Sorry folks, but we're done with Blogger. As someone who works on websites all day, I should have known better than to expect much from something connected with Google. I haven't found any solutions to the problems they've created for me here, so we're going back to wordpress. You can find us here: http://468miles.wordpress.com.
Thanks!
This is one of those situations where I'm sure that my anti-Sox bias is showing, but at the same time, when major media outlets are questioning it, I don't feel like it's JUST because I hate them and all that they stand for.
Now, the Mitchell report was accurate, but completely ridiculous. Mitchell has a stake in the Red Sox, and thus shouldn't have gotten within 10 miles of this issue, and yet he was head man in charge. The government's sources were all based in New York, so of course there were going to be more names from the Mets and the Yankees. But there was still a shocking lack of Red Sox and former Red Sox players (not complete, but major).
This time, it's the MLBPA that's grinding my gears, so to speak. They were silent when the first names on "the list" were leaked. Even though it was their guys, they didn't step up and scream bloody murder, which is what I would like my union to do if my career was in serious jeopardy over something I was told would never see the light of day.
Now that David Ortiz (aka "Big Pop-up") is the guy in trouble, they're all for making statements - and excuses.
They either need to be out front about this or just keep their mouths shut. Is A-Rod any less of a member of the PA than David Ortiz? Why does Ortiz get defended and handed excuses?
A-Rod does a lot to get himself into PR trouble, but this time, he's the one looking like a man.
People are commenting on the hypocrisy of people wearing A-Rod jerseys booing David Ortiz, but at least A-Rod came clean, told the truth, and is working to get over it. Same with Andy Pettitte. Yeah, the Yankees are tainted, there's no getting around it. But at least they'll be sleeping at night, knowing it's all out there on the field now. And as a Yankees fan, I'm proud that they didn't skirt this issue, didn't make excuses ("I was careless" is not enough for me, I guess) and are working to play good, clean ball.
And, though I know this is totally unreasonable to hope for, maybe now Red Sox fans will stop with their holier-than-thou attitude and realize they cheat just as much as everyone else.
I was listening to the Tampa Bay broadcast of the Rays/Yanks game on the way home from work, when one of the guys brought up what I at first thought was a completely moronic question. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how interesting of a question it was.
He set the question up thus: Michael Jordan was so dominant, he made the Bulls what they were. Is it possible that - keeping in mind that this is like comparing apples and oranges because they're very different sports - the Yankees made Derek Jeter? If he had been drafted by the Expos, would he still be the great Derek Jeter?
My knee-jerk reaction was "idiots, he was the number six pick in the draft, of course he would still be awesome."
But then you strip away the rings, the massive media attention (some of it self-inflicted - yes, we're talking about the Mariah years) and he starts to look more like a regular guy (or like the Rock had sex with a muppet... his words, not mine).
You put him on any number of small-market, not recently successful teams, and suddenly he's the one big talent on the team, with all the hopes of the club on his shoulders. And maybe he buckles under the pressure, or gets psychologically messed up a la A-rod, or he has a solid but largely unnoticed career as an above-average hitter, an average shortstop, a guy who gets drafted in fantasy baseball but not in the top 25. Yes, he has good numbers, and he's been above average for a long time, but his numbers aren't the things that fantasy players dream of.
This is in great contrast to what actually happened, where he came into a clubhouse where he wasn't a big shot, just a young guy with a lot of talent surrounded by a lot of other young guys with a lot of talent (Mariano Rivera, please stand up). Oh, and Don Mattingly.
I'm not sure how Jete became the face of the Yankees, except that he's always been a clutch guy. That's one of those intangible things that can't be counted in the stats (it's also a somewhat apocryphal thing... yeah, I remember him being clutch this time and that time, but I don't remember those 5 times he struck out to end the game). The Mr. November moment was truly special, for the city and the team, but even before that he was the Yankee darling. But I digress.
Instead of being "the guy" he was just "one of the guys," and it's impossible to say how much impact that had on him. Reading interviews with him (some in Joe Torre's horrific book, which will surely spawn another blog entry) leads me to believe that he was always very team oriented, but maybe that would have been tested had his team let him down more.
This is all a lot of "what if" and "maybe that" but it's interesting speculation. One of the main things that this internal debate (I got home before they finished discussing it on the radio, so I'm not sure what conclusion they reached) caused me to realize was just how difficult it is to think of Jeter NOT being a Yankee. Which, I suppose, was the point.
I really will blog about the Torre book at some point, and possibly the Minaya/Rubin ridiculousness, but for now, I'm going to enjoy the end of my DVRed Yankees game. If I had any artistic talent, I would draw a cartoon of Joba squashing thousands of those damn Cleveland bugs.
Harold Reynolds just agreed with my point about pitchers' suspensions. If you're suspended 5 games, you miss nothing. "Shagging balls in right field?" was what Reynolds suggested. So thanks, Harold.
Last night on Baseball Tonight, John Kruk went on and on (in that way he does, when he continues to make comments throughout the show about something they already finished talking about) about how unfair Josh Beckett's suspension was. Now, he's a Red Sox so maybe it's just my bias showing, but it seems pretty fair to me. He should have been thrown out of that game, and not just for the throw to Abreu's head, but also for charging at him. When batters charge the mound, they typically get tossed.
Kruk kept going on about how nothing Beckett did caused the rather anti-climactic brew ha-ha, except that... it did. Even if the throw was not aimed at Abreu's head, which I'll admit it probably wasn't, that's where it ended up going AND he was the one who started towards home plate. So how was he not responsible for the dugouts emptying?
He didn't get tossed for any of it, so by giving him a six-game suspension, that's essentially what the powers that be in the MLB are doing: taking a game away from him. In the appeal process it'll probably get dropped to three games so it won't even matter, but the point is that they're making up for the umpire's mistake of not throwing him out of the game.
Also, shouldn't pitchers get suspended for a certain number of appearances, not games? Because suspending a starting pitcher for three games is completely useless. Suspend a position player or a reliever three games, and that's actually doing something. Just another thing to add to my list of things I'll do when I'm commissioner...
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