Sunday Notes

In the past five games, Alex Rodriguez has:

• Hit seven home runs.
  
• Hit two home runs in an inning
  
• Broken his own record for most home runs by a righthanded Yankee with 49.
  
• Passed Mel Ott, Eddie Murray and Ernie Banks on the all-time home run list with 513.
  
• Broken Mike Schmidt's record for most home runs by a third baseman in a season with 49.
  
• Joined Babe Ruth, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, as the only Yankees to ever hit 50 home runs.
  
• Saved Western California from sinking into the ocean by turning back time and stopping the missiles unleashed by Lex Luthor.

Actually, that last one might be Superman. Its hard to tell them apart sometimes. Regardless, he curently stands at 52 home runs on the season, 15 more than the next guy in the league, and 516 for his career, good enough for 17th on the all-time list.

As much fun as it is to be playing the "how great is A-Rod?" game, he's actually not the best story of the week. That honor belongs to Harlan Chamberlain, Joba Chamberlain's father. By now, most of you probably know the Yankeeography-ready story of the Chamberlain family, and if you don't Peter Abraham wrote a nice feature last month for our sister paper, the Journal News.

With the Yankees traveling to Kansas City, the closest Major League team to his hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska, the elder Chamberlain had his first opportunity to see his son in pinstripes, along with a boatload of friends, family and fans from the University of Nebraska. It was a little corny and manipulative, but I couldn't help getting a little misty eyed watching Harlan, with tears in his eyes, pumped his fist in celebration as Joba struck Ross Gload out on a nasty slider.

In less heartwarming news, Derek Jeter didn't play today after leaving last night's game with a sore knee. The official diagnosis is patellar tendinitis, which is a weakening of the tendons in the knee. He's expected to be ready for Tuesday's game in Toronto, though he may be used as a DH to keep him off the astroturf. It doesn't sound major at the moment, but tendinitis is a chronic condition, so it's worth keeping an eye on.

Anyway, with today's win and Detroit's loss to Seattle, the Yankees hold a four game lead in the wild card and the magic number shrinks to 16.