We want a pitcher, not a bellyitcher.

In 1993, Rickey Henderson hit .215 in 44 games with Toronto. He hit .227 in the World Series. So please explain how he could have possibly been an integral part of the team's Championship:

"The following year, Gillick obtained Rickey Henderson at the Deadline. Henderson, expected to be a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame next year, was an integral part of the Blue Jays as they won a second consecutive World Series.

Henderson was on second base, distracting Philadelphia reliever Mitch Williams, when Joe Carter blasted his walkoff home run in the sixth game that ended the series."

Oh.

Bad at pitching, great at mathematics.

"Taking a 3-2 lead into the fifth against the Philadelphia Phillies, Redding gave up a big inning that staked the visiting Phillies to an 8-5 win.

'Without those five runs, we might win the game,' Redding said."

Managers are biased observers.

"Odd, isn't it, that the manager who sees and speaks no evil whenever Chamberlain attempts to come as close as possible to splitting Kevin Youkilis' melon without actually doing so whenever he faces the Red Sox, made no secret of his disapproval of the Daniel Cabrera pitch that hit Alex Rodriguez below the left shoulder in the eighth inning of last night's 7 -6 loss to the Orioles?"

It's not odd at all.

Let's say Alex Rodriguez hits three homeruns today. That is good for Joe Girardi. But not if Aubrey Huff hits three homeruns.

Let's say the Yankees win today. This is good for Joe Girardi. But not if the Orioles win.

Joe Girardi should never disapprove of Joba Chamberlain and always disapprove of Daniel Cabrera.

Tell us more, Unkie Joey.

"Maybe so, but what a shame if he leaves this game known better for the way he treated writers than opposing pitchers.

'That would be sad,' says Dodgers Manager Joe Torre. 'Some guys are like that, though, and need the curtain to separate themselves from everyone to be competitive. I caught for Bob Gibson in an All-Star game, went out to the mound and he wouldn't talk to me.' "

I think Joe Torre thinks he's friends with Bob Gibson, but Bob Gibson doesn't realize he's friends with Joe Torre.

Making 4-6-3 an art form.

You can do it! You can catch Vlad!

Mr. Blameshifter is one classy guy.

I didn't find this link on my own. I was directed here from nomaas. This is truly amazing:

"One of baseball's more heavily-used relievers over the past three seasons, Proctor said he began feeling elbow discomfort in May. He initially played through the pain before being placed on the disabled list on June 25.

'The abuse through the year got to the point where it needed to be addressed,' Proctor said. 'Right now, the steps that we're taking is to avoid surgery.'

Joe Torre, who was Proctor's first major league manager when the two were with the New York Yankees and now is the Dodgers' manager, told MLB.com that Proctor hates to sit out.

'This happened in New York,' Torre said of Proctor insistence to pitch through the pain. 'He would never acknowledge anything's wrong. He always says he's all right. You love him for his heart and bellyful of guts, but he doesn't always make the right decision.' "

LOVES Billy Wagner.

Clemens, not so much. ARod, not so much. Joba, not so much.

"You don't have to like Billy Wagner, or the way he blows sky high sometimes, or everything he says, whether he is standing in front of his locker or talking on the radio.

And if you are a Mets fan, you can already be wondering about whether Frankie Rodriguez or somebody else could be the closer here before long.

But you still have to say that Wagner is one of the most interesting people to ever hold down the job of closer in New York."

Even more interesting than John Franco? Even more interesting than Steve Farr? I find it hard to believe that anybody could be more interesting than Steve Farr.

I wouldn't even know how to make that assessment.

"Interesting" is the least descriptive adjective one can use. It's lazy and meaningless.

Why on Earth is Billy Wagner interesting in any way?

Unbeknownst to me, is he, like, a baseball pitcher/Renaissance man? Does he play avant garde jazz in his spare time? Did he donate his entire salary to a noble cause and is therefore forced to live out of the back of his car? Is he working on a Unified Field Theory in his spare time?

These kinds of behavior may qualify as "interesting."

I can name a sports figure who's "interesting." Joe Juneau built his own airplane and moved his family to a remote location in Alaska to pursue his altruistic endeavors.

Did Billy Wagner build his own airplane? Model airplane? Does he like Dungeons and Dragons? Is he an expert on ancient Persian warfare?

