Mike Lupica knows nothing about jurisprudence or journalism.

1) You can't prove a negative.

2) When nothing happens, it isn't news.

Alex Rodriguez has been accused of nothing. Therefore, there is nothing to deny. It's a fake story.

If the moon isn't made of green cheese, then why haven't scientists denied that the moon is made of green cheese?

Why hasn't ARod talked to the feds? Maybe he doesn't want to. He has the right to remain silent. It doesn't mean he's guilty; it means he's smart.

"You are supposed to believe that Rodriguez not flying up to Buffalo this week to talk to the feds was somehow by mutual consent. Right. Here's the mutual consent, so you know: Rodriguez's lawyers talked them out of it.

Oh, sure. The lawyers didn't want their Yankee star being walked into a courthouse or wherever the meeting was going to take place like it was some kind of perp walk, for an investigation A-Rod keeps saying is about somebody else.

So the interview was pushed back. Again. The longer this plays out (it seems harder for the feds and A-Rod to sit down than it was for A-Rod to finally win himself a World Series), the more you wonder how much we might be dealing with star-struck investigators here.

Really: How come Beltran and Reyes were able to fit this in and Rodriguez hasn't? They've had the whole month of March, and now you start to think that 'Dancing With the Stars' will be over before Rodriguez's own dance with the feds might be.

If Rodriguez's story is so innocent, if he only needed Dr. Galea to give him any kind of treatment — with anti-inflammatory pills or platelets that he could have gotten from the Yankee team doctor or at any big hospital in the big bad city — how come it is taking him so long to tell it?"

You know what you should do, Lupica? Use the "Dancing With the Stars" reference again. Your pop culture references are sliding to depths on par with your journalistic skills.

The greatest poll I've ever read.

Read the comments by the hometown analysts.

Out of 30 analyses, approximately 26 are bullish. Only Ralph Kiner really rips his team -- they're bearish on the Blue Jays and Royals, too.

Every other team is underrated.

If all these teams are going to win, somebody has to lose.

Which means the Royals will probably lose 500 games.

Alex Rodriguez doesn't cause headaches. Reading Ian O'Connor columns cause headaches.

"You thought it ended with the ticker tape, didn’t you? You figured Alex Rodriguez was a made man at last, a notarized Yankee, a megastar worthy of riding in Derek Jeter’s parade?"

As far as I'm concerned, he was a notarized Yankee and a megastar the day he signed with the Yankees in 2004.


"You thought A-Rod might play the rest of his career free of ominous clouds, right?"

Yes, I thought that ARod might play the rest of his career free of "ominous clouds."

Yet, it seems no man can play the rest of his free free of ominous clouds.

Clouds sure are ominous. Especially rainclouds, which portend rain.

Sigh. It's such an apt metaphor for a man who makes $27.5 million per year and just won a World Series ring. In fact, I think I might cry for Alex Rodriguez.


"And sure enough, A-Rod returned from his hip surgery, stayed clear of trouble, and expunged his record as a postseason gagger by playing a leading role in the Yankees’ first title in nine years.

Rodriguez was made whole again. Fans with a spectacular talent for confusing victory with virtue couldn’t remember if A-Rod had injected 'boli' or simply popped a few Tic Tacs."

Victory is virtue.

The rest is fodder for hack sportswriters.


"Only the summit in Buffalo never happened. Rodriguez showed up at the ballpark in Tampa and told reporters, 'Nothing was ever scheduled.'

Of course the meeting will take place, sooner rather than later, but here’s the larger point: It will never, ever be over with A-Rod."

You can keep following him around with a notepad him if you wish.

I don't know one single Yankee fan who's even paying attention.


"He can go ahead and win three more titles with the Yankees and still make you wonder if he’s worth the trouble."

I'll answer that: He's worth the trouble.

You know who's not worth the trouble Kei Igawa.


"He can still create enough distractions and choreograph enough diva dramas to make you wonder if Hank Steinbrenner would’ve been better off committing that $305 million to two generations’ worth of starting pitchers."

