A Red Sox State of Maine

Too Expensive for Tiger

It appears The House That Greed Built is too rich for the blood of even the richest athlete in sports...

Tiger Woods is working on his stinger shot off the course as well. He went deep on the Yankees Friday with a swipe at what the "Evil Empire" is charging for admission to the new Yankee Stadium.

Complying with a trend in golf, the AT&T National host is letting kids under 12 in for free this week.

"We don't want to have what happened at Yankee Stadium," Woods said. "Tickets are so overpriced that you can't bring the family. We want to have everyone come out and enjoy being in a family atmosphere, walk around, have a good time and not have it cost an arm and a leg."

Yep. The most colossal arrogance of the Steinbrenner brothers is that they thought they could shakedown the public to pay for their million-dollar-a-day free agent habit, raising formerly $150 seats to $850 and charging $135 even for nosebleed seats in the upper deck. Or perhaps it's not a shakedown so much as just a desire to price out the more unsavory elements to try and prevent a Matthew Shepherd incident that would bloody up the place and piss off the maintenance crew. Or maybe they just heard Cynthia Rodriguez wants season tickets? 

Beyond being a billionaire, Tiger Woods is also a guy who wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful, so you know there's a PR problem in Yankeeville. Hey, Hank, Hal, take heed, because Tiger may just have started a fad here. If I were you, I'd take a good hard look at the ethicality of my business practices before you unleash the wrath of the likes of J.D. Salinger.

Manny's Return

Reactions are dropping like rain...

"If you love baseball, Manny MUST GO. Until they make a big public example of a destroyed career, steroids are here to stay. As long as you know you get a mulligan for a first offense, it is still worth the risk."-a rather shrill and self-righteous Brian Ross, acting as though this were the first he'd heard about it. 

"Will Ramirez, now busted, act more like his baseball age? Or will he continue to be a hitting savant bucking the trend of baseball skewing younger? We just don't know, in part because even with a failed test, we don't know the extent of Ramirez's PED use. On Friday night, and for the foreseeable future, most people didn't care, either."-Tom Verducci

"Because Ramirez* is more cuddly than Barry Bonds*, or more goofy than Roger Clemens*, or less intimidating than Mark McGwire*, it's as if he's being graded on the curve. And that is disgraceful"-Scott Miller, who is also apparently on the verge of a breakdown 

"Manny Ramirez is yesterday's boos. He's a sure sign of society's steroid fatigue and baggy-pants proof of Karl Marx's postulate that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce."-Tim Sullivan

If Manny's return to cheers and well-wishes drives you stark staring insane, then all I have to say is...find another hobby, dudes. I've been watching this saga unfold for nearly a dozen years now, and the fact of the matter is, the average fan doesn't care. No more than they ever cared about Bill and Monica despite the shrill moralizing and name-calling from others who should've known better. As long as they are being taken care of and their team is winning, they don't care. Sure, it's fun to be able to look at a hated rival and say their team is "tainted" when a big name is caught using, all the while knowing your team is just as bad and maybe worse. And, yeah, it's really fun to watch the house of cards come crashing down around some of the biggest pricks on the planet, guys digging their own graves with their intransigence who just don't get that all would have been forgiven had they just said, ala Andy Pettitte, "ooops, whoopsie, my bad," and moved on. Or cultivated an image of sainthood like Lance Armstrong. It's the arrogance and the insults to our intelligence after you've been caught that pisses us off, not the fact that you've been using.

You know why that is? Because the average fan has a job he is insecure about, two kids that drive him crazy, a boss he hates, a wife who nags and probably twenty years to retirement. He knows the deck is way stacked against him and that many others are playing by unfair rules in games which affect him far more directly than does some juicer's, like the guy who sold him the ARM or drained his pension account. Baseball is an escape; it's secondary.  Yes, he'd prefer a clean game, but it's just not that important in the grand scheme of things. He respects Andy Pettitte and even enjoys watching that goofy Manny Ramirez. He thinks, hey, Manny's right-he didn't rape or murder anybody, and for $25 mil, our average fan might just shoot up, too.

I found this telling statement from a brutally honest blogger that absolutely nails that average fan"s feeling...