Billy Wagner merely pitches baseballs once every few days for the Mets, and he does so rather predictably, I might add.


Define interesting. Think of some precise ways to define this term. Compare this list to Billy Wagner. I guarantee Billy Wagner is the opposite of interesting.

Only one person thinks Billy Wagner is interesting and that person happens to write sports opinions for the New York Daily News.


"The Yankee broadcasters kept saying that it made no 'sense' for Joba to put a fastball up in Kevin Youkilis' eyes the other night, and I'm wondering what sort of 'sense' it made when Joba put two over Youkilis' head last season."

Hey, did you notice the seven shutout innings in Fenway?

Joba's not doing too shabby, especially since Joba is one of the crackerjack Yankee prospects over-hyped by the lunatics in Tampa.

So what?

A theme develops:

"The A's can't hit and the Twins' bowels lock every time they enter Yankee Stadium, so the six wins have a 'So What?' feeling attached to them."

I just felt, like, you know ... bleh.

You know when you feel bleh?

When the Yankees swept the A's and Twins, I needed a hug.

The A's are good and the Twins are good.

Six wins in a row is six wins in a row.

Also, the Yankees are not going to sweep the Red Sox this weekend:

"You don't announce you are back in play by beating fading teams such as the A's and Twins. The best place for this flinty Yankee team to make that kind of announcement is Fenway, starting Friday night."

Take the 1998 Yankees, or the 1978 Yankees, or the 1961 Yankees, or the 1927 Yankees, or the 1975 Reds, or the 1984 Tigers, or the 2008 Red Sox.

Take any winning baseball team ever.

I don't even have to analyze the game-by-game results because I already know.

All of these teams dominated bad teams and played .500 against good teams. (How do you think bad teams become bad teams, anyway? Somebody is beating them often.)

It may not be romantic, but pennants are won in front of 11,000 at Kauffman Stadium.


The A's and Twins are hardly "fading teams." They are solid playoff contenders. At least they weren't "fading" until the Yankees swept them.

I mean, just look at the records. The records will tell you more than Mike Lupica ever can.


The Cardinals are suddenly "fading," too, I suppose. The Brewers should try to beat a good team once in a while.

The Mets are back in first place, but that's only because the Phillies are "fading." So, the rest of you may be impressed, but I say it isn't impressive.


The Yankees are "back in play" because they are. Three games back. Even if the Yankees get swept this weekend, then they're just six games back. That's "in play," even if Lupica thinks otherwise.

Football.

Only one football topic makes seems to make its way onto my baseball blog:

"If you had to choose, there's no doubt Peyton is still the better player. "

Right.

So what are you talking about, exactly?


"But since quarterbacks are ultimately judged by their Super Bowl rings, the score is 1-1."

If your brain is so infantile that you can only judge quarterbacks by their Super Bowl rings, you should consider drastic measures.

Maybe the Sunday sudoku.


'I think Eli did more to win the Super Bowl than his brother,' said one GM, referring to the entire playoff run. 'He did more for the Giants than Peyton did for the Colts given all the adversity that the Giants had to go through to get there. It was a cakewalk for the Colts. I don't think you could say enough about what Eli did.' "

It was a cakewalk for the Colts (against superior competition, I might add) largely because PEYTON MANNING IS SO GOOD.

Cakewalks are good.

Winning by a lot is good.

The adversity the Giants went through is largely because they have a quarterback who can't throw spirals.

The sun is really bad in right field.

I saw Bobby Abreu lose that ball in the sun the other day.

We all know that the sun often shines in the eyes of the leftfielders at Yankee Stadium.

What we didn't know is that, on Sunday, the Earth suddenly flipped on its axis.

That explains how Bobby Abreu lost the ball in the sun in right field.

Abreu is a dog.

"Alex Rodriguez did his best Derek Jeter impersonation Sunday with a flip play to help the Yankees beat the Oakland A's.

Of course, Jeter's came in a playoff game while A-Rod helped seal an otherwise routine July triumph."

Of course.


What is this guy's idea of "routine"?

The past two games were two of the most tightly-contested, bizarre games you'll ever see back-to-back.

Facing the league leader in ERA, with a wild card playoff race in the balance, the Yankees score a mere two runs. The first on a contested sac fly and the second on a 320-foot homerun.

