Roethlisberger won a Super Bowl and Rivers didn't have Tomlinson.

"We thought he was the best of the three then (Rivers, Manning and Ben Roethlisberger) and we think he's the best of three now," Accorsi wrote. "People who dwell on statistics in football, just cling to them because they can't evaluate QBs. The job is QB, not passer. Unitas and Namath didn't have good QB ratings. They threw a lot of interceptions because they took risks and had to carry their teams."

Exactly.

Which is why Roethlisberger and Rivers are better.


While I suppose I understand Accorsi's need to strike back, shouldn't he reign it in a little bit?

"What difference does it make what we gave up?" Accorsi continued. "You better be right about the QB, but if you are, you can't overpay for a great QB and we think he's going to be a great QB. What would you give up for Elway? What would you give for Montana or Unitas? Just like you can't overpay a great player. Can you overpay for Mays or DiMaggio? That's all fodder."

I'm not sure if he understands the meaning of the word "fodder," but he just compared Eli Manning to:

1. John Elway.
2. Joe Montana.
3. Johnny Unitas.
4. Willie Mays.
5. Joe DiMaggio.

So not the same as Yankees / Red Sox.

I don't detect any rivalry between the Giants and the Patriots, though I'm not the best person to ask. I honestly didn't even know the Cowboys were the Giants' big rivals. I thought it was the Eagles or the 49ers:

"New England is now the old Yankees, an immoveable juggernaut that expects dominance and demands championships. The Giants are the new Red Sox, a loose franchise of why-not dreamers that needed three road victories just to reach the Super Bowl."

The Giants are basically nothing like the '04 Red Sox. The Red Sox had not won a World Series in ... how many years was it? ... I think it was 86 years, if I remember correctly.

I may not be sure because I only heard about it 100 billion times.


Oh, and the Giants absolutely have something to lose. It's called a football game. It's why they keep score.

I should also point out that it's so much more than just a football game. It's a battle between New York and New England, underdogs and soul-crushing juggernauts, bagels and clam chowder, blah blah blah and blah blah blah.

Two ways of life, really. America's future is at stake. It's the difference between Immortality and Infamy:

"Which is why this isn't just a Super Bowl clash, but something bigger. Fair or not, New England's quest for perfection changes the stakes for this game. The Patriots either win and enjoy immortality or lose and suffer infamy."

I realize I care more about baseball than the other sports, but I'd give the Patriots the next ten straight Super Bowl Championships in exchange for one Yankee win vs. Baltimore in mid-July.

Football.

I can not help it. I'm bemused by the dialectical forces at work:

"The thing is, 'Do they win?' Davis always told me, 'Here's how you judge a quarterback: Can he take his team down the field with the game on the line and get them in the end zone?'"

Nice drive at the end of the first half. Yes, indeed.

But, in the fourth quarter, on 3rd and 17, the Giants called for a screen pass. On 3rd and short, they opted to run the ball. Twice.

With the game on the line, the Giants played it safe and, as far as I can recollect, he did not get his team in the end zone.

Which is fine as long as your team wins, I suppose. Relying on your defense is not a bad strategy when your quarterback is below average.


Now, do you want to hear Ernie Accorsi go completely mad after his QB throws for 170 yards in a playoff game? Then, buckle up:

"I still think he's the best of the three (quarterbacks), but that's another story."

...

"He's going to win championships for this franchise. Whether Eli becomes his brother, it doesn't matter. Winning championships is all that matters."

Maybe he just misspoke, but Accorsi (sp?) just said that Eli will win more than one championship with the Giants.

I'll believe that when I see it.

Because Tom Brady is not retiring anytime soon, as far as I know. Neither is Peyton Manning. Neither is Ben Roethlisberger or freakin' Vince Young, for that matter.

In fact, for every year that Eli plays for the Giants, the AFC will exist.


Also, if winning championships is all that matters, then why is everybody getting all gleeful about making the Final Four?

You think the Giants will beat the Patriots this year? I sure don't. If they don't, then Eli will be 0-3 in the playoffs.

Richard Nixon or Trot Nixon?

I understand the concept of representative democracy vs. direct democracy.

I also understand that Federal policies are not dictated by, of all things, a poll on CBS Sportsline.

But I also think that members of the House of Representatives should Represent their constituencies:

"Is Congress wasting time with baseball and steroids?

34% No
66% Yes

Total Votes: 5651"

Best-case scenario is what, exactly?

Let's say performance-enhancing drugs are completely eliminated from baseball forever and every single baseball player who ever used performance-enhancing drugs is identified and punished.