All this talk about the sanctity of the game, of the history of the baseball, of the stats - total garbage to me.  I care about watching the game, and seeing amazing things being done that I've never seen done before.  I care about the most incredible season I'll probably ever see, a .370  with 46 HR season in which a man was walked 198 times.  Most on purpose.  This after a 73 home run season.  Two years after that, a 232 BBs season, with a .362 BA and 45 HRs in 373 official ABs.  4 straight MVPs, and only teammate Jeff Kent's MVP in 2000 preventing Bonds from 5 straight. 

He'll never win another award in all likelihood, but his career will go down as the greatest career we've seen since Babe Ruth.  And they might try to add an asterisk to it like they did to Roger Maris, but someday that asterick and those haters will be gone, just like the Maris haters all disappeared, and all that will be left is the amazing numbers.  That's the beauty of the baseball - it's numbers. 

And I'm glad I'll be able to say that I saw it all, instead of say how great he would have been if he didn't get injured.

So, folks, baseball police and purists-if you're waiting for us to turn our backs and force the game into submission through our indignation and wounded sense of fairness, well, it appears you've got a long wait coming. It may not be fair, it may not be right...but it is what it is. In the overall scheme of life, fans just dig the long ball.

Schadenfreude Unabated

This just in:

A federal judge in Texas has reaffirmed his dismissal of most of Clemens' claims in his long-running defamation lawsuit against Brian McNamee, the trainer who accused the Rocket of PED use.

U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison's original opinion and reaffirmation yesterday said that the statements McNamee made about Clemens during the Mitchell Report investigation should be immune from litigation because they were made in conjunction with a government investigation.

That clears the way for McNamee to ramp up his defamation suit against Clemens. His lawyers told the New York Daily News that will happen at the end of this month.

"This is the final nail in Clemens' Texas coffin," McNamee attorney Richard Emery told the Daily News. "We will welcome him to New York to litigate."

I just read American Icon. While Clemens comes out looking exactly as you'd expect-a narcissistic bully-Brian McNamee comes out not looking so much like the drug-dealing scumbag of Dan Burton's wet dreams but as a wussy lovesick teenager, fretting over whether or not Roger Clemens loves him as much as he loves Roger.  Which he didn't, of course.  Roger's first and only love is Roger Clemens, (and especially Roger Clemens' money) for whom he would slander and defame a guy he said was his friend, throw his own wife under a bus, and tamper with a Congressional witness to protect.

Roger Clemens is a liar, a cheat, and an enormous fraud, and now he's also a pathetic loser. To paraphrase his own words, today is the day he truly became a Yankee.

Happy Father's Day

...to all the fathers and fathers-to-be out there. If you have your dad with you today, give him an extra hug and kiss for all of us who wish we could do the same for ours, even for just one more day.  I love and miss you, Dad.

I'll be away in a land of no internets for a week. If you need me, you can find me here.  See you when I get back!

Ode to a Troubled Starter

With apologies to Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Julie Andrews...

How do you solve a problem like Daisuke?

How does he get the ball and keep it down?

We’d better find an answer to Daisuke

Before he gets his ass run out of town!

Many’s the thing you think you’d like to tell him

Like, those fastballs shouldn’t end up in the stands!

It’s time to earn your pay

To sink or swim, Dice-K

Before you're amongst the highest-paid farmhands!

I admit, I'm flummoxed about what the Sox should do next here.  He clearly is not this bad-MVP of the WBC just a few months ago-but it's like waving a white flag eveytime he goes out there these days (or worse, waving a red flag in front of the opposition's bull). The Sox are in a tight race, and they just can't afford to concede every fifth game-or sixth, depending on what month it is.

I somehow doubt that he sucks out of spite, however, which is what I've seen floated on a few mesage boards. Too stubborn to pound the strike zone, which is what the Red Sox management passionately and obsessively desires of him. Too tentative to go really after guys, and rebeling because that's what the brass demands of him. Well, Jesus, who can blame him? He was throwing fastballs last night that were getting absolutely crushed, that got more of the plate than a fat guy at the Olde Country Buffet. I'm well aware that the organization has gotten on his case about the number of pitches and baserunners and short innings, but it may be that the 2008 Dice-K is the best of what we're going to get, despite the desire to have him be something different.

