Around the Empire: Yankees news - 10/22/2020

NY Daily News | Kristie Ackert: Reflecting on how MLB got through this season before the start of the World Series, Rob Manfred commented on what he liked and didn’t like about the many changes that the sport tried out for this bizarre season. Aaron Boone responded to most of those comments, agreeing with the commissioner on the general appeal of the expanded playoffs and best-of-three Wild Card Series, though he thought that a 16-team field would “cheapen” a 162-game regular season.

NJ.com | Brendan Kuty: Marcus Stroman is never going to shy away from his opinions, and when he was brought up in a Twitter post about how Brian Cashman commented on him last year, Stroman brought his thoughts to the table. Stroman said that besides Gerrit Cole (and Luis Severino, who he initially forgot to mention) the Yankees don’t have anyone on the staff that will be close to as good as him. For what it’s worth, Stroman said he was down to prove Cashman wrong if the Yankees are still interested, so in a way this became one of the weirdest sales pitch made so far.

NY Post | Ken Davidoff: On the 20th anniversary of an infamous moment, Davidoff takes us back to the scene in Game Two of the 2000 World Series. Roger Clemens and Mike Piazza squared off in a charged atmosphere after the former had — most likely intentionally — hit the latter back in the regular season. No-one on the field or in the stands anticipated Clemens to throw a broken bat in the sequel, however, and suddenly the narrative took over the game.