"The Yankees continue to make phone calls, not news."
Then why are you writing about the Yankees in a newspaper? If they're not making news?
Maybe it's just a pointless article in which you can make a gratuitous dig at AL MVP Alex Rodriguez.
"Joe Torre called Brian Giles, when the Yankees were interested in Giles. Now he places a call to Nomar Garciaparra and does the same with Johnny Damon. The Yankees better sign one of these guys, or Torre's postseason batting average is going to be worse than A-Rod's postseason batting average."
Second paragraph. That didn't take long.
"Around the current New York Yankees, younger in center field could mean 32-year-old Johnny Damon instead of 37-year-old Bernie Williams. And more flexible could mean Nomar Garciaparra to be a DH, play first and fill in if anything happens to A-Rod, Jeter or Cano. Clearly, younger and more athletic are relative terms around these Yankees."
"Younger" and "more athletic" are always relative terms. "Young" and "athletic" are absolute terms.
Not to get all English 101 on Lupica, but you can add "er" to any adjective and make it a relative term. Since "athleticer" isn't proper, you just add a "more" in front of the adjective. Voila! Instant relative terms! Not just around these Yankees, but forever and ever, in any context. If the Yankees replaced a 2,000-year-old man on their roster with a 1,999-year-old man, they just got younger. Not young, but younger.
"So Nomar, who has never played first base, is potentially a Yankee first baseman ... Suddenly a guy who never seems to be healthy and hasn't played like an All-Star in years is in hot demand to handle jobs he has never handled before."
When healthy, Nomar has absolutely played like an All-Star every season he has taken the field. Even last season, he hit .283 with 9 homeruns in 230 at-bats. Of course, if a player is on the DL, he is not playing like an All-Star because he's not playing at all. But it's incorrect to question Nomar's ability and even more ridiculous to question his ability to play first base. Stand around and catch the throws.
2 comments:
First base can't be that easy, because Good-Guy Class Act and All-Around Athlete Mike Piazza couldn't do it.
I wonder how many times this year Lupica is going to talk about the Yankees' age while ignoring the Mets' age. I didn't even want to mention it again because it's going to occur all year long and I'll just be repetitive and also redundant, too.
As for Piazza, I'm willing to bet that he hits more homeruns this season than Paul Loduca and Julio Franco combined.
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