50 is a lot of homeruns for a season in the major leagues.

50 is not a good batting average for a season in the major leagues.

Yes, it's very engrossing.

"And here's the thing: At least for the moment, his chase of the 500-homer mark is a lot more engrossing than the rent-a-record that comes along with Gary Sheffield. One wheelhouse swing from Delgado in that first inning, and suddenly the slugger was just 30 away from that still exclusive club."

I challenge Filip Bondy to poll the next 1,000 people he meets and ask them how many HRs Carlos Delgado has.

Game 2: Amazing Yankee bullpen throws no-hitter.

If you're keeping score.

Obviously, that's why Joba needs to start.

"You want to get upset about a legitimate issue regarding Joba Chamberlain?

Then stamp your feet, pound your desk and wonder when in hell the Yankees are going to realize that the benefits of adding Joba to their starting rotation are far outweighed by the risk of removing him from their bullpen?

As ironclad evidence, I submit Monday afternoon's season-opening 10-5 loss to the Orioles."

The Yankees lost that game because the starting pitcher was terrible. Six runs in 4 1/3 innings, and he left the game with the bases loaded and one out.


"I mean, here the Yankees were Monday, having survived an awful inaugural outing by CC Sabathia to climb back into a game their were trailing 6-1 on the strength of home runs by Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui.

With the Yankees trailing only 6-5 after seven innings, all the momentum had shifted from the home team to the visitors. There seemed to be no way the dreadful Orioles bullpen could protect that one-run lead, and no way the Yankees could fail to win that ballgame."

Right.

Actually, I was thinking there was no way the Yankees could win this ballgame. Momentum is an idea for hacks who don't have to identify a round object hurtling towards them at 95 miles per hour from 55 feet away and then try to squarely hit that round object with a cylinder.

So, Joba pitches the eighth -- presumably, a shutout inning, because his bullpen ERA is 0.00 -- and then Rivera pitches the ninth, presumably a shutout inning, because his bullpen ERA is 0.00.

(No need to be snarky; this is just a thought experiment.)

The Yankees still lose 6-5.


"Last April, Joba would have come out of the pen to pitch the eighth, and maybe the seventh, and a game that appeared lost after five innings would have looked very much like a game the Yankees were fated to win."

Doubtful that Joba would have entered a game the Yankees were losing.

Also, if it was last April, you'd see a lot of the middle of the bullpen. Because Hughes and Kennedy were in the starting rotation, soon to be replaced by Rasner and Ponson.

Who is getting the Yankees to the 8th inning? Or the 7th inning?


"That means that when the time comes for the Yankees to put the brakes on the other team's offense, retake the momentum and prepare for the predictable endgame known as Mariano Rivera ..."

The Yankees would have lost 6-5.

It was Sabathia's fault all the way.

The problem with bias.

Joel Sherman's Yankee-hating gets in the way of reasoning:

"CY YOUNG

Jon Lester, Red Sox. He had a huge innings jump last year, so that is a bit scary. But he is a strike-throwing, fearless horse with well-above-average stuff.

MVP

Evan Longoria, Rays. I see a 40-homer Gold Glover winner, and it is possible his top competition will come from teammate B.J. Upton.

...

BEST FREE-AGENT SIGNING

John Smoltz, Red Sox. This signing may not work for everyone. But once the Red Sox's bid failed on Mark Teixeira, they had plenty of cash. And for a big-market team, a one-year, $5.5 million gamble on a motivated, athletic star who also happens to be among the best big-game pitchers ever, works.

...

MANAGER OF THE YEAR

Terry Francona, Red Sox. He has a lot of moving parts in a difficult atmosphere, but always seems to have a firm grasp on his roster, and that should be even easier in his first full season without Manny Ramirez. "

Francona really shouldn't win manager of the year since he's got all the Cy Young winners and best free agent signings.

When the Red Sox win 135 games, it will primarily be because of all the great Red Sox players and not so much the manager.

I'm not going to call it McStadium ...

Because it's not funny and it's not historically accurate. I think it will catch on in the pop culture lexicon as successfully as Curse of the Bam-Boonie:

"Jeter runs out to short in this McMansion of a Stadium - call it The McStadium - the way he did for the first time as a regular across the street, in 1996, when the winning started."

That's when the Yankee winning started ... in 1996. Thanks for clearing that up. This whole time, I knew they were lying about 26 World Championships.


Just for some historical perspective, the new Yankee Stadium has 5,000 fewer seats than the previous version.

But, when Yankee Stadium opened in 1923, its capacity was 80,000, though I don't think it had anywhere near that many seats. They just sort of comfortably crammed 30,000 extra people into the urine-soaked tunnels.

The Stadium made a lot of money back then, too. Which is the purpose of the entire thing.

"Jeter's Yankees giving you 1998 and what might have been the best Yankee team of them all."

Oh, fine. The 1998 Yankees were Jeter's Yankees. I thought they were Darren Holmes's Yankees. But that's just me.

" 'We played the way you're supposed to play and won the way you're supposed to win,' he said to me once."

The next thing Jeter said was, "I take my coffee with cream and two sugars. Make it snappy, you sniveling man-child."

"It is not just Yankee fans that want things the way they used to be, on the other side of 161st St. It is Jeter, too. The Yankees will win another Series eventually, maybe even this season at McStadium. Jeter may still be at short when they do. But it won't be the way it was. The Yankees of today are the new place. They're A-Rod. Jeter was made for the place across the street."

We get it: Jeter good, ARod bad. Old Stadium good, new Stadium bad. Lupica is nothing if not predictable.

I also like how the House that Ruth Built -- the first ballpark to be called a stadium -- is somehow re-imagined, in Lupica's warped mind, as a monument to grittiness and humility.

You, sir, are stupid and out of touch.

Can you imagine being so spoiled and out of touch that you'd complain about a 2009 Yankee Championship because Alex Rodriguez is on the team and because it's in a new stadium? I know a lot of Yankee fans, and exactly zero of them would complain about a 2009 Yankee Championship.

"Aw, gee, we won the World Series. But it's not the same. Shucks."

Lupica, just give it up and openly root for the Red Sox. You know you want to.

Teaching pitching to a pitcher.

"Five down

Joba Chamberlain’s right arm.

Sorry, there’s no over-looking a decline in velocity, even in spring, from a pitcher who suffered two shoulder injuries last year. Joba’s stiff front-leg delivery could be a problem, today and in the long-term."

When Joba was coming out of the bullpen, he was expected to pitch one inning. He often threw the ball 99 MPH.

As a starting pitcher, Joba is expected to throw six innings. He will not be able to throw the ball 99 MPH for six innings. Therefore, he isn't trying to throw the ball 99 MPH.

I don't know if Joba will be a great starting pitcher. I think he will be pretty good because he seems to know what's he doing out there. I know that he has learned this particular lesson sooner than most flamethrowers.

You know, if any other pitcher took this approach, Klapisch would remind us that it's call pitching instead of throwing.

Yeah, but the lines were long at the vomitorium.

Phil Mushnick goes completely off the deep end.

Get with the program.

"Remember when the crack of a bat and the pop of a fastball into a catcher's mitt were among the purest sounds you could hope to hear on a warm spring day?"

No.


"Truth resided in their resonance: You heard them and knew, without thinking or seeing, that those producing such a glorious melody had done so through honest honing of their craft."

Incorrect.


"While fans are still flocking to baseball in record numbers, the game's credibility is gone. Whether it's as dire as Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron's home run record or as benign as former Yankees pitcher Jason Grimsley adding a couple miles per hour to his fastball, the prism through which we judge the game has been distorted beyond recognition."

For the record, Jason Grimsley is a former Phillie, Indian, Angel, Royal, Diamondback, and Yankee.


I actually agree that the game has been distorted beyond recognition. I was just thinking that Royce Clayton benefited from steroids, too, even if he never took them. If you played on a team with a bunch of steroid users, you might have scored 20 - 30 more runs per year. This increased your value and you got paid more money.

Selig for damn sure made a lot of money from steroids. He pockets $17.5M this year while condemning the impurity of the Steroid-Induced HR.

But, here's the thing: The sentence started with, "fans are flocking to the game in record numbers." I believe many of Selig's decisions are foolish, but the game has grown and thrived under Selig's administration.

Therefore, Phil Bondy's five-point-plan to fix the game is rather moot. He's not really trying to fix the game. He's just trying to make it more agreeable to himself.

If you are truly enamored with the innocence of a ball snapping against leather, go watch Little League games. I encourage it. It's fun.

Mark Feinsand is a sculptor and the English language is his medium.

"A.J. Burnett wasn't a member of the 2008 Yankees, yet he may have played as big a role as anybody in the Bombers' streak of 13 straight years in the postseason coming to an end.

Burnett went 3-1 with a 1.64 ERA in five starts against the Yankees, throwing eight or more innings in four of them. "

Oh.

It was those five games.

In fact, if Burnett was 0-4 instead of 3-1, the Yankees would have missed the Wild Card by three games instead of six games.

I didn't bother looking up the result of Burnett's no-decision because it wouldn't have made a difference in whether or not the Yankees' streak of 13 straight years in the postseason came to an end.


"But instead of gloating, the righthander is approaching the 2009 campaign as if he were a part of the first Yankees team to miss the playoffs since 1993."