Pettitte pitches a masterpiece in 99-degree weather, allowing only one run. Rivera has a 100% save percentage and I was thinking maybe Girardi should stick with Pettitte. Then, $18M Bob Abreu almost blows the whole thing because he drops a ball.

The day before, the Yankees strand 21 runners, strike out 18 A's, and win on a walkoff HBP in the 12th inning.

In the ninth inning, Giambi walked. Pinch-runner Justin Christian tripped while trying to steal second base. With two outs and nobody on, Cano doubled. Betemit looped a game-tying single to LF on an 0-2 pitch.


If this was in the playoffs or if this was against the Red Sox, nobody would say it's "routine." They'd say it's the reason they love baseball in the first place.

Finding ways to win is a sign of good character. No, not really, but it's a funny thing to say.

Winning is always better than losing:

"But much as the Yankee manager would like to believe his team is finally finding its groove, he would be advised not to use this particular series as a true measure of his team's abilities."

Okay. After 98 games, the team is 53-45, 4 1/2 games out of first, 3 games out in the wild card.


"If anything, Girardi ought to be concerned that his troops had to eke out a win as they did against a pitcher, Justin Duchscherer, who was still battling leftover ravages of the flu amid the 92-degree heat, and a lineup in which four of the last five hitters had batting averages of under .224."

No mention of Duchscherer's 1.82 ERA.

No mention of the fact that Oakland had a better record than the Yankees before the series started and will likely be contending for a playoff spot.


"For the third straight game, the Yankees got a strong starting pitching effort - this one from Andy Pettitte, who gutted it out for eight innings and 114 pitches, yielding just four hits, striking out nine and walking none in the steamy conditions."

Right.


"But again, look at the lineup he was facing!"

Look at the lineup he was facing! OMG!


"And it figures that the rest of this week - three games at the Stadium against the surging Minnesota Twins and then the weekend series against the Red Sox at Fenway - will give Cashman and Girardi a much better idea as to where this Yankee team is at than a nevertheless welcome sweep of the Triple-A-laden A's."

The A's are good.

You are dumb.

LOVES Jonathan Papelbon.

Mike Lupica has concluded that a Red Sox player will never be the darling of Yankee fans:

"Jonathan Papelbon may need a filter on his mouth sometimes, and will never be the darling of Yankee fans, but if there is one thing the young man is not, it is overrated.

No matter how much Yankee Stadium sang that to him the other night."

Well, gee. I'm guessing the fans at the All Star Game weren't analyzing Papelbon's save percentage or WHIP.


"I loved the All-Star Game the other night, from the Hall of Famers on the field, to George Steinbrenner on the field, to Michael Young's sac fly.

I ended up sitting in the stands for the last half of it, stayed to the end, and had as much fun watching it play out as I've had watching any All-Star Game in any sport."

Mike Lupica actually slummed it by sitting in the stands at a sporting event.


Taken together, these two tidbits are quite intriguing.

When Papelbon came in to pitch, the Yankee fans were chanting "O-Ver-Ra-Ted!" Lupica was disagreeing.


"O-Ver-Ra-Ted!"

"Shut up, you guys!"

"O-Ver-Ra-Ted!"

"Shut up, everybody! You don't know what you're talking about! Papelbon is awesome!"

"O-Ver-Ra-Ted!"

"Don't listen to them, Paps! We love you!"


Somebody should have poured beer on his head.

I know something you don't know.

David Wright is batting just .246 with RISP.

See, RISP BA is not necessarily a stupid thing to look at. It's just stupid when one player and one player only gets scrutinized.

I stand corrected.

This whole time, I said that Randolph would never make it to the All Star Game unless he bought a ticket.

If you pay $650 to watch the Home Run Derby, you are either very wealthy or very dopey.

Watching Alex Rodriguez hit b.p. fastballs would totally make it worth it.


If you care to read a sampling, Ken Rosenthal, Jayson Stark, and John Donovan all make very lame arguments that ARod is obligated to participate in the HR Derby.


The whole time explaining how the fans don't like ARod, anyway.



Mark Kriegel has the nerve to call another grown man a "sheep." Because Mark Kreigel has achieved self-actualization. The key to salvation, apparently, is lots of one-sentence paragraphs. It's also stylistically edgy. Because Mark Kriegel wouldn't want to be a sheep who follows the Good Writing Herd.



You know who should participate in the Home Run Derby? Jeter. The King of New York.

