Sometimes in life, it’s funny how timing can work out and provide opportunities that might not have otherwise been there – and in the last 24 hours, a series of events in the Yankees organization that mirror the movie “Crash” have made that prophecy reality for a handful of prospects.

The synergy started Sunday, when the Yankees placed Eduardo Nunez on the disabled list and recalled Alberto Gonzalez from Triple-A, leaving a spot open on the RailRiders’ roster; to fill it, Scranton added infielder Reegie Corona from Double-A. That might seem unremarkable out of context, but is quite a moment if you know that Corona has been in the Yankees system for almost a decade and has been waiting to return to Scranton for nearly three years.

Corona played 105 games for

In today’s baseball world, there’s almost no such thing as a “franchise player,” at least if your definition of that term involves someone who spends the entirety of a lengthy career in the same uniform.

When Paul Olden announces the New York Yankees to the capacity crowd at Yankee Stadium on April 1, there will be two of those franchise players wearing pinstripes – and it will be the beginning of the end for the elder of the pair.

Mariano Rivera announced his pending retirement on Saturday, telling the world that his nineteenth season in the Majors will be his last. He’ll be leaving the game with an all-time best 608-plus career saves, but he’ll also leave it with a pair of longevity records; Rivera, Derek Jeter, and Jorge Posada were the first

According to canon, January 3, 1920 is the official date that Babe Ruth was sold to the Yankees for $100,000, and we’ve chronicled the anniversary with a list of great Ruth moments that is currently running here on YESNetwork.com.

However, January 3 is a big day for the Yankees organizations in more ways than one, as it was also 40 years ago today that a group led by George M. Steinbrenner III bought the team from CBS for $10 million.

For the next 37 years, from the day he took over until his passing in July 2010 just after his 80^th birthday,  Steinbrenner was undoubtedly the most hands-on owner in Major League Baseball. His tenure may have been quite tumultuous, but there’s no denying his success; the Yankees won 15 American League East titles, 11 AL pennants, and seven

Ichiro Suzuki is still “on the verge” of re-signing with the New York Yankees, although the framework of their agreement has now apparently changed; now, it looks like the 39-year-old outfielder will be getting a two-year deal to stay in the Bronx, reportedly worth around $12-$14 million.

Earlier in the off-season, it was posited that Ichiro would be getting a one-year deal worth somewhere in the range of $5 million. However, as the New York Post’s Joel Sherman Tweeted Thursday afternoon, the Yankees learned that it would require a two-year deal to keep Suzuki in pinstripes.

Later in the afternoon, CBSSports.com insider Jon Heyman Tweeted that Ichiro had told the team he wanted to remain in New York, and that he had turned down a pair of larger two-year contract offers

If you’ve ever played a game of Monopoly, then chances are you’ve paid the “Luxury Tax,” a nice little docking from your wallet for landing in between the two richest properties on the board.

For the Yankees, every baseball season since the tax was instituted in 2003 has paralleled that scenario, as they’ve been forced to pay the tax for having their payroll exceed whatever the threshold has been set at. The Yankees plan to stem that tide come 2014, when the tax threshold is set at $189 million and some of their top prospects are closer to the Majors, but for now, it’s business as usual.

So what does this have to do with Brian Cashman’s winter 2012-13 shopping list?

Josh Hamilton, that’s what.

As you may have read, USA Today writer Bob

On Friday morning, Brian Cashman addressed the media atop the Landmark Building in Stamford, Conn., moments before doing a practice run for his weekend rappel. Below are the GM’s quotes on a few of the subjects broached in the early-AM chill.

On Russell Martin signing with Pittsburgh: “This isn’t something that caught us off guard. It’s something we were very well aware of. The agent was very honest with us, as well as the player, Russell. The best shot we took at retaining him was in spring training and obviously it was more difficult and now he’s moving on.”

On the catching situation: “We have people that can handle and run the game…and at the very least, that’s our fallback. The offense is an area that, currently with what our

Hiroki Kuroda makes his first postseason start for the Yankees tonight, and Joe Auriemma has a breakdown of the ALDS Game 3 pitching matchup between the veteran Kuroda and Orioles rookie Miguel Gonzalez.

Here, however, is a mini-By The Numbers breakdown of what Kuroda has done in the past, present, and possibly future:

11-6, 2.72: Kuroda’s record and ERA in 19 starts at Yankee Stadium this season. His first start in the Bronx, the Yankees’ home opener on April 13, saw him throw eight shutout innings against the Angels, and his last (against Boston last Wednesday) helped the Yankees win the AL East crown.

.219: Opponents are hitting just .219 against Kuroda in Yankee Stadium, which is notorious for being a hitters’ park – and a key factor in that number is that

As we enter this Columbus Day, a wild and wacky first weekend of postseason baseball began with a controversy and ended with a rain delay forcing the Yankees and Orioles to wait almost three hours to get their series started.

Eight games into the playoffs, two “series” are in the books and four more are underway, two of which could end as early as Tuesday…so before we get bounced, here’s your holiday six-pack of factoids, observations, and things you may not have known about this year’s postseason so far:

-Home field advantage is overrated. A lot of people in a lot of positions have griped about how the lower-seeded teams are playing the first two Division Series games at home; well, six games into the Divisional round, those teams are 2-4, with the only

Elsewhere in the YESNetwork.com blogosphere, Jon Lane has a graphical breakdown of the Yankees’ postseason scenarios.

No matter what the Yankees do, the results of today’s Texas-Oakland and Baltimore-Tampa Bay games could (and will) heavily influence what the team does when they wake up Thursday morning. The winner of the former game will be the AL West Champion with the loser taking one of two wild card spots, and as that game begins at 3:35 ET, the Bombers could know part of their potential fate by the time they take the field tonight.

Record-wise, the Yankees currently stand at 94-67 with Oakland, Texas, and Baltimore all at 93-68, and in terms of inter-division tiebreakers, Oakland has it on both NYY/BAL, Texas has it on Baltimore, and the Yankees have it on Texas. So,