It's probably the first team in the history of baseball that a player switched teams.


I will now list the people who were more important than A.J. Burnett in determining the success of the 2008 Yankees:

• Brian Cashman
• Anyone whose last name is Steinbrenner
• All the Yankee players
• Freddie Sez
  

Every year, for Lent, I promise to not eat any pickled eggs.

"Tejada was sentenced in U.S. District Court on Thursday to one year of probation, 100 hours of community service and a $5,000 fine for lying to Congress about handling performance-enhancing drugs."

What constitutes a violation of his probation? Lying to Congress? Or taking steroids?

Because, in the next year, he may be tempted to take steroids.

But it's highly unlikely that he'll have the opportunity to lie to Congress.

Justice is blind.

Tejada didn't hit enough HRs to be sentenced to jail.

This guy sounds more and more like Torre.

"Joe Girardi called Johnny Damon into the office this morning to get a feel for his opinion on batting second, and Damon reacted positively. Girardi said he would experiment with the idea this week, but likes Damon's ability to pull the ball and hit in situations."

"Hit in situations."

Two outs and nobody on is a situation. Bases loaded and no outs is also a situation. They're all situations.


Yeah, I know what he means. He's envisioning a hit-and-run with a lefty batter instead of a hit-and-run with a righty batter.

The difference between Jeter/Damon and Damon/Jeter will be neglibigle.

Just get on base for Teixeira and Posada, huh?

Use stubhub.

I already have tickets for three Yankee games for the 2009 season.

For one game, I got bleacher seats that were practically free.

I think it's lame and hypocritical for the Yankees to subcontract their ticket sales to online ticket scalpers. But that's what they've done after strongly moving in that direction over the past several years.

If you go to Ticketmaster, you won't find anything. So stop whining and don't go to Ticketmaster.

Short guy wins MVP.

The Yankees have a player who is also short.

That's about the only similarity I can perceive between Brett Gardner and Dustin Pedroia.


I can't read the rest of this garbage.

Because the idea that Brett Gardner will one day be an MVP candidate -- the same Brett Gardner who's battling AAA superstar Melky Cabrera for the starting CF job -- is downright stupid and disrespectful.


They're both white and try hard. We get it. That's Lupica's idea of a story.

Sleight of hand and Mike Lamb.

You and two friends stay at a hotel room and it costs $30. You each pay $10.

The hotel manager offers a refund of $5.

Since the bellhop doesn't want to pay you back in cents, he give everybody back $1: $1 for you and $1 for each of your friends. A total of $3 refunded, leaving the bellhop with a $2 "tip."

Therefore, you've each paid $9 for the hotel room, right?

$9 x 3 = $27 + $2 tip = $29.

What happened to the other dollar?


Check out this awful magic trick.

The card you picked will always disappear. It's amazing. Yawn.


You approach a fork in the road. Two sisters guard the road. One always tells the truth, one always tells a lie. You can only ask one question. What question do you ask to determine the correct path to take?

You ask, "How would your sister answer if I asked her which path to take?"

Then, you take the other path.

Think about that one and you'll get it.


Somehow, in my mind, all this trick logic relates to the ARod discussion. The unprovable idea the Yankees would be better off without ARod.

It wasn't the absence of ARod that made the '96 - '00 Yankee teams successful. It was the presence of Wells, Pettitte, Cone, El Duque, Clemens, Mariano, Jeter, Bernie, O'Neill, Posada, etc., etc., etc., etc.

Even if Scott Brosius (and Wade Boggs and Charlie Hayes) possessed some sort of magical team-first alchemy that propelled the Yankees to Championships, this is a moot point: Scott Brosius retired following the 2001 season.

When the Yankees acquired ARod, their third baseman was (supposedly) Mike Lamb.

The Yankees may have acquired a different 3b or they may have attempted to move Soriano to 3b when Cano came up ... just speculation, of course.

The only relevant discussion is whether ARod is better or worse than the alternatives.


Does anybody really think the Yankees would have won the World Series if they had kept Alfonso Soriano and Mike Lamb? Can anybody guarantee the Yankees would have won the World Series if they had kept Alfonso Soriano and Mike Lamb? Without prime time contributions from Cone, Pettitte, Clemens, Wells, and El Duque?

If you really believe that, then I've got some credit default swaps I'd like to sell you.

I have as many rings as Aaron Boone.

"Aaron Boone is a character guy. He's someone that helps create a professional environment. In the end, that will be his baseball legacy. He was a professional in every sense of the word.

...

At the same time, players like Aaron Boone will be missed in ways that can't be precisely measured. When teams win championships, they always look back at guys like Aaron Boone and understand how much they meant to the club."

Wow.

I can guarantee that no championship major league baseball team has ever looked back and said Aaron Boone meant a lot to the club.

On second thought, maybe the Florida Marlins after they beat the Yankees in 2003 because Boone couldn't get that runner home from third base in extra innings.

"Thanks goodness for Aaron Boone, a high character individual who couldn't hit a sac fly against Braden Looper."

The Yankees are better with ARod.

Not only that, ARod seems to sell a lot of magazines and newspapers.

Really, it's quite okay to love yourself. As long as you hit .300/40/120 every year.

Besides, if Ian O'Connor and other sportswriters were writing about me every day, I might feel self-important, too:

"Joe Torre's championship seasons, Alex Rodriguez once said, were best framed by the scenes of Paul O'Neill and Bernie Williams diving onto victory piles, and by the sight of Derek Jeter pumping his right fist into a charged October night.

The post-dynasty years? Rodriguez just captured those perfectly in a single magazine shot.



A-Rod is seen kissing his own buffed-out reflection in a mirror in the latest issue of Details. Remarkably enough, he struck this pose while knowing Sports Illustrated was about to drop a hammer that would leave his legacy in a million little pieces.

And there are people who still argue the Yankees are better off with him?"


The Yankees don't need better teamwork. They need better pitching.

Is ARod more narcissistic than Roger Clemens?


The Yankees won back-to-back World Series rings with Roger Clemens, God bless his mercenary li'l heart.

How can Ian O'Connor explain that?


If ARod a bigger jerk than vehicular murderer Jim Leyritz?

Jim Leyritz saved Joe Torre's career with one swing and has more clutch WS HRs than Paul O'Neill and Bernie Williams put together, that's for sure.

How can Ian O'Connor explain that?

Or does he just ignore these facts?


How does Ian O'Connor explain Chuck Knoblauch's four rings and 13-1 postseason record?

Chuck Knoblauch is a bigger winner than Derek Jeter.

Does Ian O'Connor really think Knoblauch is a greater leader than Jeter? A better personality? A more inspiring presence in the clubhouse? Or was he just lucky enough to be on Jeter's team (kind of how Jeter was just lucky to be on Mariano's team and Mariano was lucky enough to be on Pettitte's team)?

Or is it more likely that off-field goofiness has little to do with on-field baseball success?

Is it more likely that the entire industry of baseball analysis is completely fraudulent?

Every writer is tired of the stats. They're tired of on-base percentage and first-strike percentage and stolen bases. They want to know the people behind the stats.

Which is a harmless, if pointless, exercise. ARod dates Madonna, Sheffield drives a Porsche, Bernie plays guitar. Whatever.

The problem is the endless attempt to link these personality types to on-field success. It leads to the idiotic notion that ARod hurts a baseball team's overall on-field performance. The logic is completely off and easily disproved.


See, my lasting image of the Dynasty Years isn't a middle-of-the-field pileup of O'Neill, Bernie, and Jeter.

Just to shake things up, I'd put all the malcontents in a big pile in the middle of the field.

Charlie Hayes shaking hands with Wade Boggs; Pre-arrest Denny Neagle hugging Jose Canseco; Roger Clemens sharing needles (and women) with David Justice and Kenny Rogers; Cecil Fielder and Glenallen Hill badmouthing Torre.

I have as many rings as Ron Gardenhire.

When you fetishize low-budget teams, you say dumb things:

"He is the manager of the Twins, since 2002, and even though he doesn't make it to the World Series on a short payroll, his team is always a favorite to make noise in the AL Central. Last season he did better than the Yankees and came closer to the first round of the playoffs, losing a play-in game to the White Sox in Chicago."

His team didn't do better than the Yankees.

His team won fewer games in a weaker division.

Besides, according to Lupica Yankee Logic, you either win the World Series or you do not.

Saying "even though he doesn't make it to the World Series" is kind of like saying, "even though it's dark at night, it's just like day."


"The truth is that Gardenhire's Twins have been grinding that way for years, doing that on the short payroll but with a wonderful farm system, developing talent and losing talent and playing the game right, winning 90 or more games four times since '02."

Big deal.


"Somehow, though, the Twins keep producing good kids and good arms, and there are people that think that the wild card in the American League this season might be as likely to come out of the AL Central as it is the East."

"There are people." Good journalism.

I think the AL Wild Card will come out of the AL East. But I also think four out of five AL East teams will be good and it's likely that they keep beating themselves, opening the door for an 85-win team from the AL Central or the AL West.


"The money keeps coming into baseball in record numbers, and the big teams keep throwing it around pretty good, even though only two teams to win the World Series since the Yankees won in 2000 have had a payroll of more than $100 million and both of them were winning teams from Boston. Gardenhire's Twins never spend a lot and never will. Still they had their bags packed last season and were ready to go play the Rays in the division series if they could have gotten by the White Sox."

