Andrews, 6-4½ and 330 pounds, was at the University at Albany yesterday for a workout and signed with the Giants at 1:45 this morning. He later stood with his new teammates during this morning’s jog-thru and will begin practicing next week.

The 27-year-old Andrews drew interest from other teams, but signed with the fierce NFC East rivals of his former team.

“I guess they kind of picked me, but I picked them as well,” Andrews said. “I just like the atmosphere. The guys that I met, I can tell genuine people when I see them. And it’s right up the road in the NFC, same division where I come from and it’s real intense and I like that.

“They were always good games (between the Giants and Eagles). Always a nice little battle down in the trenches. (Eli) Manning was physical. I remember playing against Fred Robbins, we always had a great battle. It was fun. Some of my better games, I would say.”

But Andrews hasn’t participated in one of those battles since 2007. He played only two games the previous two seasons – none in 2009 – due to back problems that required two surgeries. But he has started all 52 regular season and postseason NFL games in which he has played. And Andrews has worked hard to rehabilitate his back and return to optimal condition.

“Our personnel staff has been monitoring Shawn’s progress for awhile now,” general manager Jerry Reese said. “He looks great and had a very good workout for us yesterday. He can play both guard and both tackle positions. We just have to take him slow for the rest of the preseason to get him into game shape. Shawn is very excited and grateful for this opportunity to play for the New York Giants.”

“You have to give the personnel people some credit,” Coach Tom Coughlin said. “They’ve been tracking the guy. You know he’s in excellent shape, starting to work out, very motivated.

“He had the back and some other issues that he had to deal with. But, sensing now that he really is motivated and that he really wants to play. He’s just a pleasant young man to visit with. He does indicate to you the kind of desire that he has to get back in the game.”

Andrews left no doubt that he is eager to get back in the trenches.

“I’ve put myself through various tests, and the only test for football really is getting on the field and just kind of going slow – (a) few plays here, see how the back holds up,” Andrews said. “I’m laying it all on the line. Not that I haven’t before, but this is it. So the Giants are going to get everything from me.”

Coughlin said he hasn’t decided if Andrews will begin working at guard or tackle. Andrews is a lefthander who can play both positions. Neither of the Giants’ starting guards, Chris Snee (knee) or Rich Seubert (hand) will play in tomorrow’s preseason home game vs. Pittsburgh, though neither is considered a long-term injury.

“We’ve got to do a bunch of work there,” Coughlin said when asked about Andrews’ position. “We know that he’s played guard and we’ll see. We’ll work him in.

“I would think he’ll get back (to football form) relatively quick. He’s in good shape. He’s in very good shape.

Andrews sounded as if he could be happy at either guard or tackle.

“I like the ‘right now’ aspect of the physical-ness of playing guard, but at tackle I kind of like the aspect of kind of showing my footwork a little bit – kind of showing off, if you will,” he said. “I guess it’s all physical, but I like both aspects and wherever they want me to be, that’s where I’m going to be.”

Andrews was Philadelphia’s first-round draft choice in 2004, the 16th pick overall. He immediately won the starting right guard job, but suffered a fractured fibula in the season opener against the Giants, ending his season.

Andrews started all 16 games and was voted a Pro Bowl alternate in 2005. He was a Pro Bowler in both 2006 and 2007, when he was universally considered one of the NFL’s finest offensive linemen.

The Giants have four Pro Bowl offensive linemen on their roster: Shaun O’Hara, Chris Snee, David Diehl and now Andrews.

In 2008, Andrews started the first two games of the season, but was then placed on injured reserve with a back injury. He re-injured his back early in training camp last year and again spent the season on injured reserve. The Eagles said he failed a physical in March and terminated his contract, but Andrews seemed to dispute that.

“That’s kind of tricky right there,” Andrews said. “I won’t say that…nah, I didn’t.”

Andrews said he had “a couple partial-disc removals,” the most recent last December. But he is confident his back can withstand the rigors of NFL football.

“The back is feeling pretty good,” Andrews said. “I’ve been working hard. I’ve been going hard — not that I’ve never worked hard in my life, but I said this is my last attempt at it and I’m going to go just all out. I’m selling out right now.”

In Philadelphia, Andrews had a successful if somewhat curtailed career. He accomplished more than many players and could have easily settled into a post-NFL life. But he believes he still has much to accomplish.

“I’m a competitor and I’m trying to follow the footsteps of the great Larry Allen (an 11-time Pro Bowl selection with the Dallas Cowboys). I want to be that good and even better and I think I have a chance to do that. In this conference, it’s competitive and I think I have a good shot to achieve that. So hopefully everything goes well, and it’s back to kicking butt.

“I never set the bar low. If I would set the bar low, I wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t have gone through a second surgery and I wouldn’t have come here to work out. I always want to be the best. I want to do better than ‘good enough’ and that’s what I aim to do while I’m a Giant.”

To make room on their roster for Andrews, the Giants waived offensive lineman Cliff Louis.

You can kiss it goodbye.
The ship be sinkin’.
Wait till next year.
Nice guys finish last.
Goodbye Omar.
Goodbye Jerry.

