Match Game with Ozzie Guillen.

"You have to be dumb enough to blame it on somebody when you screwed it up. If you’re going to blame somebody, look in the mirror. A.J. didn’t have anything to do with that. I think that’s a low-(bleep) way to play baseball."

Low-rent?

Low-class?

Low-brow?

What word is being bleeped here?


If Ozzie and the censors didn't confuse you with their understanding of English, then you're sure to be confused with Ozzie's Physics lesson:

“If Escobar is going to hit somebody, he should hit himself."

Once again, Mariano Rivera's career is over.

I have read anti-Mariano articles every single year since 1996. Usually in April. Never in September.


There's almost no point in disputing this article point by point. To summarize, Mike Celizic actually believes:

1) Mariano ain't what he used to be.

2) Mariano is overused in 2006.

Every other Yankee fan in existence is wondering why Tanyon Sturtze started the ninth inning yesterday and why Scott Proctor has more inning pitches than Mariano Rivera.


If you want to accuse Torre of "living in the past," look who was starting in centerfield yesterday.

Wright vs. Halladay.

Ever get the feeling that a game was over before it started?

Commissioner Lurch Will Celebrate Nothing.

"Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record," Selig said. "We don't celebrate anybody the second or third time in ... We celebrate new records, that's what we do. We're being consistent ... Whatever happens, happens. We're going to let nature take its course. Commissioners don't sit around and say, 'I hope this guy breaks it or not."'

Settle down, Commissioner. You're making me too excited about baseball.

Even Gary Sheffield.

"Alex Rodriguez - 0-for-4 with two strikeouts - heard several rounds of boos and he wasn't the only one."

Yankee fans are spoiled rotten.


"Wasted chances doomed the Bombers, who left 16 runners on base, went 2-for-15 with runners in scoring position and couldn't take advantage of the 14 walks issued by the Rays. Even Gary Sheffield, who had tied the game with a two-run homer in the fifth off starter Seth McClung, faltered in the 10th as his groundout to former Met Ty Wigginton at third ended the game with the bases loaded."

Ten seconds of research reveals the following 2006 situtional stats for Even Gary Sheffield:

Bases loaded: 0-for-5 (.000) 0 hrs, 0 rbis, .000 on-base%, .000 slugging%.

RISP with two outs: 1-for-12 (.083) 0 hrs, 1 rbi, .154 on-base, .167 slugging%.


Joe Torre apparently couldn't find fault with anything but the result:

"I can't find fault with anything but the result."

I'm not sure what else matters besides the result.

But, yes, I understand what Torre's trying to say. The Yankees were trying to beat the Devil Rays. They just couldn't.


Isn't there anything Joe Torre can do? Or is he just going to sit there and scratch his head?:

"You scratch your head sometimes over how things happen but you know there's nothing you can do."

Bucky Dent got fired for saying the same thing.

Getting warm.

"When Williams re-upped for another season, the plan was for the 37-year-old switch-hitter to DH and back up all three outfield spots. Through 17 games Williams is batting .244 (11-for-45) overall and .320 (8-for-25) as the DH. None of those eight hits at DH, however, is for extra bases. Williams' only extra base hit for the season was a double hit while playing right field at the Angels on April 9."

I can sense it coming soon. Somebody will mention how many at-bats it has been since Bernie Williams has hit a homerun. Maybe it will require the milestone of 200 at-bats.

David Wright was 0-for-9 with 3 errors in Atlanta series.

I just brought it up because, instead of questioning Jeter Jr.'s ability to play in a big game, Mike Lupica continues his obsession with Johnny Damon:

"In Boston they now think of Johnny Damon as the guy who used to play center for the Red Sox right before Cocoa Crisp."

That would make sense since Johnny Damon is the guy who used to play center for the Red Sox right before "Cocoa" Crisp. Only difference being that most people in Boston spell it "Coco" instead of "Cocoa."


What's Lupica's problem with Johnny Damon?

Lupica has taken a gratuitous swipe at Damon in the past ten or so Shootin' From the Lips.

Come on, Lupica. You're a NY sportswriter and you're tough as nails. Wright was 0-for-9 against Atlanta and Beltran didn't even play. Your Favorite Li'l Firecracker at shortstop is sporting a nice .272 on-base%. This is way more interesting and informative than your pointless ongoing vendetta against Johnny Damon.

Calling out Larry Brooks.

Today's tough luck loss by Glavine reminded me of a ridiculous criticism directed at Kevin Brown last season. A quick search of the archives and, here you go: "Rotation Worries Hit Fever Pitch."


