It's going to be a long summer

Tonight in the seventh inning in Cleveland, in the scene of the insect crime that derailed his only playoff experience, Joba Chamberlain reared back in the longest outing of his season and hit 98 on the gun.

The pitch was high and away, in an inning where he'd give up a run, but in many respects, that didn't matter worth a damn. What mattered was that Chamberlain, after two months of mostly iffy performances in the starting rotation, was throwing hard and easy deep into a game, even if it was against a wildly disappointing opponent that he should dominate. What was the point is that Chamberlain wasn't trying to manage his arm, his velocity, or his pitch count, since he had worked economically to get to that point.

The Yankees now find themselves in the position, maybe for the first time in years, of having too many viable starting candidates. CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett have the money, the pedigree and reasonable results; they aren't going anywhere. Andy Pettitte has the rings, a 5-1 record and a 4.10 ERA; he's not going anywhere. Chamberlain might have the best stuff and has been slowly managed out to actually take the ball in the rotation; despite his past success as a breakout set-up man on a team that could use one, he's not going back to that role, and assuming he stays healthy, really shouldn't.

Which leaves the final two candidates for one chair -- Phil Hughes and Chien-Ming Wang. The former has been good for five out of six starts; the latter was terrible early this year, but seemingly is back on track now and has won too many games over the years to be a long man in the bully. In the long run, someone in the rotation will falter or get hurt, and it's not as if the Yankees are cash-strapped to the point of needing to deal for, say, someone in the pen to strengthen the team's only real weakness.

Meanwhile in the rest of the AL East, the Rays can't stay healthy or effective in the bullpen, the Blue Jays fell apart as predicted by everyone outside of Ontario or with a childlike faith in the power of the Jays' farm system, and the Orioles are, well, the Orioles. (Albeit it with a better everyday lineup than usual.) Which leaves us back to MLB+ Time, as usual in the division, with the Rex Sox a game back and with the inferior everyday lineup -- and when I say inferior, I'm being way too kind. David Ortiz is a corpse, Jason Varitek's bounce-back year is bound to end in tears, Jacoby Ellsbury isn't getting on base, Dustin Pedroia isn't having an MVP year...

Well, far be it for me to root for Boston in this century. At least when the Yankees win, their fans don't ask you to hug them. But four more months of living in this soap opera is going to make me a National League fan, really. (That, and the fact that the Oakland A's may be the very worst team in all of MLB. That's just great, too.)

The Yankees Are Hospitable Hosts

I had the Phillies-Yankees game on this afternoon while doing the laundry, and I have to congratulate the Yanks for being so accommodating to the visiting team. After years of a huge and unfair home field advantage, complete with ghosts and full-throated partisans and wall-to-wall Yankee Fans, the most valued franchise in baseball has, in one fell swoop, made the playing field much more level. With acres of empty seats in the close areas, a permanent tourist mindset from the overpriced everything, and the sense from non-locals that they need to see the new yard, you've never heard so many fans happy to see the home team lose... which they did today, to the immortal Carlos Ruiz and Clay Condrey, to drop their series with the Fightin's.

In many ways, it just makes things like the Yankee road games, where they have any number of road fans ruining the experience for the local faithful, and helps us get to that perfect moment for MLB -- a post-modern age where every person in attendance is more or less neutral in their rooting interests, maybe because they're all fantasy sports players and/or corporate greedheads who are too well-heeled to applaud. It's certainly making life easier for the Phillies, who are below .500 at home and far above that on the road. If they could ever get their home and closer problem (Brad Lidge blew his second save of the series today, has an ERA of over 9, and just looks snakebit) dealt with, they could be, you know, good or something.

But in any event, continued thanks to the Yanks for replacing their perfectly acceptable, massive home-field advantage with a massive boondoggle that will, over time, destroy their pitching and retard their player development and talent evaluation. (Oh, and what a fair home run for Mark Teixeria today, who went deep to left when his bat broke all the way into the outfield.) Good work, gents!

Blogrolling is an insult to capitalism

Far be it for me to tell Yankee Fan how to spend his money... but, um, good grief. On some level, I'm just in awe of how the team sucks the dollars away from its fan base; it's breathtaking how well they do this.

Are you in the market for a new business card? Let Chicago's history of remarkably stupid criminals be your guide. There's some real creativity here.