Okay, enough of that but after another pathetic, heartless, spiritless performance from Mike Pelfrey and his teammtes in a rubber match 8-3 loss to the first-place Atlanta Braves tonight, this is a team that looks as shell-shocked as any Met team in recent history. And, that’s really going a ways since most Mets teams in recent history have overdosed on a bad bunch of shell-shock. The worst part of this is there’s still a third of the season to go.

Jerry Manuel looks and sounds just like his glassy-eyed, confused players, who made four infield errors tonight in this, the biggest game of the Mets dwindling season.

“It was bad, we didn’t play very well,” said Manuel. “We know that we’re a better team than that. We have to find a way to get back on that track of good defense and pitching. We can’t kick the ball around like that and expect to play late.”

For Manuel and these Mets, it’s certainly gotten late early in the season, once again. Didn’t this happen last year, as well, right around this particular time of the season?

Baseball organizations can be like 1980s U.S. economic policies. There really is a trickle-down effect. From Omar Minaya to Tony Bernazard (remember him?) and into the dugout with Manuel, there appears to be a terrible malaise among the leadership of this team. No one seems to have a handle on what exactly has gone wrong and no one is willing to take public responsibility for this mess.

Jeff Wilpon, having taken over the daily operation of the club from his father, Fred, doesn’t speak publicly, particularly when things are going poorly. It’s been a long while since the Mets have allowed Minaya to speak to fans through the media, given the general manager’s proclivity to butcher the english language and the public image of this organization with double-talk and confrontations with reporters.

But, I imagine Minaya too, has had that same shell-shocked look on his face since Wilpon, not exactly the Branch Rickey of the new millennium told him the Mets were in no financial position to acquire any helpful players for the stretch run of this season.

So, while the Phillies were picking up an ace in Roy Oswalt and the Yankees were efforting to shore up weak spots in their roster with Kerry Wood, Austin Kearns, and Lance Berkman, Branch, I mean Jeff Wilpon was saying, “uh, umm., sorry, but no, Omar. It’s just not in the budget.”

There has been a distinct lack of focus surrounding this team, from the top down, since the All-Star break. Maybe it is the result of the players seeing ownership’s inability or unwillingness to make any moves to help them win a pennant this season. Or, maybe the reality of the Mets talent base is showing exactly what and who they are.

Their record is now 54-55 and as Bill Parcells used to say, “you are what your record says you are.” The Mets are in fourth place in the National League’s East Division and who’s to say they can’t keep sinking even lower, past those poor patsies of Washington, the Generals, I mean, Nationals.

Pelfrey was starting the biggest game of his season tonight against the first place Braves. It may be a cliché but this was a must-win game. As the late George Steinbrenner once said about one of his young pitchers, Jim Beattie, who started an important late-season game in the 1970s but was knocked out early, “the young man spit the bit.” That old horse phrase describes a player who chokes under pressure.

You can now include Pelfrey as an official bit spitter.

Indeed, Pelfrey had a lot of help from Manuel, tonight. Jerry is a nice guy but when it comes to dugout strategy during the game, he isn’t exactly John McGraw. Or, Quick-draw McGraw. He might not even be Dr. Phil McGraw.

In the home fifth inning, with the Mets losing 3-2, the Braves put two men on base with Brian McCann coming up to the plate. The Mets had a lefty, Hisanori Takahashi warming up in the bullpen for just these sorts of situations. Instead, Manuel allowed the righty Pelfrey to face the left-swinging McCann at this most pivotal time of the game and possibly, of the Mets season.

McCann, in his four years as a big leaguer, has owned Pelfrey. The stats don’t lie. Coming into tonight’s game, he had a lifetime batting average of .441 (15 for 34 including six doubles and a home run) against Big Pelf. Didn’t Manuel and his staff have a small idea of how well McCann has hit against Pelfrey through the years?

McCann already had a home run and a double going into that fifth inning plate appearance. He promptly ripped into a Pelfrey meat ball, a straight fastball right over the plate for another double into the right field corner, scoring two runs and breaking open a game the Mets had to have.

“I need to step up and be better,” Pelfrey said. “Giving up five runs is not cutting it and I take responsibility for the game. I didn’t execute the pitches, tonight. Like every start, you think the same way. If you win, it’s good, If you lose, it’s bad.”

He didn’t come up with the big pitched game when he needed to. That’s what aces of pitching staffs do. Pelfrey, whose record fell to 10-6 after he had been 10-1, is proving not to be an ace. He doesn’t have an ace’s makeup and he doesn’t have an ace’s command of his pitches. Imagine the Mets pitching staff if they had picked up an Oswalt to share the top of the staff with Johann Santana, pushing Pelfrey back into his rightful, less-pressured number three starter slot? With R.A. Dickey and Jonathan Niese pitching as well as they have this season, perhaps Pelfrey would be even more comfortable in the fifth starter slot? No expectations there, other than trying to make it to the fifth inning.

“He gave up a run in the first but I throught he threw the ball well,” Manuel said. “His problem was with the two middle guys in their lineup, Jones and McCann. I thought the velocity was where he needed to be. He challenged people with his fastball.”

Which game was Manuel watching?

“We gotta right the ship,” Manuel said.

