Four days without Yankees baseball in the middle of the summer feels like an eternity. The Home Run Derby was as boring as always, and if the Yankees are to defend their title this fall, they are going to have to do it without home-field advantage thanks to the loss in the All-Star Game.

With the Yankees returning home on Friday for a three-game series with the Rays, anyone in attendance on Friday night or Saturday afternoon for Old Timer’s Day should be prepared for a five-alarm gongshow. I was at Yankee Stadium on August 13, 1995, the day that Mickey Mantle died, and literally every nine minutes another crazed fan with a No. 7 painted on their chest was running around the Yankee Stadium field to honor Mantle. With the passing of both George Steinbrenner and Bob Sheppard, I wouldn’t be surprised if that memorable day isn’t replicated this weekend with first place in the AL East on the line.

Even though the Yankees are in first place, are 56-32 and have the best record in baseball, it didn’t start to feel that way until recently. Maybe it’s just me, but for some reason I still feel like the Yankees are just beginning to click on all cylinders, and can possibly even play better than they have over the last few weeks.

In honor of a successful first half for a team notoriously known as slow starters and strong finishers, I felt it was only right to hand out midseason awards to those Yankees deserving of one. These aren’t your standard Baseball Writers Association Awards, and not every Yankee came away with something. Luckily for those that didn’t receive one, there is a lot of baseball left for the Yankees in 2010.

The Entourage Award for “Wishing Something Was As Good As It Used To Be”
The same reason I keep tuning into Entourage even though it’s been going through a gradual demise for well over a year is why I am still holding out hope for Joba Chamberlain. I remember Entourage for its Season 1 and Season 2 greatness and not its recent year-plus run of horrible storylines and unrealistic writing, the same the way I remember Joba for his 2007 dominance and the way Joba Mania took over the Bronx three summers ago.

I have seen how great Joba can be, even if it was three years ago, and I know deep down somewhere beneath the cocky behavior and unaccountable attitude is the high-90s fastball and the slider that once shut down the American League. Right now Joba is the weakest link of the important players on the team and right now, a reliable Joba is the last piece to the puzzle that will make the Yankees complete moving forward in their quest for No. 28.

I need a setup guy I can trust and I need Joba to be Reliever Joba and not Starter Joba. But more importantly, I want Joba Mania back and I want to be able to trust the bridge to Mariano.

The Jim Joyce Award for “Doing A Job That No One Should Know Your Name For”
Unless you are a devoted follower of a major league team, there is no reason for you to know the third base coach’s name. Half of their job is to give signs and decide whether or not to send or hold runners home, and the other half of their job is to be the manager’s buddy and be a good time on road trips. They are essentially given a free pass to be part of a major league team, to have a job in the bigs and to hang out with their friends from their playing days. As long as they don’t screw up, no one really pays much attention to them, and that’s a good thing. More and more people are beginning to know Rob Thompson’s name, and that’s a bad thing.

There have been a few occasions this season where Thompson has gotten a runner thrown at home with no outs in an inning (I have been present for two of them), and he nearly ruined my celebration of our nation’s birthday on the Fourth when he got three Yankees tagged out at home in one game (I am still waiting to find out from the Elias Sports Bureau if three Yankees have ever been thrown out in the same game on the Fourth of July on a Sunday when the Yankees are playing the Blue Jays).

I will let Thompson’s first-half blunders slide because the Yankees are winning despite his incompetence and because he seems to be friends with Joe Girardi and really because he looks like Michael Scott. I am just hoping that Thompson doesn’t send someone at the wrong time in the wrong game over the final 74 games of the year.

The Michael Jackson Award for “Smoothest Transition From Home-Run Swing To Home-Run Trot”
This was a tossup between A-Rods patented “flip the bat … hop … stare into the Yankees dugout” and Robinson Cano’s version of the Moonwalk. In the end I had to give it to Cano.