MLJ is having issues with the MLB rule book and AJ Pyrzinski. Two great annoyances that annoy together!

Joe Newman is perhaps my most obscure musical hero, and in a better world, he'd be taught in schools. Wildly unpopular proprietors need to stick together.

Blogrolling Is unpopular on many levels

Fewer people listen to Jose Canseco than read this blog. Jose, I weep for us both.

Major League Jerk finds an even more rotted tooth than the Bad Tooth. If you're missing your quota of Mass Hate from me this week, by all means click, and take pity the poor Boston fan/columnist, needing his small comforts of shadenfraude on a Sunday in May when his NBA team gets back to even in the Final 8, his MLB team wins a tight game against their division rival, his NHL team won a playoff game, and his NFL team moves another day closer to a year where they'll win their division in a walk. Clearly, they needed to bask in the misery of a team and fanbase that isn't even in their freaking league to somehow get through another day in their vale of tears.

In other news, the temperature in their collective asshole is 75 degrees, with light humidity and a strong southerly breeze. The weather is always nice it's the reason why they spend so much time there!


EMBED-Fan Does A Bruce Lee Flying Kick At Yankee Game - Watch more free videos

It's good to see that the fans at the new Yankee Stadium can still fight each other, rather than have their staff do it for them. I am a little disappointed that the spectators didn't chant "E-C-W! E-C-W! E-C-W!" after the flying kick, though.

An unprovoked Mark Cuban confronts Kenyon Martin's mother to tell her that her son is a thug or a punk. Happy Mother's Day! You know what else he is, Cubes? A member of a team with a playoff pulse. Also, a member of a team who doesn't have a complete asshat for an owner. The only way this story gets better is if the Angry Yellow Man decides to take matters into his own hands in Game Four. Does God love us all that much? Only time will tell.

(Kudos, by the way, to embattled Dallas forward Dirk Nowitzki, for having oceans more class than his owner. With luck, maybe this will enrage the UFL commish enough to move him.)

Update -- God does love us, and Kenyon's said, "I'm going to take care of it." The quote continues, "By violently assaulting him until his smarmy little head leaks brain juice out of his eyes, ears, nose, mouth and a new hole I'm going to call 'Kenyon's Fun Zone'." Oops, I'm sorry, that last part was just in my own mind.

Mike Florio from the Sporting News fingers six 2009 NFL playoff teams that he doesn't think will make it back. My team isn't on it, so he must be right.

205 Drop: Top 10 things Yankee Fan does not want to hear right now

The 205 link today is a nice thing about being an A's Fan (yes, there are nice things) is that when the Yankees *or* the Red Sox lose, you're happy.

The down side is that happiness is somewhat tempered by the fact that the other is usually winning when that happens.

But hey, take what you can, right?

Clue. Less.

"They're off to a very good attendance start. One team is averaging 44,000 -- the Yankees are at 44 -- and the Metsies are averaging 37,000. So it would be hard if I went to Pittsburgh or somewhere today and tell them, gee, you know, those two New York clubs are really struggling."

Bud, let me explain this slowly, using small words.

New stadiums in MLB+ markets should not, under any circumstance, have issues in filling any part of the stadium in the first *year* of operations.

The fact that both of the NY franchises are not getting those seats sold right now, when they are flush with curiosity for the new yards, is not good. Especially with both teams showing sizable flaws that could take them out of a pennant race (which would be, for a NY hater like myself, just fantastic). By the way, those flaws would be the starting pitching rotation for both teams.

And who said the recession was no fun?

Get a foul ball for just a few thousand dollars

You are looking at Not Very Much Attended Premium Seating at the new Yankee Stadium, which didn't take long to thin down a mite, especially in the pricey seats, for non-Opening Day crowds. The gent in the foreground in pinstripes is on the freaking field. One generally assumes that, you know, great swaths of empty seats should not be the thing closest to him, no?

Shockingly, New York Fan, even New York Corporate Fan Guy, hasn't been too interested in ponying up for the $2500 seats this year. I wonder why? Oh, right, because we're in a freaking recession that's making people reconsider, perhaps permanently (fingers crossed), the wisdom of such things.