Almost winning is the same thing as winning.

I'll remember that when I put a ring on ARod's finger for almost making the World Series in 2004.

Kind of how Jason Bay gets tons of credit for almost making the World Series last season.

Because, you know, Jason Bay is not Manny Ramirez. Manny Ramirez is a cancer. The kind of World-Series-Winning cancer that brings a whole team down.

DB on the Radio.

Guy is against the Teixeira signing. His eight-year plan is to play Posada/Swisher at 1b for two years, then play Jeter at 1b for the the three years after that, and then play ARod at 1b for the three years after that.

That way, the Yankees wouldn't have had to sign Teixeira.


Says Jeter doesn't have the offensive power to play corner outfield. Which ignores the fact that 1b is also traditionally a power position, and easier to play than corner outfield.

Also ignores the fact that Teixeira is better defensively than any of these other options.

Also ignores the fact that the American League uses a designated hitter, so the Yankees could still find at-bats for the presumably decrepit veteran ballplayers.


The above suggestion was from a talk show host on WFAN, not an intoxicated caller.

Geopolitics.

"Several players on both teams said they didn't realize the game was over, including Puerto Rico's hot-hitting Ivan Rodriguez.

'I was putting on my catching equipment,' he said. 'When I walked out, I saw everyone on the field. I thought maybe somebody got hurt.' "

I was also shocked when I read the box score.

How can the U.S. play a baseball game against Puerto Rico?

Isn't Puerto Rico in the U.S.?

The gap widens.

"Rodriguez received a passing grade for the pitching portion of this mid-March tryout. He ramped up his fastball to 94 mph while striking out Kevin Youkilis for the final out and saving Venezuela’s 5-3 win over Team USA, which appeared only intermittently interested in the outcome, with both teams already having claimed a spot in the second round of the World Baseball Classic in Miami."

Yeah, I don't know what to make of all the WBC analysis. If I was a baseball writer, I think I'd find it more interesting than Spring Training. Some of the countries are totally into it. Nobody I know pays any attention to it.

I think a Mets fan would have passing interest in Rodriguez's performance. But it's something to care about.


"Less impressive was his postgame performance. In a setting that is all about growing the game’s popularity globally, which presumably means the players understand their roles as ambassadors, Rodriguez told the Venezuelan media representative that he would not speak to reporters, the same posture he has maintained since Venezuela began playing exhibitions in Florida last week. English-language media, media from his own country, Japanese media – K-Rod was determined to pitch a shutout.

What should have been a feel-good story about Venezuela and K-Rod slowly was taking on a different cast – that the Mets had traded not only for a Putz (J.J.) this winter but also a putz."

So you're calling a grown man a putz because he doesn't want to talk to you and give you a "feel-good" story.

Yet, you still wrote a story about him, though a somewhat pointless story ... about how a baseball player didn't want to speak to you.

The Mets only want a pitcher who pitches well, as do their fans. The players are not hired for their eloquence. Maybe Rodriguez is just taciturn.

Another writer who simply doesn't see the game the way a fan sees the game.

I'm also wondering what Rodriguez's postgame interview is going to say to help grow the game globally. Boring answers to stupid questions is going to help grow the game in Japan? Really? Is that how it works?

Really bad things might happen to the Yankees.

What a shame that another writer is acting like ARod's hip is the end of the world when Chuck Daly has pancreatic cancer:

"The good news for Alex Rodriguez, who was due for some, is that the first of the surgeries on his hip was classified a success by his doctors. The even better news for Rodriguez, at least for the time being, is that he has now managed to change the subject, from steroids and Cousin Yuri to his rehab."

ARod's injury is not bad news for ARod.

ARod is paid $27.5 million to ride an exercise bike.

ARod's injury, however, is bad news for the Yankees.


"Yankee fans, whether they are A-Rod fans or not, have a right to wonder not only what kind of A-Rod they get this year, but the next eight after that, especially in light of the amazingly high standards the guy has already set. And they have been amazingly high standards, at least in the regular season."

Shut up, you fraud.

You've written one hundred articles claiming that ARod should move to CF and that he only hits HRs in April.

Now, all of a sudden, because the Yankees will need to play without ARod, Lupica concedes that ARod sets "amazingly high standards."

Funny, because you never seemed to be too amazed until just now.


"You can see: It is no easy thing, or sure thing, to maintain your home run game as you get older. Ted Williams, the greatest pure hitter of them all, hit 197 home runs after he was 33 years old and change. Reggie Jackson only got to 194."

Was Ted Williams a greater pure hitter than Ty Cobb? Or Tony Gwynn? Or Wade Boggs? Or Rogers Hornsby?

Put it this way: When Mike Lupica states a baseball fact, you can bet he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Lupica probably knows who ARod is dating at the moment, though.


Also, why the fixation with the HR?

I know the Yankees built dopey incentive clauses into their contract for ARod's individual HR exploits -- and I know that people like Lupica assumed ARod would hit 800 HRs, or even 1,000.

But injuries are always a possibility with any ballplayer, any age, regardless of talent or contract size.

Will the next five seaons be as good as the last five? They probably will.

.300/40/120, year in and year out. But I'll trade 10 HRs for 20 doubles; I'll trade 10 HRs for 40 less strikeouts. If ARod loses power, maybe he can hit .320 with 100 walks, 40 doubles, 120 RBIs, and 120 runs scored -- in other words, the best player in baseball.

Won't matter, though.

Lupica will never admit he was wrong.

Lupica has been predicting the demise of Mariano Rivera for twelve straight years.

The Red Sox are good.

"One team tried to solve its problems with $423 million worth of free agents. The other team brought in a bunch of guys who spent about 423 million days in the trainer's room."

It's Red Sox vs. Yankees. A novel approach by a baseball writer, for sure.

Let's not mention the team that won the AL East in 2008.


"But as we sit here now, less than a month from Opening Day -- and less than 72 hours away from the first Red Sox-Yankees game of 2009 (Grapefruit League edition) -- we're not sure the American League East looks the way many people think it looks."

"Many people" is vague enough to make that statement indisputable.

I'd say the Red Sox are probably the favorites to win the AL East in 2009.

The Yankees didn't make the playoffs last season and haven't won the division the past two seasons. They lost a 20-game winner and you-know-who is on the DL.

I checked out Vegas odds from a month ago, and they had the Yankees at 96 wins (I wish) and the Red Sox at 94.5. Of course, that was before ARod's injury.

So, even though the Red Sox Underdog story is irresistible, it's not valid in the least.


"The four free agents they imported -- John Smoltz, Brad Penny, Takashi Saito and Rocco Baldelli -- cost this team 4 million fewer guaranteed dollars ($12.5 million total) than the Yankees will pay Burnett alone this year."

Frankly, I wouldn't expect much from any of the players the Red Sox acquired.


"So let's do the math. Smoltz, Josh Beckett and Daisuke Matsuzaka are 25-7. Add in Jon Lester and Penny, and the five of them are a combined 30-11.

Record of the Yankees' group: 17-15. But Burnett and Joba Chamberlain have never started a postseason game. Sabathia's postseason ERA is a scary 7.92. And Andy Pettitte's last postseason win was four years (and five starts) ago."

Cool.

Stark doesn't like the Yankees' off-season acquisitions, but he's already put the Yankees in the playoffs.

I'll take it.


" 'Smoltz is the key, for me,' said one scout. 'I'd be very confident throwing John Smoltz in Game 1 right now, because I know he'll find a way. His pain tolerance is phenomenal. And you know he's got something to prove.' "

Alrighty, but you just dismissed Pettitte's recent playoff record, while Smoltz only has one playoff start in the past ten years.

Well done, sir.

"Those Yankee championship teams are the exact opposite of wine, they've gotten worse with age. Somehow very good teams loaded with standout offensive players have been reduced to a bunch of guys who hit .220 but bunted really well. The numbers don't bare that out, nor does the idea that it was all about team when the Yankees employed guys like David Wells and Roger Clemens. Time has done strange things to people's memories of those teams and the staggering amount of talent they employed."

I think it's "bear that out."

But I won't hassle you about one little misspelled word.

Because I like you.

Cody Ransom has no rings.

I read one comment by an 18-year-old who said the Yankees from "back in the days" [sic?] played better as a team. This person was six years old when Hayes caught the pop up.

It's so illogical and ignorant that it truly makes me worried for the future of our country.

Separate the idea that you don't like ARod from the conclusion that he's a bad baseball player.


If the Yankees are so bad with ARod, then why are they so good with ARod? The Yankees have made the playoffs four out of five seasons, their worst season was 89 wins, and they've averaged 95 wins.

No, they haven't won the World Series. Get over it, you spoiled fair-weather fans and go root for the Mets:

"All right, world, you have your chance now.

For the next six to nine weeks, you'll get to see what life is like without Alex Rodriguez. You'll view the mighty, regal Yankees, rid of their "albatross."

You'll look at Mr. Perfect, Derek Jeter, liberated from the cumbersome task of playing alongside one of the greatest players in baseball history.

Based on what people have been saying out there, I'm betting the Yankees go 35-1 while A-Rod rehabilitates from arthroscopic surgery.

