Three weeks ago, with the Knicks floundering amid the Giants’ Super Bowl victory, the anticipation of Yankees’ arrival in Tampa for the start of Spring Training would have been met with great anticipation and fervor. Jeremy Lin changed that. The Knicks are relevant. Madison Square Garden is buzzing. Baseball is on the back burner, save for those of us who follow the sport more closely than the winter sports.

From a newsmaking perspective, it was a relatively quiet winter for the Yankees. They took care of the CC Sabathia contract early; Jorge Posada’s retirement marked the next phase of the end of the Core Four; the pursuit of CJ Wilson wasn’t as aggressive as the pursuit of Cliff Lee a year ago, so it wasn’t as much of a shock or a perceived loss when the Orange County Angels signed him. The Yankees did make the backpages — in baseball-related news, anyway — by trading Jesus Montero and Hector Noesi to the Seattle Mariners for Michael Pineda. Shortly thereafter they signed Hiroki Kuroda. The respective deals left no doubt that Allan James Burnett’s time as a Yankee was limited.

And so it was that the Yankees ended the Burnett Era on Friday by paying the Pittsburgh Pirates $20 million to take him off their hands in exchange for two minor leaguers. Burnett can now put the “Pie” in Pirate.

The timing of the Burnett trade was similar to the one that sent Alfonso Soriano to the Texas Rangers in exchange for Alex Rodriguez eight years ago, although to be sure it is not nearly as significant a deal, and it won’t cause anywhere near the circus that A-Rod did. Jettisoning Burnett is more of a simple “addition by subtraction” move. There were many who viewed getting rid of Alfonso Soriano similarly (considering what he has become, and how that move indirectly pave the way for Robinson Cano’s emergence, maybe the folks with that view were correct).

Monday’s signing of Raul Ibanez assures they have a left-handed hitting DH who can also play a little outfield to spell either Brett Gardner or Nick Swisher. It also marks a homecoming for Ibanez, a native New Yorker. Look for many of those stories over the next six weeks, particularly as the Yankees prepare to break camp.

Other than the typical puff pieces — how does the pitching staff shape up, particularly now with three arms under the age of 30; how is the respective health of the aging left side of the infield; who is the 25th man, etc. — it figures to be a quiet Spring. That was until Mariano Rivera revealed that 2012 would be his final season.

Even with the buzz Mo’s statement caused both locally and nationally, it won’t cause nearly the level of craziness that David Wells’ book, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield’s respective roles in the BALCO scandal, a certain trip to Japan, or the afterglow of a World Series championship did. And that’s fine by the Yankees. It leaves more time and room for Jeremy Lin and the Knicks to own the spotlight.

Man, Chad Jennings does a good job at Lo-Hud. Here’s some highlights from yesterday’s Yankee camp, including this bit from Russell Martin on A.J. Burnett:

“I think sometimes he would let negative thoughts get into his mind and they would affect him a little bit. It wasn’t the fact that he didn’t care or anything; he probably cared more than anybody. He’s just very hard on himself and sometimes over-critical, and when you do that, sometimes you just go the wrong way. That’s what happened with him sometimes; he was over-critical of himself instead of just simplifying the game. He would listen to everybody trying to help him out, and when you do that, it becomes chaotic. I think that’s what was happening in his mind.”

I wasn’t sorry to see Burnett go. He was frustrating to watch but I never hated him. Yeah, the pie thing was silly, but Burnett didn’t seem like a punk. Guy wasn’t Carl Pavano. He was exactly the dude they signed,  fine in 2009 but I don’t think anyone was surprised how he performed the last two years. I don’t have any hard feelings, do you?

[Photo Credit: Matt Slocum/AP]

How to be a Retronaut features a gallery of those punk skateboard kids. NYC, 1960s.

Love the loop.

Will this be Mariano Rivera’s final season? Marc Carig thinks it just might be.

[Drawing by Francesco Francavilla]

Hugo Pratt

My cousin Juliette, in town from Belgium for a few months, and the Wife made marshmallow cloud cookies yesterday.

My, is sure am sweet.

It’s mostly the voice…

That’s what I thought when I read this farewell to Yankee blogging post by our old pal Cliff Corcoran. Of course, you can read Cliff all season long over at SI.com but it looks like his days as a Yankee blogger are over. It’s good news for him–he’s got wonderful reasons for calling it quits–and sad news for us, if we’re going to be selfish about it. Cliff’s series previews have been a part of the fabric of each Yankee season here at the Banter for years. They will be missed.