In other words, stop messing with his head, Red Sox. He's not Pedro, never will be Pedro. So let's stop trying to make him Pedro, and find some other approach that works before he ends up in Bellevue, or worse, the instructional league.

Oh, and a few timely hits and runs would help, too, oh-so-vaunted line up. Just sayin'.

Derek Lowe is in the house today. Is this the first time DLowe has pitched at Fenway since '04? (Yes, I guess so.) Wow. Time goes by fast...Although he often drove me crazy the seven years he was here, I have very fond memories of him (20-game winner, no-hitter, ALCS for sure) and would never wish anything ill on him. Well, except for this evening, of course. I hope the Fenway crowd cheers him and then he gets chased for an early shower. 7pm sharp. Be there.

An Unnecessary L

So, the weather forecast in Boston last night? Rain. Downpours, even. Through the whole game. Riddle me this, folks: If it's clear that there is no way an entire game can be played, why even start? It was raining when the game began, you knew it was going to rain hard very shortly. What, did I close my eyes and the game got transported to Landshark Stadium (I love that name...no, ma'am, I'm a porpoise), where the gate might actually matter? What difference does it make in Boston, where the team is printing money? In case you didn't notice, ump, half the ticketholders weren't even there, because it was FUCKING POURING. Ohhhh, but this is the only time we play the Marlins, had to get the game in to avoid any inconvenience, you say! Well, I'll tell you what inconvenience is: it's being on the short end of a 2-1 decision after less than six full innings of play because the downpour everyone predicted actually came to pass! In fact, it's still pouring here this morning, two hours north. Idiots. A game lost for no good reason. That really fries me, especially considering the Yanks lost too and it was a good opportunity to further the lead. But noooooooo....can't inconvenience anybody at Fenway Park! No sirree Bob!

Of course, I wouldn't be quite so ticked off if the Sox had managed any offense at all off a guy who sucks on any other given day, but managed to look Kofax-esque against the Sox last night. WTF was that? One hit over (almost) six innings? In the meantime, Jon Lester wasn't great but at least he was mostly getting out of his jams (I know, it's hard to get out of a jam that goes to the Volvo sign, but you know what I mean) Ummm, a little help here, guys?

Oh, well. Blame it on the rain.

Braves are coming to town tonight. Now, I generally like interleague play (at Fenway Park, anyway. I think the NL plays by knuckle-dragging, neanderthal rules. Who the hell really wants to see pitchers hit anymore? One, two, three, grab some bench. It's like watching quarterbacks play point guard. One game, one set of rules, folks.) but eighteen games is really too much for my taste. Nine would be sufficient. But I digress...for some reason, I just can't stand the Braves. Probably has to do with Chipper Jones and Bobby Cox. They would be a really good team for Dice-K to break out of his funk against.

I'm Not a Racist

I just play one on the internet:

I am not a racist, but it worries me how many latino players play in the Majors these days. I read it's like 35-40%, and that there are only around 8% black players left, and then a small percent being Asian and the rest are white guys. What's the deal here? Pretty soon, teams will have more than half of their players being Spanish speaking only. Is there not enough talent coming out of America? The Colleges and Universities? What's going on here. What got me thinking about it was this photo I saw on Yahoo sports from the Mets/Marlins game today when their was a fight. Check it out. I realized that every player or coach in this caption was Spanish, except for Dan Uggla. Sandy Alomar Sr., Miguel Olivo, Jose Reyes, Fredi Gonzalez and Miguel Cabrera are all hispanic and in the picture frame. It really made me wonder, and then I took a look at all of the 30 teams rosters, and there are so many Dominican Republic, Cubans, Venezuelans, etc. I don't have a problem with this, but come on, don't we have a big talent pool here in America? I can understand that hispanics might represent 10-15 % of the majors, but it's closing in on 40%. And these guys aren't homegrown talent, they are foreigners coming to America to play baseball, some of them fleeing Cuba illegally to come here, i.e. Betancourt from the Mariners. I don't have a problem with a smaller %, but one day, the hispanics might make up 75% of baseball, like blacks make up 75% of football and 85-90% of basketball, and as a white guy, you start to say, "where did all the white athletes go??" We have hockey, but that's about it. Does anybody else feel this way?

