Tino Martinez isn’t just stepping lightly into broadcasting.

“That’s why I’m doing six games of spring training – to make sure I’m presentable and good enough,” Martinez said before heading into the YES Network booth on Thursday night. “I want to work hard at it.”

Four years after he retired as a Yankee, Martinez believes that serving as a TV analyst could be something of a second career. So, just as he approached hitting and playing first base, Martinez plans to be his own worst critic.

“Basically, I don’t want to be annoying to the fans,” Martinez said. “Some guys you listen to, they kind of annoy you a little bit. You want to enjoy the game while you’re watching it.”

On this subject, Martinez is absolutely serious. Mediocrity is not an option.

“If they’re not happy with what I’m doing, and I don’t see my progress, then I won’t do it at all,” Martinez said. “I don’t want to do it if I’m going to be average.”

This isn’t a completely new direction in a somewhat unsettled transition from the field. Martinez, 42, worked on ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight,” and said broadcasting is something “I’ve always thought about.”

Martinez also has thought about a front office career, having served as a special assistant to general manager Brian Cashman.

Martinez isn’t sure how many games he’ll broadcast, though the limited number will allow him to keep alive any front-office aspirations. “As a player, you think you know,” Martinez said of the club’s day-to-day operations. “But you really don’t.”

I think the Yankees/YES lead the league in having announcers who don’t work very often. Do they really need one more? Man, I long for the days of the same two or three guys working the booth everyday…

There is no team campaign against Alex Rodriguez, the Bombers said Friday. Yankees president Randy Levine insisted through a team spokesman Friday that, “Nobody in this organization is mad at Alex.”

Pinstriped brass otherwise didn’t have a lot to say about a report in Friday’s Daily News. That report quoted a TV industry source as saying team officials were angered that A-Rod hadn’t immediately informed them he’d been contacted by the FBI, which wants to question him in its investigation of Dr. Anthony Galea.

In response to assertions that the organization also backed the YES Network’s decision to highlight Rodriguez’s most recent controversy during Wednesday’s telecast of the spring-training opener, GM Brian Cashman added that he has “never told YES to do or not do anything.”

Below, we have some exclusive WasWatching.com footage of Yankees G.M. Brian Cashman on his way to address the media on this topic while Alex Rodriguez anxiously awaits to hear what Cashman has to say about the team’s position on him given his latest situation:

Jack Curry, who covered the New York Yankees and Major League Baseball at The New York Times for nearly 20 years as its Yankees beat writer and most recently as its national baseball writer, has joined the YES Network as a Yankees studio analyst, program contributor, and a columnist on the Emmy Award-winning YESNetwork.com.

Curry joined The New York Times in 1987 and became the Yankees’ beat writer in 1991. He was the newspaper’s national baseball writer from 1998 until he departed late last year. While at The Times, Curry authored more than 4,500 articles, covering 18 World Series, 11 All-Star Games, 10 MLB Winter Meetings and 2 World Baseball Classics. The New Jersey native also was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service Reporting at The Times in 1999 for co-writing a series on the demise of New York high school sports, and won multiple Publisher Awards at The Times, monthly awards that recognize the best journalism at the paper. Curry has also been the chairman of the New York chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Watch out Michael Kay.

Seriously, Curry is an excellent hire by the Yankees. And, it’s nice to see a good guy catch a break – especially after a recent bad one. (Nope, I’m not talking about the Times buy-out. In April last year, Curry was in Philadelphia to cover the opening game of the season between the Phillies and Braves. While there, he was hit by a SUV outside of Citizens Bank Ballpark. The impact was enough to lift him off the ground and do some serious damage to his ribs.)

The New York Yankees won their 27th World Series title in 2009 and YES marked its seventh consecutive year as the most-watched regional sports network in total day, while also donning that crown in primetime.

YES, the TV home of the Bronx Bombers and the National Basketball Association’s New Jersey Nets, notched a 13.9% primetime rise to 82,000 TV households in the New York DMA in 2009 (Dec. 29, 2008 through Dec. 27, 2009), up from 72,000 in 2008, according to Nielsen data.