No one could pull off that leg kick into a 360 spin into the moonwalk into the toe stand the way MJ could, and as of now, no one can pull off what Robinson Cano does at the plate following a home-run swing. There is no smoother player in the league when it comes to hitting a no-doubter and making a cool and perfect exit out of the batter’s box than Robinson Cano. In April, I wrote:

“I was waiting for the few notes of “Billie Jean” to come across the Fenway PA system when Robinson Cano hit his solo home run on Tuesday, as he swung, made contact and dropped his bat like it was on fire all in one smooth, flawless motion before gliding out of the box.”

… and it never gets old.

I would have liked to see Cano’s home-run antics on Monday night during the Home Run Derby, but not at the price of ruining his swing for the second half. My preseason pick for MVP from the Yankees continues to make me look smart.

The Seaside Heights Award for “Most Emphatic And Excessive Fist Pump”
After hanging onto this award for three years, Joba Chamberlain has surrendered it to Francisco Cervelli in a unanimous decision, mostly because Joba hasn’t had much to fist pump about all season.

Cervelli’s energy has been exerted through his right hand on clutch strikeouts and two-out RBI hits. No Yankee has cut through the air with their first as violently since Brien Taylor on that forgetful Florida night.

Are Cervelli’s antics over the top? Maybe, but I don’t care. I have grown immune to unnecessary celebrations in professional sports for the most part, and it’s not like Cervelli is going nuts after a one-out save in a three-run game like Francisco Rodriguez does. And it’s not like he is running around the infield grass after throwing a complete-game despite being 15 games back in the AL West like Felix Hernandez did on Saturday night. I’m all for Cervelli and his enthusiasm. I hope to see a lot more fist pumps from him in the second half.

The Gordie Howe Award for “Still Competing At The Highest Level Despite Your Age”
Last week on Twitter, someone wrote, “Is this Mariano Rivera’s best season ever?” I am beginning to think the tweet was a rhetorical question since I’m pretty sure it is his best year. You certainly can’t overlook what he did in 1996 as the setup man, but in terms of his 14 years as a closer, his numbers this season can go toe to toe with any of his other years.

Seriously, look at these numbers: 34.1 IP, 16 H, 6 R, 4 ER, 6 BB, 33 K, 1 BB, 1.05 ERA, 0.641 WHIP.

I am starting to think Mariano wasn’t kidding when he told the crowd following Game 6 of the World Series in November that he would be pitching for another five years. I am actually beginning to wonder if he will still be closing games when he is 50, and at this rate I don’t see why he won’t be.

While other closers appear to be breaking down (K-Rod, cough, cough) and losing their invincibility factor (Papelbon, cough, cough), Mariano just keeps on doing what he has been doing since 1997: saving games for the Yankees.

The LeBron James Award for “Becoming The Complete Opposite Of What You Are Known As”
Over the last few days, the LeBron James and Alex Rodriguez comparisons have taken over sports. In some ways I agree, but there needs to be some clarification with these comparisons because LeBron James isn’t becoming Alex Rodriguez. Rather, 2010 LeBron James is becoming 2004 Alex Rodriguez, and there is a big difference.

Prior to last week, LeBron James was the NBA’s golden child, but in one hour on TV that all changed. LeBron produced a two-out rally against himself by becoming a villain, tarnishing his image and destroying the brand he had carefully crafted since being drafted by the Cavaliers. Here was the face of the league, talking in the third-person and playing the part of the biggest scumbag in the NBA. It was the complete opposite of what LeBron James had been for the last seven years.

Now we have 2010 A-Rod, which really has been an extension of Fall 2009 A-Rod. Since last October, A-Rod has become the most clutch player in all of baseball, he has shed the “perennial loser” tag he has carried with him his whole career and has even started to rebuild the image he erased when he admitted to steroid use and being naïve and playing in a culture in Texas where steroids were as common in the clubhouse as short brunettes are in SoHo. There was A-Rod on Monday night, talking baseball with Chris Berman, Joe Morgan and Bobby Valentine during the Home Run Derby and presenting himself in a light in which he could have been perceived all of these years if he didn’t make such poor choices.