No, you are 100% wrong. See previous comment regarding Kei Igawa.


How many anti-ARod articles has Ian O'Hackor written in his life? How many times has he proclaimed that the Yankees can't win the World Series with ARod?

So when Ian O'Hackor is proven wrong, he just changes the criteria.

(A quick search for "Ian" on my blog revealed multiple articles where Ian O'Connor said the Yankees were better off with Cody Ransom instead of Alex Rodriguez, etc.)


Oh, and Ian O'Mathor apparently thinks $305 million will pay for forty years' worth of starting pitchers.

$305 million over two generations will get you a bullpen full of Juan Acevedos.

Hank Steinbrenner owns a calculator, can calculate the merch and attendance boost, and will conclude that ARod is underpaid.

I don't agree ...

But, assuming Schilling was clean, he's one of the few whose criticisms carry weight.

The Red Sox.

So, the headline reads, "Boston Red Sox starting rotation should give Yankees reason to worry."

Of course. Nothing profound here.

What's interesting, though, is the rest of the article, wherein Bill Madden talks about shortstops.

I'm expecting an article next Sunday entitled "The Jeter Factor" that talks about the Red Sox pitching rotation.

How do you say "bust" in Japanese?

"Igawa, 30, signed a five-year, $20 million contract with New York before the 2007 season, but the Yankees have seen little return on that investment, to say nothing of the $26 million posting fee paid to his former club, the Hanshin Tigers of the Japanese Central League"

Given.

"Garciaparra’s name didn’t come up in the Mitchell Report. He never testified before Congress. He wasn’t implicated in BALCO. Yet numerous people in baseball, from executives to reporters to other players, talk about his career as if performance-enhancing drug use was a given."

I always like the source "numerous people."

Some players evoke sympathy and some do not.

I'm guessing Ivan Rodriguez gets into the HOF on the first ballot and Alex Rodriguez does not.

Is it because Mets are good and Yankees are bad?

"Why is A-Rod different from Beltran and Reyes?"

Because ARod hit more than 10 HRs last season?

Because ARod has a shiny new championship ring on his finger? A championship ring that mocks and tortures Mike Lupica on a daily basis, like a ringworm slowly eating at Lupica's soul?



"Because Rodriguez is the big New York baseball star who has priors when it comes to performance-enhancing drugs. Beltran and Reyes do not."

Oh.


Nobody else cares, Lupica, but at least this give you something to write about besides long-forgotten Johnny Damon.

Proof that Jeter's the most overrated.

By the way, this article goes on for six pages.

Six pages in a March, 2010 New York Daily News article explaining who Derek Jeter is and what Derek Jeter has done.

Is there anyone in the New York Daily News readership who doesn't know all of this already?


Why can't Jeter be appreciated for his world-class, All Star, Hall of Fame abilities without continual exaggeration of these abilities?

A guy who hits 15 HRs per year ... even if that player eventually earns the title of greatest shortstop ever ... even if that player gets 4,000 hits ... that player simply can never be better than Babe Ruth.


Most popular Yankee ever? Perhaps. Different question.

Best Yankee shortstop ever? He passed Rizzuto about 10 years ago.

Best shortstop ever? It's possible, though it is really just due to a technicality, because Jeter never moved to third base or first base like other superior shortstops.

Best Yankee ever? Don't even ask the question because it's dopey.

It's not Jeter's fault. If you want to put him on the fictional Yankee Mount Rushmore, that's fine. It's just that Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, Berra, and Dimaggio all happened to play for the Yankees.

Also, the existence of Mariano Rivera begs the question if Jeter is even the best Yankee on his own team.

Mets good, Yankees bad.

"Understand: Just because Galea likes human growth hormone doesn't mean that Reyes does.

...

And just because Reyes now has a problem with his thyroid gland, and is in New York City for sophisticated testing on it, does not mean those problems were caused by any kind of synthetic drug in his system.

...

