One liners

So...should we just start referring to PED's as Rocket Fuel?

If Tom Brady picks up at the beginning of the coming season where he left off at the end of 2007, what's the over/under for the first bionic man reference? Week three?

If Peyton Manning struggles, what will be blamed first? Age or the change in coaching staff?

If Brady struggles, what's the over/under on blaming him for coming back from rehab too quickly?

This year's Daisuke Matsuzaka has been more crumbling Dice than tumbling Dice. Take your time figuring it out, and get back when you can.

Is it just me, or are there a lot of morons out there complaining about the value for the dollar with the Dice-man. It's three seasons into a six season contract, and this is the only season that the Dice has come up craps, so to speak.

A Penny saved...if Brad Penny continues on pace, he will have a comparable year to his 2006 campaign with the Dodgers...adjusted for pitching in the batter's A-League of course. For what it's worth, I'll take 14 to 16 wins from my fourth starter.

Am I the only one hoping that Patrick Chung turns out to be a better pick than the last man the Pats drafted with that last name - Eugene Chung?

Should we call him Steroidin' Sammy now?

Yeah, I'd be peeved at Alex Rodriguez if I were Yankee management - fatigue from an operation and playing are one thing, but Jet-setter Lag?

Yup, sometimes it's the trade that didn't happen that determines the fate of a franchise. How about them Apples, NY?

April Fools

We are on the precipice of a pagan holiday, once a celebration of the start of the spring planting season, All Fool's Day has developed into a day of practical jokes both erudite (see George Plympton's "Curious Case of Sid Finch") and ridiculous (see the idiot that put a whoopee cushion under his boss's ass). In honor of the day, I want to address some of the biggest fools we've had to deal with as sports fans in recent days.

Here five of my favorites. They are in no particular order -

Michael Vick - As noted here yesterday, this fool thinks he's going to come back from his legal issues and garner a contract worth $10 million per season as a quarterback in the NFL. That's the number he used to write his bankruptcy plan, the plan he's using to repay creditors. This is a man that, at best, might get a job as a back-up quarterback, and it's not even assured that his jail time is done given the fact that he may have plundered his entertainment marketing company, MV7's pension plan to pay some of his debts.

Plaxico Burress - This fool derailed the Giants Super Bowl hopes when he shot himself in the leg. In a nightclub. With an unregistered (illegally owned) handgun. Now he's in court, trying to work out a plea deal (adjourned until June 15). I guarantee that any plea will include jail time, and the man will miss at the very least a part of the season due to the impending suspension.

Alex Rodriguez - To put it simply, this is a man that can't get out of his own way. In the last year he has been caught cheating on his wife, cheating the game of baseball, and cheating the fans. He's engaged in interviews that, within days of each other, contradicted his previous interviews. Heap that on top of a guy whose batting average, over the course of his career, is at its lowest in September (.285), and October (.250), (in no other month is his batting average below .299) you have a paper lion who needs to figure out how not to be his own worst enemy.

Pacman Jones - It's hard to know where to start with this bonehead. To put it succinctly, once thought to be one of the up and coming corners when with Tennessee, Jones' legal issues have made him radioactive around the league, but not so much so that Dallas wasn't willing to give him a flyer. After a lackluster season with the Cowboys, combined with his legal issues, Jones has failed to generate any interest - hell he's failed to generate even rumors of interest - in his services, and may have effectively worked his way out of the league.

Al Davis - Once the owner of the NFL's resident bad boys, and once a winning coach in his own right, Davis has become the league's unintentional jester. Changing coaches far more frequently than he changes 1970's jumpsuits, Davis has created instability at the team's most important position (coach), drafted poorly, undermined the authority of his coach, and has invariably blamed his team's failings on the coaching. The only common thread in his team's failures - Al Davis. It doesn't take a genius to figure this one out.

Celebrate the fools, it's their time.

Rapid Fire

And not the Brandon Lee flick...

A-Rod, known better in some circles as Slappy McBluelips, is in the news again for yet another boneheaded thing. Slappy posed for a series of sultry photos for Details Magazine, which included a shot of the man making out with the person he loves the most - himself.

There are a lot of stupid things he's done - the hand slap, the yell rounding third, the steroids (rumored to go back as far as high school - which would explain no significant spike in his career stats), his series of contradictory explanations regarding the steroids, getting caught with the stripper in Toronto - but somehow I don't see this flying in the locker room.

The more I think about it, the less likely I think Julius Peppers ends up in New England. I believe that the Pats may have called the Panthers to see what it would take, but I also think that the numbers don't add up - yes, signing him would make it likely that some of the other players would have to be allowed to walk, but I also think for Peppers to come into the fold, he would have to take a considerable cut from what he would make as a franchise player. The Pats aren't going to pay more for Peppers than they do for Tom Brady.

That doesn't even take into account that I find it hard to believe that the Pats would pay out big money to someone who has never played the position.

Also, staying with Peppers, for somebody who wants desperately out of Carolina, he's virtually handcuffed himself by not signing the franchise tender. Without the tender signed, Peppers remains a free agent, however no one will touch him due to the compensation that would be owed to the Panthers - two first round picks. As a free agent, Carolina does not actually hold Peppers' rights and cannot trade him, but are handcuffed in free-agency because, until Peppers signs elsewhere, the team has to have the money available on the books in case Peppers signs the tender - so, even though he's not signed, he counts against the cap. How's that for a kick in the nuts - Peppers, in effect, can't get out of Carolina because he hasn't signed the tender, and Carolina can't improve until they're rid of Peppers, and he's not actually under contract.

For my money, I still say the Pats sign Jason Taylor to small money to play opposite Adalius Thomas. I expect the signing won't happen until sometime after the draft.

The Yankees brain trust cannot be happy with the spring that their big acquisition, CC Sabathia, is having. In fewer than eight innings pitched he has an ERA in excess of 7.00. The Yanks went out and spent big money on a pitcher pushing maximum density that racked up 90 innings in his last 12 starts (not including a brutal start in the playoffs against Philly where he failed to get out of the fourth inning). He had more complete games in the second half last season than he has had in any one whole season in his career. I can't help but think the big money for Sabathia over the long term, and possibly even the short-term is a bad idea.

The Celtics have been hit with some injury issues, but I think there's still enough time for them to get healthy going into the playoffs.

Ditto for the Red Sox going into the regular season.

Good luck to all with their brackets.

Tidbits

Evidently pharmacists in the Dominican are disputing A-Rod's claim that the steroid he used can be obtained over the counter in the DR. Additionally, according to a New York Daily News report, two reporters sent to the DR pretty much were able to obtain Durabolin immediately after getting off their flight.

The reporters went into the first pharmacy, were asked for a first name, and then spent about $20 to get their steroids.

Considering reports regarding a steroid trail from Mexico into San Diego (in relation to the Chargers), I'm surprised, given MLB's efforts over the last two seasons, that baseball's franchises continue to send players for winter league games to Mexico, or any of the Latino countries where obtaining these drugs is so easy.

Hopefully David Ortiz is being completely straight regarding banned trainer Angel Presinal. As much as I agree with Dave over at the Coffin Corner that Ortiz's call for a year ban on users makes it appear that he's likely to be clean, I disagree that his stats have stayed on an even keel throughout his career.

Everyone is quick to point out that he became a monster once in Boston and he was a full time player, but he did have two seasons with the Twins in which he played in at least 125 games and logged at least 400 at bats. For those two seasons Ortiz averaged 15 home runs and 69 RBI's. Over a 162 game season that projects to roughly 20 homers and 85 RBI's.

