Yankee's Pool Tournament: It's All For the Team

The Yankees start playing games on Wednesday so manager Joe Girardi took advantage of one of the few days they have without obligations to take his team out for a relationship building exercise: a pool tournament.

“I’ve never been on a team that’s done something like this before, but I often wondered why,” Girardi said. “There’s a lot of other sports that do these types of things. We can get away from the park and enjoy each other off the field and get to know each other.”

After they took batting practice and the pitchers threw their bullpens, Girardi made the announcement to the team. Everyone seemed to like it with the younger players probably more excited than anyone.

Jorge Posada said:

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“It’s all about really getting together. If I was a young man coming on this trip, it’s something that you don’t see often. You can hang out with the veterans and be away from the field.

“Hopefully, we start some relationships here and get going. We’ve got a lot of young guys, and we need to be on the same page. I think this is going to help us.”

“I think it’s a matter of understanding where Joe is coming from,” Posada said. “We want to have a fun camp. When it’s time to play, it’s serious. But when it’s time to have fun like this, we’re going to have fun together.”

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Johnny Damon said:

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“Today is one of those days that, as a ballplayer, you’ll never forget. I don’t think any team has ever really done this. It says a lot about Joe. He knows we’ve been working hard and he rewarded us.”

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Mark Teixeira said:

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“It makes you relax and realize that we can have fun off the field,” said Mark Teixeira, who said it was the most fun day of Spring Training in his career. “Once we get on the field, it’s business, but we can build some relationships as well.

“Usually during the season, you get to hang out with guys, because we’re always on the same bus or the same plane — our schedules are identical. In Spring Training, you don’t go on trips together, the pitchers have different schedules than the hitters and the hitters are in different groups, so there might be a couple guys you don’t get to know at all.”

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Apparently Mariano Rivera is a pool shark as he won the tournament. It’s good to see the guys having so much fun together.