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.