I know you ... didn't you used to be Mike Lupica?

Oh, so you're just a contrarian:

"If you look at the way Jonathan Papelbon and John Lackey and Josh Beckett pitched last season for the Red Sox, you can make a reasonable case that the Red Sox, even having been established as a favorite in the AL East, have as many pitching issues as our hardscrabble, $204 million kids in the Bronx do."

Forget about the "underdog" tag ... that's just marketing / sportswriter drivel.

Did Lupica really just turn on Papelbon and Beckett?

I thought Papelbon is better than Mariano and ... why aren't you mentioning the game Beckett pitched against the Yankees in the 2003 World Series? Lupica, you love that game! You always bring up that game and you don't even mention Madison Bumgarner.

"As long as the star Yankees still play like stars, there is no reason why they don't win 95 again, why they don't win the East again. But what was an aging team last season is still an aging team. This was a spring to hear, once again, about young pitchers in the farm system, and maybe this is the year when one of them steps up the way Phil Hughes did last year as a starter, and the year before as an eighth-inning guy."

Dude: You're the one who always says the Yankees are old. That's the Lupica Doctrine. Now you sound like Rumsfeld criticizing Obama for not having a well-defined exit strategy.

This is known as reverse psychology.

Mike Lupica suddenly pretends to be bearish on the Red Sox and bullish on the Yankees:

"There are a lot of people in Boston who think Bobby Jenks is going to end up being the Red Sox closer this season, not Jonathan Papelbon."

1) In my next life, I want to be a journalist whose idea of a source is "a lot of people."

2) Remove the extraneous information from this so-called English sentence to reveal the following: "People think something is going to happen, not Jonathan Papelbon."

So we've learned that Jonathan Papelbon is not one of the people who thinks Bobby Jenks to going to be the Red Sox closer this season.


"Sometimes you look at the Red Sox, who have been treated as odds-on favorites since they got Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, and think they have as many pitching issues as the Yankees.

And maybe more."

"And maybe more" is a paragraph by a professional columnist who is writing for a major newspaper.


"Terry Francona keeps saying he isn't worried about Josh Beckett, now the No. 4 man in Boston's rotation, but just about everybody in New England from Maine to Block Island seems to be."

Just about everybody in New England, not Jonathan Pabelbon.


While criticizing Papelbon and the Red Sox ...

"If the Yankees get big seasons out of A-Rod and CC and Teixeira and Cano and Mo Rivera - seriously, how do you pick against them in the American League East?"

This is probably the first time I've agreed with Lupica with regards to the state of the Yankees. Not optimistic, but realistic.


Problem is, I don't believe him.

I think he is merely setting up a weird "supposed to" for future Yankee ripping and BoSox praising ... a predictable mid-July column where he goes nutso for Epstein/Francona because the Boston bullpen (which was "supposed to" be terrible) has pitched well and the Red Sox are hanging in the AL East pennant race.

Bartolo Colon and Joba Chamberlain in the same bullpen.

I actually think the Yankee bullpen will be fine as long as Colon and Chamberlain sit on opposite ends of the bench.

You wouldn't want them sitting next to each other, tilting the bench like a see-saw, and accidentally catapulting Mariano into the bleachers.

Lupica Q & A.

Q: Why is Mike Lupica a hypocrite for attacking Bonds and Clemens?

A: Because Mike Lupica won't similarly attack Big Papi.

Sometimes, I agree with Joel Sherman.

Player X has an odd criticism of Alex Rodriguez:

"And in the April 4 issue of ESPN the Magazine an anonymous player decided A-Rod needed to be worked over, as well.

In the regular Player X segment, a copy of which I obtained before publication, the anonymous player decides to view the negotiation breakdown between and the Cardinals through the A-Rod prism. He writes: 'Every guy I know in MLB would rather have Pujols hitting on his side than Alex Rodriguez, so I think Camp Albert has every right to want more money than Rodriguez makes. A-Rod is overpaid. Sure, he plays third, a more premium position on defense than first, but even if they played the same spot, I'd take Pujols.' "

Player X, shut your trap.


"OK, let's see if I get this argument: Pujols is better than A-Rod. Is there anyone arguing the contrary? Is there a shame to being an inferior player to Pujols?"

Hear, hear.