Gauged across total day (Monday through Sunday from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m.), YES, in running its daypart-winning skein to seven years, scored 10.3% amelioration to 32,000 households last year, from 29,000 in 2008.

In both measures,YES outpaced NESN, the cable TV home of Yankees’ nemesis the Boston Red Sox, as well as the National Hockey League’s Boston Bruins. YES officials, citing Nielsen data, said NESN averaged 76,000 households in primetime and 24,000 in total day during 2009 in the Boston DMA.

YES officials also noted that the RSN experienced year-over-year increases in both primetime and in total day among men 18+, guys 18 to 49 and males 25 to 54.

Within the New York area, YES’s primetime mark was the tops in TV sports, edging ESPN’s 81,000 TV households and the combined 80,000 average of SNY and MSG, according to officials at the RSN. In total day, YES officials said the service outperformed the trio of SNY, MSG and MSG+, which together had 30,000 households.

Not surprisingly, YES’s Yankees telecast led the way. The club’s game averaged a 4.62 household rating, up 9.5% from 2008, to rank as the RSN’s second-best mark with the club, behind a 4.69 average during the 2007 season.

YES’s primetime Yankees telecasts ranked first in the New York DMA on 42 of 45 straight game nights in such demos as men18+, 18-49 and 25-54, as well as adults 18 to 49 and 25 to 54.

The network’s Yankees post-game show ratings jumped 7% year-over-year, while Yankees Batting Practice Today ratings improved by a third.

Elsewhere, the network rang up gains with simulcasts of Mike’d Up: Francesa on the FAN, as well as the radio star’s Football Sunday with Mike Francesa show during the pro football season.

This is pretty amazing news – considering how many laments I have seen in comments left at this blog, through the years, about how other teams have better announcers than the Yankees, and about how the YES Network lacks non-game related original programming, and about how tired fans are seeing the same games played over-and-over again on Yankees Classics in addition to having to watch the same old played-out repeats of Yankeeography and CenterStage.

Then again, on the bright-side, it has been a while since anyone has seen Yogi & a Movie or the White Shadow on YES – and that’s a plus.

What this news does tell me is that, just as you can put a pig in a party dress and it’s still just a pig, on the other end of it, you can hide a huge diamond in a smelly sock and someone will still reach in there to get it…if they know it’s in there.

I guess that’s the beauty of the YES Network – broadcasting Yankees games allows them to do some things poorly, and other things not at all, and they can still do laps around the other RSNs because, no matter what, Yankees fans (and there are a lot of them) want to see their Yankees baseball.

It appears [David] Cone’s short but brilliant run in the YES broadcast booth may be over. Sources say Cone is out after a heated disagreement with network executives.

A spokesman confirmed via e-mail: “David’s contract is up. We’d love to have him back, but he’s in the process of evaluating his various options. … He may not be back based on what he decides.”

Cone’s skill and confidence grew appreciably in the past year. Like former-Met teammate Ron Darling, he had a graceful way of explaining baseball to casual fans, but also was immersed in cutting edge sabermetrics.

Michael Kay said, “I’d come into the booth five hours before a game and Coney would already be there, buried in the computer, looking up stats. He took it very seriously.”

Betcha the MLB Network picks up Cone in a heartbeat. This will be a loss for the YES Network, if you ask me.

In any event, for sure, it’s a shame that you don’t see “It Don’t Come Easy” broadcast all that much – if ever?

You would think that’s something that the YES Network could (and would want to) work into their scheduling.

You know…the older he gets…Sterling’s starting to look a little like Jerry Springer. Just a tad, but, it’s there – at least to me.

I just hope it doesn’t reach the stage where Nick Swisher and A.J. Burnett start liftng up their shirts for “Sterling Beads.”

New York Yankees fans who subscribe to Verizon FIOS TV will be able to stream live Yankees games via their computer as part of a deal reached between the YES Network and the telco.

As part of a multiyear agreement between Verizon and the YES Network, Verizon Internet customers who subscribe to FiOS TV and also are receiving the YES Network as part of their TV package will be able to buy access to live, streaming coverage of Yankees games throughout the remainder of the 2009 regular season.