It may be too late to right a ship that appears to be sinkin’, Jerry. Manuel is a good guy who means well but as the saying goes, nice guys do finish last.

If any team should be acutely tuned-in to how suddenly a championship pedigree can turn into second-division mediocrity, it’s this historic franchise. All they need do is look at how their great teams of the fifties and sixties were allowed to get old together without replenishing the talent base and how that era’s great core of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra/Elston Howard all lost their youth collectively within a couple of years time.

Before you knew it, Yankees fans were left with names like Horace Clarke, Danny Cater, Jake Gibbs, and Dooley Womack to lead the way through the rest of the underachieving sixties and early seventies, until the irascible George Steinbrenner swooped in from Cleveland to take the crumbling team and stadium off the thankful hands of CBS in 1973.

Now, we fast-forward to 2010 and the Yankees are playing good baseball, good enough to be in first place in the American League’s East Division with the best record in the game, 58-34. But, it’s a very fragile and tenuous record, one capable of changing in that veritable blink of an eye.

Like the famous Yankee core of that earlier era, the current-day core of Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettite, and Mariano Rivera has carried the franchise to multiple championships. And, just as that Mantle-led group of the Casey Stengel and Ralph Houk-managed Yankees aged none too gracefully, we are now seeing the inevitable physical breakdown of today’s heroes, as well.

It’s more than just the fact the Core Four, as they’ve been called, have been superb, productive players throughout their careers. It’s also important to note the positions they play are not going to be easily replaced, positions that are arguably, the four most important on a major league team.

It is well-known in baseball circles that a team cannot even attempt to think about being a championship contender unless it is strong “up the middle” as the saying goes. In baseball parlance, high levels of production on the field and at bat are necessary from the catching position, shortstop, second base, and centerfield. Looking into the Yankees future, these positions will very much be in the transition phase over the next year or two because of age or the need to improve on the current players in those positions.

Jeter’s batting average, here in late July, is down to .268. Is that a news flash? Let’s see, the sure-fire Hall of Famer with the lifetime batting average of .315 is now 36-years old. There are a lot of miles on the shortstops’ legs and entire body and it’s finally starting to show in a diminished performance this season. His stolen bases are way down, his ability to cover his position is diminished, and his bat speed appears decreased.

To Yankees fans, it’s a huge story for a couple of reasons. There doesn’t appear to be a replacement on the Yankees roster or in their minor league system capable of approaching the consistent productivity Jeter has been delivering day-in and day-out for 16 years. At so important a position as shortstop, where an outstanding player with great range in the field and the ability to turn the double-play can stop the other team from scoring, any diminishment has a huge impact on his team’s ability to win. The Yanks have been spoiled by the excellence of Jeter. They recognize, better than anyone, that you just don’t replace Hall of Famers, even in the age of free-agency.

The one player without whom the Yankees arguably would not have won even one championship during these last 14 years is Rivera. He has become the greatest closer in the games’ history and for all these years has been what separates the Yankees from all other teams. Nobody else has had a closer of his quality. There have been teams with better starting pitching, better iineups, better managers. But, no one had Rivera and that’s why the Yankees won. The eventual retirement of Rivera, now suffering from chronic knee and oblique pain, and the likelihood he can never be satisfactorily replaced will most certainly bring the Yankees back to the pack.

Posada has been a proud, serious-minded player for his entire career. As a young player, he hated being platooned with Joe Girardi, his current manager when he felt there was no comparison in their talent levels. He was probably right but Posada finally became a competent defensive catcher who learned the nuances of calling a good game for his pitching staff. He is an ancient player for his position but continues to swing the bat as well as ever. Girardi recognizes the need to keep his games-played to the 100-120 range to preserve Posada’s skill level. But, at 38-years old, Posada’s career as a catcher has been on the back end for several years now. It’s conceivable he will be a designated hitter next year and a backup catcher. The Yankees are surely looking to replace him with a younger talent.

That takes us to Pettitte. His performance this year has been extraordinary, considering his age and his production over the past several years. He’s been on a 20-win pace this season, with 11 wins at the All-Star break. But then, the 38-year old lefty showed his age in his last start this past Saturday afternoon. In his windup, he strained his groin muscle. He wasn’t stretching for a ground ball, he wasn’t running down to first base. Nope, he was just winding up to throw a pitch and felt his groin pull. Pettitte Is now out for what the Yankees are saying will be 4-5 weeks. That takes Pettitte into September when he might return to the team. At his age, who knows what he’ll be capable of after taking a month and half of the season off.

With five world championships and eight American League pennants under their belt since 1996, Jeter, et al, have become a legendary entity unto themselves. The Yankees, however, should recognize there is scant time left to the careers of these four players. As a result, Yankees general manager, Brian Cashman understands they are on the cusp of turning over the leadership of their team to new players. The question is, to whom?

All of these doubts and questions about a team come with the territory when players reach their upper thirties in professional sports. Rivera, Pettitte, Posada, and Jeter’s combined age is 152. That, by itself, creates plenty of doubts for Cashman.

When you throw in the 34-year old Alex Rodriguez and the 30-year old Mark Texeira, you realize this particular championship era for the Pinstripes is coming to a close. The end of the era could happen much sooner than later, especially when your most important players, your core, can break down so suddenly.