A clutch Alex Rodriguez for Yankees fans to love and a personable Alex Rodriguez for baseball fans to begin to like. Who would have thought?

The Clark Griswold Award for “Taking A Summer Long Vacation”
I’d like to think that A.J. Burnett thought he was on vacation during the month of June because if he was actually trying to get people out, then we have a serious problem. According to Michael Kay, Burnett had the worst statistical month in Yankee history, and I didn’t check the numbers, but I sat through all five of the eye-gouging performances and I will just take Michael’s word for it.

Burnett was 0-5 with an 11.35 ERA in June. Not even Tim Redding or Chase Wright or Sidney Ponson or Darrell Rasner could have imagined putting up those kinds of numbers. But here is the Yankees’ so-called No. 2 starter, making $16.5 million a year and $500,000 a start losing every single time he went to the mound for an entire month. Simple mathematics tells us that Burnett made $2.5 million in June. Not a bad payday for a guy who literally did not show up to pitch one single time for 30 days.

As much as my distaste has grown for A.J. Burnett over the first three months of the season and as much as Sweeny Murti probably wants me to stop badgering him about Burnett, the Yankees need him to pitch well.

The Joe Morgan Award for “Not Doing Your Homework For Your Job”
So the Yankees front office not only thought that it was a good idea to let Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon take off, but they also thought Nick Johnson would be a perfect No. 2 hitter and that Chan Ho Park would be a solid jack-of-all-trades out of the bullpen. I mean any time you can get a 37-year-old reliever with a 5.79 ERA in the AL before 2010, you have to do it, right? Excellent work, boys!

All you need to know to about Chan Ho Park is that he has appeared in 21 games this season and he has allowed earned runs in 11 of them. And in the 21 games Park has appeared in, the Yankees are 9-12.

The fact that Chan Ho Park is still in the majors is a bit disturbing. The fact that he is on the Yankees, making $2 million and was given a guaranteed roster spot out of spring training is disgusting.

Before the Yankees went to L.A. to play the Dodgers, Sweeny Murti told me this:

“Park’s guaranteed roster spot was just the result of getting him at an affordable price when a non-roster invite wasn’t going to be enough to get him. He pitched well in the World Series and that may have fooled the Yankees. It wouldn’t be the first time (see: Carl Pavano). The stuff he had in the World Series is not what he’s had so far. He’s really only had one good stretch for them this year and it came in the low-leverage situations I mentioned before. One scout who saw Park pitch a lot last year told me that’s how the Phillies got the most out of him last year and it was a bad job by the Yankees not to recognize that.”

No one really believed Joe Girardi in June when he kept telling the media that A.J. Burnett had good stuff, and no one believed him earlier this season when he said he didn’t skip Javier Vazquez a second time because Vazquez was pitching bad. As fans, we let things like that slide because Joe is supposed to stick by his players, be loyal to them and back them up. But when Joe Girardi sits there and tells the media that he believes in Chan Ho Park, it’s embarrassing for him and for me as a Yankees fan.

In the very near future, I am certain that Park will no longer be a Yankee, and that will be a glorious day … as long as it doesn’t mean that Boone Logan will be once again.

The Marc Summers Award for “Most Yankee Stadium Pies To The Face”
In the late innings at home, Marcus Thames has been like a contestant on “What Would You Do?” With a two-run walk-off bomb off Jonathan Papelbon in May that made an identical flight path to Aaron Boone’s 2003 shot and a walk-off single against the Blue Jays on The Fourth of July, Thames has been the only Yankee to take an A.J. Burnett pie to the face this season.

I always liked Marcus Thames given his unique story from his first at-bat in the majors for the Yankees bank in 2002, though my liking for him waned in 2006 when he was a member of the Tigers team that upset the Yankees in the 2006 ALDS. But I was happy that Yankees got him back to represent the biggest bat off their bench since Ruben Sierra was swinging from his heels on every pitch from 2003-2005.

Right now, Thames is the only true bat on the Yankees bench that includes Ramiro Pena, Francisco Cervelli, Colin Curtis and Kevin Russo. If the four of them had a Home Run Derby, it might last eight days before someone poked one out. Actually an Extra-Base Hit Derby between them might last that long.