'Good medicine is about eliminating possible causes,' Dr. Lewis Maharam - a doctor of sports medicine who has made sense about performance-enhancing drugs for years - said yesterday. 'It's about differentials, making a list of possibilities and then eliminating them one by one. But there is a possibility that human growth hormone could cause a spike of thyroid hormone levels.' "

Okay, I agree with you. No need to prosecute a person without due process. But the evidence grows that Jose Reyes is a cheater and this doesn't bother you at all. Because Jose Reyes is a Met.


"There was a time not so long ago when Reyes was supposed to be the shortstop from the NL East who seemed to be the best bet to be MVP. It turned out to be Jimmy Rollins instead. Rollins and the Phillies then won a World Series and Derek Jeter and the Yankees won a World Series."

It's Lupica Journalism.

Lupica says something ignorant. That ignorant statement becomes the "supposed to." Worse, Lupica roots for his pre-conceived scenario.

So it's not journalism at all. It's making predictions and keeping score. Not what happened, but what is gonna happen and what shoulda happened.


"You know what's really going to chafe the people running the New York Yankees?

If A-Rod went to see Dr. Tony Galea, blood-spinner to the stars, and told them he didn't."

Why would that chafe the people running the New York Yankees?

I just read an entire article about Jose Reyes's connection to Galea in which Reyes was completely let off the hook.

That article was written by you.

Is Derek Jeter going somewhere?

"The Yankees need to find a way to make Derek Jeter a Yankee for Life. There's really only one way. At some point the Steinbrenner family would have to take him into the ownership group.

...

The Yankees and Jeter will come together on a new deal at some point, but Jeter needs to be a Yankee for Life and there is a way to make him one. The Yankees need to work out a deal with Jeter where they allow him to become part of Yankees ownership after his playing days are complete. Players cannot be part of ownership, so this would have to be a separate deal.

...

Where will that ownership path take him? It should take him through The Bronx. Jeter should be a Yankee for Life."

To summarize:

Jeter should be a Yankee for Life ... bunch of words ... Jeter should be a Yankee for Life.

He's guilty, alright. Guilty of being TOTALLY AWESOME!

"Over a span of 61 seconds at Alex Rodriguez’s locker, the most turbulent 61 seconds of a downright sleepy Yankee spring, the third baseman managed to declare three times that the performance-enhancing police are banging on another suspect’s door."

You timed it?

You timed it to the exact second?

Or is that a very shaky allusion to Roger Maris's HR record?


"But no, realistically, this isn’t about someone else. It’s about Alex Rodriguez. It’s about a once-in-a-generation ballplayer who cheated the game, cheated the fans and cheated himself, and who now is discovering that even a World Series ring and ticker-tape parade can’t absolve him of his not-so-venial steroid sins."

"Venial."

Ian O'Connor found thesaurus.com.

Good for him.


"Asked if he’s had any direct contact with Galea, Rodriguez said, 'I can’t get into that.'

He’ll get into it with the feds."

Boy, this is some interesting breaking news.

They're basically going to find Alex Rodriguez is guilty of everything he already admitted to.

Yes, Gregg Zaun's non-existent reputation was tarnished.

"Gregg Zaun still believes the Mitchell Report was sloppy and full of holes, leading to several inaccurate conclusions, including about himself.

Yet, although his reputation was damaged, he says the game is better off with a blemished report than none at all."

In fact, baseball fans were polled about Gregg Zaun's steroid use:

1% guilty.
1% not guilty.
23% Greg Vaughn probably did take steroids.
75% Gregg who?

La Genius

"No, you won't see La Russa writing a book like this because, if you believe him, he had no clue any of this was going on.