It was still a waste of time.

The old, white men in Congress are very concerned with protecting the legacy of Maris's 1961 homerun record. Probably have a charming story of a freckle-faced younger version of themselves sneaking a radio into their bedrooms and listening to baseball games after their parents had tucked them in. Especially Willie, Mickey, and the Duke. God Bless the Good Ol' Days. It's an outrage that cheaters and liars have stolen the records from True Americans like Roger Maris and Hank Aaron.

Let's make a collective decision apply 1/10th of this outrage towards the price of gas.

Of course.

Often times, the knee-jerk reaction is right on:

"I was wondering if Derek Jeter's numbers would be Hall of Fame worthy if his career were to end today. He's not a power hitter, doesn't steal a ton of bases and he's had only one season with more than 100 RBIs. I know he's a great leader and great hitter for average, but does he have enough to make the Hall of Fame?-- Elizabeth C., Scarsdale, N.Y.

The knee-jerk reaction is to say, 'of course,' but let's look at it."

The funny thing about Jeter is that he's one of the greatest shortstops to ever play the game and a shoo-in first-ballot HOFer. Even if he never played a playoff game and wasn't the Yankee Caption and Yankee icon.

At the same time, he's quite overrated.

It's not the intangibles that make him great; it's the tangibles that make him great.

See? Felz is a level-headed, gracious person.

In all seriousness, I think ARod would be a better quarterback than Eli.

I don't know if Lupica comes up with these headlines, and I don't have the patience to read the column carefully enough to determine the context.

But the headline actually states "athletes' lies are the worst of all."

Like, Marion Jones lying about her PEDs is worse than ... well, you fill in the blank. I'm sure you can easily find a lie in your own experiences that hurt you more than Marion Jones's bogus Olympic medals. If you can not draw upon your own experiences, then simply watch one episode of Judge Greg Mathis or read a Noam Chomsky book.

One time, a guy told me he needed money to get his brother out of jail. The guy was lying. Cost me $90. Marion Jones, Mark McGwire, and Larry Craig combined have not cost me $90.


I would also like to point out that baseball is different than football:

"Just by playing the way he did against Tampa Bay and getting the Giants out of the first round, Eli Manning has already had a better postseason than A-Rod and Jeter combined."

From this point forward, when Lupica decides to deride the playoff performance of the 2007 Yankees, I think he should focus on Chien-Ming Wang's 19.00+ playoff ERA.

In the four games of the 2007 playoffs, ARod hit .26-something with a HR, made no errors (that I can recall), had a few bad strikeouts. Nothing spectacular; sort of mediocre.

Sort of like the way Eli Manning played when he beat the Bucs and the Cowboys.

Difference is, Eli had a good team backing him up.


A "pitcher" may be somewhat analagous to an NFL team's "defense," and Eli wouldn't have gotten anywhere if his defense had given up 60 points.

Right?

Right.

But that's not a really good analogy, is it? Because it's just stupid to compare football to baseball in the first place. Or boxing to baseball. Or Presidential races to baseball. Or the second season of "Lost" to baseball.

All of these comparisons reveal nothing.


I'd also like to point out that Jeter's 2007 playoff series was downright awful.

But, just by playing the way he did and getting to the first round, he had a better postseason than Jose Reyes, David Wright, Tom Glavine, and Paul Lo Duca combined.

The gubmint do take a bite, don't she?

"I cannot wait to go into the private sector and hopefully never have to answer it again."

Major league baseball is in the private sector.

Just sayin', Mr. Clemens.

Please don't kill me.

Just say no.

In my high school, I was in an animation class. The final project was a three or four minute animated short. Mine was "Gumby vs. Rambo." My favorite was "Crack is Wack."

It was a big deal back then. Crackbabies getting AIDS; the Drug Czar; George Bush I on TV with a baggie of crack that was bought right across the street from the White House!

Who knew it was all "recreational"?:

"To me, there's a difference between recreational drugs and PEDs — Raines cheated himself and perhaps his team, but not his sport. Amphetamines fall more toward PEDs, and almost certainly were more prevalent until they were banned in 2005. What about that?"

Fine with me, but please put Pete Rose in the HOF tomorrow and don't ever bring up the morals clause ever again.

I suspect this is a common workaround.

At least brings up Raines's cocaine use. Most of the commentators have either forgotten or chosen to sweep it under the rug:

"The 10th man on my ballot (and electors may vote for only 10) is Tim Raines. Raines had drug issues, but they were recreational drug issues. Cocaine, to be exact. 'Coke' was illegal, but no one has suggested it made for better careers. It messed up Raines' head but it didn't attack the integrity of the on-field product.

