Zell's Pinstriped Blog, A New York Yankees Fan Blog

Joe Girardi took the team out to an arcade to build up team chemistry once again. Last year, Mariano Rivera showed us that he was a pool shark on the ball club. It worked last year, so why not do it again? The NY Yankees passed along these great photos to Chad Jennings, so I thought I would relay them to my readers.

The Contest Results:

Indy car Winner: A.J. Burnett Runner-up: Dana Cavalea

Skeeball  Winner: Andrew Brackman Runner-up: Eduardo Nunez

Pop-A-Shot Winner: Royce Ring Runner-up: Mark Melancon

Here are a bunch of quotes from the players and manager:

“I think it’s good to get the guys together away from the field,” Girardi said. “We’re here together always on the field. There’s competition, there’s cheering for each other. It’s just a nice day to hang out in a big group.”

“The highlights were A.J. Burnett just smoking the field in the video game racing, and Royce Ring being probably the best Pop-A-Shot basketball player I’ve ever seen,” Mark Teixeira said.

“Those two were hands down the best at those two events. Whenever the basket is moving, Royce takes the cake.”

“I think it’s important during the course of the year, if you get called up, that you’re familiar with these guys, too,” Girardi said.

“There was just a closeness here that I thought was extremely important,” Girardi said. “It was a very close-knit group of guys. I thought we went through some tough times early in the year that guys pulled together and hung together. You could just see that there was a camaraderie there.”

For the most part, the coaching staff kept the plans a secret from the players, but some had an inkling — as CC Sabathia proclaimed, “If it’s video games or something, I’m going to win.”"It was a great day,” Teixeira said. “The fact that we get three or four hours not to have to worry about baseball and not have to compete on the baseball field, it was fun. Playing video games, we felt like kids again.”