Joe Torre has a horse in the Kentucky Derby.

Oh, and the Dodgers are going through the motions:

"The fallout prompted Colletti to call Kemp into a postgame meeting that also included Manager Joe Torre.

'I wanted to explain to him that I didn't single out Matt Kemp,' Colletti said. 'I was asked a question about it. It's not one guy's responsibility. It's a team effort. It's a team effort when it goes in the right direction. It's a team effort when it doesn't. It starts with me.'

Kemp declined to talk about the meeting, but Stewart said the reason Colletti offered for saying what he said wasn't a valid one.

...

Torre avoided taking sides.

...

Stewart was less restrained.

'A man panicking is what it sounds like to me,' he said of Colletti.

Stewart said Colletti should take more responsibility for the Dodgers' 8-13 start.

'He hired the manager,' Stewart said. 'He hired the coaching staff. The players on the team were selected by him and the coaching staff.' "

I caught Torre in a pregame interview.

Torre talked about Darryl Strawberry and Cecil Fielder. Torre said that the 1996 Yankees adapted their strategy based on the changing personnel on their team. This is an important managerial approach, Torre said.

Unclear if Torre could name five players on the 2010 Dodgers.

Second in the AL East, but first in our hearts.

Only a delusional whore like Mike Lupica would actually push the Yankees vs. Mets storyline:

"With the Yankees stuck in second, the Mets have gone from last place in the NL East to first place in the NL East as fast as Jose Reyes."

The Yankees are 13-7.

"Stuck" in second place is just 2.5 games behind the Rays ... only 2 games back on the loss side! ... with, ummm, let's see ... 142 games to play.

But maybe Lupica is upset because the Yankees are three games ahead of the Boston Big Papis.


Also, one other thing: The Yankees are the current World Series Champions.

The Mets are not the current World Series Champions.

Asleep at the wheel.

The players are ultimately responsible for the outcome.

But this disgraceful game-changing at-bat is Girardi's fault:

"Kendry Morales: Intentional ball, Ball, Hunter stole third, Ball, Morales homered to center, Hunter and Matsui scored."

At first, the Yankees were going to intentionally walk Morales, but then they changed their mind.

If you're going to throw an intentional ball, then you have to stick with the intentional walk. You can't just put your pitcher in a 1-0 hole.

The 3-0 pitch was grooved, despite the fact that the Yankee coaches were reminding Cervelli/Marte that Morales was going to swing.

Well, Cervelli/Marte didn't get the message.

That's Girardi's fault.

To the Yankee fans who want to boo Javier Vazquez ...

Check out Charlie Hustle's .140 slugging percentage.

Wouldn't be steroids, would it?

"If David Ortiz is washed up, or just as old as some people seem to think he is, then the Red Sox are going to have to give up a bunch of prospects for Adrian Gonzalez sooner rather than later.

Because the Sox don't have enough stick."

Washed up ... or old ... or lacking steroids.


By the way, Lupica, Beltre has 0 HRs. and a .333 slugging percentage, while Lester has an ERA of 8.44.

Finally!

"But after becoming a World Series champion and offering little fodder for the gossip pages - he's reportedly dating Cameron Diaz after things ended with Kate Hudson - Rodriguez had the Yankee faithful wondering: What's taking so long?"

I know lots of Yankee fans and nobody was wondering.

But good to know he's reportedly dating Cameron Diaz.


"A-Rod put an end to the waiting Saturday in the Yankees' 7-3 victory over the Texas Rangers at the Stadium."

Yes, an end to the waiting. The world can resume its normal day-to-day activities.


"It came in his 42nd at-bat, ending the second-longest homerless drought of his career to begin a season, ..."

42 whole at-bats in the cold, in the rain, in April.


"... trailing only the 48 at-bat homerless streak he had at the start of the 1995 season with the Seattle Mariners."

Well, I give you credit for looking up an unimportant statistic.


"Yet for the 44,963 fans at the Stadium Saturday, A-Rod's first homer of the year seemed have the same effect as his first one last year: The focus was on the game, and the game alone, even as a graphic flashed on the big screen tracking Rodriguez's 'assault' on 600 home runs."

That's because nobody cared that he had gone 42 at-bats without hitting a HR.

Let's talk about Joe Torre.

"Kay then defended Girardi, his partner on 'The Joe Girardi Show' (Only on YES), saying he was a better manager than - yeah, you guessed it - Joe Torre.

'Joe Torre never managed at all,' Kay said. 'He managed men in the clubhouse, but he did nothing with X's and O's during a game.'

Kay went on to gush about what a great strategist Girardi, who managed the Yankees to a championship (he's still three rings shy of Torre) is. This is the same Girardi who, according to the other side of Kay's mouth, made those awful, confidence-shattering lineup changes Tuesday night.

So, there's a grand contradiction here."

It's not a grand contradiction to say that a great strategist made a few specific bad decisions. A great strategist is not necessarily a perfect strategist.

It's also not a contradiction to say that Girardi is a better strategist than Torre. Everyone knows that Torre couldn't be bothered with the lineups, roster, in-game strategies, bullpen management, etc.

Yet another baseball writer who doesn't like baseball.

"West should be applauded for speaking up. The game is way too slow. Speed it up, please.

We live in a fast-paced society. Everything has speeded up. E-mail, instant messaging, tweeting. But baseball has lagged behind, stayed in the horse and buggy era.

You would think all those finely tuned athletes, with millions in disposable income, would prefer a faster-paced game. But beating inside the chest of these guys with their fast toys is the heart of a traditionalist."

The games take longer to play, actually, so what you are saying is ignorant.