And then, the Yankees will be left with players like Swisher, Pena, Granderson, Gardner, Cervelli, and Chamberlain to take this franchise to new heights. Or lows.

Older reporters reminded me continually that the George Steinbrenner I covered for The New York Times in the late ’90s was much different, much more sedate, than he had been in his first years as the Yankees’ owner, when Steinbrenner made his reputation as the manager-firing, player-baiting, headline-making Boss.

But if the George Steinbrenner I covered was more careful in his dealings with reporters, his insistence on assigning blame and withering those who worked for him remained intact. He had turned the Yankees into a reality show, with everybody from the players to the clubhouse kids wondering: What is George going to do next? How is George going to react? What did George say?

One morning in the midst of spring training, the groundskeepers had left the tarp off what was then called Legends Field, and after a rainstorm crashed through at 7 o’clock, the playing surface was swamped. The Yankees were supposed to start an exhibition game at 1 p.m., but the real deadline was 11 a.m., because that is about when Steinbrenner would probably arrive and — presumably — somebody would be fired if the field was still underwater.

So for the next four hours, the groundskeepers sprinted back and forth across that infield with rakes and drying compound. I do not think I have seen fear embodied as clearly as in this case. Somehow, they managed to prepare the field before Steinbrenner walked into the place, and, of course, not one reporter who witnessed the greatest drama of the day wrote about it because we all knew that someone’s livelihood was at stake.

From March to October, Steinbrenner’s moods swayed according to the Yankees’ wins and losses. If they dropped back-to-back games, that was a problem, and losing streaks of four or more games were a full-blown crisis.

In the midst of their late-’90s dynasty, the Yankees once reeled off a series of spring training losses, and the fact that the games did not count — and that the Yankees’ veterans played those games to prepare, rather than to win — never mattered to him. Steinbrenner angrily summoned General Manager Brian Cashman and his assistants to his office, and a crowd of reporters gathered outside the elevator doors and waited some five hours for the owner to emerge.

Steinbrenner’s emotional hurricane over spring training defeats was completely irrational, but as a reporter, I was obligated to follow the news and participate in the exercise of mutual deterrence with the other newspapers. There was the distinct possibility that Steinbrenner would say something out of anger, or maybe even fire or demote somebody.

It was not until 11 p.m. that Steinbrenner slipped out a back door, leaving us in the press corps to wearily return to the George Stakeout promptly the next morning. Just in case. Bernie Williams, who by then possessed several championship rings, was surprised to see us when he walked in and asked what was going on.

George is on a rampage because you have been losing, I explained.

Bernie blinked. “We’ve been losing?” he said. “What’s our record?”

Only George cared, which is what distinguished him. But over time, I became convinced that his rants and explosions had less to do with his aspirations for the Yankees and more to do with his own fear of failure, which seemed to send his emotions careening from hour to hour, day to day.

We had had conversations and a couple of extensive interviews about his father, Henry. As George told stories about practicing the hurdles in his backyard as a boy under the guise of Henry, a national-champion hurdler, I came away feeling sorry for him. George seemed to have never felt good enough, and in turn, nothing was ever good enough for him. He could extract no real joy in the Yankees’ journey, from season to season, and even when they won championships, he would pound on a table within 24 hours of the parades, demanding more and better.

He could always be charming, as others have said. He knew I was from Vermont, and when he would call, he would ask for a scouting report on different areas in the state; he could not imagine a place more beautiful, he would say, and he was thinking about buying a vacation spot there. I would chuckle internally because the thought of George Steinbrenner on vacation was a little like the image of Richard Nixon walking on a beach in dress shoes; they just did not fit.

Right after the Yankees won a playoff series, Steinbrenner stood in front of me and a couple of other reporters, making Patton-like pronouncements that the victory was only one step and that the real question of success or failure remained unanswered. Derek Jeter walked up behind Steinbrenner, saying that his hair was way too dry, and Jeter dumped a bottle of Champagne on the Boss.

Underneath the downpour, George giggled, happily, in the way a lot of us might have giggled if we had never been good enough and then had been noticed by the coolest kid in high school. It was right there, all over his face: with affirmation came joy.

The older reporters were probably right: the George Steinbrenner I covered might not have been as maniacal as the Boss of the Billy and Reggie years. But I have often wondered if Jeter’s gesture, in that moment, might have unveiled a part of Steinbrenner’s personality that few had ever seen for most of his life.

Buster Olney, the Yankees’ beat writer for The Times from 1998 to 2001, is a senior writer for ESPN the Magazine and the author of “The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty.”

“Raymond is a top point guard and someone we targeted during the free agency period,” Walsh said. “He is an all-around player, excelling on both sides of the court and a true professional.”

Felton, 6-1, 198-pounds, has career averages of 13.3 points, 6.4 assists, 1.42 steals and 34.9 minutes in 399 career games (369 starts) in five NBA seasons with the Charlotte Bobcats. The Marion, SC-native was drafted by Charlotte, following his junior season at the University of North Carolina, with the fifth overall selection in the 2005 NBA Draft and has played in at least 78 games in all five NBA seasons. In 2009-10, Felton averaged 12.1 points, 5.6 assists (19th in the NBA), 1.54 steals (15th) and 33.0 minutes in 80 games (80 starts) in leading Charlotte to their first playoff appearance in franchise history.