Oh, and there's also this. NY Baseball Fan, for all of his flaws, is actually there to see the game, and not the freaking building, you unconscionable rubes. Enjoy your sparkling new albatrosses. (And no, according to the NYT, there are no plans afoot to price 'em down. In the immortal words of Nelson Muntz, "I *said* Ha, Ha...")

This Didn't Go Well

Boy, Yankee Fan sure knows how to chant and feel humiliated, don't they? Here's what happens when a giveaway goes wrong. Fun branding moment... and that was *before* the 10-2 pounding they took from the Indians.

In other news, RC Cola tried to give out tickets to a Natinals game, but despite having no soda or tickets, no chants. There's a philosophy joke here, which just goes to show you, no one likes philosophy jokes.

Five Takeaways From MLB Week One

1) The Dodgers are loaded. When your #7 hitter is a borderline All-Star outfielder (Matt Kemp), that speaks to two points. First, that your manager should have his head examined; Joe Torre's love of Orlando Hudson in the #2 slot seems a little silly to me. Second, that you've got just a sick offense. But we knew that about the Dodge Show as soon as Man Ram signed, seeing how the NL is still where AL stars go to stud. What we didn't know is that the rest of the team was going to have good moments, too.

Jonathan Broxton looks like, well, one of the few reliable closers in the National League. Chad Billingsley looks good to go after off-season surgery and a playoff meltdown. Clayton Kershaw might not be quite ready to lock down your roto championship with occasional control issues, but in the real world, he's just intimidating. Randy Wolf seems like a tolerable filler. They got fairly good starts out of rookies Eric Stults and James MacDonald, which is to say, they got the very real hope that rotation fill-ins won't be a major roadblock. I believe in the set-up men. And this is with opening day starter Hiroki Kuroda hitting the disabled list for what shouldn't be very long.

Finally there's also this: with an upcoming financial tsunami hitting MLB, the Dodgers should be able to clean up in mid-season refueling, especially since the farm system looks like it still has assets. Right now, LA looks like a mid 90 win team to me in a weak division; add a top-line starter, and I'm seeing a team that clinches its division by mid-September.

2) Cleveland is in trouble. In the Tribe's first week, Travis Hafner actually hit like a baseball player. Kerry Wood didn't get hurt, and neither did Carl Pavano. Victor Martinez slugged .600 in his comeback year after the 2008 nightmare. No one blew a save. They played Texas and Toronto, which is to say, they played two teams that shouldn't add up to 160 wins between them.

And they went 1-5, with staff ace Cliff Lee getting lit up for a 9.90 ERA in the bargain. The rest of the rotation wasn't much better, with Anthony Reyes "leading" things (6.00 ERA), Scott Lewis not fooling anyone (8.31 ERA), Fausto Carmoba continuing to not look like 2007 (10.80 ERA) and Pavano really stinking up the joint (81.00 ERA).

Now, they will get better than that in the long run, simply because no rotation is ever that bad, and Lee made too big of a leap in 2008 with his control to completely revert to a non-MLB pitcher. But it's cold, and it's April, when the pitchers are supposed to be ahead of the hitters and the relievers are fresh enough to throw tolerable long innings. If this is what the rotation is doing now, Tribe Fan is not looking forward to the dog days.

3) You might start believing in the Florida Marlins. The team with the best record in MLB for the first week of the year (at 5-1 with Atlanta) may not continue to get All-Star production from new third baseman Emilio Bonifacio, but they will get quality starting pitching all year, and this Hanley Ramirez fellow is pretty good, too. Even the bullpen looks better than advertised, with old Oakland stalwart Kiko Calero looking hale and healthy, and Matt Lindstrom shaking off his scary WBC injury. (That's a joke, folks: the WBC had no scary injuries, mostly because everyone was scared poo-less by the spectre of a WBC injury.) The division is still murderous, and the Fish have no pockets to speak of, but when Josh Johnson is just another arm in your rotation, you are freaking loaded.

4) San Diego is a mirage. The division leader at 5-2 started the season at home against weak teams (and yes, San Francisco still counts as one), with no breakout offensive players that I'm buying from last year's punchless wonders. Heath Bell certainly looks fine at the end of games, and Chris Young and Jake Peavy are more than acceptable, especially at Petco, but what you have with the Padres is basically a pitching park version of the historic Rockies franchise -- a team that is singularly incapable of winning enough games on the road to be a factor in any race. They are still going to be under .500 well in advance of a mid-season sell-off, and Peavy is still on his last go-around in SOCal.