While the wrist injury he had last season was reminiscent of the one that Nomar had - one of the connective tissue, and an odd one at that - I don't believe that Big Papi has been juicing, but anecdotal evidence isn't good. He's linked with a trainer who's a known supplier (and should know better than to train where this man works - it's not like he doesn't have the money to have the option of training elsewhere), he had a freak injury of the connective tissue - the tendon sheath in his wrist - which is the sort of injury that could be indicative of steroid use, and his production spiked when he moved to Boston with his homerun total spiking by 55 percent when he moved from the Twins to the Sox, and more than doubling his final Minnesota HR total within two seasons, and knocking in 64 more runs within two years of his departure from the Metrodome.

The flip side - Ortiz was 26 in his final season with the Twins, just beginning to enter what is universally held as the prime of his career, the time when most players stats would spike. If you account for a 25 percent increase just based on entering the prime of his career, he would have hit about 25 homers and knock in about 93 runs. A look at Ortiz's stats also shows that he did have, on average a 35 to 40 percent increase in at bats - that would account for up to an additional 8 homers and 17 RBI's bringing him into the 30's and about 110 respectively, and I haven't even figured in the Fenway factor. So, no, I do think he got there naturally - but he really should be aware of appearances of impropriety in relation to the juicing issue.

Given that Kevin Garnett's injury is only a muscle strain and he should be back with about 18 games left in the season, i don't think Garnett's injury is necessarily a bad thing for the Celtics. If the team wins half the games he misses, that means he comes back and the C's have lost four games. At worst that will drop them to the three seed in the East. I don't think going .500 over the next eight games is an unrealistic expectation, and I don't think being the three seed is a bad thing for them.

Based on current standings, even if they lost the four games, they could only fall to the third seed if Orlando goes 7-1 over that same stretch - so it's more likely that the worst that would happen is that they end up in the second seed by no more than two games with 18 to go and a rested Kevin Garnett in the line-up.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

Steroids - it's a three ring circus

Never mind the idiot fans that are actually coming to Alex Rodriguez's defense in the Winstrol-Stanozolol Circus - and there are some (all you need do is look at the comments at the end of the article here) - we are now seeing three distinct groups forming in Baseball's biggest side-show.

The Steroid Users and their Apologists - taking center ring, step right up to see records broken and excuses made. Watch false apologies (so so sorry [I got caught]. Won't do it again), crocodile tears, and the support and justification of teammates cornered into shows of such. Witness team brain trusts cringe as they realize they're awarded monstrous contracts under false pretenses, and scramble in conjunction with agents in spin control.

The second ring - Players filled with righteous and, sometimes, justified indignation when going about the game without taking short-cuts. Players not hiding behind the union; players calling for stricter testing and penalties, players that aren't making excuses, calling it "the culture," or justifying use. Yes, there are some players in this group that seem to move to the center ring, but that's all part of the show now, isn't it?

The Fourth Estate is the Third Ring - The reporters reporting the news have become the news. Selena Roberts, the reporter from Sports Illustrated who broke the news has become part of the current news cycle for both breaking the story, and because of Alex Rodriguez's attack on her during his interview with Peter Gammons. During the Gammons interview in which A-Rod copped to his steroid use, the superstar with the quarter-billion dollar talent and the ten-cent head accused Roberts of stalking him and of having multiple run-ins with the police.

Unfortunately for A-Rod, there's not a shred of evidence to support his claims. So much so, that Rodriguez has already privately contacted Roberts and apologized.

My own personal opinion of A-Rod's apology - were I the reporter, it wouldn't be enough. I would want a public retraction and apology. Until that happened, I would have lawyers begin proceedings against Rodriguez, and wouldn't back off until that public apology happened.

By Request

Colts fan (don't hold it against her, guys) and fellow leatherhead Teresa put forth the following response to my reaction to the Alex Rodriguez steroids story -

What is so sad is these people don't need those drugs to be rock stars. They are amazing on their own. Is the pressure to do more and more? It is peer pressure?

I don't think there's any one answer as to why these different athletes feel it's necessary to juice. There might be one right answer for a given player, but there are a variety of reasons that these men inject, rub, and otherwise administer illegal and banned substances.

For some, I think it's about hanging around for a few more years - Rodney Harrison comes to mind. For others, bottom of the roster players, it's about hanging around, period.

For every player like Harrison or the bottom end player trying to extend their time in the pros, there are the guys like Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez for whom being at the top of the game wasn't good enough. There's a special sort of narcissism that goes into that - one that I understand, but I just don't get. Okay, well, Clemens didn't sustain it over a long period of time like Bonds had done, not until he had been juicing.

Being at the top of their games wasn't good enough. They had to shatter records, and they will find ways, just like their apologists, to rationalize the use of the banned supplements - it doesn't affect the ability to pick up the ball in the strike zone (in spite of the fact that studies suggest that HGH can enhance eye-sight), it doesn't affect the inherent ability to turn on a 95 mile per hour fast ball (in spite of the fact that evidence has shown that steroids can impact and help build the fast twitch muscle that allows a hitter to turn on that ball), it doesn't help (then why do it, and why do these players almost always show a spike in their numbers in the years they admit to having started doping?).

When I was in high school, I knew of at least one player on the football team doing steroids. I didn't get it. For me, part of sport was pushing my body to the limit, see what I was truly capable of. I qualified for the New York State Meet in track and field, I've finished a marathon, I've played Australian football for ten seasons, played street hockey for eight. I've never missed a game due to injury (although I probably should have - I've been known to play games with an air-cast on my ankle for disconnected tendons...it sucked), and never taken any sort of supplement to do so. It defeats the purpose, in my opinion.

In their heads, it appears to be a means to an end. Better stats, better contracts, better remembered when they're gone. It's not a short-cut, legality be damned.

But why is there a mentality that juicing isn't a short-cut? Because a person who takes steroids and doesn't put the physical labor into getting into better shape just gets fat. Best as I can figure is they believe that because they are still doing physical work that it's not a short cut.

My personal belief is that these guys, while they know it's against the rules, don't believe they're actually doing anything wrong. And I think that's really the bottom line.

Other thoughts -

Brett Favre claims that he's actually retired...again. I'll believe it sometime next fall if and when he's not under center taking snaps.

There has been a lot shaken-up in the NFL this off-season, and I will address that soon.

Da Juice...again

To be perfectly honest, I, for one, am getting tired of writing about the crap-tastic world of juicing athletes, but given the news cycle regarding Alex Rodriguez, it looks like I kind of have to.

Am I surprised by the recent revelations? Not in the least. Is there anyone whose name would surprise me at this point? No.

Sure, there are players that I hope haven't been on anything, but I'm convinced at this point that well over half the players from the so-called steroid era were juicing in one way or another. Considering that the only source for the Mitchell Report was a clubhouse attendant from New york, and the preponderance of names contained in the report were East Coast guys, I have to wonder just how many names would have been in the report had they found the supplier in Atlanta? San Diego? Arlington? Chicago?

There is no schadenfreude in this. A-Rod is just the explanation point on what isn't really even the end of an era. There's a misconception that juicers are going to go away. A-Rod has any number of issues which are fair game, but for anyone who has defended Rodney Harrison, or Nick Kaczur, or any number of other NFL players, to attack Rodriguez on this is not just disingenuous, it's hypocritical.

The NFL makes the idea that the juicing era in baseball a lie. And let's call it what it is - the Juicing Era, not steroid.

The designer drug makers will always be a step ahead of those enforcing the league's rules. The sins are out of Pandora's Box, and there's not putting them back in.

Maybe there will be fewer juicing, but the era isn't over. It's just beginning, the tip of the iceberg, and more is bound to come out.

City of Dust

Dust - it's tiny, seems practically insignificant, yet it's all over and can have a severe impact on even the largest of bodies.

Pretty apt description for the Red Sox latest winner of the MVP award. One of the smallest players in the majors, Dustin Pedroia is, in his second season, the most decorated member of the Boston baseball team over the first two years of his career since Fred Lynn won the Rookie of the Year, Gold Glove, and MVP awards in 1975.