Well, maybe 34-2. Because, you know, the Yankees are shooting themselves in the foot by not making Joba Chamberlain their setup man.

...

Somehow, the belief is now pervading that the Yankees will be better off without A-Rod: That he costs as much in anguish and headaches as he pays in home runs and walks.

I don't get it. It doesn't make sense on any level, and the only evidence used to back it up - that the Yankees haven't reached a World Series since they acquired A-Rod - could also be deployed to prove that A-Rod's a heck of a player, but he ain't no Clay Bellinger."

Teixeira has no rings. Sabathia has no rings. Matsui has no rings.

I think five players on the Yankees have rings (Jeter, Rivera, Posada, Pettitte, Damon). I might be missing someone. I might be missing someone obvious. But I don't feel like researching it.

Point being, all the people who want the Yankees to get rid of ringless ARod should realize their criteria would require gutting the entire team.


As for the notion that the Yankees are better off without selfish sluggers, I did a little bit of exciting research:

The Phillies won the World Series in 2008 despite the burden of Ryan Howard's 48 HRs.

The Cardinals won the Word Series in 2006 despite the burden of Albert Pujols's 49 HRs.

The White Sox won the World Series in 2005 despite the burden of Paul Konerko's 40 HRs.

The Red Sox improbably won the World Series in 2004 despite the overwhelming burden of two players with 40 HRs: Manny Ramirez had 43 HRs and David Ortiz had 41 HRs. Makes me wonder how Bill Mueller even got out of bed in the morning.


As for the Yankees, they managed to win the World Series sometimes with players such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, and Roger Maris.

Chuck Daly envisioned through the prism of Alex Rodriguez.

Mike Lupica almost got through an entire topic without mentioning ARod. But he couldn't quite do it.

Two pages about Chuck Daly and, right at the end, Lupica somehow weaves ARod into the story:

"Now comes this news about a bad kind of cancer, at the end of a week when a baseball player's bad hip was treated like the first sign of the end of the world."

Well, gee. Who would do something like that?:

"Let me just say this about the way last week's '24' ended: If Jack Bauer can get the President out of this one, maybe he's the one who should be doing crisis management for A-Rod.

...

Sometimes you wonder if Charles Barkley thinks he has a drinking problem or just a getting-caught problem.

Which would make him somewhat like A-Rod in that regard."

Let's play word association with Mike Lupica:

What's the first thing you think of when I say "Chuck Daly"? "ARod."

What's the first thing you think of when I say "Television"? "ARod."

What's the first thing you think of when I say "Charles Barkley"? "ARod."


"By the way? It was nice to see that even with a sore hip, Alex Rodriguez had time to turn his daughters into one more photo op this week."

You know, Chuck Daly has pancreatic cancer, and it's really a shame that you keep bringing up ARod's hip.

No rooting in the press box.

"I hope David Wright is MVP this season."

Mike Lupica is a sportswriter for a New York newspaper.

Two-thirds of his readers are Yankee fans.

Mike Lupica inexplicably identifies himself as a Yankee fan. (You know, a disgruntled Yankee fan pining for the Glory Days.)

The obvious truth is that Lupica simply loathes the Yankees. Which, I guess, is fine in and of itself. But a sports journalist for a New York newspaper ought to serve his constituency better than this.

Imagine, for a moment, if the Yankees and the Mets meet in the 2009 World Series. It's Game Seven, tie game in the eighth inning, Wright vs. Rivera with the game on the line.

Lupica is actually rooting for Wright to get a hit?

This has been going on for a long time, of course. The Mets, the team with the highest payroll in the entire NL, are scripted as scrappy underdogs.

It partially explains why the deficiencies in Wright's game (.243 batting avg. with RISP in 2008; 20 errors per year) are largely ignored.

Mostly, though, it undermines Lupica's own credibility. You're rooting for Wright. You're hoping Wright does well.

That's lame, fanboy. You're distorting.

The numskull follow-up.

"The Yankees need to schedule Alex Rodriguez for surgery, and they need to do it yesterday. They are positively mad if they let their $305 million man take one more spring training cut, if they let him keep shooting from his frayed and failing hip.

Time to shut it down, fix the hip and plan for a repaired and refreshed Rodriguez to return after the All-Star break."

I totally agree.

But I didn't write a bizarro article two days ago claiming the Yankees would be better off without ARod.

I mean, why would the Yankees want ARod to come back after the All-Star break? They'll have Cody Ransom and reliable pitchers.


"Before his replacement, Cody Ransom, looked like Pete Rose in the Yankees' victory over Detroit on Friday night, Rodriguez completed another series of tests in Vail. This was about the same time Girardi revealed that a bad day at Dr. Marc Philippon's office could inspire A-Rod to elect immediate surgery."

"Looked like Pete Rose," as in hustling? Or "looked like Pete Rose," as in illegally gambling on baseball games?


You know, I understand that journalistic objectivity is an illusory concept, and I also understand that Ian O'Connor hardly aspires to journalistic standards in the first place.

But it's still unseemly to root so hard. You just compared Cody Ransom (46 hits) to Pete Rose (4,256 hits).

What's the endless fascination with role players, anyway? The idea that Scott Brosius's selfless teamwork drove the team to Championships.

You people don't even know from role players.

Dale Berra was definitely not a superstar. Eric Soderholm was definitely not a superstar. Dagoberto "Bert" Campaneris was definitely not a superstar. Lenn Sakata was definitely not a superstar. Toby Harrah was definitely not a superstar.

If you get enough role players like that, you won't win the World Series.

Reference the Yankees from 1979 through 1995 for some other choice role players.


"The Yankees need to trade their conservative approach for the aggressive one as quickly and easily as they traded Aaron Boone for A-Rod."

The Yankees traded Soriano for ARod.

Keep up the good work, though.

You're a journalist. Yes, you are.

You're on record, pal.

If the 1998 Yankees had ARod at third base instead of Brosius, then they'd have been even better:

"Why? Because an extended A-Rod absence would swing open a door of delicious opportunity, that’s why.

The Yankees could go back to being the Yankees. They could go back to being the team that won four championships in five years with reliable pitching and a harmonious band of position players that didn’t need a slugger whose favorite teammates are Me, Myself and I."

So ... the absence of a superstar third baseman will make the pitching staff more reliable?

How does that work?


Despite the comments by Tino Martinez (and just about everybody else), the '98 - '00 Yankees were filled with stars, especially on the pitching staff.

I understand that nobody hit 50 HRs, but the teams cumulatively hit 200 HRs. Lots and lots of very good players.

They weren't a bunch of Cody Ransoms.


"Seattle won 116 games the season after Rodriguez took $252 million to play for the Texas Rangers, who managed three consecutive last-place finishes despite the steroid-fueled rockets launched from A-Rod’s bat."

1) In Texas, it was the pitching staff's fault, you numskull.

2) In 2001, Seattle added selfish superstars like AL MVP Ichiro. They had a team ERA of 3.54. That is how they were able to win 116 regular season games.

3) In 2001, freed from the selfishness of ARod, Seattle lost in the playoffs. So, Ichiro is a choker.

4) Seattle won 61 games last year without ARod.


"But facts are facts: The Yankees haven’t reached the World Series in Rodriguez’s five seasons, and they reached six in the eight seasons before he arrived.

Coincidence, or guilty as charged?"

Ha ha. "Facts are facts." I suppose that's true. But interpretation of facts is your job and, I must say, you're pretty damned awful at your job.


Why did the Yankees lose in the playoffs recently? Is it perhaps a lack of "reliable pitching"?

Hmmm ... let's stop fixating on ARod for five minutes and examine some facts ...

• Chien-Ming Wang's 19.06 ERA in the 2007 ALDS.
• Randy Johnson's 10 earned runs in 2 early-exit starts.
• Big Game Kevin Brown.
• Joba blowing the lead in Cleveland.
• Mussina lasting 2 2/3 in the deciding Game Five of the 2005 ALDS.
• Etc., etc., etc.
  

Starting Pitching Depth is the most important component of a winning baseball team. Duh.

Hopefully, the words "2009 Yankees" will never be used in the same sentence as: Sidney Ponson, Darrell Rasner, Jeff Karstens, Matt DeSalvo, and Dan Giese.

With or without ARod, the cumulative efforts of Joba, Wang, Pettitte, Sabathia, and Burnett will decide whether or not the 2009 Yankees win a lot of games.

I shouldn't have to mention this because it's so fundamentally obvious, but maybe I should, since the entire world of sports journalism is ignoring Joba and Wang and focusing on you-know-who.

Pitching's not ARod's job. He's the third baseman.

If the Yankees are better in 2009 than they were in 2008, it will not be attributable to ARod's absence. It will be attributable to the additions of Posada, Joba, Wang, Teixeira, Sabathia, and Burnett. Duh.


We get it, Ian O'Connor: You don't like ARod. You foolishly assign some mystical attributes to Scott Brosius (.245 playoff BA) and Tino Martinez (.233 playoff BA).

But now you're on record. You really think the Yankees will be better with Cody Ransom at third base. You can't take it back if ARod misses the season, Ransom hits .215, and the Yankees win 79 games.

It's a "delicious opportunity," alright. A "delicious opportunity" for the Orioles to finish the season with a better record than the Yankees.