I think the Yankees will be in the market for another bat at the All-Star break since Thames currently represents the only true threat for them. And with Nick Johnson using his free time to concentrate on his Farmville farm, who knows when he will be ready to rejoin the team? Not that I am hoping he rejoins the team.

With the loss of two Yankees legends in the span of three days, I thought it would be fitting to talk to Steve Lombardi, founder of the Yankees blog, WasWatching.com, and a follower of the Yankees since George Steinbrenner’s first season as owner of the Yankees, back in 1973.

Keefe: You have been following the Yankees since 1973, and lived through the entire George Steinbrenner era. On a day like today, it feels surreal that The Boss is no longer with us. Even though George hasn’t been the in the forefront of the front office or the polarizing figure he once was for the last few years, it is still feel weird to think about the Yankees without him. What are your memories of The Boss?

Lombardi: I went to my first Yankees game on August 8, 1973 when I was 10 years old, so I sort of feel like George Steinbrenner and I have been running side by side with him in terms of our passion for the team. And now, there does feel like there’s a void there for me; granted, he has been out of the picture for the last few years, and he was 80 years old and in ill health when he passed, I should have been prepared for today’s news, but it’s still somewhat of a shock and surreal.

In terms of memories, like many Yankees fans, I’m only focusing on the good stuff now. Sure, there were times in the past where his quick trigger and impulsive moves made the organization look bad, but in retrospect, as Yankees fans, we were very lucky to have an owner who wanted to win so badly, who was not looking to stick profits into his pocket and who was willing to spend money to bring a winner to New York. As I have recently written, in his salad days, Big Stein was narcissistic, illogical, pompous, impetuous, delusional and pathological, and that made life terrible for all those who worked for him.  But, at least 70 percent of the time, he gave Yankees fans teams that allowed them to walk the streets with their heads up and chests out. You can’t say that about a lot of owners in baseball or sports, period.

Keefe: George Steinbrenner was certainly a unique owner and extraordinary businessman, as well as a pioneer of the game in many different ways. He always made sure he reinvested his money back into the team and always tried to put what he felt was the best team on the field for the Yankees even if it didn’t always work out. What would you say was the most significant move George made during his time as the owner of the Yankees?

Lombardi: That would be signing Catfish Hunter back in December 1974. The Yankees had a pretty good team in ’74, yet signing Hunter (to what was then a huge contract) set the tone and let the rest of baseball know that the Yankees were going to do whatever it took to bring premium talent and winning ballplayers to New York.

Bringing Catfish was start. That, combined with Gabe Paul’s trades led to the pennant in 1976, and that led to Reggie Jackson coming and the rings in ’77 and ’78. During the 1980s, the Yankees had a lot of wins but no rings. Wanting to get back to those rings led to the magic of the late ’90s. But, again, it all started with bringing in Hunter. For what it’s worth, I think Steinbrenner has mentioned this in the past too.

Keefe: The Yankees also lost an iconic figure not just in New York, but in all of sports in Bob Sheppard. What are your memories of Bob Sheppard from the old Stadium and how will you remember him?

Lombardi: Bob Sheppard was a small part of the Yankees organization but a major part of their history. That’s not an easy thing to pull off. Pete Sheehy did it. Gene Monahan is doing it. And, Sheppard is in that group too. It’s a very small team picture.

I will always remember him as being part of the Yankee Stadium experience before the Stadium became what it was in 2009. It’s so different attending games now, and the difference is not all good. Bob Sheppard will forever be part of that special “before time” Yankee Stadium feeling compared to what the Yankees, and going to their games, is like today.

You didn’t need to stay up on Monday night to know how bad A.J. Burnett was against the Diamondbacks. After his previous three starts prior, you probably could have guessed how his night would go. I was naïve to think that someone making $500,000 per start could shut down the worst team in the NL West. Stupid me.