Pedroia now has a ROY, Gold Glove, Silver Slugger, and MVP award to show for his work as one of the men in the middle for the Sox. It's as much a testament to the little man's gritty determination as it is Theo Epstein's and Terry Francona's dedication to standing by the little man's side when he struggled at the beginning of the 2007 season.

Their faith in Pedroia has paid off in spades.

Pedroia's win is one of the few times that the Baseball Writer's Association has gotten this right.

The award is for the Most Valuable Player, not the guy who is statistically the best - which is what I think happened over in the National League.

I always felt that the key word in the award was "Valuable."

Sure, it could mean a number of different things to different people, however, the bottom line, I've always believed, is how valuable was the player to a team's success. It's a difficult question, and seldom is a player on a team that misses out on the playoffs deserving. There are exceptions - When Steve Carlton rocked 27 wins with a sub-2.00 ERA for a Phillies team that won only 62 games back in 1972, he certainly should have beat out Johnny Bench for the award. Any lesser pitcher would have struggled to get to double digits in wins, considering the Phillies lack of run support, making Carlton, far and away, the most valuable player to any success his team had that season. Consider the following - if you had a pitcher that couldn't even half his total of wins - at say, 13 wins, and those other 14 games are losses, the Phils finish 1972 with 48 wins.

I digress.

As to the question - what would have happened to the Sox had they lost Pedroia for an extended period of time? He picked up the slack when others went down - when the team lost David Ortiz, and JD Drew. When Mike Lowell was playing through injury, and the team suffered injuries to the starting rotation. If they lose Pedroia, do they still get to the post-season? I have my doubts.

It was nice to see the voters get it right, the voters that are enamored of stat machines.

Don't believe that about the voters? Consider the following about Alex Rodriguez (this was from one of my previous posts, but I have since updated it for current numbers)...

“Once each of his previous teams, the Mariners and the Rangers, rid themselves of A-Rod, those teams averaged somewhere around eight more wins per season for the first three seasons after Rodriguez’s departure. The Yankees averaged 95.5 wins per season with A-Rod in their line-up (with decreasing numbers the last three - 97, 95, 89). The three seasons prior to his arrival? 99.67. Sure, a drop-off of four games per year isn’t huge, but it’s still a drop off and when combined with the following fact, it’s a serious indictment of what his impact on a team really is - for the three seasons he played for the Rangers, Texas won 73, 72, and 71 games respectively (the Yankees won 101 his first season with the team, a total down to 89 this season), but for the first three seasons after A-Rod left the confines of Arlington, the Rangers 89, 79, and 80 games respectively - an average improvement of eight games per year.”

So, A-Rod won the award three times on teams that had lower win totals with him than without. How valuable is that? The Sox, on the other hand, jumped from 85 wins in 2006 to 96 wins in 2007, and 95 this past season.

I know that it's not fair to lay the improvement or decay at the feet of one player, but in the case of A-Rod, the improvement/degradation has followed him through his career. It happens to one team, it's coincidence, it happens with three teams - well, that's a career trend.

In other Sox news -

I just want to bid a quick farewell to Coco Crisp who is now officially a member of the Kansas City Royals. While the trade affects depth in the outfield, it bolsters the bullpen, an issue in the post season, with the acquisition of Ramon Ramirez. Ramirez appeared in 71 games, going 3-2 with a 2.64 ERA for the 75 win Royals last season.

Happy trails Coco.

What's in an MVP...or draft position for that matter?

Yesterday Alex Rodriguez won the American League MVP award, keeping a 20+ year streak intact of AL MVP's that failed to reach the World Series. It is the third MVP that he has won. There are a couple of questions that this presents -

What does the MVP really mean?

Is it just an award to acknowledge the player who statistically has the best year, or is it meant to recognize the player who has the greatest impact on his team?

What does that key word, "valuable," really mean?

I will admit that the Yankees don't make the post-season this year without A-Rod, but do the Red Sox without Lowell? Without Ortiz? Just one of those guys out of the lineup for significant time and the Sox don't make the post-season.

Which, in turn, begs the following question - 20 years of AL MVP's failing to make the World Series, then isn't World Series MVP the far more telling award? After all, it is given to the player who plays the best and has the most impact on the championship team during crunch time. I mean, think about it, this year's winner hit 30 of his 54 home runs before the All-Star Break - 56 percent of his dingers. Through the first 63 games he was on pace to hit 64 homers.

To put the cherry on the whipped cream, A-Rod won the award playing on a last-place club in Texas. What was his value there?

I think major league baseball has to have less vague specs for the voters in regards to this award. I do not begrudge A-Rod the award because, as I said, I don't think the Yankees make the post-season this year without him, however, I don't think he deserved to have such a landslide sort of vote leaning his way. There were several other players that were just as valuable to their teams.

However, I would still take the World Series MVP on my team over the AL MVP for one reason and one reason only - at this point it seems that the AL MVP pretty much means that my team didn't even make the Series.

Feeling drafty...

An interesting idea has creeped into the scribblings of many sports writers. Many like Peter King have started to note that drafting a franchise running back in the top ten is a waste of money. There is a history that they point at that includes Curtis Martin (3rd round), Terrell Davis (6th round), Willie Parker (undrafted), performing at as high a level, and often higher levels than a number of highly picked running backs such as Ron Dayne, Curtis Enis, Ki-Jana Carter, and Lawrence Phillips.

The idea is that a team looking for a running back, but doesn't want to spend big bucks on an unproven rookie, would be better served finding a gem in the late rounds rather than spending on an established back closing in on his 30th birthday (Texans and Ahman Green, we're looking at you).

It's not a bad idea, however, why wouldn't this be just as prudent to apply this same reasoning to quarterbacks? Some of the best in the business, per generation, have been missed by a number of teams - Johnny Unitas was cut by Pittsburgh, Joe Montana was a second rounder out of Notre Dame as was Brett Favre, Tom Brady came out of the sixth round, and Steve Young was a pick in the supplemental draft. A number of other solid starters have come from the late rounds - Bernie Kosar was a pick in the supplemental draft, currently Derek Anderson is looking solid, as is John Kitna. Jake Delhomme was undrafted as was Kurt Warner. Steve Grogan was drafted in the fifth round.

Isn't the evidence of first round quarterback busts just as damning as it is for running backs? Rick Mirer, Michael Vick, Ryan Leaf, Jeff George, Akili Smith...the list goes on.

Indicted

Two major indictments were handed down in Major League Baseball this past week. The one everyone knows about, Barry Bonds for perjury and obstruction of justice, and super-agent Scott Boras.

The Boras sycophants have been busy putting a positive spin on the Alex Rodriguez mess, saying that Boras still got his client the biggest contract in the history of the sport...again. The problem with that is that he didn't.

And what makes it worse for Boras is how this went down.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Boras was kept out of the loop by his dissatisfied client on the advice of corporate raider and financial wizard Warren Buffett. For those of you who don't know who Buffett is, think of yourself as a defensive coordinator for a high school football team and Bill Belichick comes along and tells you to ignore your head coach when setting up your football strategy. Not a great analogy, granted, but I think you get the idea.

As of June 2006, Fortune Magazine called Buffett the world's second richest man, valued at over $44 billion. According to various sources, in spite of increasing his net worth to an estimated $52 billion, he is believed to be the third richest person behind Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim, and Microsoft mogul Bill Gates.

This man's companies either control, or hold significant stock shares in GEICO, Coca Cola, Anheuser Busch, Wal-Mart, American Express, Nike, Outback Steak House, Dairy Queen, M&T Bank, Wells Fargo, Fruit of the Loom, and Jordan's Furniture. That only scratches the surface of Buffett's holdings.

