Yankees Advance...Tony Gwynn Has Cancer

The New York Yankees stormed into the American League Championship series by whipping the outclassed Minnesota Twins by a score of 6-1. It was their third straight victory over the Twinkies. Here's the Minnesota manager, Ron Gardenhire...

"They kept puttin' the pressure on, and puttin' the pressure on, and ..." Ron Gardenhire

His voice trailed off after that but there was nothing else left to say. Phil Hughes pitched a tremendous game, as did Andy Pettitte. Sabathia was a little off his game but the bats were there to bail him out. Next up on Friday? Texas leads their series with Tampa Bay two games to one after last night's 6-3 comeback win by the Rays. They were down 3-1 but came back with two runs in the eighth and three in the ninth to prevent an unexpected sweep. Here's the Rays' manager, Joe Maddon...

"The fight showed up again, and that's a good sign."

They needed it or they would be gone. Poof! That would have been quite an upset but it ain't over yet. Again, they still trail the series 2-1. I think TB wins the next two. What do you think?

One of my favorite players, Tony Gwynn, has been diagnosed with cancer. This is from Yahoo sports just this morning...

"Former San Diego Padres great Tony Gwynn revealed he has cancer of the parotid salivary gland, and he suspects linkage between the disease and his use of chewing tobacco. This is stunning news, even if you already knew that Gwynn — who's just 50 years old — had surgery for a non-malignant parotid tumor in 1997 and 2007. Neither of those times did doctors find cancer, but when Gwynn went back for another surgery in September, it was a different story. This time they found a malignancy. They took out three lymph nodes and did all the tests and the results showed cancer in the parotid. The doctors say they feel they caught the cancer early and there was not much of it there."

Lymph nodes. Ouch. Good luck, Tony. We love you. My readers, enjoy your Sunday and please click on this post's title for more on the playoffs. Just go to the MLB homepage on the SI web page. That's where you'll be when you click on that title. As always, BE WELL. See you tomorrow.