Sure. I bet James von Brunn does. I know Pat Buchanan does. Most of the GOP House membership is likely worried about it, and so is David Duke.  Ann Coulter is surely all up in arms about it.

Money quote here? "I don't have a problem with a smaller %, but..." In other words, come on in, play ball, but only a few of you, and not to the point where you threaten my white privilege. Sounds very familiar to anyone who's been reading the prolific Buchanan for a while: "If we do not get control of our borders, by 2050 Americans of European descent will be a minority in the nation their ancestors created and built. No nation has ever undergone so radical a demographic transformation and survived...The civilization that we as whites created in Europe and America could not have developed apart from the genetic endowments of the creating people, nor is there any reason to believe that the civilization can be successfully transmitted by a different people."

This dude is making a similar argument-if baseball doesn't get control of it's borders, there won't be any white people playing ball, and where will that leave us? First, those brown Catholics were taking all the plum jobs in slaughterhouses and sugar fields, then they were forcing Spanish down our throats, and NOW they're taking over MLB! Oh, the horror!!! Pretty soon we'll ALL be watching ESPN Deportes!!!

(Insert eye rolling emoticon here)

Bottom line? Buddy, anytime you have to preface a statement with, "I'm not a racist," then you are making a racist statement-and a stupid one at that. I mean, MLS must have at least as high a proportion of Caucasians on their rosters as hockey does...right?

Random Musings on the Weekend and Beyond...

Two out of three in Philly? I'll buy that, although it disturbed me somewhat how poorly Beckett performed yesterday. I know, he was due for a less-than-stellar performance, but not that much less. When he is good, he is very, very good, but when he is bad...well, he's no Pedro. And speaking of Beckett, while I've made my disdain for the neanderthal practice of making pitchers hit, it was very entertaining to see him take a second one deep at CBP yesterday (I was in the stands the last time he did that). Not to mention Mark Buerhle did the same thing, and he doesn't even have the benefit of Beckett's NL experience, having spent his entire career with the White Sox. Go figure. I wonder when the last time two pitchers hit home runs on the same day was, much less two AL pitchers? Elias Sports Bureau, anyone?

Just a few quick but very deep thoughts:

If Kevin Garnett were healthy, or the Cavs had one guy not named LeBron who could play basketball, the world wouldn't be suffering through another Kobe Bryant Kodak moment this morning. Blech, the Lakers make me sick. Oh, and it's easy to be a genius when most of your career has been riding shotgun with Michael Jordan and Shaq, Phil. I'm just sayin'.

As big an ass as I think Michael Irvin is, I think Brett Favre is a bigger one. Hard to believe out of the two of them, Irvin sounds like the more reasonable one (a guy promoting reality TV, even! That's saying something about how far Favre has fallen.) Listen to Mike, Brett. Spite does not become you, does not become anybody. And believe me, no matter how much of a god you were before, fans remember. They will not take your side in this. Is this how you really want it to all go down?

I feel guilty, but I'm really enjoying Dave Roberts and Dennis Eckersley on NESN. Roberts especially dresses up very nicely-pretty handsome guy in that suit and tie I must say.

I did not know this: Brady's due $14.5 million, total, over the next two years. Peyton Manning's due $29.8 million over the next two. Now McNabb's in line to make exactly $10 million more than Brady in 2009 and '10 combined. You tell me how laughable that is. Brady's not saying a word. His agent, Don Yee, is not saying a word. But they're taking notes about a system that's paying Matt Cassel the same money to play 2009 as Brady will make in the next two years combined. Ouch. This will be an interesting watch over the next few months. (Just a observation, but King could not avoid talking about Favre even when he said he wasn't going to, acknowledged that the football-watching public could give a crap and that the only people who care are guys like himself. King is such a suck-up weiner.)

Another King observation: I must be un-American. I hate "Sweet Caroline'' in the bottom of the eighth at Fenway. How'd that dumb song ever get picked as a fan anthem? I have to say, I agree. It was fun for a while, but now it's getting old.