This investor's advice to A-Rod essentially amounted to, "Boras can't be trusted with your money to get you the best return on investment. Get him out of the loop."

The only positive thing to come out of this for Boras is that, due to his contract to act as A-Rod's agent, he still gets a cut of the deal.

The negative, and this is big - this could hurt the ability of Boras to attract new clients. Other agents competing with Boras to recruit top flight young talent will be able to ask them, "do you want this guy representing you? One of the most respected financial geniuses in the world advised A-Rod to get him out of the negotiating loop for the last contract - essentially told the best player in baseball that this guy was poison to his chances of the highest paying contract in baseball history?"

Let the fall-out begin.

The Seven Deadly Sins

Pride and Lust -

Barry Bonds was indicted on perjury charges yesterday.

Dave over at the Coffin Corner already has this pretty well covered, but I did want to cover a few things in regards to this.

According to the AP report, Bonds started taking the cream, clear, and anabolic steroids the year after the "magical" steroid induced home-run race between Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa in 1997. Pride and lust took over. It wasn't enough for Bonds to be considered among the best players in baseball. He wanted everyone to call him the best period.

He clamored, yelled, and screamed for the love of the fans and the louder he yelled, like a five year old pitching a fit, the more we looked at him as a petulant little child. He lusted for our approval, and couldn't get it outside of his home stadium.

Now he has a federal prosecutor to deal with - those with the 95 percent conviction rate. And that's after those who settle without going to court.

I've run the numbers before, and it turns out that people that beat the rap in federal court comes to somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 out of every 1000 cases. Five. This is what pride and envy has gotten Bonds.

Of course, comically, Bonds has threatened to boycott the Hall of Fame. With the way this is coming down, don't be surprised if he never gets there.

Gluttony and Greed -

Alex Rodriguez and Scott Boras rolled the dice believing that they could get $350 million over the next year from some chump. Boras called that figure a starting point for negotiations, meaning he believed that he could have gotten his client more than that. The positive spin that is put on this is that A-Rod has signed, consecutively, the two biggest contracts in the history of Major League Baseball.

However, it can't be overlooked that Boras overestimated his client's worth by a minimum of $80 million, and possibly more. That translates to $8 million per year or a total of 29 percent of the overall contract's average annual worth. That's a huge mistake.

Envy -

As the Patriots batter their way closer to an undefeated season, the 1972 Dolphins from Don Shula down through the players are handling the threat to their record with something considerably less than class and aplomb. If anything, Shula is coming off as envious of what is happening, firing preemptive strike after preemptive strike - pretty much calling the Patriots season tainted and claiming his 1972 Dolphins as the best team ever.

I find it funny that someone whose own team was fined a first round pick for tampering talks about someone else doing something outside of the rules, and then claims that his team - one that played the third weakest schedule in the history of the NFL during the Super Bowl era - was the "best ever."

I respect what the Dolphins accomplished, but let's face it, they did it against the weakest competition of any Super Bowl winner - and to start shouting "look at me, we were better," does nothing but tarnish the 'Phins' legacy.

Sloth -

Adam "Pacman" Jones applied for reinstatement to the NFL and was turned down. Part of Jones' enforced off-season during which Roger Goodell told the troubled corner that a shortening of his suspension would be based on how he handled the time he had off.

Jones, who has had to perform community service in relation to one of his many arrests, gave inner city kids in Atlanta tickets to his pay per view wrestling event in the hopes of satisfying his community service requirement. For a guy trying to show his employers that he's working to do the right thing, that's about as lazy as it gets.

Wrath -

The fans outside of New England are angry. It is frustrating to be a fan of sports in other cities, and I do not fault the fans out there for that (but at least talk intelligently about the teams - don't just sit there and yell "they suck," it belittles you and the team you root for). The Red Sox wrapped up their second World Series title in four seasons, and look like they will be the team to beat in the AL East for at least the next couple of seasons.

The Patriots are in the middle of what could be a run at history, the Celtics are off to their best start since 1972, the Revolution is on the verge of a possible championship, the Bruins look like they might be able to contend, and Boston College is looking like a lock for a bowl game in spite of recent struggles.

There have been a lot of comparisons to New York and the Yankees, but let's face it - no city, not New York, not San Francisco, not Atlanta, not Dallas, has ever played host to such a serendipitous convergence of excellence from its sports franchises.

And that seems to have pissed off the rest of fan-nation.

C'est la vie.

One last note -

Am I the only person who sees the irony in the fact that three years ago the Ravens drafted a young quarterback in the sixth round named Derek Anderson, yes, the same Derek Anderson who has led the Browns to second place in the AFC North, and had a chance, in spite of a bad game, to maneuver the team to a tie for first against the Steelers last week, while the Ravens can't find a quarterback that can do jack. How does that happen with an "offensive genius" like Brian Billick? How does someone like that so grossly underestimate the talent at the team's keystone position?

I don't know how good Anderson is going to be, but let's face it, he's better than anything the Ravens have.

Caveat Emptor

Buyer beware.

Everyone has something to sell. Everyone. Me? I'm trying to sell the idea that I might indeed have a clue as to what I'm writing about...not everyone buys, particularly not my wife.

At least retail is honest about it. For the rest of us...well, let's just say you have to pay closer attention to what's being sold...

Let's go through some of the people and groups making sales pitches out there -

Scott Boras/Alex Rodriguez - A-Rod is the car that Boras is trying to sell. He's like a Jaguar- a sleek, pretty bauble of a car with a 12 cylinder engine that has a tendency to crap out on you at the worst possible moment. In 2004 when the Yankees needed a $30 million bat to save them from Mo Rivera's struggles, A-Rod disappeared like J.D. Salinger from the public eye.

Buyers need to beware of the slick, used-car salesman Boras, and his shiny toy of a product, A-Rod. Consider - even in a (contract) year in which A-Rod set career highs in RBI's (156), OBP (.422), and slugging (.645), hit the second most homers (54), and third highest batting average (.314), Boras is going out of his way to get potential buyers to NOT look at his client's post-season failings in that same career year - in a year in which A-Rod led the league in RBI's, he knocked in one in this year's post season.

So during a season in which A-Rod averaged an RBI per every 3.7 at bats, he had one in 15 during the postseason. Even adding in the 8 he had during the 2004 playoffs, this is what he has done in baseball's second season since then - 9 RBI's in 94 at bats, or one for every 10.4 at bats. For his career he has knocked in a run for every 4.9 at bats in the regular season, that has dropped off to one for every 8.6 at bats in the postseason, a number that has gotten progressively worse with each passing season.

This doesn't include the following facts that I have mentioned in other posts - for the first three seasons after A-Rod left Seattle, the team averaged in the vicinity of 10 more wins per season; after he left Texas, they averaged eight more wins per season; the Yankees have average almost four fewer per season, decreasing from 111 wins per year to 94 this year. And, here's the kicker, he has failed to help any team he has been on advance to the World Series. Buyer beware.

The first half of the Patriots schedule - What they are trying to sell? Professional football. How? By complaining that the Patriots are doing things they shouldn't be...like scoring a lot. The people who need to beware? The fan-bases of the Jets, Dolphins, Cowboys, Chargers, Bills, Bengals, Redskins and Browns. Really, the fans of the Cowboys, Jets, Dolphins, and Redskins in particular.

Those teams, those four mentioned at the bottom of that last paragraph, were the ones that started the complaints of how the Patriots are playing offense this year (well, the Jets complained about something else, and maybe they should be more worried about what's happening on the field than on the sideline - if this were European soccer, they and the Dolphins would be well on their way to playing in a semi-pro league). One Redskin, who shall remain unnamed in this post, accused the Patriots of disrespecting the game in an effort to deflect attention from the fact that what the Patriots really disrespected was the Redskins highly regarded defense.

