Today’s news is powered by . . . animals interrupting sporting events:

• CC Sabathia exited yesterday’s game in the 2nd inning with tightness in his bicep.  He’s day-to-day.
• A.J. Burnett regrets how he left the Marlins:

It’s easy to remember the bad, the way his career ended here in 2005. The Marlins had just lost 5-3 to Atlanta with a week left in the season when Burnett lambasted his manager, Jack McKeon, the coaches and his teammates, saying, “We played scared. We managed scared. We coached scared.” . . .

“It’s depressing around here,” he said at the time. “It’s like they expect us to mess up. And when we do, they chew us out. There is no positive, nothing, around here for anybody.”

The next day he was suspended for the rest of the season. Instead of letting him make his last start, the Marlins called up a rookie to make his major-league debut: Josh Johnson. Before Burnett left, he told the rookie pitcher to “give ’em hell,” Johnson remembers.

More than three years later, Burnett and Johnson found themselves back in the storyline, as they faced each other at Land Shark Stadium, Burnett now with the Yankees, pitching here for the first time since he set fire to every bridge on the way out – an ending he now regrets.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said,” Burnett said after taking the loss in Saturday’s 2-1 game. “I don’t think about the ending. I remember that they gave me my start. . . . I was young and I’ve grown up a lot since then.”

• Burnett’s suspension is reduced by 17%!:

Yankees pitcher A.J. Burnett’s suspension for throwing high and tight to Texas’ Nelson Cruz has been reduced to five games from six.

Manager Joe Girardi said Sunday before New York played the Florida Marlins that the suspension began immediately and will push back the right-hander’s next start to Saturday against the Mets.

• Sunday featured the Yanks protesting the game over a Marlins line-up mix-up:

In the bottom of the seventh inning, the Marlins pinch-hit outfielder Alejandro De Aza for pitcher Renyel Pinto, who was batting ninth. When the inning ended, Florida manager Fredi Gonzalez made a double-switch. Reliever Leo Nunez entered the game, and Chris Coghlan remained in left field.

Nunez threw one pitch to Derek Jeter, a called strike. At that point, Yankees manager Joe Girardi brought to the attention of home plate umpire Tim Timmons that Coghlan was supposed to be out of the game, with De Aza in left field.

For more than five minutes play was delayed, eventually with Coghlan leaving the field. De Aza headed to left field, only to be replaced by Jeremy Hermida.

After more discussion, it was determined that both Coghlan and De Aza were no longer available. So the mistake cost the Marlins two players, with Hermida remaining in the game and slotted ninth. Nunez was placed in the leadoff spot.

• Ex-Yankee Scott Proctor is recovering from TJ surgery, and apparently is a recovering alcoholic:

Proctor doesn’t view himself as an alcoholic in the traditional sense of the word.

“Did I wake up starving for a drink every day? No. Did I know how to say no? No,” Proctor said. “Was I an alcoholic? Yes, but it wasn’t due to the fact that I had to have alcohol. It was due to the fact that it was affecting my life in negative ways. AA, to me, it’s not just about alcohol; it’s about everything. Every day, you have decision-making to do, and you can do it the right way or the wrong way. I was choosing the wrong way a lot.”

As a result of those choices, Proctor believes his performance on the field suffered, though he insists he was never intoxicated during a game.

“When your body’s that dry from all the booze, it’s got to have an effect,” Proctor said. “Do I know exactly what it did? No. I can’t sit here and say, ‘I remember that home run that guy hit, it was because I was blasted.’ You can’t be as consistent when you’re doing that kind of thing.”

• On this date in 1961, Roger Maris leads the Yankees on an 8 – 3 thrashing of the A’s by belting his 27th homer of the year. He adds two doubles and a single. Maris has now hit 20 homers in the past 30 days (May 24 – June 22) to tie the mark set by Ralph Kiner in 1947.
• On this date in 1965, Ray Barker’s ML-record-tying 2nd consecutive pinch-hit home run is wasted in a first-game, 6 – 2 Yankees loss to the A’s. Mickey Mantle adds a home run in the opener, but in the 4 – 2 nightcap win he tries to score from 2nd on a wild pitch and snaps a upper-thigh hamstring. He will be out for three weeks. The June 21st Sports Illustrated cover features Mantle with the prescient title “New York Yankees: End of an Era?”