Your number is up...

So, LaTroy Hawkins has given up No. 21...

I have mixed feelings about this whole situation.

First, I don't really like Hawkins. The Yankees desperately needed middle relief help, but Hawkins? The guy with a career 4.70 ERA, 1.47 WHIP? Check his career numbers against Boston (5.23 ERA, 1.39 WHIP), Cleveland (5.27, 1.78) and Anaheim/Los Angeles (5.85, 1.73), the A.L.'s three post-season teams last year.

Most alarming of all, the Yankees have hit Hawkins to the tune of a 6.44 ERA, 1.61 WHIP and .327 BAA. Wouldn't it have made more sense for us to pay another team to take him? He helps us more when he's pitching for an opponent!

We've been collecting guys like this since the end of the great Ramiro Mendoza/Mike Stanton/Jeff Nelson triumverate. He's a proud successor to the heritage of Luis Vizcaino, Felix Rodriguez, Felix Heredia, Paul Quantrill and Antonio Osuna.

But there weren't a lot of great middle relievers available this off-season, and we needed somebody who could throw strikes. (For all his faults, he doesn't give up a lot of walks... just hits.) Frankly, Hawkins isn't a problem if he's a mop-up guy, and hopefully that's what he'll be as I'm assuming Joe Girardi knows that Brian Bruney and Ross Ohlendorf are both better options to bridge the gap to Joba and Mo.

But I think it was stupid to boo a guy for his number. If the Yankees wanted to retire No. 21, they didn't need LaTroy's permission to do it. And the bottom line is? I don't think the number should be retired.

Paul O'Neill was a very good player who I will always remember, but retired numbers should be for the true Yankee greats, and he wasn't. He's like Hank Bauer, Roy White, Tommy Tresh. Guys who are beloved by the fans of that generation, but an immortal? I'm sorry, but when you make your list of all-time Yankee outfielders, where do you put the Warrior? In terms of runs created as a Yankee, he ranks eighth (858), between Bob Meusel (876) and Tommy Henrich (856). Don't like runs created? OK, in career OPS, he's 9th (.869) among Yankee OFs, behind the likes of Charlie Keller (.928), George Selkirk (.883), and, again, Henrich (.873). If you want to use Adjusted OPS to take into account his era, it doesn't help your case: He's now tied for 13th at 125 with Hideki Matsui, Bernie Williams and Birdie Cree. (Henrich is 9th.)

I don't point this out to denigrate O'Neill, who, as I said, was a very good player and by all accounts a very nice, very funny guy. In 40 years, I will tell my grandchildren stories about O'Neill's legendary tantrums and the crowd chanting his name in 2001. It doesn't matter if there's a No. 21 plaque on the wall or not. And they'll think of O'Neill the way I think of Henrich, a very good player who belongs to my grandfather's generation.

I like what the Yankees had done with O'Neill's number, leave it out of circulation for a little while, then quietly bring it back. (Honestly, if it were up to me, I'd make Numbers 1 and 9 available again too, but that ain't gonna happen.) I don't remember any outrage when Morgan Ensberg wore 21 in spring training. I wonder what would've happened if he had just kept it? Could it be that No. 21 just looks better on a white guy?

All that said... Hawkins had a 9.00 ERA and 1.86 WHIP as No. 21; last night, as No. 22, he pitched two scoreless innings, giving up just one hit and striking out 2, and earned his first Yankee win. So maybe the fans were right after all.