It’s never good when a six-game West Coast road trip starts with a first-inning mound visit, and it’s never good when you are hoping your No. 2 starter gets drilled when he comes up to hit and has to be placed on the DL. But such is the life of a Yankees fan dealing with the frustrating A.J. Burnett.

If you missed the game, first off you’re lucky, and second off you don’t even need to see Burnett’s line from the game to find out just how bad he was. All you need to know are the pitchers who followed him out of the bullpen. That would be Chad Gaudin and Chan Ho Park. Yes, it was another egg laid by Allan James Burnett in what has become a trend every five days for the Yankees, and a costly one at that. Here is the supposed No. 2 starter on the Yankees losing four straight games and allowing 23 earned runs in 20 innings in June and doing his best Chase Wright impression by allowing nine home runs over that span. I guess $16.5 million a year just doesn’t get you what it used to.

Sure there are going to be plenty of people with Yankees blinders on that take offense to me saying such terrible things about a player on my team, but honestly, I take offense to the idea that Yankees fans can stand by this guy and say anything good about him. And if anyone has anything good to say about his on-field performance, I know what that good thing is going to be: Game 2 of the 2009 World Series.

I am well aware that A.J. Burnett won Game 2 of last year’s World Series after the Yankees lost Game 1. What about the rest of the postseason? Did we forget that Burnett was 1-1 with a 5.27 ERA in five starts in October and November last year? Did we forget about his Game 5 meltdown in the World Series when he allowed six runs on four hits and four walks in two innings of work, or does that start not count?

I will be forever grateful that Burnett was able to win Game 2 and prevent the Yankees from going into an 0-2 hole with the series shifting to Philadelphia. But it’s not like the man single-handedly carried us to a championship (that would be Alex Rodriguez and Hideki Matsui), and it’s not like he never has to perform well again because of one start last fall.

A.J. Burnett is perfectly capable of going off between now and his last start of the season and making June just a minor bump in what ends up being an outstanding season. The problem is he is also capable of continuing to be the worst starter in the Yankees rotation the rest of the way, and right now, it’s hard to think of him in any other light than what we saw on Monday night, June 16, June 10 and June 4.

It’s not like I didn’t see these types of starts coming from Burnett. We all saw them at times last year, and we saw them prior to his amazing 2008 season with the Blue Jays. Except, I saw them coming at Fenway Park and Tropicana Field. I didn’t expect them to come against the Orioles, Blue Jays and Diamondbacks.

Here is what I wrote about A.J. Burnett after his first start of the season at Fenway Park:

“Watching A.J. Burnett pitch is harder to watch than the scene in Casino where Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) and his brother Dominick are beaten within an inch of their lives by baseball bats and then buried alive. Sure it’s only one start, but it’s not like we didn’t also see this last year. Burnett is either going to come within reach of a no-no or have a start that includes that one letdown inning. On Tuesday, he had the latter and the letdown inning was the fifth.”

And here is what I said about him when I ranked the Yankees starters in order of how much I enjoy watching them (Burnett ranked fourth, but he would be fifth in updated rankings):

“A.J. has two types of starts… 1.) The start where you start checking the inning and how many outs are left because a potential no-no is in the works and 2.) The start where he cruises for every inning except for one and allows three-plus runs that inning. A.J. will never give up a run here or a run there. It’s all or nothing with him. He is either going to try to burn out the P.C. Richard strikeout whistle at the Stadium, or have people heading for the exits with the game out of reach. He’s a nightmare for anyone that likes consistency or good strike-to-ball ratios, or for anyone that plays fantasy baseball. When he’s on, he can be the best pitcher on the planet with the best breaking ball in the league. When he’s off, expect every count to go full and free passes to be handed out.”

This time I decided to take what I have learned about A.J. Burnett since he became a Yankee and take it out a step further. I think its necessary that we have a unit of measurement for Burnett’s starts and a way to categorize his many meltdowns and losses. So like the Richter scale, here is a way to measure another type of natural disaster: A.J. Burnett meltdowns.

