Joe & Fooch: Reunited and it feels so good.

From time to time, my friends will ask me why I never wanted to become a sportswriter. This ridiculous article should help explain why.

If the supposedly grizzled New York press is this reverent of Joe Torre, then you wouldn't want to send me into the locker room with a mic after another loss where Tony Womack batted second.

Believe me, Torre, I wasn't presuming to know what you were thinking. In fact, I didn't presume that you were thinking at all. Based on your strategy from tonight's game, I didn't presume your brain was functioning beyond its stem.

Oh, I'm sorry. No offense. Let me listen in rapt attention and you can tell me about the time you batted .363 and had no infield hits. Because you were slow. Great story, Pops.

A Clockwork Womack.

In one of the most famous scenes in A Clockwork Orange, Malcolm McDowell is forced to watch scenes of horror and brutality on a TV screen over and over again. His eyes are forced open with a harness while a nurse impassively feeds him and keeps his eyes hydrated by using eye drops.

This is how the criminals of the future are forced to develop negative psychological reactions to criminal behavior.

Surreal, horrifying, imaginative stuff.

Now, in the seventh inning of yesterday's game, Ruben Sierra led off with a single. The Yankees had a one-run lead at the time and Tony Womack was asked to lay down a sacrifice bunt.

I know it's hard to believe, considering Womack has a slugging percentage of .263 this season -- why not just hit a Womackian drive off the short right-field fence and drive in the run yourself? -- but I guess the #9 hitter has to make some sacrifices from time to time.

What happened next was surreal and horrifying, but it was not my imagination.

Womack bunted foul for strike one. (The ball bounced off the plate, hit the stationary bat a second time, and rolled about ten feet into fair territory. This made it difficult to distinguish from a full-on Womack blast.)

Womack bunted foul for strike two.

Then, Womack grounded into a double play.

Can't this guy even bunt? Can't he even not hit into a double play?

Why are the Yankees allowed to show this to children on the public airwaves?

Dan Graziano's Master Plan.

"Somebody's asking for Tom Gordon, willing to part with a nice package of players because there's such a severe demand for late-inning relief pitching? Think about it. There's no reason Gordon should be untouchable. He's a free agent at the end of the year. Because the Yankees are so bad, he almost never pitches."

Tom Gordon is tied for the American League lead in appearances.

If you're going to build an effective argument, it helps to use factual information.


"But in case anybody hasn't noticed, the Yankees still haven't qualified for this year's playoffs. As of yesterday afternoon, they trailed two teams in their own division and four in the wild-card race, and all of those teams look better than they do."

Thanks for the update. But everybody has noticed, and I do mean everybody.

Also, why does Graziano say that "all of those teams look better" than the Yankees? They absolutely don't.

The Rangers are stumbling, the Orioles are stumbling, even the Twins are stumbling lately. The Yankees are three games back in the wild card race. All of the teams in the wild card race stink.

The Indians are two games up on the Yankees, and they haven't given up on the season, have they? (If they have, maybe they can send Kevin Millwood our way.)

"Face Facts, Cleveland, and sell, sell, SELL!"


"The Yankees need to take a look at anybody who doesn't have a no-trade clause. That means Gary Sheffield, who's in the second year of a three-year deal and may be at peak value. That means Jorge Posada, who's due $17.5 million next year and looks like a player in decline."

Oh, please. Posada is the second-best catcher in the American League, and he'll be the best as soon as Varitek hits an extended slump.

Posada is a career .270 hitter who is hitting .276 this season. He is on pace for his typical season, which is .270, 20 hrs, 80 rbis, and a lot of walks. Those are excellent offensive stats for a catcher. If you don't believe me, wait until you try to replace him.

Besides, if Posada is a player in decline, and if he's due $17.5 million next year ... then who is going to accept him in a trade? Does Graziano think that John Flaherty as a full-time catcher is going to significantly help the Yankees next year?


What kind of a solution is Graziano offering? Trade Gordon, Sheffield, and Posada and the Yankees' problems are solved?

For whom are they being traded? To which teams? I don't understand.

We all know the Yankees are bad. They are 39-37 and in third place. The record speaks for itself.

The Yankees are not mathematically out of the race, but unless they start pitching a lot better, they'll probably be battling Toronto all season for third place rather than battling Minnesota for the wild card.

First place in the AL East is a pipe dream. I'm not even factoring that into the equation.

Having said that, how is the team any better if they trade away the few players who are actually performing well? Sure, if you promised me 100 wins in 2006 in exchange for the entire team, I'd sign up for it today. But how is this going to happen? How is trading Tom Gordon helping the team's future?

Graziano seems to realize his own failing argument mid-article:

"Trading Gordon would undoubtedly weaken the bullpen, especially if Tanyon Sturtze eventually has to go back into the shredded starting rotation. Trading Sheffield would deprive the Yankees of their second-best hitter. And trading Posada would result in every pitch thrown by a Yankee pitcher going straight to the backstop, because there would be nobody there to catch them."