Basically, the idea was, "If the Yankees score 1 run, the Yankee pitcher should allow 0 runs":

"But not good enough to provide enough of a lift to a Yankee team still unable to establish a positive tone to the season. Brown allowed three runs in seven innings while retiring the final 11 batters he faced, which might have been good enough under other circumstances. But it wasn't last night, not when he surrendered two runs in the third and another in the fourth to allow the Angels to take a 3-0 lead in a game they'd win 3-1."

Through my blog archives, I know that Brooks went on to say:

"Where is the pitcher in pinstripes who's going to hand over a 1-0 lead to the bullpen in the eighth if that's what it takes? Where is the pitcher who is going to grow larger in the Bronx?"


I'll expect a similar article from Larry Brooks in tomorrow's Post. An article that rips Glavine for his inability to throw a shutout when he needed to. If the Mets score 1 run, then Glavine has to hold the Braves to 0 runs.

On second thought, I won't hold my breath waiting for that article.

Free agency is dead.

Long live free agency.

Two things the WBC taught us ...

1) The homerun era is over.

2) Ichiro is revitalized due to Japan's victory.

Get that man some sensitivity training.

Frank Thomas is the Big Hurt. Randy Johnson is the Big Unit. So maybe Jeff Passan has a good new nickname for David Ortiz.

You meanies leave George alone.

Does anybody want to hear about my latest business trip? I didn't think so. It's very uninteresting stuff to anybody except me. Actually, it's also very uninteresting to me.

Two-hour drive each way and overnight at a Something-Or-Other Suites. Nothing special. Cable TV and free Contintental breakfast.

I partially achieved my goals, but not fully.

Naturally, my boss only cares about the bottom line, not the free Continental breakfast.


I only bring it up because I still don't know why Randy Johnson left yesterday's game so early. I read many articles about Randy Johnson leaving yesterday's early, but nobody gets to the bottom line.

As an example, Steve Politi explains what it's like to interview Randy Johnson, but doesn't ever answer the question.

Don't you have an inside source, or something? Don't you even have an opinion? A best guess? Is it a stiff shoulder, a tired arm, or just a cautious manager? I know it's one of the three and I didn't even watch the game on television.

Are you going to do your job and provide this information or are you seriously just going to write an article where you complain because Randy Johnson is a tough interview?


Similarly, Bob Raissman chronicles the difficult life of sportswriters yet again as they try to penetrate George Steinbrenner's fortress.

Everybody's got a tough job. Nobody cares about your problems:

"The timing of the protection often is curious. Early in spring training, Steinbrenner was tooling around in his golf cart, doing shtick with writers. He even mock-mugged Ch. 9 sport guy Russ Salzberg and ran over WFAN Yankee reporter Sweeny Murti's foot.

Still, more often than not, Steinbrenner, like some pin-striped Wizard of Oz, can be found hiding behind Rubenstein press releases.

This is now officially a joke."

How does a joke officially become a joke? Is there a review board, or something?

I thought of one this morning in the shower. What the heck was it? Oh, yeah ... heh, it's kind of stupid.

For some reason, I thought it would be funny to replace the word "Gibb" with the word "glib." Like with the Bee Gees. So you could have a Variety Show where you made fun of the Gibb Brothers, but instead it was the Glib Brothers. Naturally, everything they said was glib.

I know it's not much of a joke, but I'd still like to initiate the process to make it official. It definitely needs to be fleshed out, but it might be good enough for Mad TV.

The numbers are in.

Small ball is back!

More Reality Journalism.

If you can't get any material for your sports column in the New York Times, a suitable substitute is a column about the detailed process of not getting any material.

The crisis you never heard about.

I don't know exactly how many at-bats it has been since Bernie hit a homerun. I think it is closing in on 150 at-bats.

The WBC homerun doesn't count.

Are any NY sportswriters talking about this? Maybe so, but I haven't seen it.

He may be "designated," but he's not much of a "hitter."

The Fifth Column breaks down the Fourth Wall.

When I read a subpar article about Pedro Martinez, I also want to read an article about the article. I want to know about the process. I want a meta-article. I want an article about the effects of the original article. I want a never-ending, stream-of-consciousness, real-time, navel-gazing, self-aware journal of everything that happens in your life in relation to the subpar Pedro Martinez article.