Meantime, I will not vote for McGwire until/unless he is cleared."

"Recreational drugs" are okay because, well, presumably because they're "recreational." The lesson for our nation's children is that crack is sort of like hiking or camping. It's "recreational."

"No one has suggested" that cocaine made for better careers. Well, let me be the First Person Ever to suggest that cocaine could conceivably make for a better career and attack the integrity of the on-field product.

I actually don't know.

I could conceive of a situation where cocaine relieves pain and provides energy. That sort of thing.

But let's suppose that Raines took an illegal substance that hampered his baseball-playing ability. Ummm, why are we rewarding him for this? At least McGwire's illegal substance helped his team win baseball games.

Cocaine was very illegal. Still is.

Legally, ethically, medically, I think taking cocaine is worse than taking steroids.

Tim Raines is a swell guy, right?

Swell guy who slid headfirst because he was worried about breaking the vial of cocaine that was in his pocket while he was playing professional baseball.

Me, personally? I'd put them all in the Hall of Fame if their numbers add up. I'm all for redemption and second chances and such. Equal treatment for Tim Raines and for Mark McGwire.

Which was it? Four or six?

"McNamee injected Clemens in the buttocks four to six times with testosterone from a bottle labeled either Sustanon 250 or Deca-Durabolin. ... McNamee stated that during this same time period he also injected Clemens four to six times with human growth hormone..."

Four to six?

Sustanon 250 or Deca-Durabolin?

Pretty solid testimony there.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about the human growth hormone.

It was four or six or ten or twenty or one hundred times from a bottle labeled something.

I don't believe him.

I think Pedro took steroids because of the transformation of his head. He just looks like he took steroids. In the court of public opinion, freed from the annoying burden of proof, I can think whatever I want.

He said "taint."

"When the Yankees won their third successive World Series and fourth in five years in 2000, Torre, their manager, was hailed as an automatic entrant to the Hall of Fame. Now, however, it develops that the Yankees’ 2000 team was loaded with players who used performance-enhancing drugs before, during or after that season.
...

According to the Mitchell report, Clemens used steroids in the latter half of the 2000 season. Neagle played for the Yankees in the latter half of that season and, according to Mitchell, used human growth hormone.

Neagle won four successive starts from Aug. 27 through Sept. 12. Clemens, following Neagle in the rotation, won three of four starts. Three times they won consecutive games. Their efforts helped the Yankees increase their division lead from three games to nine."

Yeah, but everybody was using steroids. The teams that beat the Yankees had steroids users.

Every World Series Champion of the past, say, twenty years likely had players on their roster who used steroids.

Some are just more obvious than others.

Some people just want to get lots of angry responses on their message board.

When your name is Justice, your opinions carry more weight.

"Andy Pettitte did the honorable thing. He didn't do it willingly, but he did do it. Good for him."

Great for him.

No: Great for the Youth of America.

In fact, Andy Pettitte is so unbelievably honest and honorable that, if Selig decides to enact stricter drug testing, I think Andy Pettitte should oversee the entire operation.


"If Pettitte had denied using performance-enhancing substances, it would have been virtually impossible not to believe him."

Did I read this correctly? "It would have been virtually impossible not to believe him"? I think you mistakenly put a "not" in your sentence, Mr. Justice.


"Players were put in a quandary during the steroids era. They saw teammates getting bigger and performing better by cheating. Inside the industry, rumors circulated that some general managers and agents encouraged players to try performance-enhancing drugs."

I love it.

I love, love, love, love, love it.

It's more than love. I lerve it.

Can't get enough of it.

It's like that bad karaoke video that you have to watch 1,000 times.

I love it when the steroid era is referred to in the past tense.

If you really wanted to help the team, you should have taken steroids.

I was being sarcastic when I said that Pettitte would take the "team" angle:

"I had heard that human growth hormone could promote faster healing for my elbow. I felt an obligation to get back to my team as soon as possible. For this reason, and only this reason, for two days I tried human growth hormone."


I hereby nominate Pettitte to the Jay Gibbons Hall of Fame:

"Earl Ward, the attorney for Brian McNamee, the trainer who gave the Mitchell investigators the information on Pettitte and Clemens, was not shocked that Pettitte would confess to his actions.

'One of the things Brian has always said to me is that Andy is a decent and honest guy, and it is not a surprise that he has stepped up,' Ward said."