5) The Yankees still aren't built for October. In the first week of the year, Robinson Cano has shed his career-long pattern of stinking it up in April. Joba Chamberlain didn't get hurt. Neither did Johnny Damon or Hideki Matsui, and at this point in their careers, that's news. Jorge Posada looked like the old-time Jorge Posada, which is a huge difference over the 2008 model, and not to be expected from a mid-30s catcher with a lot of wear and tear. (Remember, as well, that Posada has an extra year or more on the books from all of the post-season play.) The bullpen has been, more or less, what it always is.

And when they lose a game, as they did yesterday to the Royals, it all comes back with a vengeance. Xavier Nady may not be mortally terrified of the wall the way that Bobby Abreu was, but that doesn't mean he's actually, you know, good defensively. Brett Gardiner in center field might have wheels, but man alive, he's got an arm like a wet Johnny Damon; when the Yanks start both of them, Jeter's going to need to run halfway to the warning track to take the cut-off throw. Jeter, of course, hasn't been a good defensive shortstop for so long that even Yankee Fan is starting to concede the point. Cody Ransom might be the worst player in MLB right now with a starting job, which just goes to show how thin the organization is, and has been for years, behind the brittle older stars.

The rotation looks much improved, and the offense, especially if Cano and Posada's first week can be believed, looks dramatically better than last year's quiet Achilles heel. They'll be in it all year, especially if Boston or Tampa suffer injuries (especially the former; Tampa still looks to me to be the pick of baseball's best division).

But tell me, Yankee Fan -- which of your teams was good in October? Right, the ones with a killer set-up man that caught the ball at every position, with useful spare parts on the bench. Now, does that describe this team... or the 2005-2007 one-and-done teams?

Not Quite The Outcome They Expected

Today in Baltimore, the Orioles managed to tag the Yankees with a thoroughly satisfying 10-5 Opening Day loss. It had the following highlights:

> CC Sabathia getting pounded when he threw the ball in the zone, and not being in the zone often enough, including a bases-loaded breaking ball walk to a lefty (woof!)

> Cody Ransom, the cut-rate third base replacement for Alex Rodriguez, booting a ball and going 0-for-3 as part of the team's strong tradition of much worse than replacement level players for their brittle and aging stars

> Caesar Izturis getting a fan-aided home run (not quite making up for Jeffrey Maier, but hey, still fun)

> Damaso Marte not getting the left-handed out that they desperately needed, which means that we'll get another week of stories of how the Yankees need another starting pitcher so that they can move Joba Chamberlain back to the bullpen for set-up work... because the richest team in baseball can't find anyone to get outs who isn't famous

> Mark Teixeira getting booed like he was a local who spurned the Orioles for more money, which is well, what he did (and frankly, given that Peter Angelos still owns the Orioles, I can't really blame him)

Now, as much as I enjoy delighting in Yankee Freakout, it's just one game. Sabathia has never been a fast starter for the year. They might get Rodriguez back by late April, and while he won't be the same guy he's been, he won't be Cody Ransom, either. Hideki Matsui went yard today, and that's an extremely useful thing. Robinson Cano had a hit and two walks today, which means he's already had his hottest April ever. The bullpen probably isn't this bad.

But if they somehow lose to Koji Uehera tomorrow? Muhahahee.

Blogrolling Is All About The Green Death

Seattle's fans haven't suffered enough; now they need these new eyesore uniforms. For a team that wasn't coming from a position of strength in the first place, this is a further thumb to the eye.

The manifesto of our times; not to be missed. Go Green Death!

MLJ examines the wondrous story of how Bud Selig is calling for a committee to examine why Oakland hasn't gotten a new stadium for the A's. This just in, Bud: there's a recession. California is damn near bankrupt. Unemployment is on the rise. The team is in Oakland, which is to say, it's on the wrong side of the water for money, and gets maybe 10% of the media attention in the region, thanks to the tied-in Giants. And your ability to overwhelm the mind of any sentient being with your utter freaking clueless self... I mean, really? A committee? Do you also call one to help you wipe?