The Yankees were 21-29 at the time and tied for last.

This is supposedly a dumb thing that ARod said:

"8. 'Mine!' - May 30, 2007 Like a regular-season version of his 'slap' play against the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS, A-Rod yells at Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Howie Clark on a popup, leading him to boot the ball. The Yankees are up by five runs in the ninth inning at that point. 'I just said, "Ha!" ... that's it,' says a defiant A-Rod after the game."

So many things:

1) This was not a dumb thing to say, it was a smart thing to say.

2) You got the quote wrong, but ARod should have said, "Mine! I got it! Get out of the way, Blue Jays scrub third baseman ... I'm pretending to be your teammate and I shall catch the popup."

3) The Yankees were not up five five runs in the ninth inning at that point. They were up by two runs in the ninth inning and ARod's smart play opened the door for three more runs.

4) Even if the Yankees were up by five runs at the ninth inning, it's still a good play. Even if the Yankees were up by twenty runs in the ninth inning, your job is to try to go up by twenty-one.


The Yankees were in last place as the season closed in on the 1/3rd mark.

The Yankees won 11 out of their next 13 and eventually made the playoffs.

If Jason Varitek had made the same play, Matt Marrone would say that it motivated his team into the playoffs.

Oh, and any professional baseball player who is too "classy" to make a play like that should refund his paycheck.

Out of curiosity, who would play third base?

Wilson Betemit?:

"The way things have gone lately for Rodriguez, you'd have to think the Yankees would probably have preferred Hank spend that $275 million a little differently. Like, say, on vintage turtlenecks and blazers for his dad. Or cigarettes. Or land under the Brooklyn Bridge.

But he didn't. So Rodriguez and his steroid use and poker playing and infidelity and propensity to put his foot in his mouth are the Yankees' problem for the foreseeable future, all of which would have been tolerable enough so long as he continued to be the greatest player in the game."

Well, Albert Pujols is the best player, but even Pujols couldn't play third base.

Neither do turtlenecks, cigarettes, yuck, yuck, yuck.

"That isn't necessarily the case anymore. This hip injury not only puts Rodriguez's season - and, at the risk of being overly dramatic, career - in murkier territory, it also locks the Yankees organization into an elaborate holding pattern predicated on whether or not their third baseman will or will not need an operation before next winter."

Golly.

ARod's entire career is in jeapordy.


"This is a real baseball issue. The Yankees cannot go out and get a new third baseman right now because what if Rodriguez makes it through? What if he's able to play? Are they going to trade for Chone Figgins and then keep him on the bench? Make a smaller deal? Shift players around? It's difficult to shop for something you don't know you actually need."

Well, yeah, injuries are bad, especially when they take down great players.

The reason it's so difficult to replace ARod is because he's , you know, a great player.

So ... have you seen what $27.5 M buys in baseball nowadays? Oliver Perez and Adrian Beltre. You can get a .500 pitcher and 75 RBIs from a corner infielder.

Uh oh.

Everybody knows this is a bad idea. Get the surgery and help the team in four months. This 50% ARod is going to be bad.

Lupica kicks it with the Jo Bros.

"There has never been a month in Yankee history like this, at least without them winning something."

I have no idea what information that sentence is attempting to convey.


"But now comes this story about A-Rod and a cyst and a torn labrum and what the best possible course of treatment might be. And you have to say it is a possibility that if things don't go well, the Yankees could lose Rodriguez for an awful lot of this season and maybe even all of it."

Whom would you write about?


"No, this time it was Brother Joe making himself part of the story. Is this a fun family, or what? You think the Jonas Brothers kick it like this?"

"Kick it."

I don't really know how the Jonas Brothers "kick it." I usually listen to the All Grown Up Big Boy music.

Good cultural reference, though, along with the 1995 lingo. Keep it real 24/7. Next week, can you drop a neat-o reference to "The Watchmen"?


"Of course this is not so much fun for the Yankees, who probably spent a few hours Thursday imagining a pinstriped world the way it used to be, which means without Alex Rodriguez dominating everything except pitchers running laps in the outfield."

Huh?

Dominating everything except pitchers running laps in the outfield?

Why would "the Yankees" (whoever that is) wistfully imagine a world without Alex Rodriguez dominating everything?


"Of course they were caught off-guard. This is Alex Rodriguez we are talking about, which means an accident waiting to happen once you move him out of the batter's box or away from third base. This time it is the kind of accident that is a part of sports: An injury. The kind of injury, in the spring or any other time, that can change everything for a team."

I don't really know why anybody is talking to ARod's brother, or quoting ARod's brother, or writing stories about ARod's brother. The information acquired from talking to ARod's brother seems to be questionable.

But this is the most common thing in sports: A player gets an injury and nobody knows how serious it is.

The Mets were caught off-guard by Johan Santana's shoulder and nobody knows if he'll make Opening Day. The pitching coach says no way, Santana says yes way. It's a possibility he's out for the season and this can change everything for the team.

ARod is a self-centered moron who says a lot of dumb things.

A torn labrum, however, is not really his fault.

Yes, injuries are good.

There is no way to parody Jeff Passan.

I anticipated this kind of response, but I was not being serious:

"His teammates are shedding crocodile tears because Alex Rodriguez, steroids or not, is one of the best baseball players in the world, and his greatness breeds insincerity. Don’t let them fool you. The torn labrum in A-Rod’s right hip that will sideline him for the near future is the best thing that could have happened to the New York Yankees, the Dominican Republic’s World Baseball Classic team and especially Rodriguez, who needs a vacation – and from whom baseball needs one, too."

If you need a vacation from him, then why are you talking about him again?

It's very easy to take a self-imposed vacation from Alex Rodriguez.

You just do nothing.


"As if Rodriguez’s hip were the only carbon-based form to recognize the situation’s frivolity, it gifted him – and us – a reprieve."

Huh?

His hip recognized the situation's frivolity and then decided to have a cyst?


"In that time, everyone around the sport has weighed in with an opinion on Rodriguez. Aside from those obligated to support him – teammates and the players’ union – there is a consensus: No matter the transcendence of his talent, the burden Rodriguez places on the Yankees is like uranium – toxic, radioactive and heavy."

Truly incomprehensible.

I think the consensus is that every team would prefer ARod to their third baseman. If they don't, then they don't like winning and they are whiny losers.


"Certainly they’ll miss his bat if he isn’t healthy by April 6 or opts for surgery."

Ya think?


"Rodriguez remains one of the game’s great players, and the difference between him and Cody Ransom – the 33-year-old career minor leaguer who replaces A-Rod, barring a trade – is like tasting Coke and then switching to diet."

It's more like replacing a great baseball player with a bad baseball player; replacing hits with outs, runs with nothing, wins with losses.


Thanks for the insight, though, Mr. Baseball Writer.

You figured out all by yourself that Cody Ransom is not as good at playing baseball as Alex Rodriguez.

Get somebody who's clutchy clutch clutch.

"If Alex Rodriguez ends up having to have surgery to correct the torn labrum in his hip, he'll miss four months. And if that happens, the Yankees will have a huge hole at third base."

That's weird.

I thought ARod's negatives outweighed his positives.

Without ARod, the rest of the team will be freed from distractions and they'll soar into first place.

Perot 2012.

"The trendy thing to do among skeptics, cynics and statistical analysts is to diminish who Derek Jeter is, what Jeter is, what he brings to the ballpark every day. His range has shrunk. He is neither slugger nor perennial batting champion. Since signing his $189 million contract, he hasn't even been a part of a World Series winner."

All of these criticism are certainly true.


I will now list the things as trendy as criticizing Derek Jeter:

1. Rotary phones.

2. Tamagotchi.

3. Investing in AIG.

I know exactly why.

"The first reaction from a lot of people regarding Alex Rodriguez' non-diss diss of Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon is, funny as it sounds, Alex-being-Alex. But once in a while don't you have to wonder why almost none of the other players in baseball gets into pickles for saying stuff like this?"

Because you don't pay attention to what other baseball players say. That's exactly why. Because you LOVE observing him, talking about him, writing about him.


Four people were recently in a boating accident.

Do you know who they were?

1) The non-NFL player who was miraculously rescued.

2) The non-NFL player who's presumably dead ... also known as "that other guy."

3) An NFL player.

4) Another NFL player.

Not even well-known NFL players, but, still: They're important because they're NFL players.

I'm surprised they didn't just throw the survivor back into the ocean. It was such a waste of resources that could have been spent finding important people.

Jose Reyes is better than Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon.

I wish Jose Reyes was on the Yankees.

Aaron hit 40 more HRs than Ruth, but it required 4,000 more at-bats.

I only bring it up because I don't know why it's suddenly so important to preserve Aaron's HR record:

"Whether or not you are a Barry Bonds fan, or consider him to be just a step above a seal-clubbing, pitbull-fighting bank executive, every person of good conscience should be aghast at the way the Justice Department has gone about its business. Barry Bonds, Greg Anderson and maybe thousands of others have had their rights trampled on, all for the glory of a perjury case that looks to be going absolutely nowhere. Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama have strongly indicated that the government is getting out of the steroid monitoring business. That is welcome, but after so many years, so many tax dollars and so many reputations destroyed, it all feels positively Pyrrhic."

They were saying "Lou."