Put a fielder at second base and throw high fastballs that tail across the outside corner.

Call it the 4-6-3 Derby.

The only thing I can think of right now is "GIDP."

A baseball columnist writes an article that praises Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter.

While doing so, the columnist contrasts Derek Jeter to Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez:

"Teammate Alex Rodriguez may have been the leading vote-getter for this All-Star Game. He may be on track to be the sport's all-time home run leader and arguably is the game's best player.

And Jeter, who turned 34 last month, is enduring arguably [the] most disappointing season of his career, both statistically and with the Yankees in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time in his career.

But New York is still Jeter's town, perhaps more than any other current athlete."

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mike Lupica is one weird dude.

If I could quickly run an archive of Lupica articles since 1996, I could probably find 50 - 100 articles that proclaim the pending demise of Mariano Rivera's career. Stuff like Rivera is still haunted by the 2001 World Series and Rivera can't beat the Red Sox.

If I went back about 18 months, I could easily find a dozen articles proclaiming Papelbon as the Cy Young winner, MVP, and the main reason the Red Sox were superior to the Yankees.

So now, out of nowhere, MOTO Lupica decides to heap praise upon Mariano Rivera.

This is the equivalent of a 2008 Robert Christgau article which gives an A+ to "Revolver."

Oh, really? So you're a rock critic who's heard of "Revolver," have you? The one by The Beatles?:

"But there will be others who say that the best player of them all was the great Henry Aaron or Willie Mays and maybe someday - if he ends up getting enough rest to hit 800 home runs - some will say that Alex Rodriguez, Mr. Fun, was the best ballplayer of them all."

I don't understand the "Mr. Fun" comment. I have fun watching ARod play. Don't you?

I also don't understand the comment about "enough rest." Has ARod been slacking or complaining about too much playing time? Or is that a crude and stupid reference to bedroom exploits?

Besides, aren't you the ignorant sports columnist who said ARod was gonna move to first base or maybe centerfield?


"There will always be the debate about starting pitchers, all the way back to the real Cy Young."

Actually, my pick is the imaginary Cy Young.


"But there is no debate, none, about Rivera, the best closer in history, the best money pitcher in history, a power relief pitcher and a power closer who has lasted longer than any power pitcher in his job ever has, in the history of baseball."

The only debate is between the intelligent, pro-Mariano fans and ignorant, anti-Mariano sportswriters, such as yourself.


I'm also not sure why Lupica distinguishes between "power" reliever and, say, a changeup pitcher like Hoffman or a slider pitcher like John Franco. OF COURSE, Rivera is far superior to Hoffman, Franco, Lee Smith, Jesse Orosco, etc. But Rivera has not lasted longer.


"In this Yankee Stadium, in the rebuilt Stadium and not the one Ruth built, the man running toward the pitching mound is the greatest Yankee of them all."

I'm perplexed.

I thought I was Rivera's biggest fan. Rivera is the clear MVP of the 2008 Yankees (largely due to ARod's trip to the DL), Rivera is obviously the greatest closer of all time, Rivera is probably the greatest playoff performer of all time in any sport, and, as far as I'm concerned, Rivera singlehandedly put Torre in the HOF.

But Rivera is not better than ARod and Rivera's not better than Babe Ruth. Not really Rivera's fault. Mr. Fun is a ss/3b who's going to hit 1,000 HRs and Ruth is, well, Ruth is the greatest ballplayer of all time.

Is Lupica really saying that Rivera is better than Babe Ruth?

A closer is better than Babe Ruth?

Is Lupica's brain simply unable to process subtleties? A year ago, Rivera was an overpaid albatross. Now, Rivera is the greatest ballplayer who ever played.

Grow up, man. You don't have to end every adjective with "est."

Eight in a row.

"WILLIE Randolph was barely over Denver on his long flight to the rest of his life when Jerry Manuel announced that for Mets relievers, their long guessing game was over.

No more being used at the manager's whim. No more sixth inning one night, eighth inning the next. Hopefully, no more getting booed out of Shea for these creatures of habit, whom had fallen into the increasingly uncomfortable habit of too-often getting creamed.

Now the Mets, 2-1 winners of their seventh consecutive game last night, are on a roll, so it's gotta be because of the defined roles. As the zeroes pile up in the seventh and eighth innings, isn't it time to pile on Willie?"

Yes, it is time.