One more casualty of the new Yankee Stadium: Bob Sheppard, the Voice of God, doesn't look like he'll make it to the next place. Big quitter is just 98.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The 10/31 Project
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

And finally, Stephen Colbert knocks it out of the park again. When a man breaks out the shotgun and diaper, that's just good comedy.

What No One Knows About Fantasy Baseball

Jose Reyes. David Wright. Carlos Beltran.

They all get to deal with high outfield walls, all the way around, at their new place. Don't expect much help for home runs there.

C.C. Sabathia. Mariano Rivera. Joba Chamberlain.

These guys all have 20 feet of less foul ground behind home plate to work with in half of their games this year. You're crazy if you don't think that will add up to extra pitches and stress.

Johan Santana. Francisco Rodriguez. John Maine.

The blue pitchers will be dealing with all kinds of nooks and crannies that could lead to extra base opportunities in the outfield. It's also going to have significantly different wind patterns, given how it's, well, not in the same place as to old hole. Could play a lot of havoc with breaking pitches.

Mark Teixeria. Alex Rodriguez (assuming he ever comes back). Derek Jeter.

While the new place does have less foul ground near home plate, it does have a little more in the outfield. The place also has a very different outfield configruation and batters eye, since Monument Park has moved.

The point? I was in Northern California when Pac Bell opened. On its first day, balls flew out of the park in a 6-5 Dodgers win, with noted power hitter Kevin Elser (88 home runs in 13 years) going yard three times. The locals were convinced they had a bandbox. Of course, they didn't, and don't; Pac Bell is one of the top five pitchers' parks in the majors. In the first game at Petco, Marques Grissom, of the career .415 slugging percentage, was the only man to go deep in a 4-3 home win.

Every new stadium architect tells you that their place will play "fair", neither helping not hurting the hitter or pitcher, respectively. And they all lie, especially in the modern era, where you can make an ungodly amount of cabbage charging rich people a lot of money to sit close enough so that a line drive in the game they aren't watching could kill them.

If and when you take these guys, all you can hope is that their new yards play like their old ones, because that's the only basis for comparison you have to go to. And considering that, depending on how infested your league is with Mets and Yankee Fan, all of the guys that I just named will go in the first ten rounds. Or much, much less.

Happy drafting!

Blogrolling Needs A New Arena

Won't you please save a word today? Me, I'm going with boreism, or possibly namelings to describe the dozens of Ramerizi in MLB.

NY Yankees Rumors.com has dozens of photos of the new yard, which looks really big and very expensive -- shocking, I am sure. His caption for the photo above ("It’s like an all Yankees Cooperstown") either shows that he's never actually been to Cooperstown, or that I'm very bitter, or both.

The latest NBA Teams are on the move post from Fanleader.com, by way of the Boston Globe, has the Kings and Pacers looking for greener pastures. The Kings are said to be going to Anaheim, which probably makes more sense than their usual destination of Las Vegas, given how the Association has issues with that town, and they really don't have an arena that's up to standards.

As for the Pacers, let's just say that Ron Artest killed basketball in that state, and be done with it. In reality, the rent on Conseco Fieldhouse is $15 million per year, and this is in all likelihood just a negotiating ploy on the plight of a bad team that is currently last in the league in attendance.

It's said that the Pacers have lost money in 26 out of 28 years, so maybe it's more than just Testy, but it just sounds right to blame him, doesn't it? (As for where they will go... the usual suspects now are Kansas City, Seattle and, again, Vegas. But if freaking Indiana can't support an NBA team, doesn't that just make you wonder if any place can?)

30 teams have passed on Barry Bonds, but it's news when the Red Sox do it. Of course, the Bahstons were definitely always going to stay away from him, since he's a steroid user and all.

Blogrolling Thinks You Are Like Cancer

Shockingly, ex NFL RB Travis Henry is having a hard time making ends meet, due to his hobby of making ends meet. See what I did there? That's comedy, you lousy punks.

Jon Papelbon, like many in Red Sox Nation, just can't stop talking about ManRam, and compares him to cancer. Now, this is where the media fails me, really. What kind of cancer, Paps? Breast, which makes you use funny pink bats? Ass or dick cancer, like what so many people wished on you when you did your spasmodic dance routines? Heroic Jon Lester Cancer? Details, man, details. (And yes, the sound you heard was the Bad Tooth squealing with delight that another 5,000 words on what the Paps-Manny Feud Means, and what would happen if, heavens to all heavens, they actually met as adversaries on the field of combat. I feel faint.)