Grade 1
Example: June 10 vs. Baltimore

Getting through the first inning with A.J. Burnett is key. If you can get through the first, there’s a chance he will be able to get you through a lot more. A.J. is usually good for allowing at least one run before the Yankees have time to get on the board, but if he can hold the opposition scoreless so the Yankees can take an early lead, you’re in good shape. The problem is you aren’t out of the water yet since there isn’t a lead that is safe with A.J. on the hill.

The meltdown usually starts once the Yankees have given him a lead and he feels it necessary to give it right back. Andy Pettitte did a lot of this in the second half of 2008 before we later found out that he was injured. A.J. Burnett might be the only pitcher that I don’t feel confident with getting out of an inning unscathed with two outs and no one on. Once he gets those first two outs, things can unfold pretty quickly. And when they do, you can no longer control a Grade 1 implosion from becoming …

Grade 2
Example: April 23 vs. Angels

If A.J. doesn’t come with his best stuff (which he never does anymore), then there is without a doubt going to be an inning where he allows at least a three spot.

Most starters prepare for games with the mindset that they are going to go out and win the game for their team. A.J. goes out with the idea that he is going to throw a perfect game. The only problem is that after that first walk, he starts to think, “OK, the no-hitter is still intact.” Then after that first hit, he thinks “Well, now I am just going to strike out every hitter.” It’s this mentality that gets A.J. Burnett in trouble. Instead of pitching the way he finally learned how to under Roy Halladay at the end of his Toronto days, A.J. becomes the oft-injured pitcher he was in Florida, trying to knock down the catcher with his fastball like Steve Nebraska.

A.J. Burnett isn’t capable of limiting damage and working through men on base the way Andy Pettitte has made a career of doing, and he isn’t capable of working through a game without his best stuff the way CC Sabathia can grind through a start. It’s all or nothing with A.J. Burnett and when it’s nothing, it turns into this …

Grade 3
Examples: May 9 vs. Red Sox and June 21 vs. Diamondbacks

This is what we saw on Monday and what we have seen for most of June. It’s like an uncontrollable California forest fire. You think A.J. has had his bad inning for the night and that he will enter cruise control, only to have the game unravel in a matter of pitches (on Monday night it took 15) and once that second crooked number starts to take shape, there is no stopping it until he is removed from the game. The only problem with that is that the game is out of hand by this point and likely out of reach for the offense, so the “loser” relievers (I call them this because they only pitch when the Yankees are losing and also happens to be prime examples of the word) like Chad Gaudin and Boone Logan and Chan Ho Park start to get loose in the ‘pen.

The entire scene is enough to make you think about picking up your remote control and throwing a two-seamer right through the TV screen, or at the very least it’s enough to make you make yourself a strong cocktail.

It was hard enough to watch all nine innings on Monday night that I wasn’t about to sit through the postgame show and listen to Joe Girardi tell us that A.J. “had great stuff in the ‘pen before the game” or that “his velocity and breaking ball were there, he just missed his location.” As much as I despise Ozzie Guillen, at least he would take A.J. to town after a month of losses with a three-team race now taking shape in the AL East.

But the real reason I didn’t watch the postgame show (other than the fact that I had just wasted over three hours of my life watching the Yankees lose 10-4 to the Diamondbacks) was because I didn’t want to see A.J. Burnett. I didn’t want to see him stand in front of his locker and tell reporters that “he sucked” and that “he needs to better.” Tell us something we don’t know. I’m glad that A.J. holds himself accountable (something Joba Chamberlain needs to learn to do and something that got Ian Kennedy a one-way ticket to Arizona), but being sorry on a night when you just made more than Phil Hughes will make all year isn’t enough. Go win a game for once. Go beat the 28-win Diamondbacks.

All weekend long I gave my friend Dusty a hard time because his beloved Dodgers were swept by the Red Sox and allowed the Red Sox to further close the gap in the AL East. After Monday’s loss, I expected a response from Dusty and sure enough at 11:14 a.m. on Tuesday morning, there it was … “The Yankees lost to the worst team in the NL West.”

Thanks, A.J. Burnett. Only another three-plus years of this …