Mike Lupica delivers:

"Now it is sometime around noon in the Mets clubhouse and there are players and media people everywhere, rain falling outside. I have been talking for 20 minutes with Tom Glavine, about golf and the Final Four and his Opening Day start. Glavine, who still thinks he might get to pitch against the Marlins at this point, who has been told the rain may stop around 2 o'clock, walks off. Billy Wagner is in front of his locker listening to music, probably not the radio.
I turn around and Pedro is there."

Fascinating stuff.


"Nobody in our business ever wants to be this kind of show in a team's clubhouse."

Errr, you must mean nobody besides yourself. Because instead of just dropping the subject, you went and wrote an article about it. This article. The article which I'm reading right now. The article where you said you didn't want to be a part of the drama.


"It had happened once before with a Met, the young and hotheaded Darryl Strawberry at old Huggins-Stengel Field in St. Petersburg, before the Mets moved to Port St. Lucie, Strawberry telling me to stay out of his personal life. It turned out Strawberry was yelling that day about a column somebody had written about him in another paper.

Another time, Eddie Lee Whitson called me out in the Yankee clubhouse. That time we did go out in the hall, even if I could see Don Mattingly's head poking out of the clubhouse door every few minutes, probably checking to see if I was still alive. Players have a right to get their say, even when it's loud, a right not to like what's written about them. But it sure is a lot easier for them to have the debate on their turf.

Pedro wasn't going anywhere, he does what he wants, it's part of him being Pedro. Part of the drama."

Bernie is shot.

"Yankees DH Bernie Williams and 2B Robinson Cano switched places in the batting order, with Cano moving up to eighth and Williams dropping to ninth. Manager Joe Torre said he was trying something new and had urged Williams to get more aggressive with his bat."

a) Huh? Batting eighth instead of ninth would make a player bat more aggressively?

b) The only thing Bernie has left is his ability to walk. So that's good thinking to insist he become more aggressive with his bat.

c) Despite what Michael Kay may think, Bernie is shot.

Look, it was a great run while it lasted. Bernie is one of the best players I've ever seen in a Yankee uniform from beginning to end.

But Bernie hasn't hit .300 since 2002. The swing looks like the same old Bernie swing, but then the ball doesn't go anywhere after it hits the bat. His batting averages have slipped: .333, .263, .262., .249. His slugging percentage has slipped worse: .493, .411, .435, .367.

The Yankees have a designated hitter whose slugging percentage was .367 in 485 at-basts last season. The Red Sox have a designated hitter who will probably hit .300 with 45 homeruns. The Yankees are already two games behind the Red Sox.

The solution to this predicament is not batting Bernie eighth instead of ninth. The solution is ... well, it's apparent what the solution could have been.

Greg Maddux is good.

In a discussion regarding the greatest pitchers of the past twenty-five years, Greg Maddux's name will always be near the top of the list.

I'm not sure who Jeff Passan has been talking to, but he seems to think that, of all people, Greg Maddux is under-appreciated:

"Come to think of it, it's Maddux's ability to hit any spot that separates him from his predecessors, contemporaries and successors, what keeps him around despite a fastball that regularly sits at 85 mph, what might make him, and not Roger Clemens or Pedro Martinez or Randy Johnson, this generation's greatest pitcher."

Well, there's the problem with your argument right there. You went ahead and listed the only three pitchers of Greg Maddux's generation who were actually better than Greg Maddux.


"In the heart of the Steroid Era, from 1992-98, Maddux went 127-53 with a 2.15 ERA. He struck out almost five batters for every one he walked, won four consecutive Cy Young Awards and took home seven of his 15 Gold Gloves."

Forget about Gold Gloves. Nobody cares. If Gold Gloves mattered, then write an article about Mike Mussina and put Jim Kaat in the Hall of Fame.

Come to think of it, Mike Mussina is probably underrated and did most of his best work "in the heart of the Steroid Era." Come to think of it, Jim Kaat is probably underrated and might belong in the Hall of Fame.


Here are some stats from 1992-1998 ("the heart of the Steroid Era," which, unbenkownst to anybody except Jeff Passan, actually started in 1992):

Roger Clemens: 99-63, 1,491 ip, 3.06 era, 522 bb, 1,488 k.
Pedro Martinez: 84-46, 1,146 ip, 2.98 era, 373 bb, 1,221 k.
Randy Johnson: 106-45, 1,371 ip, 3.07 era, 568 bb, 1,752 k.
Greg Maddux: 127-53, 1,675 ip, 2.15 era, 269 bb, 1,286 k.
Mike Mussina: 114-54, 1,481 ip, 3.54 era, 348 bb, 1,101 k.
Pete Schourek: 53-51, 812 ip, 4.46 era, 275 bb, 569 k.
Todd Van Poppel: 22-37, 505 ip, 6.21 era, 297 bb, 347 k.
Brian Rose: 1-4, 41 ip, 7.30 era, 16 bb, 21 k.