Well done, Dan Graziano. You just shredded Dan Graziano's master plan.

Randolph dances on Yankees' graves.

For the manager of a team that's in last place, Willie Randolph has no problem casting aspersions on his former employer:

"My contribution to a lot of teams is not something you see. It's behind the scenes. It's one-on-one, very subtle."

I'll say your contributions are subtle. Your team added Beltran and Pedro and has the same record as Team Howe.


Okay, Willie. Maybe you felt underappreciated during your tenure with the Yankees.

As long as you don't criticize Torre's or Girardi's or Mattingly's or Stottlemyre's ability to teach players how to win and how to play day-to-day baseball:

"Teaching players how to win and how to play day-to-day baseball is hard work, but it's very much between the ears."

Oh, snap! No you di'nt!


"Let me say that my relationship with those guys over there is special. Like I miss them, I think they miss me. Let's leave it like that. That's all."

I should hope that's all. Let's leave it like that. Stop talking. You've said enough already, haven't you?


Since we're changing the topic, I was wondering if ...

"I don't think I'm the direct result of wins and losses. I'm not going to say that."

You kind of just said that.

Or maybe you're just the indirect result of wins and losses.

Also, if you're not the direct result of wins and losses, can the Mets get their money back? Is there some sort of 100-game return policy for managers?


But, again, since we're changing the topic, I was going to ask you if ...

"But what I bring to a team is not the tangible stuff that goes unnoticed and people don't really think about."

Say what?

I'm not sure where the [sic] goes in this sentence.

Does the [sic] go after "tangible," because he brings "intangible stuff that goes unnoticed"?

Or does the [sic] go after "unnoticed," because he brings "the tangible stuff that goes noticed"?

Contextually, I think he means to say, "But what I bring to a team is the intangible stuff that goes unnoticed and people don't really think about."

So we've got two [sics]: One after the "not," which should be removed entirely, and one after the word "tangible," which should say, "intangible."

Phew. Now I have a headache.

Randolph definitely learned one thing from Torre. He learned how to talk crazy to the press.

Yankees stink, Mets stink, Lupica stinks.

The Yankees stink. There is no reason to misrepresent the case.

There's no reason to say the Yankees would have lost even more games to the Mets if Reyes and Wright didn't make errors. By the same token, Mussina would have beaten the Mets on Friday night if Tino could catch a line drive and Bernie could catch a pop up and Mussina could make an accurate pickoff throw to second. When the Mets make errors, the Yankees are just lucky. When the Yankees make errors, the Yankees are bad fielders.

There's no reason to belittle the 16-2 run vs. Oakland and Seattle (two teams that the Nuevo Mets couldn't beat). If Lupica can take away those 18 games, can't I at least take away the 13 games vs. Tampa Bay and Kansas City? If I am allowed to do that, then the Yankees are winning the wild card race. Whoopee! We're #1!

But I'm most intrigued by this nugget of Lupica Logic, where the Keyboard Hero talks tough to Randy Johnson:

"Boy, I hope I don't miss Randy Johnson's next lecture to sportswriters he thought had written him off last month.

Here's a memo for the Big Unit:

Nobody wrote you off.

Nobody wrote any eulogies.

Most writers just did what they're supposed to do, which means they wrote what they were seeing.

And what they were seeing is a guy who isn't the scariest pitcher in the world anymore, and probably isn't going to be that ever again."

Huh? You just said that nobody wrote Unit off and nobody wrote any eulogies. Then you said, in the next sentence, that Unit isn't the scariest pitcher in the world anymore, and probably isn't ever going to be that ever again.

So Lupica just just wrote Unit off and wrote Unit's baseball eulogy... right after he said nobody ever did that.

If Lupica doesn't want to miss Randy Johnson's next lecture, he should go see him after the game. Unit is right in the locker room with all the other players.

Go ahead, Lupica. Say it to his face.

Fun Times with Mark Herrmann.

"For the rest of us, though, making the New York-New York comparison is delicious fun. Who's better? Honestly, it can go from day to day, inning to inning."

I think a better question is, "Who's worse?"

Comparing the Mets to the Yankees is about as much delicious fun as pouring tabasco sauce into your eyes.


"Be honest: If you had to bet your life on one of these teams winning a three-game series, you probably would pick the Yankees. They have so much talent and firepower, they still get the benefit of the doubt."

Actually, if I had to be my life on it, I'd have picked the Mets to win two out of three.

Mets take game one with Pedro pitching as well as he usually does, to the contrary of the nonsensical "Who's Your Daddy?" hype; the Sean Henn game was over before it started; and then Unit getting the win on Sunday night.

But don't bet your life on baseball. It is too unpredictable.

Four pitches.

A typical nonsense appraisal of a bad pitching peformance is that the pitcher threw "one bad pitch" or "made one mistake."

Predictably, that was the reaction by Torre & Stottlemyre & Pavano after Wednesday afternoon's loss.