As just about every former coach, player, and most pundits have said - there's no mercy rule in the NFL, if you don't like a team scoring on you, then do something about it. Rolling over and playing dead when you get down by a couple of touchdowns is what really disrespects the game.

Buyer...beware.

The National Press - The national press, in an effort to build up this weekend's game between the Pats and Colts, are trying to sell the Patriots as the evil empire with the merciless coach who won't take his foot off the pedal once he's driven the opposition into the ground. The Colts are the perennial good guys of the league with the owner doing everything he can to make a stadium happen in his host city, and the brilliant, but nice head coach in Tony Dungy.

Let's look at some of the facts in this - yes, the Patriots are running the score up on people and annihilating their opponents. However, it's not like the Colts under Dungy have never done this. The following was ganked from the Boston Globe's Eric Wilbur, via Dave at The Coffin Corner -

W, 49-14
W, 41-10
W, 41-9
W, 51-24
That quartet of one-sided scores comes to you courtesy of the 2004 Indianapolis Colts from a November-December period during which Peyton Manning and Company annihilated the Texans, Bears, Lions, and Titans, respectively. And, you know it's funny, I don't remember one person whining about them running up the score.

Tony Dungy, the good-guy coach in all of this, did not call off the dogs. Dungy has also publicly associated himself with groups that have well known anti-gay stances (but I suppose that's okay, because everyone knows that on one is gay in the locker room). Focus on Family, the group with which Dungy is most closely associated has been referred to by a number of people as "rabidly anti-gay." Last I checked, Bill Belichick has never aligned himself with any hate groups that hide behind a thin veil of legitimacy by claiming to be family advocates.

Let's look at Jim Irsay - still public enemy number one in Baltimore. Still the only owner that gets more of a rise out of Baltimore fans that Peter Angelos. For those who have forgotten, Irsay, the so-called nice guy owner, packed the Colts up in the dead of night and broke his lease with Baltimore County in an effort to move the team to Indy. Irsay did this against league wishes. Yeah, he's a good guy.

I have no personal issue with the Colts on the field. Manning is a supremely talented quarterback (please take a cue from Brady and cut back on the public endorsements - its annoying enough to make me look forward to seeing you get your head handed to you). The team is talented. However, the general manager and owner have whined whenever things didn't go their way, the head coach is a bigot, and the press is selling a serious double standard here.

Once again...buyer beware.

Champions and looking forward...

"Dustin Pedroia and Jon Lester are doing something Alex has never done - play in a World Series game," said Peter Gammons last night about newly minted free-agent Alex Rodriguez. "It might be a little bit of a 'buyer beware'. Because, again, he has never played in a World Series game - maybe there's a reason."

Think about that statement from Gammons - the so-called best player in baseball has never helped a team get to the World Series. Never.

On a night when the Sox clinched the World Series in a sweep for the second time in four seasons, A-Rod's agent Scott Boras announced that the Yankees third baseman was opting out of his contract. Never mind that there was no reason this announcement couldn't wait until this morning. In a clear effort by Boras to, in some way, keep the focus on his client rather than the World Series, A-Rod and/or his agent engaged in a classless move there, making the announcement during game four. Gammons himself referred to the incident as a complete lack of respect for the game of baseball.

Let's face it, the best thing to happen to the Red Sox in the last five years was the MLB Player's Association nixing the contract renegotiation between the Red Sox and the would-be Red Sox short stop. The Sox would have sent Manny Ramirez - the Manny of the almost .500 post season batting average - for A-Rod, who has been brutally bad during baseball's second season. Where would the Sox be with A-Rod's anemic post-season bat in the middle of the line-up instead of ManRam's?

I'm guessing, as Red Sox fans, the Nation would still be waiting for the first World Series title since 1918.

Once each of his previous teams, the Mariners and the Rangers, rid themselves of A-Rod, those teams averaged somewhere around eight more wins per season for the first three seasons after Rodriguez's departure. The Yankees averaged 96.75 wins per season with A-Rod. The three seasons prior to his arrival? 99.67. Sure, a drop-off of three games per year isn't huge, but it's still a drop off and when combined with the following fact, it's a serious indictment of what his impact on a team really is - for the three seasons he played for the Rangers, Texas won 73, 72, and 71 games respectively (the Yankees won 101 his first season with the team, a total down to 94 this season), but for the first three seasons after A-Rod left the confines of Arlington, the Rangers 89, 79, and 80 games respectively - an average improvement of eight games per year.

Theo - stay the hell away from A-Rod! Let the Giants go get him. Resign Mike Lowell...hell, move Lugo to third. Whatever you do, don't sign A-Rod.

As for Lowell - congratulations to the World Series MVP. I'm glad you won, man, considering you probably won't win AL MVP in a season where you picked up the slack for an ailing pair of sluggers in Big Papi and ManRam. You might have been the most important piece at the plate for the BoSox this season. I hope to see you back again next year. If not, then thanks for one incredible run from a guy that the Marlins thought was done and was a throw-in in the Beckett deal.

I said it before and I'll say it again - hey Curt, thanks again, big guy. It's been almost a century since we had two titles in baseball and you were integral to bringing us two this decade. Good luck wherever you end up next year - you're never going to have to pay for another drink anywhere in Red Sox Nation again.

It was tough to see Okajima run out of gas those last two games, but what a way to crank through the Rockies in game two, when the Sox were hanging onto a one-run lead. It didn't feel like anyone on the roster failed to contribute. Hell, Bobby Kielty, the late-season addition on the bench for the stretch run, hit a pinch-hit game winning homer. The Red Sox rookies, Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia sparked the top of the line-up.

They were clicking on all cylinders for four games, and now it's time for the amphibious vehicles to drive the Sox through the Back Bay.

The Monster of the Mid-Way...

Somewhere along the line the Patriots signed a career back-up line-backer away from the Pittsburgh Steelers and he became the best 'backer on one of the top defenses in the NFL.

For all the talk about Adalius Thomas coming to the team (and don't get me wrong, it was an important signing), Vrabel has been a beast. In yesterday's 52-7 thrashing of the Secondstrings, I'm sorry, I mean Redskins, Vrabel caught a pass for a touchdown, accounted for 11 tackles, three sacks for 20 yards in losses, and forced three fumbles - one on each sack.

Vrabel currently leads the team with 7.5 sacks (a pace to get 15 for the season), and is second on the team with 42 total tackles (Tedy Bruschi leads with 49).

Marketing faux-pas...

One last note before I get some sleep because my two-month old is finally napping...

The autumn after the NFL cancelled NFL Europe, the league played their first ever regular season game on European soil in order to expand the game's fan base. After watching yesterday's exercise in tedium at London's Wembley Stadium, a place where NFL Europe abandoned for lack of interest, the NFL did itself no favors and likely garnered no new fans.

From a marketing stand-point, why would the NFL even pick a Dolphins team that has been moribund for about half-a-decade in an effort to bring new fans to the table? And why London?

Originally the World League of American Football, and eventually NFL Europa, the league slowly, but surely migrated from London, to Scotland, to Germany. Why didn't this happen in Germany? There's already a fan base there, there are NFL ready stadiums there, and this would have been a great bone to throw to a German fan base that set an attendance record for NFLE this past spring.

Yes, I get that the idea that it's about growing the sport - but start with where there's already a foothold. Grow that fan-base a little more, ensure its loyalty, then move onto the more fringe areas.

And, fergodsakes, send them two quality teams.

The Big Tease and other thoughts

The big tease...the New York Yankees. That's what they've become. They're the Buffalo Bills of the early 1990's, the Philadelphia Eagles of the first part of this century. They have become the American League version of the Atlanta Braves.

They make it to the post-season, they just can't do anything when they're there.

And this time Yankees' fans can't blame A-Rod who batted a vaguely respectable .267 with one home-run, two runs scored, and one RBI.