Verizon customers will have to pay a one-time price of $29.95 or a monthly fee of $19.95 from now until the end of the season in October. The package begins with the YES network’s Aug. 14 Yankees-Seattle Mariners game

The deal is the second in-market, broadband distribution agreement for YES, following a similar arrangement with Cablevision Systems Corp. announced in June. Neither YES network or the operator will reveal how many Cablevision subscribers have taken advantage of the broadband offer.

Hey, for another $1,500 on top of the $29.95, you can watch the games on your PC while sitting in a pair of seats from the old Stadium!

Call me up when you can something Yankees-related for free…

And, this got me thinking about how I feel about the Waldman and Sterling duo. And, to be candid, overall, I guess I’m not a fan of their work.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m somewhat sure they are both extremely nice people – the kind that you would want to have as your next door neighbor, etc. And, they’re both baseball lifers – having worked in the game for so many years. Lastly, the two of them do seem to care, very much, about the Yankees and their fans. So, those are three big things in the favor.

And, I’ll admit, at times, I do laugh at Sterling’s over the top calls, etc.

However, that all said, there’s just “something” there – regarding their work – that rubs me the wrong way. At first, I thought it was whole “Pinstriped Pollyanna” approach of theirs – where no Yankees player or member of the organization can do wrong. Anyone who knows me knows I think that’s that just living with Yankees blinders on…

More so, for me, I think the issue is that Suzyn Waldman and John Sterling “dumb it down” when they speak to you – assuming that you know less about the game (than them), and, in a sense, they “talk down” to the listener while covering the game. And, while maybe this works for some listeners…say… many of those under the age of ten or over the age of seventy…it really doesn’t work for me.

Further, I would think that most people do not enjoy being “talked down to” by anyone who knows less about a subject than they do…no matter what the subject…but, maybe it’s just me?

After all, many baseball fans today are pretty savvy. And, perhaps it’s time for broadcasters, in general, to stop playing to what they think is the lowest common denominator and start talking to listeners with the assumption that the audience has a clue as to which players are good or bad (overall or in certain situations) and that they understand what’s important or not in baseball games…ya think?

Again, this is no knock, personally, towards Suzyn Waldman and John Sterling. It’s just that I wish their broadcasts came from somewhere other than from an ivory tower – this make sense?

Part of the fun of Manny Ramirez’ return to the Dodgers, scheduled for Friday night, will be the exposure of Charley Steiner as a hypocrite. Michael Kay was the first to go down, and Charley’s next.

At the height of Barry Bonds’ pursuit of the home-run records, Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow made lively, enthusiastic calls on the Giants’ network. They always loved Bonds as a ballplayer. They knew that whatever the extent of his plunge into steroids, it didn’t tarnish his reputation as one of the greatest and most entertaining hitters of all time. Most of the Giants’ fans knew this, as well, and they cheered their hearts out whenever he went deep. Kuiper’s home-run calls, in particular, go down with the most inspiring of modern-day broadcasting.

It seems this didn’t go over too well in other cities. Kay, who anchors the Yankees’ telecasts, ripped Krukow and Kuiper in a public forum for getting so excited over a steroid guy. Steiner, part of the Dodgers’ radio team, made some equally rude comments (off the air), establishing himself as a real high-and-mighty beacon of integrity.

Except it doesn’t work that way. Alex Rodriguez opened the season in disgrace after the steroid-related embarrassment of spring training, but that didn’t stop Kay from going nuts when A-Rod slugged his first home run. Presto — instant hypocrite! Now we get to hear Steiner when Manny rocks Dodger Stadium for the first time. What, he’s going to treat it like a funeral while the place is going crazy?

I’ve known Kay since his days as a Yankee beat writer in New York, and he’s a good guy. So is Steiner, who livened up many an ESPN “SportsCenter” before he joined the Dodgers. Ripping the Giants’ broadcasting team, to say the least, was not their finest hour.

I cannot blame a broadcaster for getting excited about a player on “his team” hitting a homer, etc., even if the player was caught for using PEDs. That’s pretty much their job. That said, Jenkins has a point here – in that said broadcasters should not have thrown stones, if they really did, at another time.

Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see if Kay responds to this claim. Nothing like a little coast-to-coast media tinkling contest to throw another log on the Yankeeland entertainment/circus fire, right?