Think about that for a minute. La Russa was the manager of the Oakland Athletics at the time when many believe the steroid era in baseball blew up in the A's locker room, with McGwire, Canseco and others believed to be using the drugs in the late 1980s and early 1990s time period, when Oakland was a dominant offensive team. And then, La Russa moves to another league, the National League, in 1996, to manage the St. Louis Cardinals, and brought a rejuvenated McGwire over with him. And then, under La Russa's watch, you have the summer of 1998, the battle between McGwire and Sammys Sosa over Roger Maris' 61 home run record -- a 37-year-old mark -- with McGwire so big he looked like he would explode if you stuck a pin in him. Over a three-year period, under La Russa's watch, McGwire hit 193 home runs, an unprecedented total.

Yet if we believe La Russa, he was ignorant of any performance-enhancing substance use in both Oakland and St. Louis. This man -- George Will's example of brilliance in the book, 'Men at Work,' a baseball manager with a law degree, the subject of the book, 'Three Nights in August,' by Buzz Bissinger, a book that, according to Publisher's Weekly, 'reveals La Russa's history and personality, conveying the manager's intensity and his compulsive need to be prepared for any situation that might arise during, "the war" of each at-bat' -- didn't know the stars of his teams were using steroids.

Of all the absurdities of the steroid era, this might be the most absurd."

Was that ARod or Le Tari?

The guy with the big teeth who played Dudley's father on "Diff'rent Strokes":

"Not a hint of smugness. Not a trace of gloating. Contentment instead of conceit.

Was that A-Rod or the Dalai Lama?"

Tee hee.

"Was that A-Rod or Edmund Hillary?

Sir Hillary, after becoming the first man to scale Mount Everest, devoted his life to building hospitals and schools for the Sherpa people of Nepal."

Chortle.


"This from the former teen prodigy who became a certified cheater, perhaps the most gifted player in baseball history who indisputably became the highest-paid, found serenity by giving in to the greater good.

Was that A-Rod or Frank William Abagnale?"

Whoa. How obscure are these references gonna get?

" 'We both talked about what an amazing feeling it was to be world champs and how badly we want to do that again,' Rodriguez said. 'It becomes an addiction. You want to just keep winning.'

Was that A-Rod or Derek Jeter?"

Waka waka.

Maybe ARod really is a lot like Derek Jeter. Still arrogant and egotistical and smug, but just good at charming the press corps.

Ryan Franklin not against firearms in MLB clubhouses.

Ryan Franklin Must Kill The Queen.

I dare you to not bring up the Yankees.

" 'When I got the three-year deal (before 2008), I thought I'd manage two ...' "

Guy has never seemed to enthusiastic about managing the Los Angeles Dodgers.


" 'I've never been this age before, but at some point you are going to dread going to spring training ... ' "

Anybody else says "I've never been this age before" and I'd dismiss it as an amusing wordplay.

When Joe Torre says it, I truly wonder if he understands the basics of time, place, and biology.


"Torre, wearing his 1996 Yankees World Series ring, has not reached the heights in Los Angeles that he did in New York, where he won four championships.

...

'After being in New York, I never really anticipated going anywhere else, and starting again, but it was a great decision on my part to continue doing this, because it's been a lot of fun,' Torre said."

"Brett Gardner works on tool."

Bunting. I'll believe it when I see it. I've heard it before from other speedy ballplayers.

He moves the merch.

"It seems that the prevailing thought is that neither the Yankees nor Jeter would gain much by parting ways, so a deal is going to get done eventually. Still, as an advanced-aged player who is still highly productive, Jeter is an outlier. And that status creates the potential for negotiations to get complicated."

By now, I think it should be clear that Jeter brings in the fans and sells a zillion tee-shirts.

Last year, it became a big event just because he passed Lou Gehrig in career hits ... as a Yankee. Imagine the draw as he approaches 3,000 hits? Or as he approaches Pete Rose?

The Yankees are going to pay him a ton of money and he's worth every penny. It has little to do with his on-base percentage. Which, by the way, is purty darn good.

I know! I know!

"There were 43 Super Bowls before the other night. Try to remember all the quarterbacks who threw a fat pitch like the one Manning threw to Porter."

Kurt Warner.

Last year.

The guy ran it back 100 yards for a touchdown on the last play of the first half.