Jesus may be risen ...

... but Mike Lupica's intellect is not.

"And the guy who pitches the second game of the season against the A's in Japan - Jon Lester - would fit right in with some of the kids the Yankees get behind in their own rotation this season."

The Red Sox have a young pitcher who is pitching the second game of the season. The Yankees also have young pitchers.

Is this line of thought going anywhere?


"The Red Sox are still the team to beat, and not just because they have now won two World Series out of the last four."

I think the Red Sox are the best team in baseball. They won the WS and haven't adjusted their roster too much. But baseball is very unpredictable. To illuminate that observation, the very same Red Sox didn't even make the playoffs two seasons ago.

Lupica's line of reasoning is a bit tautological, don't you think? "The Red Sox are the best team in baseball, and not just because they are the best team in baseball."

Lupica could write five million words explaining other reasons that the Red Sox are the "team to beat." But none of these arguments can be more convincing than the fact that they won two of the last four World Series.


"They have spent better than the Yankees ... and have been run better."

As evidenced by the fact that they have won two of the last four World Series.


"The people who own the Red Sox now came in with the right attitude, which was this: You can't win the past from the Yankees, because the Yankees already won it. They wanted to start a new fight, a new fashioning of the rivalry, one that is now the closest to what the Dodgers and Giants had in New York once. And for now they are winning it."

As evidenced by the fact that they have won two of the last four World Series.


"And they are doing this in an era that was supposed to belong to the Yankees, especially since they made the trade for Alex Rodriguez in February of 2004.

Remember, the Yankees did that at the end of the baseball winter in which the Red Sox had tried to move heaven and Fenway Park to get Rodriguez to Fenway."

You, sir, are a liar and a phony.

I remember.

You said that the Rangers were better off with Soriano than the Yankees were with ARod. You said the Mets were the best team in New York. You said that ARod was going to move to centerfield or first base.


"And if somebody had told you his first day in New York that all this time later the Yankees would not only not have won a World Series in the years since but not even played in one, well, how hard would you have laughed?"

Not at all. Because I understand baseball. The Yankees had just lost Pettitte, Clemens, and Wells. They didn't even have Randy Johnson yet, or Chien-Mien Wang.

You really don't remember what it was like, do you?

The starting rotation was Kevin Brown (I had high hopes, to be fair), Javy Vazquez, Mussina, Lieber, and Contreras/El Duque/Loaiza.

I think most observers expected a lot of 12-11 losses and probably a second-place finish in the AL East.


"It has been stated before and can be stated again that Rodriguez has become the face of the Yankees now. Not Jeter, not Posada, not penitent Andy Pettitte, not the great Mo Rivera. It is Rodriguez, to whom the Yankees and their fortunes are now permanently tethered, for better or for worse."

1) "It has been stated" is a meaningless qualifier. It has been stated that the Earth is flat, that the value of Pi = 3.00, and that the light from the stars comes from pinholes in the firmament.

2) "... and can be stated again" is even more meaningless.

3) There is no such thing as "face of the Yankees."

4) The fortunes of the Yankees can not be "permanently" tethered to ARod, unless you misunderstand the meaning of a kindergarten-level vocabulary word.

5) You said Pettitte was "penitent." Screw you.

"So the real question, and it is a good one, becomes this for the Yankees, now and into the future:"

So many questions, I hardly know where to start:

1) Joba as a reliever.

2) Joba as a starter.

3) Hughes.

4) Kennedy.

5) Jeter's range as he gets older.

6) Can Damon rebound and stay healthy?

7) Can Abreu rebound and stay healthy?

8) Can Matsui rebound and stay healthy?

9) Is Mussina shot?

10) How long can Rivera continue his domination?

11) Will Girardi manage like he is in the National League?

12) Will George Steinbrenner die soon?

13) Lefties in the bullpen?

14) A first baseman who can hit?

15) The new Stadium?

So, Lupica, what have you got?

"Will Alex Rodriguez break the all-time home run record before he wins a World Series wearing a Yankee uniform?"

Screw you, Lupica.

That's the real question you've got for the 2008 Yankees?

Look, the bleachers will be $12.

That's what the guy actually says. "The bleachers will be $12," he says.

The man has his finger on the pulse of the New York sports scene.