"Just when you think Alex Rodriguez has figured out how to turn around this public relations' nightmare, he does something ridiculous."

Everyone in the country stand up.

If you thought Alex Rodriguez had figured out how to turn around this PR nightmare, you can sit down.

That's what I thought.

What did Alex Rodriguez do in the past ... oh, the past ten years ... that made anybody think he had figured out how to turn around this PR nightmare?


"After Rodriguez won over some of the crowd and said all the right things during an interview session, he climbed into a burgundy SUV."

He sounded like an idiot.

I truly think ARod may be mentally deficient. He looks sharp and polished and I think that's why it doesn't fit.

Like, I heard him say the other day that he was comfortable batting fourth because he'd batted fourth for the past five years in New York. That's untrue. I don't mean the playoffs where he batted 8th. I mean 2004, when Torre batted him second.


"As A-Rod approached the vehicle the passenger side window went down and Yuri Sucart was the man behind the wheel."

Nice.


"His first time at the plate the boos were 60-40, 50-50 second time and by the third time more fans were cheering than jeering.

But after this dimwitted Rodriguez move, who knows what the reaction will be tomorrow."

Oh, for crying out loud.

George A. King III is actually attempting to count the number of boos in the stands.

If ARod had only had ten more at-bats, then about 150% of the fans in the stands would have been cheering for him.

I promise you, George A. King III, nobody's perception of Alex Rodriguez has changed because he got into a minivan with his cousin.

I know precisely what the reaction will be tomorrow. Half boos and half cheers.

I hope that shirt is officially licensed merchandise.

Wouldn't want the FBI to track you down:

"Rodriguez walked in his first at-bat, and after he popped up a ball into foul territory on a 2-1 pitch in the fourth, a fan shouted, 'That was a steroid-induced foul ball!' "

Good one!

"A-Rod wasn't fazed by the fan, as he crushed the next pitch over the wall in left-center for his first home run of the spring."

Maybe ARod was fazed by the fan. He was clearly unfazed by the next pitch by the Spring Training Pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays.


Villains generate more revenue than heroes.

When is the last time anybody paid attention to a NYY/Toronto Spring Training game?

Breaking News.

Alex Rodriguez hit a homerun in a Spring Training game.

Breaking News.

Alex Rodriguez walked in a Spring Training game.

I really think most baseball writers simply don't like baseball.

"The next great baseball moment probably will come late in the 2013 season, when Alex Rodriguez hits home run No. 763 and is greeted at home plate, one cheater to another, by Barry Bonds."

The next great baseball moment will come Opening Day.

Not because it's Opening Day, crack of the bat, rebirth of Spring, green grass, blah blah blah.

But simply because there will be a situation with a tie game, two on, two out, seventh inning, 2-2 pitch. What pitch does the pitcher throw, Wallace Matthews? The #3 batter is on deck and the guy at the plate is 0-for-2 with a walk. What pitch does the pitcher throw? The tension is overwhelming. The entire game is probably decided on the outcome of this at-bat and the outcome of this at-bat is decided on the next pitch.

Or maybe somebody turns a sweet 3-6-3 dp.

Great, great baseball moment.


"Best of all, probably, would be if Bonds had to witness A-Rod's historic moment on a special closed-circuit hookup in his jail cell as he serves his stretch for perjury."

That would be best for everyone.

The DJIA fell another two-fitty today and nobody knows where Osama bin Laden is, but we should spend $500k to put Barry Bonds in jail.

Worst of all, Wallace Matthews is so fixated on homeruns, that he doesn't even care about MLB's other perjurers.


"In the week since I spoke with Bud Selig, I have thought long and hard about what the Omissioner can do to right the dreadful wrong he, his players and the players association have committed upon baseball.

After much contemplation, I came up with the answer.

Nothing."

Wow. That seriously required much contemplation? Are you mentally deficient?


I got a riddle for the asterisk crowd.

Let's say Clemens (on steroids) gave up a HR to Chipper Jones (assuming Chipper was on steroids): Does the HR count? Who gets the asterisk? Chipper for hitting the HR? Or does Clemens then get an asterisk if he strikes out Chipper in the next at-bat?

What about singles, doubles, triples, sac flies, and walks?

Why is it that only HRs get asterisks?

I don't mean to mock Matthews's pain, but it's quite clear that Bonds's .600+ on-base% in 2004 was aided by steroids. Where's the love for Ted Williams's single-season on-base% record? Nobody wants an asterisk next to 232 bases on balls?

I mean, you all claim to be Guardians of the Game and whatnot, but you only seem to know about 61, 714, and 755.

Matthews is going to miss a lot of entertaining baseball between now and 2013. But I don't think he enjoys baseball, anyway.

No mention of human growth hormone.

"Pettitte says no, he has no problem with Randy Hendricks and no problem with his deal. He was determined to get the $12 million he thought he was worth, and in the end maybe he paid a price for playing his hand too boldly, but he insists it was worth it for the chance to prove the ugly finish to last season doesn't mean he's one step from being washed up."

Greedy.


" 'Hey, around July last year I thought I was going to win 20 games,' Pettitte was saying Saturday. 'I felt that good. So don't tell me that based on my last 11 or 12 starts I'm done. I had a shoulder problem.' "

Hey, based on the last 11 or 12 starts without the aid of human growth hormone, you're done.

Hey, y'all.

"It's unclear how much more the Yankees would have been willing to guarantee at the end, after Pettitte turned down the $10 million and the Bombers signed Mark Teixeira for $180 million, but the veteran lefty says he opted for the incentives.

'To me, there was principle involved,' Pettitte said."

Naturally.

You're probably the most principled greedy, lying, disloyal cheater on the whole team.

I'll bet John Harper votes Andy Pettitte into the Hall of Fame. Not ARod, though, as we all know.

It's not the most ridiculous idea based on Pettitte's stats (215 wins, .629 winning%, 4 rings, 117 ERA+), but Pettitte's supposed incompetence is now used as an excuse for the public's general disinterest in his cheating.

I've got a few questions for hard-hitting sports journalist John Harper:

How much money should Andy Pettitte give back?

Shouldn't those performance incentives be donated to charity?

Shouldn't Elijah Cummings be knocking down Pettitte's door?

Seriously, what's the deal, John Harper? Are you just in love with Andy Pettitte, or something? You love Andy Pettitte so much that you're willing to ruin your own credibility?

Curt Schilling can say anything he wants.

I am surprised that Curt Schlling's blog is actually quite insightful, forthright, and well-written (now that he's cleaned up his grammar).

I'm late with this post, but it's a good one:

"But now this man is going to act as if he was a ‘victim’ of the same thing we all were? Worse yet, so many of these writers and media members are standing on the tallest mountain shouting to anyone who will listen how wrong all of this is, how bad all of it is, and how dare we players sat by idly and did nothing.

These men were privy to the same scenes we were on a daily basis. They saw us dress, and undress, they rolled their eyes the very same way many players did at the guy who ‘worked his ass off’ when he’d really ‘worked his ass on’ and put on astronomical muscle mass in 4 short months.

They saw hitters go from 18 to 40 home runs, pitchers go from 88 to 90mph, to 95-97mph yet we’re the ones who put our heads in the sand? Weren’t these the men and women with the power of the pen?

(For a player it’s far harder than many think to conclude that guy used PEDs. Not every player who increased his velocity by 5mph or hits 20 more HRs cheats. It’s hard, it’s a challenge, but it can be done, some players have and will continue to do that and they’ll do that clean.)

Hell, Pedro said that he KNEW players who did it for a fact. That makes him 100% more informed about users than I am, or ever was. I suspected, I certainly had my own ideas, but I never knew for a fact that ANYONE used steroids or HGH unless they came out since and admitted it.

What makes Pedro, or any member of the media that was so intent on heaping glory and praise on all things Bonds, McGwire, Sosa and others for ’saving the game’ of baseball in 1997 and 1998, any less culpable?"

The writers, fans, coaches, managers, owners, GMs, commissioner are, in fact, less culpable. Even if they turned a blind eye, they didn't necessarily do the crime.

It's also a bit silly to condemn the reporters whle absolving the teammates who refused to blow the whistle.

But Schlling can condemn ARod all he wants. If Schilling played the game clean during the steroids era, he has at least earned that. A lot of the people who are complaining are the same people who fed their kids with steroid money.

Also, I find this post very interesting because it demonstrates the antagonism between the players and the press. We all subtly know this, but the press warps the truth. They pump up the friendly players and tear down the unfriendly players.

Seriously, is ARod really less forthright than Derek Jeter or Michael Jordan?

Bobby Abreu is the worst-fielding outfielder I've ever seen on a day-by-day basis. He is a joke in the outfield.

Why am I bringing it up?

Because the press seems to have "decided" that Abreu is an adequate outfielder. The same press that has "decided" that ARod is struggling at third base.

In five years at 3b with the Yankees, ARod had a tough three- or four- game stretch where he made five or six errors, including three in one game. The rest of the time, he has often approached Gold Glove caliber.

Last year, Abreu probably gave back 25 runs in the field. So, as far as I'm concerned, he was a $16M corner outfielder who drove in 75 runs.

Stick a mic into Abreu's face every day. Follow him around with cameras. Ask him why his parents named him "Bob" and his nickname is "Bobby" and if this is why he's such a mental wreck who is afraid of walls in the outfield.

