Isn't it a bit early to talk about Giancarlo's Stanton's 700th HR?

Jaromir Jagr is having a good year at an advanced age. Gretzky recently marveled and pointed out, when asked, that, sure -- if Jagr had stayed healthy and whatnot, he could have broken Gretzky's goal record.

Which is why the hard part is actually doing it.

Kal Daniels was on the path to the Hall of Fame after his second season.

Joel Sherman ponders Mark Teixeira's Hall of Fame chances.

"Teixeira acknowledges he is not getting to 3,000 hits, but has his eyes on 500 homers (he is at 394). He has finished in the top 11 in MVP voting just twice. His OPS-plus is much like other excellent two-way first basemen Keith Hernandez and John Olerud, neither of whom ever reached even 11 percent in Hall voting.

Teixeira says he wants to play another five years and will have to produce a lot of greatness in what should be his twilight to have a strong Hall shot.

'It’s a natural thing as a baseball player to at least think about the Hall,' Teixeira said. 'It is, after all, the ultimate goal.' "

Yes.

I believe Mark Teixeira will absolutely enter the Hall of Fame if he wants to.

I even found a website that will help him accomplish this ultimate goal.

Or just call 607.547.0397 (service fees apply).

Randy Levine met with Scott Cutler, President of StubHub

Randy Levine met today with Scott Cutler, President of StubHub, and had a good and productive meeting. It lasted about an hour and they agreed to continue talking. There is nothing to announce at this current moment.

I am generally a nice guy. I don't wish "enemy" ballplayers ill will.

But this is ridiculous:

"When Ortiz, 40, makes his final Yankee Stadium appearance on Sept. 29, this is what he wants, and it speaks volumes about Ortiz the player, the competitor, the enemy, the star.

'You know what I want most of all?' Big Papi told The Post on Tuesday at JetBlue Park. 'I would love it if the fans at Yankee Stadium gave me a standing ovation.' "

...

Ortiz deeply respects the fans, even those from other teams who boo him, because it shows how much they love the game and their team. Yankees fans can show Ortiz respect in that final game.

Cheer for Big Papi. Chant his nickname. Send him out with class."

The writers sure love David Ortiz.

I am not sure why ... an obvious steroid cheat, not really classy by any useful definition of the term ... just a pretty good interview sometimes. Maybe that's why.

Tormented the Yankees for a while. That might be the real reason.

Lupica makes it too easy.

Mike Lupica plus political commentary.

Two great things that go great together.

Like that Reese's peanut butter cup commercial ... except you substitute rancid sushi for a chocolate bar:

"It is a good thing that sports doesn’t work the way politics does. If it did, the Carolina Panthers would have flown straight back to Charlotte after the Broncos threw them down the stairs in the Super Bowl and thrown themselves a victory parade."

Nah. That would be silly. That would be the Mets, of course:

"You know the moment I’ll remember most in New York sports, before the last night of the baseball season went wrong?

I’ll remember what it felt like and sounded like at Citi Field when the Mets were still ahead in Game 5, and they were three outs away from going back to Kansas City.

I’ll remember what it felt like and sounded like when Matt Harvey came out of the dugout to pitch the top of the 9th, because I would have done the same thing Terry Collins did that night, and send him the hell out there.

Harvey walked the leadoff guy, of course, and should have been gone right there.

Before long Duda was throwing wide and Hosmer was on his way home, and you know what happened later.

The other team was just better.

Not a lot better.

Just enough.

This was the time in baseball New York when Citi Field finally sounded the way old Shea did across the parking lot.

It would have been great to win it all, of course it would, are you kidding?

But how could you ever walk away feeling like losers after a run like that?"

Probably because the other team scored more runs. Not that I'm a sabermetrician or anything, but isn't that how it works?

I always suspected Griffey was God.

Barry Bonds: "God knows I'm a Hall of Famer."

Ken Griffey: "Bonds deserves to be in Hall of Fame."

$25 million, 6 wins, 10 losses, 4.73 ERA

Oh, shut up.

You didn't even win the World Series. Imagine how much he'd run his mouth if he had:

"I'm not going to sit there today and look at all of these (expletive) numbers and try to predict this guy is going to be a great player. OPS this. OPS that. GPS. LCSs. DSDs. You know who has good numbers? Good (expletive) players.

"That's why to me the (Yoenis) Cespedes signing was good for us. He changed our team last year. He makes our lineup legitimate. This guy is going to hit 25 to 30 homers. He's going to drive in 100 runs. That's what he does.

"Those are the numbers I like.''

As if Yoenis Cespedes had a bad OPS.

OPS is just on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, for crying out loud.

Pushing fan loyalty right there.