Isn't it great that Yankee Stadium never gets sold out anymore? Not even for the Sox or Mets? I'm thinking this is just a string in a long line of stupid moves to be made by the Steinbrenner brothers over the next couple of decades.

Night off, then Marlins are up. After their hot start, they're cold as ice these days, so we can probably count on a game one loss.

8-0 Proves...

On to the Phillies, who don't suck.

The Other Side

I've been writing for a while now from a Red Sox fan perspective. I think, in honor of 7-0, to give some Yank fans the floor. Culled from the Post, Daily News, and a couple of Yankee fan forums.

First, there is the delusional...

The best solution for the Yankees is to deal Wang for someone who can help them today. A weak team such as San Diego (Peavey) or Seattle (Bedard) might take a chance on Wang eventually getting back to form. There is no place on the Yanklees for Wang right now.

If Wang proves unserviceable there's still time to trade him for something better

(Why do Yankee fans always think some team is going to rescue them by giving them something for nothing? Why would any team want an unserviceable pitcher?)

To get Wang the start, Girardi had to bleep us his rotation thereby giving Burnett an excuse for another bad performance, and jerking around Hughes who is beginning to much more resemble Beckett (Ummm...sure he is. A relief appearance in which he gave up a game-losing long ball proved that for sure!)

What, they have 18 games against each other? They've already lost the first seven? It doesn't matter IF Yanks win a game! Go 0 and 18! Let Sox wear themselves out! Yanks have PROVEN that they CAN beat, everybody else! Just stay close! Stay even with Bosox! DON'T play for league leader, just play for Wildcard. When the Yanks and Red Sox meet in the Championship Series, the Red Sox will have FALSE CONFIDENCE! The Law of Averages will prevail! The "Good Guys" (Yankees) will topple "The Evil Empire" (Red Sox". I GUARANTEE IT, who cares WHAT "The Sports Pope" says, today!

The A-Rod haters:

Arod is Arod, which means I never saw a man so happy to get a walk so he has another excuse not to produce. And did you ever notice Arod's tell when he is nervous, he chews his gum none stop or is eating and spitting out sunflower shells (true, but so do 99% of big league ballplayers. I'd hate to be the one cleaning out those dugouts. Guys? Sunflower seeds do come shelled.)

Is A-Rod hurt? He looks lethargic and is swinging at almost anything thrown to him (well, unless he's wangling a walk, right?). One ground ball hit towards him turned out to be a hit because he didn't give it the extra effort to field it. He had another play in which he was great. Which Alex are we seeing? I am tired of hearing about his eight home runs since he came back (When *was* the last one of those, anyway? It wasn't last night in the ninth, for true)

A-Roid: O fer 3. I'm surprised Flaherty hasn't praised him for at least being consistent. Lead off double by Texiera, Yanks down 4 runs in the 6th, O outs. Roid-boy hits a scribbler to first, and Flash(?) blurts that he did his job. WHAT?? I don't know who is more overpaid: Head-Case or Flats. (Admittedly, this one might be a Sox or Mets troll)

The pissed off:

Deeply, profoundly, thoroughly, hopelessly disgusted. And don't even get me started on how embarassed I am (can't blame you, dude...)

GET WANG OUT OF THERE, NOW! HE'S A FRICKING DISASTER! (proof that your opinion matters more on "Caps Lock")

 

There's a name for a sinkerball pitcher who throws his 92 mph pitch "9 inches higher". It's called BATTING PRACTICE.

 

FUKEN IDIOTS FOR PUTTING WANG BACK IN AND TAKING HUGHES OUT. HUGHES IS FAR MORE THE BETTER PITCHER. STUPID MOVE. TRADE WANG

And the unexpectedly amusing, from a guy who calls himself bostown03:

YANKEES FANS! --A TRADE Dice-K for Wang STRAIGHT UP! (Well, *I* thought it was funny...)

The fat man in the slimming stripes is on the mound tonight (oops, road grays!) representing maybe the Yanks' best chance to steal a game in this series. If you don't want to be trade bait, Brad, it would be a good night to man up.

 

GO SOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!