“Donnie deserves a tremendous amount of credit for all the long hours he has put towards re-shaping our roster and signing Raymond gives us a good veteran point guard who should be a great fit for us,” Head Coach Mike D’Antoni said. “I think our system will highlight his numerous skills and that he will give us leadership and toughness at one of the most important positions on the floor.”

Felton had a standout career at North Carolina and became the first player in the Tar Heels’ storied history to record 1,000 points, 600 assists, 300 rebounds, 150 steals and 100 three-point field goals. He quarterbacked North Carolina to the 2005 NCAA title and was named to the all-tournament team. He also set North Carolina’s single-game records for assists (18) and three-point field goals made (eight) while on campus in Chapel Hill.

The Knicks also introduced today at their practice facility here in Westchester, New York, the three new players they acquired from the Golden State Warriors in last week’s sign and trade deal involving free agent David Lee. In return for the Knicks leading scorer and rebounder last season. the New Yorkers acquired Anthony Randolph, a 6′10″ stringbean whose talent allowed him to be a lottery pick in the NBA draft in 2008; Ronny Turiaf, another player who at 6′10″ and a physical style will give the Knicks length and grit on the backline; and swingman Kelenna Azubuike, a strong and physical guard known for his shooting touch from three-point land and tough perimeter defense. All three players should be part of the Knicks rotation.

Tonight’s game, against the State College Spikes, the Single A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates was another case in point of how Wally Backman’s crew can dominate games by swinging their bats against overmatched pitching as the Cyclones won their 12th game of the season with a 9-3 whipping of the Spikes.

Among their 13 hits were four home runs and six doubles and there wasn’t a cheap hit amongst the bunch.

Corey Vaughn, the son of former major leaguer, Greg Vaughn, seems to be continuing on the path of his power-hitting father. Vaughn hit two home runs tonight, one in the first inning and the next, a 400 foot bomb down the left field line in the seventh to put the Cyclones ahead, 8-3. He now has six home runs for the season in just 84 at-bats, a very high home run to at-bat ratio of one every 14 at-bats.

Other standouts tonight included left fielder Kurt Steinhauer, who unloaded for yet, another Brooklyn homer in the eighth inning, and the second baseman James Schroeder, who pounded out three doubles.

Like most Backman-managed teams, the Brooklyn pitchers were outstanding. Left-throwing Chris Hilliard started and went the first six innings, allowing the three Spikes runs while striking out four. He walked just one batter, a rare show of control for young, Single-A pitchers.

The Cyclones bullpen shut out the Spikes the rest of the way with Wes Wrenn and Adam Kolarek allowing no hits over the last three innings of the game. Kolarek, a hard-throwing lefthanded thrower, was particularly impressive as he closed out the game. By the very fact he’s a southpaw, the big club should automatically take great interest in this kid with a live arm.

Both starting pitchers, Hilliard and the Spikes’ Dodson, got off to rocky starts allowing two runs apiece in the first inning. While Hilliard settled down, allowing just one run over the next five innings, Dodson continued his struggles, lasting only into the third inning before being removed. Unfortunately, the Spikes bullpen couldn’t keep the game close as they gave up five more runs over the next five innings.

When asked after the game about how to evaluate when his young players are ready to be moved up to the next level of the Mets minor league system, Backman seemed reticent to lose his kids so fast, after just 20-odd games.

“There are a few kids here who have a chance to get to the majors but they are so young, now,” he said. “Let’s give kids like Darrelle Ceciliani and Vaughn a chance to work on some things, become more consistent. They need to learn how to recognize pitches a little better but the tools are all there.”

“We’ll know when it’s time to send them up,” Backman added.

The way this team can swing the bats, it appears that time is approaching sooner than expected.

What does make James’ decision to join the Miami Heat triumvirate of Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh so unusual, particularly in the NBA pantheon of legendary winners of the past, is how this singularly great player has chosen to pursue championships by becoming a supporting player on his new team. the Miami Heat.

Although James, in his seven years as a Cavalier, had taken Cleveland and Northeast Ohio to heights of euphoria, he ultimately fell short of bringing that struggling area the big prize, an NBA championship. His decision to leave the area where he was born and raised will now be forever viewed by Ohioans as an example of the worst kind of athlete to ever wear a Cleveland-based uniform. This morning, LeBron James is nothing more than an interloper in the eyes of this shocked, hurt, disgusted community that hasn’t had a championship in a major sport since the 1964 Cleveland Browns.

Is it fair to James that Ohioans are now burning his once-beloved #23 jersey on the streets? Of course not. James gave his body and soul every night to try to bring a championship to his hometown. But, as the self-styled “King” of the sport and the clear leader of his franchise, he wasn’t able to get it done.

Now, it’s evident James felt the Cavaliers roster didn’t give him the best chance of winning an NBA championship the way playing in Miami with Wade and Bosh might be able to. But, no matter how many championships he wins down in South Beach, his legacy in the NBA has forever and permanently been altered.