Mike Lupica on Sunday, March 16, 2008:

"This isn't to suggest that somehow the spring training silliness of the past few weeks is some sign that the Yankees are now officially mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore, or that Yankee pitchers are maybe going to move David Ortiz off the plate."


March 17, 2008:

"The very next inning, Andy Pettitte threw inside to David Ortiz, before striking him out for the second time in the game. And my guess is that very soon in The Rivalry, Ortiz will get plunked by a Yankee pitcher for the first time ever.

...

Make no mistake - Pettitte’s pitch yesterday was intentional. And Girardi had a lot to do with it."

I hope Torre's sensibilities are not insulted.

Yes sir!

"Andy Pettitte's pitch sailed up and in past David Ortiz's armpit, stumbling the big Boston slugger and drawing boos from visiting members of Red Sox Nation."

This is so wonderful. Best believe that Joe Girardi will not refer to David Ortiz as "Big Papi."

When Baseball Was Pure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Cent_Beer_Night

"Jeff Burroughs violently reacted to a fan stealing his glove and cap, the Texas players, led by manager Billy Martin, charged onto the field with bats. A huge number of intoxicated fans, some armed with knives, chains, and portions of stadium seats that they had torn apart, surged onto the field; others hurled bottles from the stands. Realizing the Rangers might be in danger of their lives, Ken Aspromonte, the Indians' manager, ordered his players to grab bats and help the Rangers."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition_Night

"White Sox TV announcers Harry Caray and Jimmy Piersall commented freely on the 'strange people' wandering aimlessly in the stands. Mike Veeck recalled that the pregame air was heavy with the scent of marijuana. When the crate on the field was filled with records, staff stopped collecting them from spectators who soon realized that long-playing (LP) records were shaped like Frisbees. They began to throw their records from the stands during the game, and the records often struck other fans. The fans also threw beer and even firecrackers from the stands.

After the first game, Dahl, dressed in army fatigues and helmet, along with a female sidekick named Lorelei and bodyguards, went out to center field. The large box containing the collected records was rigged with a bomb. When it exploded, the bomb tore a hole in the outfield grass surface and thousands of fans immediately rushed the field. Some lit fires and started small-scale riots. The batting cage was pulled down and wrecked, and the bases literally stolen, along with chunks of the field itself. The crowd, once on the field, mostly wandered around aimlessly, though a number of participants burned banners, sat on the grass or ran from security and police. People sitting in the upper deck could feel it sway back and forth from the rioters."

The Billy Crystal at-bat is a shame that will burden the Yankees all season long. Hic. Pardon me, I'm Jerry Green and I'm drunk.

"You cannot love baseball without treasuring the visions of Babe Ruth, of Lou Gehrig, of Joe DiMaggio, of Mickey Mantle.

All of them ghosts of other eras, when baseball was proud and not yet impure."

I'm going to ignore the racial undercurrent of that statement. I doubt if that's what Jerry Green intended.

Still, I got news for you, Pops: Baseball was always impure.

"My ancient visions of the Yankees are of class:

"Derek Jeter getting booed at Comerica Park by his home-state fans just because he plays for the Yankees with the traditional dignity. And Jeter refusing to complain about the jeering.

Johnny Damon, standing on the steps of the visitors dugout at Comerica, and applauding the pennant-bound Tigers after they dumped the favored Yankees in the 2006 playoffs.

Gehrig, trying to keep playing as he was dying with the disease would carry his name, when I was a kid at Yankee Stadium.

DiMaggio, with his grace and flawless, fluid moves in center field.

And Mantle, grinning and friendly, pounding prodigious shots into the upper deck." (While hungover.)

Do you know what "ancient" means? Because Jeter is currently on the Yankees and the Damon story is only two years old. Even in the compressed time period of professional Major League Baseball or the compressed time period of Jerry Green's life, two years is not "ancient."

"Once upon a time, baseball had an entrepreneur named Bill Veeck. He wrote an autobiography called 'Veeck As In Wreck.' Veeck owned the St. Louis Browns, the whipping boys of the American League. In 1951, Veeck signed a dwarf and sent him to bat in a regular-season Sunday game against the Tigers. Eddie Gaedel, 3-feet-7 and 65 pounds, popped out of a cake, wearing the Brownies uniform No. 1/8."

I truly think if I could go back in time and pick any baseball game to attend, that would be the game.

Hilarious.

"It was circus showmanship at Veeck's best. Worst?"