The real jersey purchase of our times: making your own. Screw you, jersey price gougers. Note also the Very Male Way of referring to sewing as DIY. Balls malesy DIY, oi oi oi!

Continuing on the ugly duds theme, Simon looks at St. Patrick's Day sports gear, so you don't have to.


Nick at IMS with more Joba Drama, because nothing endures quite so well as eternal Yankee drama.



Continuing the blog's newfound lease of life as All Spiderman, All The Time. I have lots more of these, people. Do not provoke me.

A-Roid

Word on the Internets this weekend, to save Blogfrica from actually dealing with the NBA or Pro Bowl, is that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003. At this point, the only authority you can trust on roids is, clearly, Jose Canseco.

As a blogger, you get two flavors of post about this.

1) A-Rod's a fraud! Let me spend the next few hundred words saying how I always knew this!

2) Every good player is on roids, so let's just make them legal now, and part of the strategy of the game, kind of like when a NASCAR guy chooses to change tires or fuel up.

Both tactics bore me, so here's a third tactic...

Who, in 2003, are we absolutely certain *wasn't* taking steroids?

Think it over. The best players in the game were clearly using them, without anyone seeming to care. Barry Bonds ruled baseball with an oversized head. The Oakland A's won the AL West with guys like Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada. Sammy Sosa led the Cubs, Mark McGwire led the Cardinals, and the Marlins beat the Yankees in a relatively blah 4-2 World Series, after the Marlins-Cubs and Sox-Yanks both went to seven games. It was a great year for baseball, thanks to the overly dramatic playoffs. Sure, people were talking about steroids, but no one was really letting it get in the way of the games.

Alex Rodriguez was in Texas, leading the AL in home runs, spending the last of three seasons of futility in the heat.

Assuming that he was, in fact, guilty of going on the juice... I'm not all that sure that I'm going to feel terribly upset about it.

You see, the first person to cheat is kind of a trail blazer. They gain the biggest edge, take the biggest risk, and earn the biggest ire when they are caught. But with each succeeding cheater, especially when they cheating becomes common and/or outdated, the outrage is muted, and so is the urge to prosecute.

This is a tangent, but does anyone remember Douglas Ginsburg? He was the Supreme Court nominee made by Ronald Reagan in 1987 after the Senate bounced Robert "King Tut" Bork, and he got bounced for admitting that he used marijuana. Now, we've elected a President who has admitted to smoking it; admittedly, the President is chosen by the people, rather than the Senate, but one suspects that a Court nominee with a similar problem wouldn't be automatically rejected now. What's changed? Twenty years of people, well, using marijuana.

It's not quite the same thing, of course, since pot doesn't improve your athletic ability (unless Robert Parish owed his longevity to it, or it made Michael Phelps swim faster) in the same way that steroids do. But the principle is the same.

And the guys that weren't using in 2003 probably weren't, well, among the best players in the game. It just seems to be too much of an advantage.

Now, does this mean that we should ignore the possible cheating? Of course not; standards are standards, and the law is the law no matter how valuable the player or the color of his laundry. But if you are using this to feel morally superior to the Yankees, you might want to take a step back... because the simple fact of the matter is that your team probably has cheats on it as well...

And if it doesn't, maybe that's telling, too.

(Also, that we can just about close the Hall of Fame right now.)

A Small Note to Red Sox Fan

Just because the Yankees are spending like drunken sailors in a time when everyone else in baseball is thinking about cutting the Big League Chew back to Bush League Gristle, does not mean anyone outside of your perverted fan base likes you.

At all.

Or feels sorry for you, since you have to compete with those Big Bad Meanies with Money.

You see, your team... isn't poor. By any measure of the imagination.

Nor are your players Lovable Downmarket Guys Who Just Try Real, Real Hard. In that, well, damn near every team in baseball has those guys. It goes along with the ever-increasing whiteness. (Shh. Baseball's talent is getting better and better and better and so long as we keep saying this and ignore the fact that the truly explosive guys are getting few and far between, along with stolen bases, triples, and defensive highlights that are really all that breathtaking, WE'LL ALL BE JUST FINE.)