It’s been a terrific run. Congrats, Cliff. And again, we’ll be reading you over at SI.com.

You’re the man.

According to two reports (Buster Olney, Joel Sherman) that I found via Craig Calcaterra at Hardball Talk, the Yankees have agreed to a 1-year, $1 million deal with Raul Ibanez. He’ll be the left-handed DH presumably and will be able to play the field if the need arises. I haven’t heard any Yankee fan or analyst that likes the move and perhaps they are right. I just can’t get myself too worked-up over the part-time DH. If he’s a bust, they cut him and make a move later in the season, cause that’s how they roll in Chinatown, Jake.

Pitchers and catchers report today. Chad Jennings has some notes already. The intrepid Marc Carig has more.

It’s gunna be a fun season, for sure.

Meanwhile, the Knicks host the defending World Champs at the Garden this afternoon.

Happy Sunday, y’all.

[Photo Credit: Attimi Rubati]

Heppy Saturday.

[Picture via Holy Friend]

Bernard joins Clyde and Breen tonight to call the Knick game.

Hey Now.

New York Panoramas, 1902-1913 over at How to Be a Retronaut.

Root Down over at Food 52.

Via Hardball Talk, C.C. Sabathia is in good shape; Hideki Okajima is not.

Oh, and according to Buster Olney, A.J. Burnett is this close to being a Pirate.

And Jon Heyman reports that Ibanez and Chavez are going to play in the Bronx this year.

I got an e-mail from my pal John Ed Bradley the other day with an attached image of this painting:

I bought the picture at auction in Florida last week. It’s by an artist I collect named Reeves Brace. She died in 1932 at age 34. Her name at birth was Virginia Reeves. She used her last name as her first name when she became an artist and married Ernest Brace–an eccentric but nice touch. Most people just called her “Reeves.” Her husband was a fine writer named Ernest Brace; his brother helped start the publishing firm Harcourt Brace.

Reeves was a member of the art colony up in Woodstock, and she often worked in NYC. She might’ve painted this scene as a magazine illustration. I’ve been collecting her work for years although it is difficult to find and rarely comes up for sale. Her obscurity is largely a result of her early demise. Distraught as a result of a failed marriage and the stress of surviving as an artist during the Depression, she hanged herself by her silk stockings from the bathroom door of a hotel room in New York City.

She was quite the beauty, too. She still had a steady hand when she painted this canvas. I find her fascinating and have long hoped to dig deeper into her life and write about her. For now, I content myself with her oil paintings that hang in my writing studio.

The auction house didn’t identify the location but I think this is Yankee Stadium circa 1930. I think some of the artist’s details tell the story and might help us determine the year it was painted. The ads along the outfield wall (Mrs. Wagner’s Pies, Singing Shaves), the buildings in the background…all should provide clues.

Did deep outfield really have a hump like that where warning track now would be? The artist also gives us the depth of the fence in right and shows how the lime stripe tracked up what looks like a board pole.

I love how the figures with their backs turned to us are dressed. Everyone has his or head covered. The men in fedoras, one with a flower or a card or something in the band. They appear to be wearing jackets.

I asked Glenn Stout–winner of the 2012 Seymour Medal for “Fenway 1912”— when the picture could have been painted and he pegged it somewhere between 1932-34. The “Mrs. Wagner’s Pies” sign was up from ’32-’35, he told me. “Google tells me that a sign that read ‘Ever Ready Blades for Singing Shades’ graced the fence in 1932 (see listing at bottom of page).”

It was either the spring or the fall because the fans were dressed for the cold weather but since there is no bunting it wasn’t a World Series game. And:

There is no warning track, but there always was at Yankee Stadium – an actual running track, and the feature was later adopted elsewhere one they realized it was useful. There was , actually, a short, mild rise in CF and Right Center – past the warning track and the stands – the track didn’t skirt the edge of the stands precisely , but was an oval, so it was in front of the stands in CF and fight center, to stay even. So the painting is not accurate, but merely representative.

Of course, I was able to identify the batter.

What a find by John Ed. I thank him for sharing it with us.

Reeves Brace, third from left: New Paltz, N.Y., 1930

Anton’s books and Corredor Verde by Andrew Moore. Part of his beautiful Cuba series.

Happy Friday.

Nifty sample flip by Puba:

For more on The Kid, check out tributes by Greg Prince and Jason Fry at Faith and Fear in Flushing, Ted Berg over at Ted Quarters, and Jay Jaffe at Baseball Prospectus.