Maybe they really believe it, maybe they don't. When Torre speaks to the press, it always sounds like he's playing shell games. Of course, this "one bad pitch" assessment is not true. More likely, Pavano threw about 30 bad pitches and 28 of them were fouled back. The guy with the 4-6 record and the 4.69 ERA is throwing lots of bad pitches.

How do you know they're bad pitches? The hitters tell you. The hitters are hitting .310 against Pavano this season. Pavano magically transforms all of them into batting champs.


My point is, the outcome of almost every game is the result of a few important batters and a few important pitches.

I can play that trick with just about every game. Take last night's 9-4 loss to Tampa Bay. I want to change four pitches:

1. First-inning pitch to Cantu.
2. Third-ininng pitch to Cantu.
3. Eighth-inning pitch to Sierra.
4. Ninth-inning pitch to Hollins.

That was easy. I just wiped 7 runs off the board for Tampa Bay and, giving Sierra a bloop single instead of a ground out, I've added 2 runs to the Yankees' score.

The Yankees didn't really lose 9-4. They won 6-2.

"Yankees win! Thuuuuuuuuh Yankees win!

The New York Yankees, the most successful franchise in sports history, have beaten the Tampa Bay Devil Rays by a score of 6-2, cutting Baltimore's lead in the AL East to just four games and gaining momentum heading into this weekend's Subway Series. Suzyn will be right back with the dugout report. When Johnny Gomes grounded out, it was the 15th out of the game. You can save 15% off your car insurance in 15 minutes."


Funny how that works. Funny how the losing teams always seem to make the bad pitches at the wrong time and the winning teams make the good pitches at the right time.

It's the difference between winning and losing; it's the difference between Bob Gibson and Robert Person.

Using 11% of the brain.

"So what is it we take away from last night's battle of the monster trucks? The Yankees, trailing by eight runs, coming on to win by nine - yeah, not bad - or was it the new, improved Randy Johnson suddenly being replaced by a tall, sad story?"

Both!

The Yankees, trailing by eight runs, came on to win by nine -- AND -- Randy Johnson pitched very poorly.

The human brain has the capacity to store multiple data items.

What else did I take away from last night's game? Lots of stuff!

• Buddy Groom is kind of an unsung hero for the Yankees this season.
• The last-place Devil Rays have 25 players who are better than Tony Womack.
• Lou Piniella should be put on a suicide watch.
• The Yankees are 2-0 this season when scoring 19 runs or more.
• In the eighth inning, John Sterling finally got a chance to say "back-to-back-to-back and a'belly-to-belly-to-belly."

Catcher ERA.

Trying to find a bright spot in Randy Johnson's debacle against the Devil Rays, I was hoping that maybe Torre would at least drop the notion that John Flaherty needed to be Randy Johnson's catcher.

But if Jason Varitek can still be widely praised as "a wonder at handling pitchers and calling a game" while the Red Sox possess the second-worst ERA in the league, then I guess we can all just stick to the story: John Flaherty has good chemistry with Randy Johnson.

Of course tonight's awful performance by Johnson wasn't Flaherty's fault. Just like Flaherty deserves no credit for Johnson's previous two excellent outings. It's the pitcher, it always has been the pitcher, and it always will be the pitcher.

"Good" is totally subjective.

"Even though rookie second baseman Robinson Cano entered last night's game with a hot homestand of his own (10-for-24 to raise his average to .283), Torre left him at No. 9 and Tony Womack at No. 2 in the order. 'Womack is having good at-bats now and I like him where he is,' Torre said."

Sure, Joe. Whatever you say.

Womack absolutely had one base hit out of the infield this week. On Sunday. I saw it with my own eyes.

He also managed a sacrifice fly in the same game, which was awesome.

Also, don't forget the triple Womack hit on May 13th. That was totally a good at-bat.

Nobody does it better / Makes me feel sad for the rest.

Steven Goldman at Al Yankzeera's website:

"NOTHING STRANDS RUNNERS LIKE A WOMACK

Monday night's game: Yankees trail 5-0 in the bottom of the eighth. Robinson Cano singles to open the inning. Derek Jeter moves him to second with another base hit. First and second no outs. Tony Womack is up. You be the manager. In this situation you:

(A) Let Tony Womack, last among American League starters in slugging percentage, last in the league in RBIs per baserunner (11 out of 155), last in the league in marginal lineup value, second-least productive hitter in the league as per VORP (trailing Aaron Boone); the fourth-worst in on-base percentage (trailing Boone, Juan Uribe, and Omar Infante) hit away.

(B) Pinch hit with Ruben Sierra.

(C) Pinch hit with Russ Johnson.

(D) Pinch hit with John Flaherty.

(E) Pinch hit with Bubba Crosby.

(F) Pinch hit with Grandma.

If you picked A, congratulations! You have a long career before you as a commentator on ESPN's 'Baseball Tonight.'

...

