Joba Chamberlain has been relegated to the pen for the opening series against the Twins and he couldn’t be happier (see picture to right). They’ve done a pretty good job taking a once feared reliever and turning him into a mediocre at best starter. I’m starting to wonder if my ex-girlfriend is part of the Yankees upper management because I haven’t seen this type of psychological torture since we dated. We know you’ve all heard about the “Joba Rules” but it turns out the ones you hear about are only a fraction of the ones on the books for the hulking Cornhusker. Us here over at Oh Murph were able to get our hands on some of the other rules you might not have heard.

For instance, all the places Joba goes on his downtime must be approved. Some of the approved places are Toys R Us in Times Square for Ferris wheel rides, The McDonalds Play Place (the cool one on Lexington with the extra large ball pit and adventure castle) and selected video arcades, although they encourage he not play sports related games at all. This posed a problem for Joba the other night when he heard Johnny Damon and Nick Swisher were going to be playing beer pong with Reggie Jackson at a Midtown watering hole. Well it turns out they were only starting the game at 8:30 and Joba’s bedtime is 9 so he was only able to come for a few minutes, after of course the location was approved and Yankee handlers accompanied him. They let him play one game and filled his side of cups with Pepsi. The 15 tosses Joba made were deducted from his pitch count and he was tucked in by 9:15, shhh don’t tell Hank or Hal.

It goes on: When Joba is in the locker room he must have all his beverages in a sippy cup as his constant slippage has annoyed many of the veteran players. When riding in a vehicle to and from games his car seat must be facing the rear of said vehicle. No pizza after 7. He must brush his teeth with the bathroom door open because Girardi caught him just running the water and saying “All done!”

In all seriousness, I hope this kid has a good post season because if he doesn’t he might be a wreck forever. I mean all the restrictions and everything else has definitely screwed him up. They did a great job so far declawing this bear, and what’s a bear without claws? Pretty much a rug.

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