By contrast, Derek Jeter, the Yankee-who-can-do-no-wrong with Yankee fans - .176, no runs, one RBI. The Yankees had five starters bat below .200 for the series with their starting first baseman at a rousing .000.

Maybe George Steinbrenner should take a closer look at the talent he forces Cashman to pursue before he cans Joe Torre. The fact that they removed Roger Clemens from the post-season roster is a pretty strong indictment of Steinbrenner's personnel wants and needs.

Bring on the Indians.

They had a bad day...

And still scored 34. The defense came up big when needed, but gave up more yardage to the Browns than to any other team so far this year. Tom Brady, however, looked distracted and frustrated the whole game.

When Brady missed his mark, it was generally his fault. Very few of his passes were dropped, and several of the times that they were (passes primarily to Moss) the receptions would have been highlight reel sort of plays.

Next week the Pats play the Cowboys who barely escaped from Buffalo with a win last night. Is this another indictment of the quality of football in the NFC, that Dallas was within seconds of losing to one of the worst teams in the AFC East?

Running on empty...

There's no other way to say this than - the organizers of the Chicago Marathon are idiots. Complete morons. And they need to keep sponsors of the event from making stupid comments to the press.

For those of you who don't know, the Chicago Marathon was run in close to 90 degree heat without adequate water supplies.

This is from the CNN report -

Organizers insisted they adjusted their plans for the heat and boosted the number of drink servings at the race's 15 aid stations to 1.8 million from 1.6 million, as well as adding misting areas, extra ice and water-soaked sponges.
"We did feel we had more than adequate water supplies out there," said Shawn Platt, senior vice president of LaSalle Bank, the marathon's sponsor.
Platt said planners did not anticipate runners would use drinking water to cool themselves when misting stations and sponges weren't available. He acknowledged many stations and sponges were set up toward the end of the route instead of early on when runners first started showing signs of fatigue.

I have been running in road races since I ran track in high school...some 23 or 24 years now, and that includes at least one marathon. I have never been in a road race where runners didn't use drinking water to cool themselves. It happens in every road race.

Now this guy Platt is a senior VP at a bank, but I guess he is not a particularly gifted mathematician. His argument is that they increased the total number of drink servings at the marathon by a total of 200,000 for the 35,000 runners. Let's run through the math on this. That's an additional 200 servings per 35 runners, or a total of an additional 5.7 servings throughout the course of the marathon. Split between the 15 aid stations? That's less than half a cup additional per runner per aid station. That means they went from 3 cups per station per runner to approximately 3.4 cups on a 90 degree day.

Part of what's amazing about this is that the organizers continue to try and defend themselves instead of coming out and owning up to the fact that they completely fucked this up.

All that glitters is not gold...

The Yankees are potentially nine innings from thinking about 2008. Nine innings and maybe just a couple of days from learning whether there will be a bidding war for their star third baseman/shortstop, or if he will just play out his contract.

Alex Rodriguez will be the pretty bauble on the free-agent market.

There is reason after regular season reason for pursuing him. A-Rod is a perennial MVP candidate and an RBI producer. This year he had better late inning production than any other time in his career.

It is not exactly a secret that Theo covets A-Rod and his production. He sees A-Rod as the successor to Manny Ramirez in the line-up behind Ortiz, and can have him bat behind Man-Ram in his final year in a Sox uniform in Mike Lowell's spot.

There is a major reason to stay as far away from this money pit as possible. It's called the post-season.

This is a man that melts in a cauldron like a wax monkey.

Since his home-run against the Red Sox in the 2004 play-offs A-Rod is more FRod (yeah, do the phonetic pronunciation for the double entendre). He is a raging 4 for 50. That's a blazing post-season average of .080.

I can't help but think that signing him away from the Yankees would essentially be the Red Sox taking the monkey of the Bronx Bommahs' collective backs (not that any of his teammates have been doing any damage - check out my last post).

Converted

It's a great word.

Religious connotations aside - it has great meaning in sports - convert a save, two-point conversion, first-down conversion - there are any number of reasons why the term gets used. My favorite, however, has to do with players.

I bring this up because of Rick Ankiel - the one-time phenom pitcher for the Cardinals transformed from potential ace to Rick "The Wild Thing" Vaughn pre-glasses. In an effort to keep doing what he loved, Ankiel converted from pitcher to outfielder. Last night, in his big league premier at a position anywhere other than on the mound, Ankiel went deep. Not bad.

While there are always the unsuccessful experiments (Tebucky Jones at cornerback, for one), there have been a number of athletes who have seen the light, so to speak, and gone on to have greater success at a new position than the one at which they were originally drafted. Most notably Babe Ruth - a top notch left handed pitcher who went on to be one of the greatest hitters the game has ever seen. There's no way the man could ever match the myth of what he went on to become.

On a lesser note, there have been a number of others.

Tim Wakefield was originally drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates as a corner infielder. When told by a scout that it was unlikely that he would get above AA ball with his tools, he began experimenting until he found his niche as a knuckleballer. That change has translated into 15 seasons (including this season) in the bigs during which time he has averaged around 11 wins per season.

Former Red Sox replacement outfielder Ron Mahay has had a nice career as a left-handed specialist. After five games in the outfield for the Sox, Mahay returned to the minors and remade himself as a relief pitcher. He has spent at least part of every season since 1997 in the bigs in stints with Oakland, Florida, Chicago (NL), Texas, and Atlanta while compiling an 18-10 record with a 3.96 ERA and 3 saves over the course of 331 games and 395 innings. Overall a solid career.

Antwaan Randle-El of course played quarterback in college, as did Matt Jones - but it's still too early to determine whether or not they will be totally successful conversions, or busts. Yes, Randle-El is certainly further along than Jones, but Randle-El has also regressed the last three seasons, catching fewer passes for fewer yards each year.

The Bears are experimenting with corner Devin Hester at wide-out.

On a game to game basis, the Patriots have been using offensive linemen as fullbacks, linebackers as tight-ends, and wide receivers as corners for several years under Bill Belichick - with the most impact coming from Troy Brown who tied the team for second in interceptions with three during limited time as the nickel corner while still playing special teams and offense. Then there is Mike "Touchdown" Vrabel. Any team that doesn't make sure he's covered on the goal line at this point...well they're just idiots.

I enjoy the stories of players like this. I'm no fan of A-Rod, but what unfolded in New York when they consummated the trade for him was fascinating (keeping in mind that switching from playing the field to designated hitter just isn't compelling). I for one, will keep on the lookout for more of these stories.

In honor of Friday the 13th - 13 Thoughts...

1. Halfway house - The Yankees won last night to get to .500 with a 43-43 record. Right now, at ten games behind the Red Sox, they are halfway between first place and last. The Devil Rays are 20 games back.

With 76 games left the Yankees would have to go 47-29 just to get to 90 wins and 52-24 to get to the commonly acknowledged number of 95 for a legit shot at the post-season. That's a .618 winning percentage from now until the end of the season.

To put it a different way - on a team where the starting pitching has accounted for 30 of the team's 43 wins and 30 of the team's losses, the Yankees need their starting pitching to come up with quality starts in three out of every five starts, bare minimum, and enough offense to win those starts. Is there anyone who doesn't have pinstripes seared into their minds that believes the Yankees can do this?

2. Smells like...desperation - The Yankees gave Alex Rodriguez an ultimatum...promise not to opt out of your contract and we'll work out an extension with you. If you don't, we won't be part of the off-season A-Rod sweepstakes. Yeah, I wouldn't have accepted that either.

In essence, the Yankees have told one of the few bright spots in their otherwise moribund season to give up all negotiating leverage. The bottom line is that the Yankees were willing to pay more while Texas was picking up part of the tab and they're not so sure they want to spend gobs o cash on their third baseman.

