Mike Lupica: The Man who thinks ARod shouldn't bat second.

I think you could poll 10 million Yankee fans and zero of them would have a problem with ARod batting second.

Mike Lupica not only insists that ARod was not "supposed to" bat second, he constantly insists that Yankee fans don't want ARod batting second.

Though his warped mind hardly deserves the attention, I present the Advanced Lupica Reader:

"The Yankees have all the history, which means all the good history, and all the tradition." This is true, and quite irrelevant to next week's ALCS, but if George Steinbrenner or Suzyn Waldman bring up Yankee History and Mystique, then Lupica will undoubtedly scorn them. Tell them it's a Tired Act.

"The Yankees have all the money." Next sentence, Lupica is going to tell you how the Red Sox are better because they added Schilling and Foulke. They added Foulke after they faced his team in the ALDS. Since the Yankees have all the money, one would be forced to wonder how the Penniless Red Sox signed Schilling and Foulke in the offseason. Or Damon, Manny, Pedro, Nixon, Ortiz ... poor Red Sox.

Poor, wacky Red Sox with their long hair. They can't even afford barbers because the Yankees have all the money. Boo hoo.

"The Yankees won more games than the Red Sox and won the American League East. When it was all on the line last year in Game 7 and the Yankes were losing 5-2 in the 8th, the Yankees came back on the Red Sox and tied the game and finally won it when Aaron Boone turned into Bucky Dent. " Really? What are you going to tell me next, MOTO? That the Yankees and Red Sox have a rivalry?

"We all thought it was impossible that two pitchers - Schilling and Johnson - could beat Jeter and Rivera and the rest of Joe Torre's Yankees. I sure thought that way. But that is exactly what Schilling and Johnson did." Did you think it was impossible that the Diamondbacks with Schilling and Johnson could beat the Yankees in 2000? Did anyone think that?

See, this is another indication of Lupica's central downfall. He mistakes his own opinions for the opinions of all Yankee fans ... the opinions of everyone.

Amazingly, while he thinks his personal opinions are universally-held, he couldn't be more wrong.

No matter how many times he writes in a column that ARod shouldn't bat second, that ARod was supposed to be Babe Ruth, that ARod strikes out too much, that Yankee fans miss Andy Pettitte, that Yankee fans don't like Steinbrenner, etc., etc., etc. -- just because Lupica writes it in a column does not make it true.

It never reflects reality, it never reflects the opinions of anybody else, and it never convinced anybody else to share his warped point of view.

As another example, Mike Lupica is thinking of Randy Johnson, and he insists that you are, too:

"If Schilling going to the Red Sox and A-Rod going to the Yankees instead of the Red Sox were the two transactions of the baseball winter, Yankee fans know the biggest of the summer, the deal that wasn't made, was Randy Johnson to the Yankees."