In the event, Womack fouled out. The Yankees did pick up four runs in the frame thanks to Gary Sheffield's single and Hideki Matsui's home run (break that guy's other ankle; he might hit .550), but it would have been nice to have back the extra out.

It has been said here before but it's worth repeating: as long as Womack is allowed to soak up outs at the top of the order and otherwise, the Yankees aren't serious about trying to come back in this race.
...

After a season of these Womackcentric diatribes, it may seem like the point has been scored and the team should be allowed to fester in peace. Not so. This season the Yankees have allowed 4.8 runs a game and scored 5.3. This isn't enough of a differential for them to rise above .500 for very long. Either the pitching has to get much better, which is not likely, or the offense can get just a little better, which could be achieved easily enough if the team would be smart enough to stop perpetuating mistakes like this one.

We must keep singing this song until the tune changes."

In the ninth inning, with John Sterling anticipating the pinch-hitting appearance of Ruben Sierra for Robinson Cano, Torre was obviously saving Sierra for Womack's spot. After Jeter's ground out ended the game, the Yankees never got to Womack's spot.

Torre bats Womack second because of his speed and his supposed small ball skills. I can't recall too many occasions when it has paid off at all, much less in the first inning. On the rare occasion that Womack gets on base, he will not clog up the basepaths, I'll give him that much.

But over the course of the season, the man who bats second in your lineup gets the second-most at-bats. So even if Torre dreams of Speedy Womack sparking rallies in the first inning, he's continually killing rallies later on in the game.

Hey, Torre, the 8th inning counts, too.

Stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole just because you still think it's the 1950s and the National League.

Where's Huggy Bear when you need him?

"He's hurting, not physically. You look in his eyes and you can see he's hurting," Torre said. "Sometimes we forget these ballplayers have blood running through their veins."

There's your problem right there.

Giambi needs some HGH running through his veins.

.208 hitters need to shut up.

Still crazy.

As Mariano Rivera's ERA fell to 1.09 for the season, I couldn't resist this Lupica gem from the March archives:

"If you aren't worried about what kind of shape Mo Rivera's right arm is going to be in by October, then you're nuts."

Womack complains about playing left field.

"Womack has two hits in his last 24 at-bats and is batting .249. His on-base percentage is .289. With Derek Jeter on second and none out in the seventh yesterday, he popped up a sacrifice bunt to catcher Yadier Molina in foul territory. In the ninth, he struck out swinging on a pitch in the dirt and didn't attempt to run to first."

I've got a position for Womack: Left out.

Lupica evolves, devolves.

Have you ever read the short story, "Flowers for Algernon"? It's a fictional diary of a retarded guy who takes some experimental drugs that make him smart, then the drugs kill him. He suddenly gets smart and then, just as suddenly, gets retarded again. Algernon is the mouse.

For some reason, I thought of this story as I read Mike Lupica's latest "Shootin' From The Lip."


"Somebody explain to me once and for all what sort of magic Tony Womack is bringing to this struggling team. He's not a great outfielder, a great hitter, a great disrupter of the game on the bases. He is a professional journeyman."

It took 61 games for Lupica to realize Womack stinks, which is about 60 games later than everybody else. But it is definitely a step in the right direction.


"For now, Bernie should be the Yankee center fielder until he shows he can't be. He can't throw? When could he?"

Exactly! Bernie has a bad arm, but he has always had a bad arm. It's not as if Matsui or Womack have cannons.

Maybe Lupica is joining the rest of us in the post-Neanderthal world.


What next? Can Lupica bring himself to praise ARod, for example? That would be a sign of intelligent behavior.

Alas, it can not be so.

Sometimes, a step forward is followed by two steps backwards.

Instead of continuing his intellectual evolution, Lupica conjures up the preposterous notion that ARod will be moved to first base:

"Maybe next year A-Rod can take fly balls in center in the spring, see if he can catch them better than he can catch pop flies in the infield. Because more and more, it looks as if A-Rod, first-to-400 homers A-Rod, will eventually be something other than the Yankee third baseman of the future. He goes to center, or he goes to first. Maybe first is more likely."

Lee, Ortiz hurt their MVP candidacies.

More useless hits, homeruns, and rbis in a one-sided game.

Lupica validates, invalidates ARod's season.

Truly one of the stupidest notions by a man who is stupid on the regular:

"Alex Rodriguez needs to stop sharing all of his innermost thoughts and do something he still has not done since becoming a Yankee: carry his team. A-Rod has real nice numbers. He does. But there is only one guy on the team who has actually carried the Yankees this season, and that is Tino Martinez. And it was never his job description. It is A-Rod's job description. He wasn't the only one who forgot how to hit before Wednesday night's game. But he is the only one actually and breathlessly being discussed as an MVP candidate. It is hard to win the award busting up the furniture only in 12-3 blowout games."

I just don't know how to attack this Lupica paragraph. Every sentence is insulting or ignorant.


1) Why does ARod need to stop sharing his innermost thoughts?

