Attention Must Be Paid.

If I ran into Mike Lupica in a bar, I'd bet him $100 that he could not name the starting shortstop for the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Rays, or Orioles. Just name one of them and you get $100.

He'd probably say something about Terry Francona.


What deep dive into American League East professional baseball can the baseball journalist provide?:

"The Red Sox basically haven't had Jacoby Ellsbury all season, nobody can remember the last time Josh Beckett pitched, both catchers are hurt, Dustin Pedroia is out for at least six weeks with a broken foot and … they had the same number of wins as the Yankees going into Saturday's games.

So, you know, attention must be paid."

Oh, the Yankees should pay attention to the Red Sox?

Who the heck are the Red Sox?

Most Yankee fans have probably never even heard of the Red Sox?


But I like how Lupica brings up injuries. What a jerk. Like every team doesn't suffer injuries. Last year, Lupica mocked Yankee fans who brought up injuries.


"I still love the notion that Joe Torre and Tom Verducci violated some sort of sacred clubhouse code with a great sports book called 'The Yankee Years.'

Especially with poor A-Rod.

Go back and read the stuff A-Rod said in Esquire about Derek Jeter before he ever thought he was going to be on the same team with him."

Okay, I will go back and read the "stuff." Easy to find this in the Internet age.

But what does it prove?

ARod said some inappropriate "stuff" and that somehow absolves Torre?:

"Alex is unsmiling, hard-faced. 'The thing about Mike Lupica that pisses me off,' he says, 'is that he makes me look like the biggest @#%$ in the world, and then he takes a guy like Jeter and just puts him way up there.'

So much for the brotherhood of shortstops united under the fatherhood of Honus Wagner.

'There's a big difference,' says Boras. 'Jeter had seventy-one RBIs and fifteen home runs. Jeter and Nomar last year had fifteen and twenty-one home runs. You can have a golden bulldozer, but if there's no dirt to push . . .'

'Jeter's been blessed with great talent around him,' Alex says. 'He's never had to lead. He can just go and play and have fun. And he hits second—that's totally different than third and fourth in a lineup. You go into New York, you wanna stop Bernie and O'Neill. You never say, Don't let Derek beat you. He's never your concern.' "

ARod didn't say anything too bad about Jeter, mostly just ignorance about some of the finer points of Jeter's offensive contributions.

But, if Lupica wants to prove a point, it was a punk move by a punk. Alex Rodriguez is a punk. Alex Rodriguez is a very stupid man. He says a lot of stupid things. Also, Alex Rodriguez is very disrespectful and arrogant.

Glad we cleared that up.

Again, what precisely does this have to do with Joe Torre?

Does Lupica really think a player on a different team is held to the same standard as a manager talking about the ex-players on his own team?

Did Torre say these things to Damon's face or did Torre wait until he left the team?

Whatever you want to say about ARod because of the Esquire article, Torre is all those things, and worse.