This is what I was complaining about.

Mike Lupica quotes an actual source.

Getting closer to journalism (journalesque?), but it's still baffling.

I also seriously wonder if Lupica understands the meaning of simple words, such as "but":

"Here is the way Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports described what happened to Jenrry Mejia of the Mets on Friday:

'(Mejia) was in the major leagues with the New York Mets at 20. He was established in their bullpen at 24. He was suspended twice after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs at 25. And on Friday afternoon, at 26 years old, Jenrry Mejia became the first player — major or minor leagues — to be banned for life because of a third positive test.' "

Tim Brown of Yahoo sports!

Congratulations to Tim Brown of Yahoo sports. You got an actual real-life mention in a Lupica column.

I'm curious what Lupica has to say about Tim Brown's milquetoast observation. It's just the basics ... who and what ... not a whole lot to comment on.


"That’s it, and that’s all."

Ummm ... here's the whole article by Tim Brown of Yahoo sports.

Couple of things:

1) It's 2016. Hyperlinks have been around for 20 years. Use a hyperlink when you cite another online article. That way, your audience can see for themselves that it's not all that Tim Brown wrote.

2) Lupica lied. While there's not much to Tim Brown's article, there's a lot more than two paragraphs, and I really think Lupica intentionally misrepresented the work of a fellow sports writer.


"Maybe Mejia himself can’t explain why he would keep going back to banned substances, knowing the possible consequences of continued drug use.

Maybe he was willing to take the chance, because he was afraid that he couldn’t perform without the drugs, and ended up throwing away his career, before he is anywhere near the age of 30."

Maybe so.

Is this going anywhere?


"But then Alex Rodriguez, who I keep reading is the toast of the town now, went looking for Anthony Bosch after his career and his reputation had survived being outed as a user of baseball drugs by Sports Illustrated once."

1) ARod is not the toast of the town. You keep reading he's the toast of the town, but you can't cite one article that praises ARod. Because ARod isn't the toast of the town.

2) This is not a "but." "But" is one of the first words a child learns. I seriously can't figure out this transition to ARod. "Maybe Mejia did this ... but probably not ... because ARod did the same thing."


"Rodriguez, so clearly full of his own fears and insecurities, didn’t lose his career.

But he nearly did."

 ARod didn't lose his career. But he nearly did. Hard stop.

That's it?

 
This is what I think Lupica is trying to say:

• ARod's 200-game suspension was not enough of a deterrent to Mejia.
• While Mejia was foolish, ARod was also foolish in a similar way.
• Tim Brown of Yahoo sports shouldn't have commented on Mejia's foolishness without immediately referencing ARod's foolishness.
• Since ARod is now the toast of the town, unknown Mets closer Mejia had every reason to expect that, following his lifetime suspension, he'd also become the toast of the town.

None of this is logical, of course, but I'm trying my best here, folks.

The thrill is gone :-(

No hand-wringing for the children ... no tiny violins playing for the AAA relievers who never got a shot ...

"It didn’t have to be some morality statement; these days no one raises an eyebrow when suspended PED users get a second chance, and plenty of teams have cashed in by taking chances on them.

Heck, the Mets wanted to sign Jhonny Peralta and Nelson Cruz a couple of years ago. But it doesn’t mean they would have been hypocritical had they dealt harshly with Mejia, considering the circumstances."

The Daily News spent so much time and effort chasing down ARod that when the story died, the Daily News fired most of its sportswriters.


"But that’s not really the point. The Mets put their misplaced faith in Mejia and they were rewarded with more embarrassment. They should have known better."

That's all you're gonna get, folks: "The Mets shoulda known better."

I don't think anybody is accusing the Mets of hypocrisy. The Daily News, on the other hand ...

Broncos 30, Panthers 21

A rare non-baseball post.

See what I did in the title?

I made a prediction about the Super Bowl. Like everyone else in America, from President Obama to your mom.

No self-respecting sports writer would avoid making a Super Bowl prediction.Which probably explains why I can't find Mike Lupica's prediction.


A week ago: "Super Bowl won't affect Peyton Manning's legacy."

Today: "Super Bowl 50 stakes sky high for Manning, Cam Newton."

Followed by this doozy: "The Panthers will have the two best players on the field in Super Bowl 50 Sunday night. That means Cam Newton and Luke Kuechly ..." Screech. Full stop. Nothing against Kuechly, but give me a break.


There's a lot of words about the Big Game and I sure didn't read all of them. But I don't see a bottom line prediction anywhere. What a joke.

I think Tanaka is the best pitcher on the Yankees.

Just an opinion.

It's kind of interesting to review the Yankees' starting staff and realize it is full of young power pitchers.