It was writing at its worst. Best?

"Bob Cain was the Tigers pitcher. Bob Swift was the catcher. There are famous pictures of Swift on his knees to catch Cain's pitches.

Gaedel, walked on four pitches, as a pinch hitter. He was too small for Cain to throw strikes. Cain supposedly was laughing as he threw the four high pitches. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis was not so amused. He ordered Gaedel's name be stricken from the all-time major league records. The one at-bat was later reinstated instated into major league baseball's precocious official statistics.

The event was a travesty of baseball."

1) Can official statistics be "precocious"? What is the context for "precocious" in this story? Major league baseball's official statistics act mature for their age? Do you mean "precious"?

2) That was awesome when Gaedel batted.

3) That was a regular season game.

4) You just said baseball used to be pure, then you bring up a "travesty" from fifty-seven years ago.

5) Lighten up.


"And shame is a burden the Yankees will carry all season long. Some place -- wherever? -- the Babe must be crying."

So now you imply that "pure" Babe Ruth is in Hell.

You really think Babe Ruth is crying because the Yankees gave a Spring Training at-bat to an entertainer? Do you know anything about Babe Ruth?

It showed.

" 'Baseball wasn’t fun the last three years,' [Torre] said. 'The game was fun. The players were fun. But everything connected to it wasn’t fun. I was curious if it could be fun again.'

...

But the tedium of all that swirls around the Yankees had begun to wear him down, somewhere beneath the sad eyes. At times last season, Mattingly felt obligated to give Torre a poke, a reading of his emotional and physical temperature."

I know the job of professional baseball manager is torturous and tedious. Especially for the maanger of the New York Yankees. With the highest salary, by far, of any professional baseball manager.

"More than once, he said, he asked himself, 'Am I doing the right thing?'

He didn’t get a legitimate answer until the days before he left for Vero Beach, when his body began to feel right again, when the notion of another baseball season put him again on the balls of his feet."

Last season, it made headlines -- literally -- when Torre got off the bench and stood on the top step of the dugout.

During a game.

It was like he was actually paying attention to the actual game.

Yankee Manager Criticizes Other Manager.

I don't even care about the details of the argument. I don't think Girardi is right. But I just like the fact that he didn't refer to the manager of the Rays as "Joey" or offer to give him a reacharound.

When Derek Jeter was taken out by Ken Huckaby, Torre did nothing about it.

When Manny Ramirez showed up Scott Proctor, Torre did nothing about it.

When David Ortiz hit fifty homeruns off Yankee pitchers, Torre referred to Ortiz as "Big Papi" and never dusted him once.

Jeter and ARod lead the league in getting hit by pitches and it's not "classy" to complain about it.

It's not "classy" to complain about Joba Chamberlain enduring Exodus:8 on a pitcher's mound in Cleveland during a playoff game.

Here's Girardi, during a Spring Training game, defending a minor league catcher who won't even make the team.

Bud Selig is a trip.

The Steroid Era is over, in case you were wondering:

"Bud Selig has no plans to read any of Barry Bonds' grand jury testimony that was ordered released by a judge just over a week ago.

'No, I don't think so,' Selig said Saturday. 'I think all the lawyers around me will but I don't think there's any reason for me at this time.' "

I read Bonds's grand jury testimony.

I'm not particularly intrigued, but it's convenient enough to download it from the Interweb and give it a quick once-over. Took less than ten minutes.

I think Bonds is lying, sure. His tactic is plausible deniability, but it just doesn't sound too plausible that he didn't notice what "flaxseed oil" was doing to his body.

Having said that, I'm not sure he will be found guilty of perjury, because it seems difficult to prove.

Not much of an analysis right there, but now you know more about the situation than the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

I got through exactly one sentence.

"He’s coming up on 34 years old, the shoulders still taut, the fade still working, the eyes still burning jade."

Another writer has a man crush on Derek Jeter.

Don't shoot the messenger.

"I always have confidence in myself. But it's tough when you do lose the confidence from your manager to maybe prepare yourself, day in and day out when you have no clue about anything," said Farnsworth, who allowed 108 runners to reach base via hit or walk in 60 innings last season and was 2-1 with a swollen 4.80 ERA in 64 games. "It happened a few times last year."

Eh.

Farnsworth is overpaid and disappointing, but his career ERA is 4.37 and most of that time was in the NL.

