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.