I'd have to agree that Greg Maddux was the best pitcher between the years 1992-1998. I also think that most baseball fans are aware of his greatness, what with the four straight Cy Youngs and all.

You know what other seasons probably qualify as "the heart of the Steroids Era"? How about 1999 - 2005?:

Roger Clemens: 108-48, 1,430 ip, 3.53 era, 508 bb, 1,349 k.
Pedro Martinez: 113-38, 1,367 ip, 2.50 era, 289 bb, 1,640 k.
Randy Johnson: 120-57, 1,616 ip, 2.81 era, 406 bb, 2,043 k.
Greg Maddux: 116-72, 1,557 ip, 3.49 era, 253 bb, 1,028 k.
Mike Mussina: 106-68, 1,445 ip, 3.79 era, 315 bb, 1,247 k.

Is Maddux really better than Clemens, Martinez, and Johnson? Well, no. Clemens, of course, did most of his work in the AL and had quite a career brewing prior to 1992.

But this conclusion is hardly an insult to Greg Maddux. Everybody knows that Greg Maddux is one of the best pitchers of all time, that he might be the last player to ever win 300 games, and that he's a first-ballot Hall of Famer. If Maddux is considered the fourth-best pitcher of his generation, that's probably where he belongs.


Since Passan felt the need to draw attention to Greg Maddux's pitching abilities, I have some suggestions for future articles:

• New York Yankees: New York's other baseball team.
• Derek Jeter: The shortstop you never heard of.
• Alex Rodriguez: The player with the littlest contract.
  
• Water: The under-appreciated beverage.
• Oxygen: The under-appreciated component of air.
• Vida Guerra: The under-appreciated butt.
  

What a maricon.

Beltran, however, was clearly not happy with the fans' fair-weather nature.

"I'm a friend that is a friend when you are doing well and also when you are doing bad," he explained. "That's the way I am. I'm not saying the New York fans are bad. They're good. But I do believe they can be better."

The fans are not your friend. They never were. The fans would trade you tomorrow for one extra run batted in.

It was the best of games, it was the worst of games.

"If you needed proof of why it's silly to overblow the significance of Monday night's 15-run outburst, here it was one night later for the Yankees. After all the offensive sound and fury of their season opener, they came up empty in the clutch last night."

Both games are equally significant. They both count one.

I don't think anybody overblew the significance of a 15-run outburst on April 3rd, but it's certainly equally silly to overblow the significance of a bad night on April 4th.

How about the Yankees play 160 more regular season games first and we'll see if they make the playoffs? If they do, I don't think the Spectre of their performance on April 4 will haunt them.


"Blowouts happen. They don't mean a lot."

Blowouts don't cure cancer or definitively decide what to do with stem cell research, but blowouts certainly help win baseball games. Winning baseball games is nice when you're a fan of baseball.

Is John Harper a fan of baseball? I'm not sure:

"Just as powerhouse lineups, such as the one the Yankees have assembled for 2006, don't necessarily dictate success, at least not come playoff time, which is all that matters in the Bronx."

Again, this is a common tack of NY sportswriters. "Yankee victories don't mean anything until October. Baseball doesn't matter until October."

If that's the case, why wouuld anybody read your column in the first place? Why are you writing a column during the regular season?

"Indeed, I have a funny feeling that for Yankee fans, angst has fast replaced giddiness after Alex Rodriguez resorted to his old ways last night, twice failing to deliver the go-ahead run in the late innings, setting up a 4-3 loss to the A's."

The Yankees were 1-for-15 with runners in scoring position last night.

Do I really have to tell you who had that hit?


I'm also baffled by the obsession with late innings. Use the first two games of the Yankee 2006 season as examples.

The Yankees essentially won game one with a 7-run second inning. I'm quite sure Harper doesn't consider ARod's 1-out bases-loaded homerun to be a "big hit," but this hit essentially won the whole game.

The Yankees essentially lost game two in the first inning. With runners on second and third with no outs, the next three Yankees batters struck out. As every Japanese and Cuban player knows, the Yankees could have scored two runs simply by hitting two ground balls to the second baseman. I'm sure Sheffield and ARod also know this, but Harden just got the better of them this time.

Not to overblow the significance of those two at-bats, but now the Yankees won't win the World Series.