consecutive games and the presumably-clean Alex Rodriguez on an absolute tear, Waldman doesn’t shy away from serious analysis (link culled from Repoz and Baseball Think Factory)

I’ve been either covering or broadcasting Yankees games for 23 years…and until this weekend, I’ve never seen a Yankees player get hit in the face with a whipped cream pie. Now, 4 of them in a few days…Brett Gardner, Melky Cabrera , Alex Rodriguez and yesterday Johnny Damon. They are the brain child of AJ Burnett, who keeps his supply in the video room right off the Yankees dugout steps.

I think a few of the “core” players in that Yankees clubhouse were a little stunned when the first pie went into Brett Gardner’s face, but it was Mariano Rivera, an ultimate “core” player who told a dejected AJ Burnett yesterday, who was sitting in the clubhouse after being taken out of the game to “get out there….get that pie ready, man, you can’t change karma!”

To those of you who say “Act like you’ve been there before” or “That’s not the Yankee way!”….I say to you…, well, most of these guys have NOT been there before, and how’s that “Yankee Way” worked for the past 7 years? A little life is needed in there…if a pie in the face on a walkoff win is what does it…so what? Add to that the gold WWB (or WWF…whatever it is now) belt being passed around to the star of the day. It belongs to Johnny Damon and the belt was a gift from AJ Burnett’s two little sons…