Personally, I don't really care what ARod says outside the lines and I pay little attention. Ballplayers do their talking on the field, right?

But our favorite li'l outpatient is .324-19-53 on June 10th. June 10th. Fitty-three ribbies in fitty-nine games. (That's real nice. It is.)

He leads the league in hrs, rbis, and runs and is a Quadruple Crown candidate. (News flash: He probably won't win the Quadrupble Crown this season, or even the Triple Crown. What an underachiever.)

If a baseball player puts up numbers like that, he could recite Finnegan's Wake in his spare time for all I care.


2) "A-Rod has real nice numbers. He does." Am I the only person who thinks this is highly arrogant of Mike Lupica?

Gee, Lupica, ya really think ARod has "real nice numbers"?

Thanks for the update, MOTO. Since you say it's true, it must be true. It is very gracious of you, with all your baseball wisdom, to validate ARod's numbers.

I'll check with the Daily News meteorologist later today to see if the sun is rising in the East.


3) "But there is only one guy on the team who has actually carried the Yankees this season, and that is Tino Martinez." Yeah, Tino carried the team this season -- for about a week and a half. When he wasn't benched.

Does a twelve-game stretch even count when we're discussing the entire season? I could find the games where Robinson Cano carried the team, or even the unmentionable Tony Womack. Everybody has a good game or two, Tino managed a nice twelve-game streatch. (A real nice twelve-game stretch. He did.)

ARod has absolutely carried the Yankees, and he has done it for the entire season.

What? You expected ARod to hit a homerun every game? To bat 1.000 with the bases loaded? To never make an error? To have a 59-game hitting streak?

Lupica can't use actual statistics to back up his claim because his argument is so twisted.

He is trying to convince you that the Old Yankee (.239, 12, 32) is having a better season than the New Yankee (.324, 19, 53). It's an indictment of Lupica's ability to think coherently.


4) "It is hard to win the [MVP] award busting up the furniture only in 12-3 blowout games."

At last, we've identified the line in the sand. This is the litmus test.

If you agree with Lupica regarding this point, then you are officially moronic. I'd advise you to stop watching baseball, but it is obvious you don't watch the games in the first place.


For one thing, the 12-3 blowouts ain't 12-3 blowouts if ARod doesn't get 4 hits, a walk, 2 homeruns, 2 runs scored, and 4 runs batted in.

ARod hit a go-ahead homerun in the first inning and singled in a run with the bases loaded in the fifth inning to give the Yankees a 5-2 lead. Perhaps he should have stopped there and Lupica would have been more impressed.

The Yankees have lost 9 out of 10, now would be a good time to strike out a couple of times and not show up the other team. No need to rub it in. That extra homerun was so tacky, so showy, so gaudy ... so ARoddy. It's just not the Yankee way.


Secondly, the Yankees don't have too many blowouts. They're 29-30 and they're in fourth place. All of ARod's 53 rbis are in blowout games? I wish.

I wish all 53 rbis were in 12-3 victories. I wish the Yankees had more 12-3 victories. I wish the Yankees won every game 12-3 and ARod had 4 hits and 2 hrs, with the second hr being a late-inning tack-on.

The man has 19 hrs and 53 rbis. We're supposed to believe that none of the hrs helped win a game and none of the 53 rbis came in a big spot. ARod is such a drag on the team's offensive production, that without ARod on the team, the Yankees would probably be in first place.


Thirdly, ARod has plenty of big hrs and rbis in close games.

There's no point in checking the boxscores, but I could list them if I wanted to. If Lupica et al have a blind spot, they'll choose to ignore the facts, anyway. I know none of them were watching when the Yankees swept Detroit and ARod had 3 hr and 7 rbis. The Yankees opponent wasn't the Mets or Red Sox, so Lupica wasn't paying attention.


Fourthly (fourthly?), who are the other people who are breathlessly being mentioned as MVP? My guess would be Brian Roberts, Miguel Tejada, Johnny Damon ...

Does Lupica consider how many of their rbis came in blowout victories? Or how many of their multi-hr games came against last-place teams?

Does Lupica consider how many of Tino's hrs during his twelve-game imitation of Lou Gehrig were late-inning tack-ons? Therefore, they don't count?

A five-rbi game in a 15-6 victory over Oakland? Who cares? Who needs you, Tino?

A hr in an 11-4 loss to Tampa Bay? Whoopee, Mister Clutch! Why don't you hit a ninth-inning grand slam against Boston? Where were you in the 17-1 loss to Boston, Mr. Team-Carrier? Why can't you hit walk-off hrs like David Ortiz does?


Whose side are you on? Decide now.

If you choose Lupica's side, you're choosing a man who just criticized the Yankees for storming the A's and Mariners and then praised Tino for carrying the team against the A's and Mariners.

You're choosing a man who insists Doug Mintkayvitch was a good signing.

You're choosing a man who thinks Tony Womack will soon be a Yankee fan favorite.

