It may not be as exciting as setting the starting rotation or figuring out the lineup, but it will have to do.

The Yankees named their coaching staff on Tuesday and it includes three new faces.  Don Mattingly and Larry Bowa have gone off to L.A. to be with Joe Torre so this is the team that new manager Joe Girardi has assembled:

• Bullpen coach: Mike Harkey
• First base coach: Tony Pena
• Third base coach: Bobby Meacham
• Pitching coach: Dave Eiland
• Hitting coach: Kevin Long
• Bench coach: Rob Thomson

Pena and Long were coaches for the Yanks in the same capacity last season, Thomson has been in the Yankee system for 18 years and was the team's Major League Field Coordinator in 2007 (which sounds like a made-up title if you ask me), Eiland was the pitching coach at Scranton last season and both Meacham and Harkey were on Girardi's staff during his one-year in Florida.

The biggest surprise is Thomson being named bench coach.  He has spent eight seasons coaching and managing in the Yankees' system, but I didn't expect Girardi to name him as his lieutenant. 

"I saw the work he did when I was a player there and how prepared he is," Girardi said of Thomson. "He's a take-charge kind of guy. He's managed, he's run the Minor Leagues, he's coached third base. He's done so many different jobs that I think he's ready for this step."

We'll see.

In a less surprising move, the Yanks jettisoned former pitching great Ron Guidry from the staff.  Guidry was the pitching coach for the Bombers the past two seasons, but never really seemed to grasp the nuances of the job.  I sometimes think that pitching coaches can be overrated, but Guidry didn't seem to relate well with the young arms in the rotation and couldn't get through to the older guys.  And once Eiland came up to the big team in September and began spending more time with the kids he had in the minors (Hughes, Chamberlain and Kennedy), well, the writing was on the wall.

And then there's Bobby Meacham.  Meacham was the shortstop for the Yankees when I first began watching the Yanks in the mid-80s.  He wasn't much of a hitter (.236 career average), was a serviceable fielder at best and was a favorite whipping boy for The Boss, but Meacham's biggest claim to fame came during two of the most bizarre plays in Yankee history.

In a game against the White Sox in 1985, Meacham and Dale Berra (son of Yogi) were tagged out at home plate within seconds of each other.  I searched and searched for this video, but just couldn't find it.  Also in '85, Meacham hit a homer that just cleared the wall against Texas, but failed to notice that second baseman Willie Randolph was still hovering around first -- waiting to see if the ball would be caught.  It wasn't, but Meacham passed Willie at first base.  The home run was turned into a single and Meacham was called out in a game the Yanks eventually lost.

Should make for some interesting base running in 2008.