If the players were traditional, they'd play more quickly.


Talk about creating a problem where none exists.

The Yankees and Red Sox lead the league in attendance and ratings.

Taking their cue, I'd advise the rest of the league to slow down.

How long can the Daily News stick with Tim Smith?

Javier Vazquez has a bad start:

"You would have liked to see the 33-year-old Vazquez accomplish more in his first start."

Well, yeah.


"But you know Girardi is going to stick with him for as long as he can. How long did he stick with Chien-Ming Wang before pulling the plug last year? Wang had more of a body of work with the Yankees than Vazquez, so Girardi's Job-like patience was warranted in that case."

I think you meant to say Girardi's patience was not warranted. Since Wang's ERA was 199.00 and he was eventually cut from the team.


"How long do you stick with Vazquez? And do you start looking at Joba Chamberlain as a starter again? I know it's too early to start asking these questions, but Vazquez didn't inspire a lot of confidence Friday night."

How long will the Yankees stick with Vazquez as a starter and keep Joba in the bullpen?

The entire season, guaranteed.

Worst case scenario, let's say Vazquez gets hurt. The next starter would be Aceves, then Mitre, then a free agent, then somebody from the minors.

Joba will remain in the bullpen.

Chan Ho Park is vaunted by no one.

"Opening Day losses don't get more exasperating than this."

Sure they do, Mr. Imagination.

I'll bet the losing team in half the games today are more exasperated than the Yankees.

I'll bet at least one team loses when their closer blows the lead in the ninth inning. The most exasperating would be a walk-off balk. I don't think I've ever seen a walk-off balk.

Further, I'll bet the team that loses will leave two or three runners on third base with less than two outs and their manager will say they need to work on their situational hitting.


"When your ace can't hold a 5-1 lead, when your bullpen spits up a two-run lead quicker than you can say Chan Ho Park, your first thought is that 2009 suddenly seems like a long time ago."

Sabathia is the goat.

"Chan Ho Park?

He's the guy you want in the game holding a 7-5 lead in the seventh inning? Wasn't David Robertson supposed to be the next big thing in the Yankee bullpen? He got two outs in the sixth in relief of Sabathia, albeit after giving up a single that scored the tying run, and then he was gone."

That's why Sabathia is the goat.

Park is the 25th guy on the roster. Sabathia is a $160 million, 350-lb. ace.

Sabathia does his job and hands it to Robertson / Marte / Joba / Rivera with a 5-run lead in the 8th.

Chan Ho Park's job is to sweep up the peanut shells in the bullpen.


"Joba Chamberlain wasn't exactly the dominant reliever of old, either, allowing a vital insurance run in the eighth on a walk and two singles."

In 2007 -- three seasons ago -- Joba came up in the middle of the season and threw 24 incredible innings. One earned run.

He tanked a bit in the 2007 playoffs, but nobody seemed to hold it against him.

In 2008, Joba pitched successfully for 100 big-league innings, but he lost his fastball when he hurt his shoulder.

Since that shoulder injury, he has been usually good but not usually great.

If you're expecting an ERA of 0.38, you will be disappointed.

If that's what you mean by the "dominant reliever of old," it will never happen again.

I'm not sure what people are expecting from a setup guy. I just hope he's a little better than Kyle Farnsworth. Tom Gordon is probably setting the bar too high.

Mike Lupica notices Mariano Rivera is great.

Lupica finally jumped on board about mid-season last year:

"The talk of this season will be a new contract for Jeter, who wants to play past 40 the way Alex Rodriguez does. Their hero, their role model, should be Rivera. He is the Yankee they want to be when they reach his age. There have been other Yankees, and other pitchers, who pitched at a high level at 40. Not like No. 42. Find another iconic New York athlete in any sport who has ever done it quite like this."

I think the talk of this season will mostly be baseball games the Yankees play. Jeter's inevitable contract, barring unforeseen events, will be negotiated after the season and that's the end of the discussion.


"The best of it last fall really was the way a whole new light was shined on the excellence of Rivera, the grace, the professionalism, the importance of the man, on his team, and in this time in sports, where we have been conditioned to be disappointed by the most famous names."

Agreed. Too bad you didn't notice for the past decade-and-a-half since you were too busy worshiping Jeter, Big Papi, and Theo Epstein.


"More and more – mo and mo? – he let people get to know him, find out that he is the best quote in the room, has the sharpest take on baseball. And honest. And completely accountable. You want them all to be like him."

No, not "mo and mo," since you asked. That's corny and lame.

It's embarrassing for a sportswriter with access to Mariano Rivera didn't bother asking him any questions for a decade-and-a-half.

"As he gets later into his career, the question is always the same: Is this the year when he slips? Is this when he starts to act his age, become less than he has been?

'I hear that every April,' he said. 'I'm used to it.' "

Yes, you hear that every April.

Every year, Mariano hears that his career is over. Usually from punk Mike Lupica.

Every year, I explain that Lupica is wrong.

Every year, I am right.

Ian O'Connor decides who's good and who's bad.

ESPN's loss is the The Record's gain:

"These are the last words I will write for The Record, which makes them by far the toughest. I was a Record delivery boy in my youth in Englewood, wondering what it would be like to write for my hometown paper, but never actually thinking I’d get lucky enough to find out.

In my first column on Dec. 31, 2006, I wrote that my goal was to celebrate the good guys and chase the bad guys.' I hope I did more celebrating than chasing in the 39 months since."

Alex Rodriguez is bad, I would presume.

That's quite a mission for a sportswriter, though.

Instead of telling us who won the game and how, he basically wants to be God.

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.