You're choosing a man who thinks the Mets are resurgent and the Yankees are pitiful and irrelevant, though the Mets are only a game-and-a-half better than pitiful and irrelevant.

If you choose Lupica's side, you're choosing ignorance. You're choosing evil. You're choosing the dark side.

Ouch.

Torii Hunter discusses the state of his testicles, and I'm just left wondering how the topic came up in the first place:

"Baseball's most acrobatic, aggressive and athletic center fielder doesn't wear a cup.' As long as I'm playing the outfield I won't be wearing one,' says Twins star Torii Hunter. 'I need the freedom. I need to feel free out there. But I've already gotten hit twice there this year.'

He grimaces as if he's reliving the pain. 'It's been a bad year. Last year I didn't get hit at all. The other day I fouled a ball off, it bounced off the ground and hit me right there. During Spring Training I was fielding groundballs during batting practice and got hit right in the nuts. I was out for the count.

But no second thoughts about it. I'm not going to wear one ever.' "


if you thought that was painful, read Albert Chen's attack on a straw man.

According to Chen, the Twins were "a fashionable preseason pick to win the World Series but are at this moment baseball's forgotten championship contender."

The Twins are a three-time defending division champ and they have the reigning Cy Young Award winner. Nobody ever forgot about the Twins in the first place.

Cliff Floyd is my new favorite player.

After getting hit with a pitch by Wacky Wack Roy Oswalt, Cliff Floyd gets old school gangsta.

I've culled some of his comments and tried to recite them over a phat beat.

It totally works:

"But every dog has his day/
He'll get his/
It's just unfortunate/
That he goes that route.

When you hit someone like that/
You deserve not only to lose/
But to get hit by a line drive/
Somewhere.

When you do stupid stuff like that/
You're taking chances on hurting people/
Taking a chance on losing/
People for games.

But when our egos/
Get in the way/
That's how people end up in prisons/
End up dead."

Maybe it's time to hire Billy Martin.

When Bill Hall can question your team's heart ... and you can't argue with him ... maybe it's time to hire Billy Martin again.

If George exhumed Billy Martin's skeleton and propped it up in the corner of the dugout, I think it would inspire the team more than Torre.

If Torre's management style is no longer working, it's time to adapt. Stubbornness and inflexibility are being praised as consistency:

"Not that he needs much prompting on the subject, but apparently Steinbrenner began all but chanting the late Martin's name after Kay raised the subject on the YES postgame show after Friday's loss to the Twins. Kay said that maybe Torre should throw a fit in the clubhouse in classic Martin fashion, maybe turn over the food spread or something to try to awaken his slumbering team.
...

Torre and the people close to him think just the opposite. Torre has said repeatedly he won't change his style just because someone wants him to show more emotion, and yesterday his long-time pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre scoffed at such a notion.

'He's been through a lot with these guys, some of them for 10 years,' Stottlemyre said. 'For him to suddenly try and be something different, these guys would see right through that.' "


Torre evidently doesn't like losing so much that he cancels batting practice:

"Me? I don't like it," manager Joe Torre said after the Yanks lost for the ninth time in their last 10 games and the seventh in eight on the road trip to fall to 28-30, still seven games behind Baltimore atop the AL East.

...

Torre already made a drastic managing change by the time he addressed reporters after the game - he's decided to cancel batting practice before tonight's series finale against the Brewers.

"There's nothing else you're going to tell them, nothing else they need to know," he said. "Let's just not pick up the bats till game time."

The way they're hitting, there is no reason to pick up the bats during game time. Ba dum bum.

I got an idea: If you're going to cancel batting practice, then how about bunting practice for Robinson Cano. Ten thousand consecutive successful bunts and he is benched until he gets it right.

Don't despair, Yankee fans ...

... help is on the way.

Lupica's pal receives belated criticism.

Getting name-dropped by this putz kind of makes me feel sorry for Joe Torre and Robert Wussler:

"I have known Torre since he was a player with the Mets. I thought he got a bad deal, way back in the day, when Frank Cashen got rid of him and I have said before that when Torre finally does leave the room at Yankee Stadium, it will be like 100 guys left the room. A long time ago, when an old friend named Robert Wussler was Ted Turner's No. 1 guy in Atlanta, I told him that they were nuts to hire Eddie Haas to manage the Braves if an old Brave like Torre was available. I like him a lot and respect him. He will probably get the Yankees out of this the way he has in the past.

Still: They can't be Torre's Yankees only when they win."

Tip of the iceberg. What about:

• Preaching loyalty and respect by playing Jeter at ss instead of ARod; at the same time, benching Bernie in favor of Kenny Lofton.
• Tony Womack, Tony Womack, Tony Womack.
• Tony Womack in left field.
• Tony Womack batting second.
• Tomy Womack leading off.
  
