Hate to say I told ya so.

Did Mike Lupica jump all over Kevin Brown's minor injury? I don't believe it. I could have never have predicted such a response from Lupica and the Daily News.


"How can anybody be surprised that Kevin Brown, at the age of 39, would get hurt after the way he kept going down for the Dodgers the past few season? [sic]"

I doubt if anybody is surprised, but it doesn't seem to be a major injury. If he only misses two or three starts, it's not a big deal at all. Yankees are always overly cautious, and they're behaving the same way with Mussina.


"Once again, people apparently thought that putting on pinstripes is the baseball version of going to Lourdes."

Let me guess, "they" said he wasn't going to get hurt? Kevin Brown and Brian Cashman publicly predicted he wasn't going to get hurt (while Cashman is trying to load up the back of the rotation with El Duque and Osborne and Sturtze)? Or maybe it was Sal from Throgs Neck calling the FAN. Those are the "people."

Does Lupica know that Pettitte is on the DL for the second time this season and Wells just got off the DL (after leaving the World Series game last season with an injury)? I'm sure Lupica knows this. He just ignores any pro-Yankee, pro-George, pro-Cashman news because he'd rather push his tired "George of the Bungle" angle. Which is really his only angle.


"Brown (who was handed the Cy Young Award after winning three games against the Devil Rays in April) is old and Mike Mussina is getting up there ... "

Hyperbole. Let's just hope it's hyperbole instead of lying or stupidity or ignorance.


"You know the deal:

One-hundred-and-ninety-four million bucks just doesn't buy you what it used to in baseball."

The Yankee payroll is not $194 million and Lupica knows this. It's more than hyperbole, it's more than literary license. It's flat-out lying. I don't know why Lupica always feels the need to exaggerate the Yankee payroll, he can make his argument effectively with the facts. Lying (exaggerating? hyperbole?) just seems to be part of Lupica's nature.