Guilty.

I knew he was guilty, of course, I just thought he might beat the perjury rap.

He won't beat the perjury rap.

Waste of time and money.

Did you know that if Bonds was prosecuted for taking steroids, he would not go to prison? So the prosecutors are comfortable disconnecting the charge of perjury from the underlying charge. If this sounds odd to you, it's because it's odd:

"More often and more credibly, perjury is pursued when it's connected with more serious underlying charges. Martha Stewart, for example, was indicted for perjury and making false statements in connection with insider trading. Similarly, Lewis (Scooter) Libby, former assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney, was indicted on perjury charges in connection with leaking the identity of a former CIA operative.

The steroid controversy is altogether different. The Bonds case and Clemens indictment involve charges of lying - in Bonds' case to a grand jury, and in Clemens' case to Congress - for making allegedly false statements in an attempt to cover up the use of performance-enhancing drugs. The use of these drugs is banned by Major League Baseball and can in some cases be illegal, but the use alone is not a felony and was not charged in either case.

What has some people troubled here is that the underlying crime, if there is one, is so diffuse. These cases seem to have more to do with the integrity and reputation of professional sports than with the prosecution of a serious crime with real victims or any demonstrable financial or physical harm. Given the limits of the resources of the Justice Department and the probability that someone who is solely convicted on perjury will not likely receive prison time, it's fair to question the wisdom of spending millions of dollars pursuing these cases.

In fact, contrast the treatment of these two men with the cases of other professional athletes - Jason Giambi, Mark McGwire and Alex Rodriguez, to name a few - who, after long periods of failing to tell the truth, have simply owned up to the illegal drug use and suffered reputational damage without the threat of jail time or a felony conviction."

Bonds admitted under oath that he took the "clean" and the "clear" and we all know he took steroids. He knows he took steroids. But the prosecutors have to prove that he knew he was taking steroids at the time he was taking steroids. So when Bonds said he didn't know he was taking steroids, how do you prove that he didn't know?

The misconduct of the prosecutors and their disproportional pursuit of Bonds bothers me very much. Bonds's use of steroids and subsequent destruction of the HR records bothers me very little.

I like democracies.

Because these same people get to vote for President.

He pulled a love handle.

He's got an edge, baby!

A.J. Burnett is going to win 30 games in the 2011 season.

"That's not the case this spring for a few of the Yankees' key cogs, each of whom is instituting changes to his game to help him overcome a down year in 2010.

A.J. Burnett and Derek Jeter are the two most prominent players in this category, each of them making significant mechanical adjustments to bounce back."

Jeter had a subpar year by his standards.

A.J. Burnett had a subpar year by Jeff Weaver standards.

Jeter and Burnett are not in the same category.


"Burnett took the mound Saturday against the Nationals, his third start of the exhibition season. Although he saw his spring scoreless streak snapped at six innings, Burnett was encouraged by his outing after giving up two runs on two hits in four innings. He struck out four and didn't walk a batter, giving him nine innings without a walk this spring."

Yay.

I will bet $10 million that A.J. Burnett walks at least two batters in the first inning he pitches in the regular season.

I think Alex Rodriguez will have a productive 2011 season.

I think his hip has hampered him quite a bit for two seasons and I don't think his power is particularly hampered by the absence of performance-enhancing substances. I also don't think his age is much of an issue at all.

Having said that, I have witnessed exactly one instance in my lifetime where a Yankee hit 50 HRs and drove in 150 runs in one season:

" 'As I said, he's doing things I haven't seen since 2007.'

Long understands the significance of putting that out there. A-Rod, you might recall, had a pretty decent season in '07, hitting .314 with 54 home runs, 156 RBI and a .645 slugging percentage - all major-league highs - on his way toward winning his third American League MVP award.

Because of the hip surgery in the spring of '09, and because Rodriguez turns 36 in July, it's hard to believe he could approach such power numbers again. Yet it's also hard not to notice that he has come out pounding the ball early in spring training games, hitting a handful of lasers to the outfield gaps already, and then the home run that raised his average to .462."

Cool. It's Spring Training and ARod is hitting .462. As we all know, this means he'll probably win the AL MVP.

That's all for today. More baseball analysis tomorrow from John Harper.

The opposite of Mark Teixeira.