• Tanyon Sturtze's impending career-ending injury.
• Ten years of ignoring fundamentals at all levels of the Yankee organization. No pitcher since Pettitte has been able to hold a runner on first base; Robinson Cano came from the Alfonso Soriano School of Forgetting Where Second Base is on a Steal Attempt; Bernie and Posada have never learned how to run the bases; Nobody in the majors or the minors can bunt. Don't complain about a team with its head in the clouds in 2005 if it hasn't bothered you for ten years.
• The team meetings. Let's talk about those team meetings. I wouldn't say the Yankees have stopped trying, but they're clearly unmotivated by Torre's shtick. I don't think it is necessarily sabotage, but they look like deer caught in the headlights. In an attempt to lower the pressure on his players, Torre keeps repeating how the games are not all that important. I think they finally are starting to believe him.
  

I'm just getting started. I can start a whole other iceberg:

• After constantly preaching small ball agressiveness, Torre has a lot of nerve hanging Sojo and Bernie up to dry when they're "over-aggressive" on the basepaths.
• Trying to turn a power team into a speed team.
• Constanly putting individual player goals ahead of team goals. Too many examples to mention. Like finally, finally pinch-hitting for Giambi, about 300 games after Giambi stopped hitting against lefties.
  

If Lupica expanded his information sources beyong the cronies in the press box, he'd know that Torre criticism has been quite widespread, especially in regards to last year's ALCS. Get out of the echo chamber, Lupica.

I also like how Lupica praises Randolph for leading the Mets to a Whoopee three games over .500. A whole game better than the pathetic Yankees.

Is this what they meant by the Battle for New York? That both teams battle for fourth place in their own division?

Watchin' baseball with Felz

• In last night's game, before grounding into a double play on a 3-1 pitch, Yankee second baseman Robinson Cano was unsuccessful in hit attempt to lay down a sacrifice bunt. Bobby Murcer was correctly distraught, pointing out to Michael Kay that these players need to get these fundamentals down before they get to the big leagues because these failures could cost the team a game, which could cost the team a playoff spot. (An article in today's Daily News (!!!) correctly points out that these mental gaffes are more noticeable all of a sudden because, well, the team can't pitch or hit. I couldn't agree more. Bernie and Jorge have always been awful baserunners and Cano's mental lapses at 2b would be funny if the Yankees were 7 games up in the standings and winning the game by ten runs.) But doesn't anybody remember Game Five of the 1981 World Series and see the comical nature of Bobby Murcer lecturing about the importance of bunting?
• Forget Everybody Loves Raymond, forget Friends, forget Dave Chappelle. The funniest show on television is baseball on Fox. Just for the commercial where Roger Clemens says the season is a complete failure for the Houston Astros if they don't win the World Series. This is great stuff! Pettitte is 3-6 and the Astros are in last place! Ha ha ha! Funny, right? Check, check. Is this microphone working?
  

Try hitting .300, Face of Baseball.

Oh, c'mon. I'm just kidding.

Every Yankee fan appreciates Jeter, even if the press worship quite often contains blatantly homosexual overtones:

"Jeter has a nice face, a rugged face, a handsome face, equal parts black and white, the son of a black father and white mother who had simple rules for him in high school, including being home by 10 p.m. every night and eating his lunch every day. He was taught well, and he has never forgotten his lessons. That's why he is such a good player and team captain. That's why he is the face of baseball."


My gripe with the Jeter worship is just the fact that it's quite often flat-out inaccurate.

Jeter has his clutch rep and his big game rep, and it's well-deserved, of course. I think he belongs in the HOF if he retired tomorrow. But belief systems and reputations should constantly be re-examined.

An 0-fer vs. the Mets does not take four rings off Jeter's fingers. But when Jeter has a 2-error, 3-strikeout game vs. the Mets, the press won't even mention it, much less actually criticize the Golden Boy. Instead, they'll present a detailed list of every single ARod error during the season. The result is simply a misrepresentation of what's going on on the field.

Common sense dictates that the Captain goes down with his ship. Jeter gets a lot of well-deserved credit for four rings, but never gets any well-deserved blame when his team fails to win the World Series ... or reaches the 1/3rd mark of the season in fourth place.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Todd Jones and his fan mail.

"I've gotten form letters: 'Dear -, You're my favorite player.' Hey, that's just not trying. That might sound callous, but players get sick of signing stuff just so it can be sold."

Just a couple of kwik-n-ez hints for Todd Jones:

(1) If somebody claims that Todd Jones is their favorite player, they're lying.

(2) Nobody is sending stuff to Todd Jones to sign so they can sell it. The autograph ain't worth the cost of the stamp.

NY Post Embraces Information Superhighway; Lupica Uses MLB Scouts to Verify Pedro is Good.

This morning, I was going to point out that the NY Post is incorrect when they claim that Randy Johnson got rocked by the Royals, because he wasn't rocked by the Royals by any means.

It may be funny to call Randy Johnson "The Big Disgrace," but I actually watched the game. Three runs in eight innings against the Royals is not a masterpiece by any means, but it was definitely not the biggest disgrace last night.

So, I thought I might have a blog entry ready to go.