What's the "truth" about Abreu? What's the "truth" about ARod?

The "truth" is that the writers dislike ARod and like Abreu. That's it.

Which is why so many fans don't care about the Pedro Gomezes of the world. To us, ARod is neither likeable nor unlikeable. He's .300/40/120 with 20 stolen bases thrown in.

I don't need to spend time in the sweaty locker room watching them, ahem, "dress and undress."

You don't speak for the fans.

You think you speak for the fans, but you really don't:

"We like to think we do everything bigger and better here, especially in sports."

You are making that up.


"But lately it seems as if the only place we've cornered the market in sports is with the biggest pinheads."

I don't know, it's kind of funny. I just saw Barkley praised to high heaven for his sincere apology. He was driving drunk. But it's okay because he seemed sincere while apologizing.

Get a Congressional investigation and a parade of parents whose children were killed by drunk drivers.


"Yankee fans still want the Yankees to be Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada. Yankee fans just want to root for their team the way they did when Joe Torre was the manager and the Yankees won the World Series every year."

(Cheater/Liar Andy Pettitte conspicuously missing from the list.)

True, some Yankee fans live in the past. But not nearly as much as the sportswriters who still bring up 1998 on a daily basis.

Actually, forget about 1998. They bring up freakin' Babe Ruth on a daily basis.


Most Yankee fans I know are distressed by ARod's steroid use, but more concerned about the health of Joba and Wang and whether or not Gardner can hit well enough to handle CF.

Also, I'd like to point out that the Torre-era Yankee teams had steroid cheats. So, Lupica's point seems to be, "Fans would rather bury their heads in the sand and root for cheaters, as long as they don't know about it."

Kind of like a fool who'd write a book about the 1998 HR race.


"But now Rodriguez keeps getting in the way. To root for their team, Yankee fans have to root for A-Rod, who doesn't just admit to using steroids but then answers questions about that as well as he hits in the playoffs."

ARod answered more questions about steroids than any baseball player ever, except Jose Canseco.

As for his playoff hitting, it's not as bad as you think.


"Rodriguez is supposed to hit 800 home runs in the big leagues before he is through, hit more than Babe Ruth or Henry Aaron or Barry Bonds, and guess what?"

Babe Ruth. Nice.


"The Yankees would have to pick up half his salary, or more, to get rid of him."

That, I doubt.

This fury will settle down as long as he hits well.

The Yankees might miss the playoffs with ARod, but they'd almost certainly miss the playoffs without ARod. The guy has always been worth the investment, and still is.


"The truly amazing thing is that guys like A-Rod expect people to go back to rooting for them no matter what they've done or how pathetically they've explained themselves - or even how much they've lied - as long as they produce."

You miss the point entirely, don't you?

If ARod didn't produce, you wouldn't care. If ARod didn't produce, you wouldn't write stories about him every week. If ARod didn't produce, you wouldn't know his name.

I mean, you can win an MVP in this league and admit to taking steroids and nobody even pays attention because they're so focused on ARod.

You can win two MVPs in this league while taking steroids and nobody even pays attention to you because they're so focused on ARod.

Why?

One reason: ARod is a better player.


Kei Igawa has never lied to you and he's never appeared on any steroid list. As far as I know, Kei Igawa is a strong family man.

Of course, I don't care. Because he can't play baseball too well.

So, where's the Lupica article about Kei Igawa?


Go write a retrospective on the greatest Family Men in New York baseball. How's Craig Wilson's son doing? Did he graduate college yet? Awww, that's sweet. You seem like a nice guy. But you can't play for us anymore because you hit .212. Sorry!

I challenge anybody to tell me if Jose Molina is married or to describe his latest hairstyle. That's the Yankee starting catcher from last year. Bet you don't know anything about him, and you don't care.


ARod, you have permission to lie to me all you want. In fact, you don't have to ever speak to me again. You can frost your hair and divorce your wife and say contradictory things to Joel Sherman.

But if you hit .240 this year with 18 HRs, you're dead to me.

I'll take that bet.

Wallace Matthews thinks the Yankees won't win the World Series one time in the next nine years:

"Like every other team that has employed A-Rod, the Yankees have yet to win a thing with him, and it is hard to believe they ever will."

ARod has been in the playoffs seven times, four times with the Yankees. So, while he has not won a World Series ring, he has helped his teams win.

I guarantee Matthews said the same thing about Clemens.


"For everything he adds to a team, he takes away that much more ..."

Wrong.


"Understand, this is not a media-created frenzy. It is solely an A-Rod Production, starting with his decision in 2001 to puncture his legacy with a syringe right up to his disingenuous and dishonest news conference Tuesday at which he promised to lay this all to rest."

So, the ARod obsession started when you learned about steroids? It has been a two-week problem?

I think it's quite obvious that the media has been obsessed with ARod for a long time and that most of that coverage has been negative. That's why I don't think much has changed since his steroid revelations.

That's also why the outrage often sounds hollow. Tejada, Sheffield, Santiago, and about 100 other baseball players get a pass.

You always hated ARod. Everyone knows it. (Funny how Pettitte's apology sounded "sincere," or something, especially since Pettitte didn't give 1/10th the information that ARod gave.)

You were frenzied when ARod took off his shirt in Central Park. You were frenzied when ARod got a divorce. You were frenzied when ARod grounded into a double play in a playoff game.

ARod, ARod, ARod, ARod.

The level of outrage for steroid use isn't much different than the level of outrage for the World Series opt-out announcment.


"As usual, he leaves a mess behind for his GM, his manager and his teammates to clean up."

Answer some stupid questions from stupid sportswriters. Then, go out and play winning baseball. Then, answer more stupid questions from stupid sportswriters.

Like every other working human being in the world, you won't like all of your coworkers.

I don't see the problem.

ARod draws all the negative attention and Teixeira won't get booed if he hits .211 in April.

Burn it down.

"Now, there are fair and absolutely reasonable arguments to be made that a) writers shouldn't be the ones voting for the Hall of Fame; and b) that a players' character and integrity shouldn't be part of the Hall of Fame process. Those arguments still wouldn't change the fact that these are the realities of the Hall of Fame process currently, and for the foreseeable future.

So, barring any modifications to the Hall of Fame ballot language, Rodriguez finds himself in an excruciating position. Sympathizers will almost surely fall back on the 'he was a Hall of Famer before and after he cheated' excuse, but such logic is irrational. Imagine a high school student, who is caught cheating on just one of the six tests he takes in a semester. The student gets a zero for that test and, even if he gets a perfect score on the other five exams, the best he can do for an overall grade is an 83. That's a B-minus."

Huh?

What does that have to do with a baseball player who hits 800 homeruns?

"In Rodriguez's case, his admitted cheating means he gets a zero on at least the integrity portion of the ballot, and all the home runs and RBI in the world can't change that. Even if you wanted to grade him perfectly on the other five categories, that zero has to be counted. And the Hall of Fame isn't a place for 83s. It isn't a place for B-minuses."

Oh, gee.

For one thing, I've know from the people in the Hall of Fame, and some of them are certainly B-minuses. I mean, Bill Mazeroski turned a super-quick double play and hit .260.

Secondly, I have an easy way to fix your imaginary grading system. Just grade on a weighted scale, where baseball-playing ability counts the highest. Since it's the baseball Hall of Fame.

Or, you could just grade on a curve. Jackie Robinson gets an A. Sammy Sosa gets an F, because he corked hit bat and took steroids. Everybody else gets a C.

The problem with the morals clause is that it's too late to start selectively enforcing it.

I know I am being redundant, but I want to show you three examples of the type of people whose plaques grace the walls of the MLB Hall of Fame:

• Ty Cobb was not only allowed in the Hall of Fame, he was a member of the inaugural class. Want to read something hilarious about Ty Cobb?: "In a May 15 game against the Highlanders, Cobb's ears were burning from the continuous insults of a fan sitting behind the dugout. When Cobb could take no more, he charged into the stands and beat the fan senseless." Many accounts claim the fan had no hands. Good stuff for the kids of America.
• Cap Anson was inducted a few years later. Few remember his batting average. However, "His contemporary influence and prestige are regarded by historians as playing a major role in establishing the racial segregation in professional baseball that persisted until the late 1940s. On several occasions, Anson refused to take the field when the opposing roster included black players."
  
• Gaylord Perry's book, "Me and the Splitter," was published in 1974. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1991.
  

It's the baseball Hall of Fame. It ain't Heaven ... and Sam Borden ain't St. Peter.

I'm glad I'm not Mike Vaccaro.

"At the end of the day, what really matters most, for now and forever, is that he can fall asleep at night, that he can look himself in the mirror, that he can say, with utmost certainty, serenity and confidence, that he was true to himself and honest to himself, regardless of whatever mistakes he may or may not have made."

At the end of the day, what really matters most, now and forever, eternally and for perpetuity, older than the mountains and the seven oceans, older than the sun in the sky, is to cram as many cliches into one run-on sentence, trying to fit as many clauses, as humanly possible, between periods, even though this approximates the stylistic efficacy one might expect from a five-year-old.


"Can he do that now, after this press conference that served as a public confessional box?"

Ummm ... I'm not sure.

What was he supposed to do, again?