He will never, ever be “The Man” who brought Miami its title. That event has already taken place, care of James’ new teammate, Wade, who along with Shaquille O’Neal and a supporting cast of players brought Miami the big prize back in 2007.

And, that’s the thing. Wade will forever be the hero of this town and of this franchise for carrying the team on his back to its first championship. For that reason alone, the Heat is Wade’s team. Down in South Beach, Dwyane Wade is and forever will be, The Man.

James, because of last night’s choice, announced in a weirdly megalomaniacal one-hour special show on ESPN called “The Decision,” will no longer be viewed by sports fans on the same exalted status that set apart Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson. These are all-time NBA greats not only because of their superior playing skills. They are the greatest of the greats because they had the mental capacity to carry their teams and the weight of the pressure to win on their own backs. Yes, they all had terrific supporting casts but when you looked at the makeup of those championship Celtics of Bird and Lakers of Johnson and Bulls of Jordan and Celtics of Russell, there was zero doubt as to why these individuals deserved legendary status. They were the leaders of their championships. They welcomed the role and thrived on it.

Could you imagine either of these NBA greats taking their talents elsewhere in search of a title? Me, neither.

“We play this game to get the opportunity to win championships,” Wade said on ESPN television last night. “I’m glad we will have a bulls-eye on our backs and people will be gunning for us. It’s what I love about competing.”

In every way Wade seems to rise to the challenge of winning championships, James appears more comfortable being just a fantastically-talented athlete who doesn’t have that extra, indescribable intangible that separates the superstar player from the legendary winner.

James tried to carry the Cavaliers on his strong back for seven years but in the end, he decided he could no longer do the heavy lifting, as The Man of his franchise. He’s a great player and from what I’ve seen over the years talking to the young man and watching him in the locker room, a great teammate. But, by his decision yesterday to join Miami, The King has abdicated his throne.

In what will surely be his new role as a supporting player in Miami while still at the peak of his skills, he has chosen his path. James can no longer be classified by the sporting public who follow these things as a legendary NBA winner who by sheer will and talent, carried his teams to championships. Like Jordan, Russell, Bird, or Magic did.

Lebron has chosen to take his work to a smaller stage than New York or Chicago. He has also chosen to become a follower on his new team, the team whose “Man” is Dwyane Wade. James, by himself lowered the LeBron “brand” from the highest of pedestals to one much lower.

He used to be the heir-apparent to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, each of whom have multiple championship rings. That status is now over, no matter how many championships he and his pals may win in South Beach.

Does anybody believe David Lee, nice player that he is, will go for 20 and 11 rebounds next year, on someone else’s team? Maybe, if it’s a bad team, like the Knicks.

Much more interesting is what is going on in New Jersey. That’s a team on the come. Lopez, Favors, Harris, Terrence Williams, Courtney Lee…Very good young core that is one star away from being an upper echelon team in the Eastern Conference. Better still, they’ve propped up JayZ as the co-face of the franchise to NBA free agents and to fans (see billboard outside of MSG), in my view, a very hip move on their part.

Imagine the dichotomy and the image in LeBron’s mind after he spent a few hours with the Big Russian and Jay then, the Knicks wheeled-in Donnie Walsh and Jim Dolan (who must have felt completely out of place in that room). Bringing Alan Houston to these meetings isn’t exactly the same as bringing Magic Johnson, know what I mean? I’ll tell you who would have been a better choice than Houston, if he agreed to come and if the Knicks had maintained a better relationship with him since he retired. Charles Oakley. Tough, direct, no bs, and from Cleveland, of all places. LeBron would have loved Oak.

Is it just me or is ESPN intentionally minimizing any chance of New York being a player in the LeBron sweepstakes? In the several moments I’ve gotten to know one of their basketball “experts,” Chris Broussard, when he and I were both covering Knicks games at MSG, he has always been a pleasant, fun guy to hang around with. When I would tell him about my sources in Cleveland having The King coming to NYC to play next season, it would always ruffle his feathers. I didn’t get why until Chris told me he’s an Ohio kid, born and raised. Although he didn’t admit to having a bias against all things NY, I think that comes through clearly in every article he writes for espn.com and every word he utters on the tube about NBA free agency. Broussard goes to great lengths NOT to mention the Knicks in his pieces. He will go into detail as to why the Newark Nets and Bulls, and the Clippers are right in there for LeBron’s services but as for the team in the largest basketball and media market in the world? Uh uh, nary a mention.

Memo to Broussard: LeBron is just as interested now in the health of Danilo Gallinari’s back, Wilson Chandler’s ankle, and now, Amar’e Stoudamire’s knees and eyes as he was last year when he began his due diligence about the Knicks as a potential landing spot for the rest of his career.

Tonight, they faced off against their local rivals, the Staten Island Yankees on a breezy summer night at MCU Park, the ballpark by the ocean. Brooklyn, 2.5 games ahead of the second-place Yankee farm team were playing against the Staten Islanders for the fourth time this season, the Cyclones holding a 2-1edge.

This wasn’t one of Brookyn’s best games, however. Several mishaps in the field and some loose relief pitching contributed to the Cyclones’ 8-5 loss to the Yankees.

Brooklyn manager, Wally Backman, of 1986 Mets world championship fame, has continued his winning ways as a field leader as he has his team playing what has become known in these parts as “Wally Ball.”