Problem is, if you click on the link, there is no article. Because the NY Post now wants you to register to read online articles by the likes of George King and Larry Brooks.

While the NY Post sports section certainly provides plenty of fodder for bloggers, I doubt if it is worthy of registration.


With the Post out of the running, it still shouldn't be hard to articles by some excellent sportswriters who'd choose to ridicule Randy Johnson instead of the collective Yankee lineup.

Thank Heaven's for Mike Lupica. I can always count on him.


Oh, also over at the now-defunct NY Post, Jay Greenberg apparently has an article about Beltran getting booed by Mets fans. (Maybe you can get the gist by clicking on the link and reading the headline.)

Not that Mike Lupica noticed Beltran getting booed. Lupica probably still thinks Beltran is having a good year and Womack is a fan favorite.


Lupica thinks it's more interesting to compare Randy Johnson to Pedro Martinez. Still pushing this Battle For New York thing, though both teams have been in fourth place in their own division for most of the year.

As of this morning, the Yankees are still looking up at Toronto -- forget the Orioles -- while the Mets have managed to rise into a third-place tie with the Washington Expos.


Look, Lupica is correct because he is stating the obvious. Undoubtedly, Pedro Martinez has pitched better than Randy Johnson so far this season.

But who cares?

Randy Johnson is the least of the Yankees' problems, and last night's performance vs. KC was nothing but encouraging.


Actually, Randy Johnson's the third-least of the Yankees' problems. The least is Alex Rodriguez, and the second-least is Mariano Rivera. You just would never know this if you relied on Mike Lupica for your baseball knowledge.

If you relied on Lupica for your baseball knowledge, you'd think the Yankees are worried about Randy Johnson at the front of their playoff rotation, Alex Rodriguez's fielding, and whether or not Mariano Rivera can close out the Red Sox in the ALCS.

ALCS? Are you kidding me? Somebody cue the Jim Mora clip.

Pinstriped Bible on the case.

Bob Raissman should note that the endless Yankee criticism of the Pinstriped Bible is allowed to exist on Al Yankzeera's website:

"There is no reason that Tony Womack is playing over Bernie Williams. None. The weakened, enervated, aged Williams can outperform this hitter. Womack's current .265/.306/.297 percentages would easily qualify him for one of the two least productive seasons by an outfielder in team history, right there with Bill Robinson in 1967. He'd be worse than Gary Ward in 1987, worse than Rondell White in 2002. If the Yankees don't trust Williams to adjust to spacious left field, he should be restored to center with Hideki Matsui returning to left. In a concomitant move, Russ Johnson would be returned to Columbus and Bubba Crosby would come up to be a religiously-used late inning replacement. An alternative strategy, but something of a long shot, would be for the Yankees to try Kevin Thompson of Double-A Trenton in left field. Thompson is currently hitting .322/.413/.525 in 51 games. Thompson is in the Womack line, but in addition to speed he has power and patience the incumbent lacks. Though unproven, Thompson will turn 26 in September; if the Yankees burn him by rushing him, they're not losing all that much. In any case, the nice thing about baseball is that you can end an experiment at the moment the player appears overmatched. No permanent harm will be done."

Womack stinks.

I am so angry at Tony Womack right now, I can't think of a funny title for this blog entry.


If the Yankees are actually going to play a guy in left field who is on pace for 0 hrs and 32 rbis, and if the Yankees are going to bat that guy second in the order because of his supposed small ball skills, then that guy had better get down the bunt when he's asked to.

Against the Royals last night, Womack failed on two sacrifice bunt attempts.

Then, with the Yankees down by two runs in the seventh inning, one out, runners on first and third and Alex Rodriguez batting (the only Quadruple Crown candidate on the entire Yankee team), Womack was picked off first base.

Womack said the right things in the postgame investigation ("I got picked off. What else do you want me to say? You just can't get picked off in that situation. Let's leave it at that.") , but this clearly might require intervention by Bud Selig. I can think of no explanation other than Tony Womack was intentionally throwing the game.


Womack has a lot of stolen bases this season, but is contributing nothing else to this team. He doesn't walk, he has no power, he only has five sacrifice bunts and a lot of failed sacrifice bunts.

Since Womack has no power, there seems to be an assumption that he plays the game smart. Small ball smarts that have kept him in the game for over a decade. But Womack absolutely does not play the game smart.

As an example, the other day, Jeter was on first base with two outs. Womack swings at the first pitch and grounds out to shortstop.

Now, it ain't the grounding out to shortstop that's the problem. It happens. Round bat, round ball, 8 players in fair territory with gloves.

The problem is, why isn't he taking a pitch or two (or three) and giving Jeter a chance to steal?

Womack has exactly five extra base hits for the entire season. Was that first pitch so sweet that he actually thought he could drive in Jeter from first base? Was he thinking at all?

Womack has only walked ten times all season and his on-base% is a pathetic .306. That's Bobby Meacham territory.


Womack is not an everyday leftfielder. Womack is a pinch runner.