"I would have a tough time. But I am not Alex Rodriguez. And the more time goes on, the more people have to be grateful thay [sic] they aren't either."

Hey, Updike, this is one time you should have used a comma, rather than start a sentence with "and."


I think a lot of people would trade their penniless, fraudulent lives for ARod's $450 million, fraudulent life.


It's quite possible that Mike Vaccaro is a better person than Alex Rodriguez. But it's also quite possible that he isn't.

Vaccaro has never made a mistake? Vaccaro has never lied? Vaccaro can sleep at night?

I hope he can sleep at night. I wouldn't wish him any ill will.

He must have an extra-large pillow to accommodate his swelled head.

Hitting.

"Ultimately he does that by hitting, not with another rehearsed performance. Hitting is the only thing that has ever made Rodriguez interesting. That doesn’t change no matter how many handlers he has. Take the bat out of his hands and he is about as much of a sparking personality as Kobe Bryant is when he isn’t shooting jump shots or dunking the ball. A-Rod could hire 100 talent agents and spokesmen and not be Tiger Woods or LeBron James."

Close.

It's the combination of hitting, fielding, and running that make ARod interesting.

But it makes me wonder why you spend so much time pondering ARod's pointless press conferences and postgame activities.


By the way, Tiger Woods is uninteresting except when he's golfing and LeBron James is uninteresting except when he's playing basketball. Unless you're a 12-year-old.

You're not fooling anyone.

"Ortiz also says he feels fine after wrist problems last season limited him to 23 homers. He says he took a few months off from swinging and felt a little strange when he started doing it again. But now he says he feels fine."

Right.

It was the wrist.

You looked a lot slimmer on the TV. Probably because of the wrist. Also, you looked a lot slimmer when you played in Minnesota. Probably because of the wrist.

It brings to mind a saying about glass houses ...

" 'He’s a young man and he has a special chance to do a lot of special things numbers-wise. But now they’re going to be tainted. People don’t forget.' "

Now, look, I don't think the Yankees have anything in particular to apologize for.

The teams they beat were (are) on 'roids and the teams that beat them were (are) on 'roids.

Clearly, the Torre-era Yankees had players on steroids and those players helped Torre win rings and, without those rings, he doesn't make the Hall of Fame.

If ARod's numbers are tainted, then so are Torre's rings.


"Torre said he was unaware of any drug use by players on his successful Yankees teams."

You are a so-called player's manager.

You noticed what kind of jeans ARod wore. You know the names of all their children and their wive's birthdays. You explained to Tom Verducci the degree to which ARod nervously fiddled with jewelry.

You were (are) conveniently unaware of any drug use by any of your players?

Yet, you're so observant, you think you're qualified to write a book about Life in the Clubhouse.


I believe, deep in my heart, that Torre truly is saddened by the revelations of ARod's steroid use. Torre is sad that his book got pushed out of the headlines.

Pete Rose interviewed by Mike Francesa.

Pete Rose on ARod: "We all make mistakes, and I'm the kind of person who is willing to forgive."


Mike Francesa: "If steroids were prevalent in your time, would a lot of players have used them?"

"Prevalent" means a lot of people are using them.

I don't do anything about it ...

... so the horse I'm climbing on can't really be too high. But this guy is probably proud of himself. Going after cheaters by cheating:

"Three federal judges reviewed the raid. One asked, incredulously, if the Fourth Amendment had been repealed. Another, Susan Illston, who has presided over the BALCO trials, called Novitzky's actions a 'callous disregard' for constitutional rights. All three instructed him to return the records. Instead, Novitzky kept the evidence, reviewed the results and received clearance from an appeals court to pursue 103 MLB players who, those records revealed, had tested positive for steroids. (That investigation is pending another appeals court decision, expected this fall.)

...

Now the Novitzky era reaches a climax with the March 2 trial. Whatever the verdict, Bonds' reputation has been ruined. And since U.S. attorney general Eric Holder and President Obama have said leagues—not governments—should police steroids, Novitzky's crusade will likely end. And that leaves a question for the rest of us to ask: Was it really worth it?"

Posnanski hits a grand slam.

Posnanski nailed the ARod "confession," referring to is as an "infomercial."

This is probably the wisest thing I've ever seen written by a sportswriter:

"Meanwhile, the Hall of Fame is filled with people who admitted to using drugs (Paul Molitor, Ferguson Jenkins, etc.), who willingly cheated (Gaylord Perry threw spitballs, Don Sutton and Whitey Ford cut baseballs, players undoubtedly corked bats), who enthusiastically used illegal performance-enhancers (that would be anyone who ever popped an amphetamine to get a boost, and it's likely that represents a high percentage of Hall of Famers) and so on.

...

Point is: It's the Baseball Hall of Fame. That's all. Are people coming to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame without some of the greatest players of the last 20 years? Will people still view it seriously? I sort of doubt it. Baseball has been a messy game for more than 100 years. In the years before Jackie Robinson, there were no black players. Players caroused and gambled and boozed. Many cheated to get ahead. Many took drugs. There have been beanballs and stolen signals and thrown bats. There have been thugs and racists and liars and everything else. And, yes, there have been steroid users, too.

The Hall of Fame voters can try to sort through that jumble and pull out only the sportsmen with integrity and character. We can try. But we will fail. Seems to me that sportswriters are pretty good at judging what's a hit and what's an error. Not great at it. But pretty good. Anyway, we should probably stick with that."

Carlos Delgado took steroids, too.

This is not a defense of ARod just because he's a Yankee or because I root for him. I'm not trying to blameshift. It's just a guess:

"Well, if A-Rod says it's okay to throw out his three Texas years because they were only ones in which he was doing bad things to inflate his numbers, that means we can erase 156 homers from his record. Bogus as Bonds' all-time record of 762 homers may be, it's the one in the books."

That is an impossible thing to say. ARod has to adjust his stats, but Bonds does not. You're saying Bonds's HRs are bogus and then you're defending them at the same time ... in the same sentence.


"So under the new A-Rod math, it would seem he's going to need to hit an additional 156 homers on top of the 762 in order for the all-time record to be completely pure and clean again."

It will still be bogus. But it will be the one in the books.


"Just wondering: Is this the way the Yankees will try to sell it? That their man isn't satisfied with breaking the all-time record with the benefit of tainted homers and, has instead, established an even more formidable mountain to climb for himself? All in the name of integrity."

Mr. Madden, are you really wondering about that?

I'm going to go wild here and guess that will not be the way the Yankees try to sell it.


"As long as Rodriguez is conceding that his 2001-03 seasons shouldn't count, do you suppose perhaps he might want to put a call in to Carlos Delgado and offer him his 2003 Most Valuable Player award? A-Rod won it with 47 homers and 118 RBI for a last-place Texas team while Delgado, who finished second, 29 points behind, had 42 homers and a league-leading 145 RBI for the third-place Toronto Blue Jays."

So, you're that confident in Delgado?

That's kind of weird.

I'm all for innocent until proven guilty. Which is why the baseball players should not have been tested in the first place.

But I'd take even odds that Delgado took steroids.

What's the beef?

"Certainly $200 million buys a lot. Not a bullpen. The Yankees could run into the same problem as last season with this bunch of characters: Damaso Marte, Brian Bruney, Jonathan Albaladejo and Edwar Ramirez."

Bruney's ERA last year was 1.83.

Ramirez's ERA last year was 3.90 and he had 63 strikeouts in 58 innings.

Marte wasn't great, but will likely be better.

Alabadejo only threw 14 innings.

The bullpen will be Rivera, Bruney, Ramirez, Coke (0.61 ERA), Aceves (2.40 ERA), and Marte. Something like that.

It's a good bullpen.

Yankees are synonymous with ... integrity.

Integrity must be their third tenet.

I mean, look, ARod's cheating sure ain't good. But, unfortunately, it sure ain't new:

"Everybody’s All-American turned out to be a two-bit cheat whose talents were exaggerated – if not created – in a chemist’s lab."

I like that, too: "Everybody's All-American."

ARod has been the most hated player in baseball since 2001.

Over the course of two days, he's re-imagined as a shining knight who was supposed to save baseball.


"In the real world, the Yankees would do what employers always do when they discover an employee has deceived them. They’d fire Rodriguez. Fire him and fight him over the balance of the absurd wages they never should’ve given him in the first place."

Evidently, you know nothing about the real world.


If ARod's stats are solely built on 'roids a la Giambi, then O'Connor sort of has a point. The Yankees paid for 40/120 and got 22/75. It could be a major problem.

I suspect ARod will still put up massive numbers and the Yankees will sell out every game. Time will tell if the contract is worth it. Please don't act like the performance on the baseball field doesn't count. That's precisely what he's paid to do.

Giambi is a criminal because he couldn't even bat .250.


"What a crying shame. At a time of epic unemployment, a multimillionaire who deserves to lose his job will keep it."

I was thinking the same thing about a hack columnist for something called NorthJersey.com ... sans the multimillionaire part.

You're guilty of taking steroids.

"It was such a loosey-goosey ear, I'm guilty of being negligent, naive, not asking all the right questions. To be quite honest, I don't know exactly what substances I was guilty of using."

Should that read, "loosey-goosey year"? What's a loosey-goosey ear?


I'm naive.

That's not against the law.

No prescription required to be naive.