What exactly does that mean?

“It’s playing hit and run, taking the extra base whenever we can, bunting, stealing bases, and putting pressure on the opposing team at all times,” Backman said before tonight’s game. “It’s also about getting solid pitching and defense.”

No one connected with this years’ team had seen so many poor game decisions as they did tonight. however. One onlooker mentioned that this great, little stadium located on Brooklyns’ southern tip had recently hosted a concert by a new band called Furthur, fronted by former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Phil Lesh. Other than the unsightly patches of brown dirt left on the outfield grass by the stage, one has to wonder, after so many strange plays by the Brooklyners if the old rock icons from the sixties had left anything else on the field to dull the players’ decision-making abilities.

The Yankees got off quickly in the top of the first when they scored an unearned run on an error by first baseman Jeff Flagg, who, with a runner on third, couldn’t figure out whether to step on the bag himself on a ground ball or toss it to the pitcher covering, Wes Wrenn. He finally tossed it but not until the runner had safely crossed first and the lead runner on third base had scored.

“I think Jeff just had a little bit of a brain cramp on that play,” said Backman. “The runner was dead out at the plate if Jeff threw the ball home.” Did Backman say Dead, as in Grateful Dead?

Down the one run, Cody Holliday led off the Cyclones half of the first with a double down the left field line off of Staten Island’s hard-throwing Wilton Rodriguez, who came in with an 0-3 record along with a 3.48 ERA. Darrell Ceciliani, the Cyclones’ leading hitter with a .404 average, promptly jumped on a Rodriguez fastball for another double, scoring Holliday.

Cory Vaughn, Backman’s third place hitter and the son of former major leaguer, Greg Vaughn, grounded to second for the first out, moving Ceciliani to third. Up stepped Flagg, with a chance to redeem himself for his error and to get the run in from third base. Instead, he swung at a pitch in the dirt for strike three. J.B. Brown however, picked him up with a line single to center putting the Cyclones ahead, 2-1.

In the bottom of the second inning, Brooklyn second baseman Luis Nieves singled with one out and stole second. Holliday grounded to second, moving Nieves to third base with Ceciliani, fast becoming a Backman favorite, stepping in. The 20-year old prospect once again showed why he is getting noticed within the Mets organization. He jumped on the first pitch and drove it to left center for his second double of the game and his second rbi in two innings.   

Wrenn, Brooklyn’s 24-year old pitcher, was sailing along through 4 2/3 innings, holding the Yankees to just three hits until, with two outs in the the fifth, Luis Parache, a .150 hitting infielder pulled a pitch down the right field line, barely clearing the fence. On the very next serving by Wrenn, Eduardo Sosa, he of the .237 batting average hit an absolute bomb of a home run, also to right field that would have cleared Citifield with ease, tying the game at 3-3. Wrenn struck out the next batter to end the fifth but his unexplained lapses had let the Staten Islanders back into the game. The Grateful Dead affect?

When Wrenn gave up two more singles to start the top of the sixth, Backman went out to get him, bringing in Ryan Fraser, a 6’4” hard-throwing righty. Fraser, a bit of a Jekyl and Hyde on the mound, had struck out five in his three innings this year but had also averaged more than one walk per inning, not unusual for hard-throwers in Single A baseball. The young pitcher may not always know where the ball is going but his wildness didn’t rear its head when he faced his first hitter, Kelvin DeLeon with runners on first and third. He whiffed the Yankees outfielder on three consecutive hard sliders and followed that with two consecutive strikes to Kevin Mahoney until he reverted back to his wild side, throwing four straight balls to walk the Yankees’ sixth place hitter and load the bases with just one out.

Fraser got two quick strikes on Ferraro, the next hitter who was batting just .158, before he blew the hitter away with a high hard fastball.  Now, there were two out and bases loaded.

Farnham, Staten Island’s seventh place hitter, whiffed at Fraser’s first two fastballs then worked the count to 2-2. On the next pitch, Fraser showed his wild side again by throwing the ball three feet wide of his catcher as the ball rolled to the backstop, the runner scoring from third to give the Yankees a 4-3 lead.  On the next pitch, Farnham hit it solidly into centerfield for a single, two runs scoring, and the Staten Islanders, just like that, had opened up a 6-3 lead. 

Brooklyn fought back in their half of the sixth inning. Sandoval led off with a single. Nieves followed with a long triple to right center, driving in the fourth run of the game for the home team. After a ground out to first kept the runner from scoring, it was Ceciliani’s turn again. The youngster, looking the part of a disciplined hitter with a good idea of the strike zone, walked on four pitches, leaving Vaughn, the number three hitter, to step in with runners on first and third. Vaughn grounded to second but his hustle down the line beat the throw to first to prevent a double play. The run scored and it was now, 6-5.

In the top of the eighth, with the bases loaded for Staten Island and one out, Flagg, Brooklyn’s first baseman, had difficulty once again with deciding whether to toss the ball to the pitcher covering first or to take it himself. He didn’t make the connection with his pitcher, the runner beat the late throw to first, and Staten Island had their seventh run of the night.