Of course Farnsworth's performance is not primarily Torre's fault, and nobody can take Farnsworth seriously. But the only reason we don't take him seriously is because he's a below-average pitcher. Torre is still the worst bullpen manager in the major leagues.


"Definitely, all across the board, communication with the manager, everything," Farnsworth said when asked if the atmosphere has improved under Girardi. "What they said last year about I couldn't go back-to-back days, which was news to me, when it was brought to me. I said, 'What are you guys talking about?' Communication is key for everything."

I'll bet that's exactly what happened. Farnsworth may be a dolt and a bad MLB pitcher. But his criticisms of Torre are probably right on.


"I don't think he has had the type of year he can have," Girardi said. "I think he will benefit from the third year in New York."

Not if Farnsworth keeps blaming others for his failures, he won't.

If Farnsworth pitches well, then he won't have failures, and then he won't need to blame anybody.

If Farnsworth doesn't pitch well, then it doesn't really matter who he blames.

According to Professor George A. King III, PhD, the key to pitching in the major leagues is the development of an internal locus of control.

Wow.

What is an "unusually passive" Joe Torre?

Is that like an "unusually wet" Pacific Ocean?:

"Mike Mussina seemed to be speaking for the entire team when he said, 'We loved Joe, but we all knew things had to be different. Especially the guys who've been here a while and haven't won, we were very disappointed at the way things had been going.'

...

Torre himself seemed unusually passive, staying in the dugout when Joba Chamberlain was being swarmed by midges in the decisive Game 2 of the Division Series at Jacobs Field. Torre repeated this week in Vero Beach, Fla., what he'd said in October, that he should've asked the umpires to stop play. Instead, Torre said, 'I didn't act on it, and I regret that.'

...

Girardi has done it by mingling with players, which Torre did less and less in his later years, choosing to leave the policing to Jeter. Damon says, 'Joe [Girardi] walks in here and he asks for your opinion, he asks how you're feeling, he gives you the feeling that what you think matters.' "

They all knew they needed a change.

Torre's departure was best for both parties.

Yet, anybody who suggested such a thing got shouted down.

Mr. Girardi.

It's so endearing when Joe Torre talks like a 10-year-old:

"I reminded Joe that good or bad, he's going to be questioned," Torre says. "But his intelligence and common sense will circumvent those issues. Joey brings a lot to the table. This kid understands. He's certainly aware of what he's getting into."

"Circumvent" is a mighty big word for somebody who refers to a grown man as "kid" and "Joey."


"He's a lot smarter than I am. He went to Northwestern, for gosh sakes."

You meant it as a disarming joke, but we all know it's true. Joe Girardi can probably name most of the players on the opposing team.


"He told of a fan approaching in the spring training of 2002 and saying, 'We'll do better this year,' after the Yankees had come within an out of beating the Arizona Diamondbacks in the '01 World Series."

They came within two outs. That's why the infield was in; there was only one out.

Probably the columnist's mistake.

But I wouldn't bet my life that Torre knows how many outs there were. It was a long time ago. That kid Gonzo hit that bloop hit. That other kid, what's-his-name, pitched a good game for the Braves that day. I mean, the Diamondbacks.

Wittingly.

Unnamed Yankee inside [sic] badmouths Torre and Guidry from afar:

"The Yankees unwittingly took advantage of the honor system last year; everyone seemed too comfortable, especially after failing to win the World Series for the seventh straight time. Even Torre's supporters in the organization admit Joe's stewardship had become too casual, evidenced by his naming Ron Guidry as pitching coach. 'It was obvious all [Torre] was doing was taking care of a buddy,' said one Yankee inside. 'Finally, we have someone here [Dave Eiland] who knows what he's doing.' "

I just can't understand why everybody is suddenly noticing that Torre's stewardship had become too casual.

They could have just asked me.

Nobody ever said it to his face.

I think Buddy Groom and Bubba Crosby criticized Torre while Torre was Yankees manager. I think they were the only ones:

"Bruney also admitted to a level of fear in playing for Joe Torre, who was constantly criticized in recent years for overusing certain relievers.

'With Torre - and I'm not trying to bad-mouth anybody - sometimes you would go out there and try to be so good because you were scared of doing bad,' Bruney said. 'You can't pitch like that. (Joe) Girardi understands that you make mistakes - and I'm going to make them.' "

In classic Torre-Talk, Bruney says he's not trying to bad-mouth anybody while he's bad-mouthing somebody. If you really didn't want to bad-mouth somebody, then you didn't have to say anything.

