Jorge Posada has been around long enough, been around for all the pennant races and all the winning, to know how it works. He had the surgery for the torn labrum and torn capsule in his right shoulder last Wednesday, 45 minutes in the operating room at the Hospital for Special Surgery with Dr. David Altchek, as good as there is. Pudge Rodriguez became a Yankee the same day. Bill Parcells always used to talk about how the assembly line keeps moving in sports, with or without you.

"I wasn't surprised (about Rodriguez)," Posada was saying Monday. "(GM Brian Cashman) was trying to get a catcher as soon as I went down. I think Pudge just kind of fell into his lap."

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