Unfortunately, they're over a barrel. They have no one in the minors, and right now their other option would be to overpay for Mike Lowell if the Sox don't extend him. Who else will be on the market this winter that the Yanks would be interested in?

3. Fed up - I have been cycling since I was in high school. When I say cycling, I'm talking water bottles, Trek, Cannondale, Biancchi, spandex, and the Tour De France.

I have even followed le Tour with more than a passing interest in a number of years, but this year there's a bad taste in my mouth. That bad taste has to do with the Tour, and the last three American winners which make up, in toto, half the winners of the last 20 Tours - Greg LeMond (2 X's, three if you go back 21 years), Lance Armstrong (7 X's), Floyd Landis (once).

LeMond, who to this day, had one of the greatest single days in the history of sports when he came from almost two minutes down in the final time-trial in 1986 to beat Laurent Fignon of France seems to have his own agenda. Armstrong and Landis have both faced doping allegations - Armstrong from teammates that had nothing to gain by outing him, and Landis with a failed test during last year's Tour.

All might be guilty of something, and it's possible that none are guilty of anything. Let's face it, if the Tour really wanted to clean up the sport, they wouldn't rely on an incompetent lab, and they certainly wouldn't let the rag of a newspaper, L'Equipe, have access to "anonymous" test samples in order to discredit riders. And all this is just a tip of the disorganized iceberg that is the mess the Tour has going, and it makes it hard to take anything that the Tour officials claim as being the truth since the newspaper appears to have an agenda - and treating the riders fairly does not seem to be part of that agenda.

4. Depth Charges - Listening to ESPN Radio's Sports Bash on the way home yesterday, the host made an interesting...and accurate point about the Red Sox this year. Last year the team had a better record and the team had "better balance."

It's hard to argue that the line-up was better last year - Nixon was better last year than Drew has been this year, shortstop has been a down-grade, and both Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz have been scuffling at the plate. However, Varitek is having a better season, as is Youkilis, Mike Lowell, and even Coco Crisp, not to mention Pedroia has been an upgrade at second.

The real key, however, has been that last season the team didn't weather injuries to the pitching particularly well, and other than Jonathan Papelbon, had a pretty mediocre bullpen. This season Okajima and DelCarmen have been spectacular on a Papelbon-like level, and others like Kyle Snyder and Brendan Donnelly have been solid. To top it off, the Sox have starters ready for the Pawtucket to Boston express a-la Kasson Gabbard for whenever the Curt Schillings of the world are done.

It's unlikely that the Sox will experience a late-season skid like last year when inning-eater Tim Wakefield went down with a rib injury.

5. The Boomer and Moss- David Wells recent suspension getting him in the news reminded me of what I thought when the Sox signed him. I realized that when I heard the Patriots had traded for Moss, that I emotionally had the same reaction...I really hate this guy, did my team really need him that badly?

6. Just a couple of weeks - While I am a Red Sox lifer, I have to admit, I am first and foremost a football fan. I was that guy watching NFL Europa. I am happy to remind everyone - pads get strapped on for two-a-days in just about two weeks.

7. Predictions - I don't generally like to do preseason predictions, except for in the NFL. However, I did some for bitterfans.com and predicted that the Brewers would finish in first in the NL Central. While they have struggled of late, the team still holds a 4.5 game lead in the division after the All-Star break, and has a legitimate shot of winning what's a fairly weak division.

In all honesty, the Brew-crew was my dark-horse pick. I'm just as surprised as anybody else.

8. Of human Bond-age - Will some pitcher just bean this man already? Nobody outside of San Francisco or ESPN's Connecticut campus wants to see the non-stop Bonds coverage by ESPN.

And on that note, ESPN and their on-air personalities should be ashamed for taking Hank Aaron to task over his choice to not attend the grotesque charade that is Bonds' pursuit of Aaron's record. If anyone has earned the right to do something for his own reasons, it's Aaron, and who the Hell are we to question him? For that matter - why should Bud Selig be present? If the man thinks Bonds cheated, isn't that then just sending the message that he continues to condone the cheating in the sport.

Maybe it is a little disingenuous of him to turn his back on Bonds after years of turning a blind eye to the problem, but wouldn't it be worse if after committing to cleaning up the game he did something that could be construed as condoning one of the league's biggest cheaters?

9. Meet me in St. Louis - I've seen championship teams take a dive following their championship season, and heard all the questions that accompanied the fall, but this one is amusing to me. People are talking like St. Louis has had the precipitous fall from last year, but this team went 83-78 - the third worst record in the history of the sport for a play-off team.

What we had was a team that got hot for the post-season. Think long and hard about the fact that they got quality starts out of Jeff "Let's Throw Some Batting Practice Every Fifth Day" Weaver in the post-season, and then tell me whether or not they were the best team, or just the best at the right time.

This right now is no surprise to me.

10. Hey baby, what's your sign - Can anyone out there tell me what's going on with ESPN and the sexual harassment suits? Anyone?

Who wants to place bets on how long it will be before Isaiah Thomas works there?

11. 20,000 Leagues under the Seahawks - Anyone out there know what the over-under is that Vegas is putting on the two new professional football leagues that are supposed to start up over the next couple of years? With the United Football League already attracting investors such as Mark Cuban, and the fact that they are looking to play ball in the Fall, my money is on the UFL to be the one to show any sort of longevity.

You know...get into the second half.

12. Tennis anyone - Wimbledon has come and gone and the most I saw were some highlights of matches featuring the Williams sisters, Maria Sharapova, and Daniella Hantuchova. All told, I watched less than ten minutes of tennis.

Growing up I used to watch Wimbledon and Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Chris Everett and Martina Navratilova. I even watched when it was Michael Chang, Ivan Lendl, and Boris Becker.

It occurred to me that I couldn't name a single men's player on the current tour without some sort of hint. Yup, I'm one of pro tennis' lost viewers. Oh well.

13. Better for some sports - Throughout the years, Hollywood has often looked to sports to provide storylines. There have been so many sports movies that they are sometimes considered their own genre. I have addressed the movies before, but what I have never asked here is why some sports seem to generate better movies than others?

For example, cycling has produced the classic Breaking Away and the well received Flying Scotsman, but it has also given us American Flyers and little else. Football has given us Remember the Titans, North Dallas 40, and the original Longest Yard but it has also given us Necessary Roughness and Little Giants.

I put it to you, my readers - other than baseball (Field of Dreams, The Natural, The Bad News Bears, Bull Durham, A Soldier's Story, Bang the Drum Slowly, Major League, Eight Men Out, Fear Strikes Out, and Cobb off the top of my head), can anyone come up with a top ten of movies for any given sport? Football? Basketball? Hockey?

Or at least explain to me why sports like basketball end up with more films like Juwanna Mann and Air Bud, than like Hoosiers?

Rumor mills and reactions

With the source credited as the New York Daily News, Yahoo reported the following rumor -

the Los Angeles Dogers, Los Angeles Angels and Boston Red Sox have the best chances of landing Alex Rodriguez in 2008. The cost? How about as much as $30 million per season?
Longer shots to sign A-Rod – this is all assuming he opts out of his contract after this season – are the Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, New York Mets and San Francisco Giants.

The reactions to this have been fascinating, ranging from the simple, "we'll take him," or, "we don't want him," to the reasonably well thought out post of this person -

Quit B.S.ing all you who said "Hope he doesn't come here" He's the best player
of this generation and when he's done he'll be the best ever. No true fan
wouldn't want that added to their hometown team. Don't think I say this as an
A-Rod fan, I'm a Mariners fan and have more reason to hate him than any of you
but get serious. No one can stand him here but if he were re-signed he'd get a
standing ovation for everything he did. He's that good. Like him or hate him but
don't deny he's the best and any GM who had the chance would be an idiot to pass
on him. Sure, he's had a rough time in the playoffs for the Yankees but if he
isn't on that club they don't even make the playoffs a few of those years. He's
not the problem, the pitching staff having one starter younger than Yoda is the
problem..... GO MARINERS!!!!
Posted by ateabug1 on Tuesday, Jul 10, 2007
5:21 pm EDT

It's well though out, but it's not right.