Though Torre's deficiencies were evident just from watching the games on TV, all this newfound criticism is cowardly. Nobody said it to his face and nobody said it when it could have made a difference.

Allen Barra doesn't spend enough time in the dugout.

What's with this guy?

He probably never even met Andy Pettitte.

If you looked into Pettitte's eyes and shook Pettitte's hand (a firm, all-American handshake, no doubt), then you would know that Pettitte is not a cheater.

He just isn't:

"Why hasn't Andy Pettitte heard from MLB, and why hasn't there been talk of a suspension? In his deposition to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Pettitte admitted that his father injected him with HGH in 2004. (And surely the most bizarre single piece of evidence to emerge during the entire hearing process is that Pettitte's dad stuck a needle in his son's ass.) In admitting this, Pettitte was in effect also admitting that he had lied to the Mitchell Commission—and thus to Major League Baseball—about the extent of his drug use.

Moreover, Pettitte was admitting to a crime. Though HGH wasn't banned from baseball under the Basic Agreement existing at the time—it wouldn't be added to the list of prohibited substances until 2005—it was and remains illegal unless prescribed for one of three rare diseases. Pettitte has clarified that he used HGH without a prescription. This means that he has admitted to the illegal use of HGH not once but twice, in 2002 and 2004. So where are MLB, the FDA, and the FBI?

...

Or as ESPN's astute legal analyst Roger Cossack put it, in a summation largely ignored by the New York media (and, for that matter, by Cossack's colleagues at ESPN): 'If you take out Andy Pettitte, is there any reason here you would believe McNamee any more than you would believe Clemens? McNamee has been shown to be a guy who lies for convenience. He lied when he first started talking to the Mitchell Commission . . . . Clemens has his own problems . . . . Obviously, his biggest problem is Andy Pettitte.'

When the Mitchell Report revealed that McNamee said he injected Pettitte with HGH in 2002, Pettitte was reviled as a cheat and a liar. In a short time, he was transformed into a sympathetic figure (despite withholding information on further HGH use) for one reason: He was the tool that could be used to get Roger Clemens."

I agree, except I don't think Pettitte was ever reviled as a cheat and a liar.

Lost forever.

Giambi says the same thing every pre-season:

"On Tuesday, Giambi focused on hitting to the opposite field during batting practice, lining balls to left and left-center with ease. With fresh legs for the first time since last April, Giambi is hoping to recapture some of the magic that prompted the Yankees to sign him after the '01 season.

'It will keep my swing a lot better if I work on hitting the ball the other way instead of hooking it to right field.' "

Do you know how many homeruns Alex Rodriguez hit in the major leagues before he ever met Larry Bowa?

"[ARod's] MENTAL TOUGHNESS COULD SUFFER WITH BOWA AND BORZELLO GONE"

Mike Borzello, Yankee bullpen catcher.

He's the reason ARod won an MVP last year.

I thought it was because ARod hit after Bob Abreu and Abreu took so many pitches.

But it was really the bullpen catcher.


By the way, did Bowa and Borzello declare that on their income taxes?

Unnamed baseball scout never heard of Chien-Ming Wang.

Or Andy Pettitte, for that matter:

"First of all, what pitching staff was out there? Each team has a different staff. Derek doesn't really have a sinkerball pitching staff whereas other shortstops, you sit behind certain pitchers, you're going to get a lot of ground balls."

You're not going to win any games with small ball.

If you ever stumble across the YES Network's Yankee Classics broadcast of the 1996 home opener, please take note of the ridiculous batting order.

Joe Torre had freakin' Joe Girardi batting second.

Torre trying to spread the word that this was going to be an NL-style small ball team.

How dumb.

Why don't you fast-forward eight years and bat Bernie Williams fourth in a playoff game and try a hit-and-run in the first inning with Johan Santana on the mound?

Now, I think I'm going to like Girardi as a manager. I liked him as a broadcaster and he was the guy I wanted for the job. I also like most of what he is saying so far -- what's not to like?

Then:

"He mentioned working hard in camp and doing the little things right, in case the Yankees need to win some games with 'small ball.' "

Damn.

Damn, damn, DAMN.