Or maybe just the Greatest Human Ever Hall of Fame:

"According to the Yankees media guide, Pettitte and his wife 'teach youth classes and sing in the choir' at the same Baptist church her father has been pastor for 40 years. Pettitte has participated in tee-ball games in the White Hose lawn, been honored as 'good guy' by the New York Sports Photographers, nominated for the Roberto Clemente Award for community service and won a Thurman Munson Award in 2006, presented by the Association for the Help of Retarded Children."

"The TV Guys."

"If a player wanted to deny (the charges made against him)," Mitchell says, "why didn't he come in and deny them to me?"

Come on, now. You're a lawyer.

If I say Mike Lupica is a computer-generated avatar, the burden of proof is on me. Lupica is not compelled to deny charges which have not been proven.

This is precisely why this report is widely criticized and widely dismissed. Without the legal power of subpoena, and the accompanying legal defense, it's just a bunch of people saying stuff.

Pettitte's defense is, "I did not do it. Your sources are liars. I didn't deny it then, but I am denying it now." That's it.

If you want the players to defend themselves, then charge them with something.


"The TV guys were saying that Mitchell was sloppy before they'd even read his report. He's sloppy, they say, his reporting is sloppy. Mostly because they don't like it. They treat George Mitchell like some fan who fell out of the stands and onto the field trying to grab a foul ball, as if he could broker peace in Northern Ireland and be undone by drug cheats in baseball. Like Mitchell was some kind of rank amateur, not getting his facts straight, not even knowing what questions to ask."

I don't think this is accurate. A lot of people think this report is a waste of time and a lot of people question his relationship with MLB ownership in general and the Red Sox specifically. But I haven't seen any personal attacks on Mitchell himself.

I found it somewhat distasteful and self-serving to continually bring up Northern Ireland during the press conference, but it's a minor complaint.

I was also ironing at the time, so my attention was divided.


More interestingly, who the heck are "the TV guys"?

As opposed to the "radio guys" or "the newspaper guys"? As opposed to the "TV gals"?

Tomorrow morning, on ESPN, won't Lupica be a "TV guy"?


If Lupica was watching commentary on television, then the commentator had a name.

Be a man, Lupica, and name the commentator with whom you have beef.

"TV guys" is a bit vague, don't you think?

F.P. Santangelo shocked me, actually ...

... I didn't know F.P Santangelo was a real-life person. I thought he was made up on the 2002 version of EA Sports baseball. The name even sounds like one of those old-time made-up names from Japanese video games. I think Mattingly was "D. Matts," or something like that:

"Without any sanctions against the juicers or any stark revelations, this was, for the most part, a waste of time. This was done to titillate and get us talking baseball in the winter. This did not and will not clean up baseball."

I pretty much agree with the entire analysis by Shaun Powell. The report was only shocking in its lack of breadth.

Merely two key informants (both linked to New York baseball teams) and very few players mentioned with any degree of certainty.

At the same time, Mitchell is claiming that steroid abuse was widespread and pervasive. Well, maybe so, but this report -- two years in the making -- certainly didn't demonstrate its pervasiveness.

We're back where we started. "Widespread" means 2%, 10%, 20%, or 50%?


I don't think this was done to get us talking about baseball in the winter. I think it was mostly a PR move. Mitchell seems like an earnest enough guy, but he also has to know that the findings will influence the Court of Public Opinion, as opposed to the Court of ... well ... the Courts of Laws and Stuff.

"US sportswriters" urge something.

I mean, look, who in their right mind is going to be pro-steroids? When Mitchell said that hundreds of thousands of teenagers are taking steroids, it's probably true that they are inspired by pro athletes.

But will the "US sportswriters" boycott the NFL for one week? For one day?


The Mitchell report listed 77 current and former players. As Tim Marchman points out, this is less that 2% of the players during the time period in question.

We know that at least 2% of current United States governors have taken steroids.

Would Schwarzenegger have achieved fame and fortune without steroids? I doubt it. Perhaps Lou Ferrigno would be the Governor of California and Schwarznegger would be applying green body makeup and making appearances at comic book stores.

California is home to five major league baseball teams and ... ummm ... a whole bunch of minor league baseball teams.

The State Government probably won't be involved in the creation or enforcement of anti-steroid steroid rules.

But can you imagine the irony if such a bill appears on Schwarzenegger's desk?

You want to inspect every package that is delivered to a baseball clubhouse?

How about every package that is delivered to the Governor's mansion?


I also have a suspicion that the $25 million (?) spent on the Mitchell report -- which accomplished very little legally or tangibly -- could have been more wisely spent on youth prevention.

If youth prevention had been the true goal.