A lot is made about him being the highest paid player in the game. If he can get that sort of contract, more power to him. But he needs to go into it with the understanding that when he doesn't produce as the highest paid player in the game, the fans will come at him hard like they have done in New York. If your team is giving you the highest paid player in the game, then that player damn well better produce as the best player in the game. A-Rod hasn't.

Statistically, A-Rod is a freak. If looked at based solely on his regular season numbers, not broken down by month, or what inning he's batting in, Rodriguez looks like the best player in the game. He might end up the all-time home-run leader, and he is likely to finish his career with numbers that will get him into the Hall-of-Fame on a near unanimous first ballot.

Hell, he's the best bat the Yankees have had this season.

Despite the numbers, as a Red Sox fan, the closest I want this man to my team is on the Yankees - particularly if he opts out of his current contract in the hopes of getting a bigger contract. Why?

He's about as good under pressure as a soft-boiled egg.

When it began unravelling for the Yankees in the 2004 post-season, A-Rod slapped at Bronson Arroyo's glove as the pitcher ran to cover first in a blatant display of interference and unsportsman-like conduct. This year he yelled as he ran from second to third, interfering with the shortstop's ability to field a ball in Toronto during a game the Yankees were winning. He has been dubbed by the New York media as Mr. April - not just a shot at his post-season woes, but a knock that is meant to evoke former Yankee Dave Winfield who was dubbed Mr. May by George Steinbrenner back in 1982. At least Winfield made it to May.

These are just the tidbits that pop to mind, never mind the rumblings that he sets himself apart from his team-mates, or that a $30 million annual salary, even for the Red Sox, would make it prohibitive to go out and sign other people who might help the team.

The Angels? Historically they haven't spent anywhere near that to sign free-agents. Dodgers? I would be surprised.

The Cubs, given their recent spending, might make a run, but realistically, I think the Yankees will pony up with the biggest offer, although I could see the Mets making a serious run.

I'd rather see the Sox go out and sign or trade for someone like Mark Teixeira and move Kevin Youkilis to third if they're not going to resign Mike Lowell. As for moving him back to short? I'm not interested enough in him to even consider the possibility, which is saying a lot considering the lack of production the Sox have from Julio Lugo.

NY Nuggets

In a season during which things seem to fall apart for the Yankees just when they seem like they might turn the corner, or at least get some sort of season highlight, it has happened again. On the night that Clemens gets his 350th career win, the Bombers' best offensive player injures himself and is likely headed to the disabled list.

For those out there that don't think Alex Rodriguez has been the best player at the plate for the Yanks this year, you're either blind or stupid. For the next two weeks, the Yankees are likely to be without the guy who has produced 80 of the team's 315 RBI's from the (current regular) starting nine. That's 25.4 percent of the team's RBI's. They lose the guy who hit 28 home runs of the starting nine's 68 homers, 41.18 percent. He has hit more than three times the number of home runs than the next most on the team (Posada, 9), and of the current line-up, to even come close to matching his home run production, it would take Posada, Matsui (8), Jeter (5), and Abreu (5) - in essence, half the line-up.

Call it a hunch, but this is going to be a long two weeks for the Yanks if A-Rod's hamstring is bad enough to be put on the DL. Add that to the fact that a hamstring injury makes A-Rod a less tradeable commodity if the Yanks wanted to try to replenish the farm system. Hamstrings are notoriously tricky and can have an adverse affect on a player's power numbers.

Yankees fans take note...
Yankees ownership feels that you are less important than the players. At least that is what the message seems to be when they allow Cynthia Rodriguez, A-Rod's wife, to wear a shirt that tells the fan base what it can do with itself.

Any fan would have been escorted to the gate, or at the very least, asked to cover the rude and inappropriate message on the shirt.

This is not going to help A-Rod endear himself to the New York fans.

Farnsworth on way out the door?
According to reports, after the blow-up between Joe Torre and pitcher Kyle Farnsworth, Farnsworth has been unavailable for the last two games due to what Torre told reporters was a sore or stiff back. When approached by reporters, Farnsworth said his back was fine and that he would have been able to pitch in either of the last two games if needed.

This sounds like someone who has seriously fallen out of favor with his manager, and might be suited to a change of scenery.

The hard truth...
The hard truth for Yankees fans is that their team through 79 games has won only 38. Sure, they're only about 8.5 games back in the wild card race, but the wild car leading Tigers are on pace to win 95 games. Seattle, Minnesota, Oakland, and Toronto are all between the Yankees and the Tigers and all are playing better baseball than the Yankees.

For the Yankees to get to that magic number of 95, the Yankees will have to go 57-26 for the remainder of the season.

It's time for New York to write off this season, trade some veterans for whatever they can get (and let's face it, Abreu isn't worth much, A-Rod is injured, decreasing their return on him, Giambi isn't worth anything to anyone, and a broken down Damon isn't going to draw much interest). But if they can get even three prospects that are even close to major league ready, that would be quite an accomplishment.

Let's look at one last hard truth. Brian Cashman isn't that great a general manager. He was not the architect of the World Series winners in the 1990's. Gene Michael and Bob Watson were. Watson and Michael built the farm system that produced Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, were smart enough to not trade away Jorge Posada, and generally had more power than what Cashman has been granted through the years.

Cashman has pretty much just had more that he could spend on the top free-agents than anyone else. This year he tried to put together a team on something of a budget and failed miserably.

Headhunters, A-Rods, and Yanks....oh my

A few quick observations...

Interesting that even Joe Torre is throwing A-Rod under the bus for that yell rounding third during the game in Toronto. Then he's calling Mike Lowell's plastering of Robinson Cano clean...which it was. If a player wanders into the base path to make a play, the do so at their own peril.

Schilling is beginning to look like he could still be an effective pitcher for someone, just not as the ace...maybe as the number three or four guy. The one thing that bothered me about yesterday's game was that when he got in trouble, it was whenever he shook off Varitek and he looked tentative or uncertain about what he wanted to do.

After a slow start, Dustin Pedroia has raised his batting average to .333. As of April 20th, he was hitting .158, now he's likely to be named rookie of the month for May and (if he keeps this up) put his name into the hat along with fellow Sox rookie Hideki Okajima as a candidate for rookie of the year.

More bad for the Yanks - Doug Mientkiewicz starts to show signs of coming around at the plate, then almost has his head taken off because Derek Jeter feels he has to make a highlight reel pirouette to get the out at first with Mike Lowell coming down the baseline. The errant throw caused the Yankee first baseman to make a lunge at the ball that took him into the basepath and, in turn, put his head at ground zero for a collision with Lowell's thigh.

It was a scary couple of minutes as Mientkiewicz lay limp on the ground. As I watched, and the Yankees trainers sat him upright to treat him, I couldn't believe the butt-headed incompetence of the training staff.

The Yank's first basemen was obviously dazed (and his answers therefore shouldn't have been trusted), and there is no way that on the field that the trainer or doctor would be able to determine the extent of possible whiplash, neck, and or upper spinal trauma. Realistically, if for no other reason than precaution, Mientkiewicz's neck should have been immobilized before he was moved, and he should not have been allowed to sit up.

I sincerely hope that you have no serious injuries and that you get well soon, Doug. May the people at Mass General be taking good care of you.

And finally, looks like the Rocket is grounded for at least one more start and will not be available to the Yankees until next weekend's interleague play against the Pirates. The reason cited? A fatigued groin. Can anyone out there tell me if they have ever heard of this problem before, porn star Ron Jeremy not withstanding.