In the eighth, more poor decision-making affected the game’s outcome. Holliday lined a pitch into left field. Following the aggressive credo of his manager but maybe forgetting his team was two runs down, he tried to take the extra base with the Cyclones’ two best hitters coming up next. Holliday was thrown out at second on a good throw from the Yankee left fielder.

Did Wally Ball lose out tonight to the Grateful Dead or was it, as Backman said afterwards, just “youthful exuberance” at this level of baseball. Either way, Brooklyn maintains its first place lead over Staten Island by 1.5 games.

You remember Backman. The scrappy, hustling second baseman on the 1986 World Champion New York Mets. The little guy from Oregon who came to the Big Apple and played the game in a way that contributed to those mid-1980s Mets turning into one of the all-time most hated teams among opposing players in the game’s history. Backman, like those Mets of Ray Knight, Keith Hernandez, and Lenny Dykstra was cocky and played that way. Despite his smallish stature, he had no qualms about getting in the faces of opposing players as well as his own teammates if he perceived someone needed an attitude adjustment.

Well, he’s back! Wally-Ball has returned to the city where Backman’s star once shone brightly as he teamed with then-Mets shortstop, Ron Gardenhire to make for a scrappy and very heady double-play combination. Gardenhire has already made his bones as a very successful big-league manager in Minnesota and now, Backman is managing for the Mets again, albeit at their Class A Brooklyn Cyclones outfit.

If tonight’s game is any indication, Backman has already developed a team in his image. They play good defense, they pitch well, get timely hits, and they put more pressure on the opposing team’s defense than any opposing team can handle. Oh yes, and they win games as tonights’ 5-2 victory over the Aberdeen Ironbirds sent the Cyclones’ record to 3-1.

Backman is getting a second chance by the Mets organization to manage after the disastrous experience he had in 2004, when he was hired by the Arizona Diamondbacks to manage their team. But, within 96 hours after he was tabbed as the Diamondbacks’ manager, all hell broke loose. Reports surfaced that Backman had a history that included several legal, marital, and financial issues. Diamondbacks management, obviously embarrassed for conducting a less-than-stellar background check retracted its offer and promptly axed him before the week was over.

The baseball lifer, whose personal and managerial styles have often been compared to Billy Martin, the Yankees’ dugout savant of the 1970s, didn’t quit the game that had quit him. In 2006, Backman led the South Georgia Peanuts, an independent team, to the South Coast League’s inaugural title with a 59-28 record. The following year, he was with the Joliet JackHammers of the Northern League and then, in November 2009, Backman was chosen by the Mets to take the Brooklyn Cyclones into their 10th season.

“I am thrilled and grateful to be coming back to the Mets’ organization,” Backman said when he was introduced as manager. “The greatest days of my professional career were spent here in New York, and I have always felt a special connection to the city. Brooklyn is a major minor-league team, and I know the borough’s fans are like me, intensely passionate about baseball and about winning.

The two Cyclones players to watch this season are right fielder Cory Vaughn and centerfielder, Darrell Ciciliani. Vaughn, a 21-year old right fielder from San Diego State University, is the recipient of an excellent set of baseball genes. His father is the former major league slugger, Greg Vaughn and his father’s cousin is Mo Vaughn, who used to be a power-hitting first baseman of the Red Sox and later, the Mets.

Vaughn displayed impressive power tonight as the 6’1”, 200 pound right-handed hitter slugged a long home run to the opposite field in the first inning and then, followed up in the sixth with a long triple to right centerfield. It was a thing of beauty to watch the speedy kid circle the bases on his three-bagger. He runs like a deer so the package of power and speed are in place.

During that sixth inning, Backman, always known for his scrappiness as a player and aggressiveness in all aspects of the game, put on a suicide squeeze in the sixth inning with the Cyclones leading, 4-2. With Vaughn sitting on third after his triple, Backman had his left fielder and number five hitter in the lineup, Will Cherry, bunt along the first base line, Vaughn scoring easily.

“I just did that to catch the other team off-guard,” Backman said afterwards. “I have a kid in Cherry, I know he’s hitting fifth and can handle the bat but he showed me he could bunt in our earlier games. I wanted to catch them by surprise and a three-run lead is a lot nicer than a two-run lead.”

I asked Wally if this type of aggressiveness is part of his modus operandi as a manager.

“It’s part of the game. It’s something that’s going to help you win a game,” he said. “I want to show our guys, when they put pressure on the defense, that defense is going to make mistakes. That’s how we beat the Staten Island Yankees the other night. They knew the way we played from our first game in Staten Island. We were aggressive out there in that second game and they made five errors.”

Backman, now 50, has always been about doing whatever is necessary to win games, as all Mets fans of a certain age recall.

“I love to be able to force the issue, force the defense into making mistakes. That’s what I try to instill in my offense when we’re out there,” Backman said. “Take the extra base, be able to go first to third, get a base hit, go hard around second base. The higher you go up in levels of baseball, the less mistakes a defense will make but mistakes will be made just enough times to let you win a game.”

The Cyclones won the game despite getting only four hits. Typical Wally-Ball, winning in a way that make fans of aggressive baseball, good defense, and timely hitting cheer for the little guy who roamed second base for the Mets in the 80s.