Nor is it, you know, possible to see your team play at home for the sake of those of us who enjoy going to different parks for less than a mortgage payment. Though that experience, to be fair, is less than appealing, given that you're surrounded by Red Sox Fans. Just like at damn near every other stadium in the country, really. It's so much fun to be in your world! Really it is!

So, um, the Yankees making you feel all inadequate about your $150 million-plus payroll? I can see some upside to it. Maybe you'll jack up your seat prices again so I can hear your fans cry even more about it. Perhaps you'll go make some panicky free agent signing of your own -- I bet Manny would come back if you only paid him so much that he'd never, ever quit on you like a dog. Again. He can play first since David Ortiz is aging very fast, with nagging and persistent injuries. (Gosh, it'd be a shame if people, you know, drew conclusions from that sort of thing.)

And in the best-case scenario, the Rays win the division again, and your little Coke and Pepsi border war ends up in two 85-win clubs that miss the wild card to Central Division Team Runner-Up. (Yes, I know, the World Series ratings would suck, because it's your world. But only, shh, when you're winning...)

New York Minutes

So the Mets and Yankees have gone on their usual obscene spending spree at the MLB talent markets, taking on salary at a time when most teams are shedding it. And there is (relatively) no hue and outcry, mostly because:

1) The players they are getting are pitchers, and therefore more than a little suspect when it comes to delivering value for the money (A.J. Burnett is, just like Carl Pavano, an ex-Marlin...)

2) Both teams were irrelevant to the MLB postseason last year, and even with the talent infusion, are not a lead-pipe cinch to get there now

3) All of the players who have been bought come with caveats, some of them significant.

CC Sabathia is fat and hasn't done it in the playoffs; he also clearly didn't want to go to New York. Seven year contracts are also a strange new world of risk; one big injury and they are on the hook for years of hurt.

AJ Burnett has a career 3.81 ERA and an 87-76 won-loss record, and had his only good year in the AL was last year -- to wit, in his walk year. That's also the only year where he stayed healthy and threw over 200 innings. If everything goes well for the Yanks, he's the number four starter (behind Sabathia, Wang and Chamberlain), and works fine as that. But at $16 million a year for another five years (which means they are expecting him to still be viable at age 36), he's going to be untradable if he doesn't work out.

K-Rod has the single save season record, but he's also had reduced velocity in the second half of last season, and a checkered post-season career. JJ Putz, as my bitter fantasy team can attest, was far from effective last year, and relievers are like that.

Finally, there is this -- Sabathia's already left his original team, last year, when Milwaukee rented him. Burnett is joining his third team. Putz took a while to become dominant. Only Rodriguez is coming from a situation where he is deeply recognizable as attached to one franchise, and that franchise didn't choose to keep him. So this doesn't have the effect of, say, Jason Giambi getting ripped from his first franchise by the big money boys, or Manny Ramirez being auctioned off from his first team.

It may all seem unfair and an obvious system error to have such inequitable payrolls, especially in a time of austerity. But with luck, both NY teams will fail for other reasons (the Yankees have a surprisingly ordinary or worse offense, and the Mets are filled with, well, the Mets, who have a two-year run now of choking in September), and we'll all be able to pretend that payrolls don't dictate much of the merits of the teams. Much as we have, well, for the past 150 years...

Now, will he pull the Clemens?

Mike Mussina announces his retirement, despite being just 30 wins away from 300, and he's the first guy to retire after a 20 win season since Sandy Koufax.

Well, congrats to him, I guess. But will he still stay away in mid-May, when NYY offers him $10 million for a few months of work after the injuries hit?

(Oh, and if anyone really wants to have the serious argument that he isn't a HOFer, go soak your head. 270 wins in a 'roid era, with his best year lost due to the strike, with playoff success and a ton of strikeouts... if you're really arguing against him, you've got some personal vendetta. If he's not a HOFer, neither are the majority of pitchers who are already there.)

D-U-I. D-U-H.

And as Boston was continuing to add to their lineage as the New Overlords, far away from the maddening crowds, Joba Chamberlain was doing what morons do at 1am.

Namely, drinking and driving and speeding.

Now, I'm not going to completely kill the guy for this. He's 23 and a pampered athlete who almost lost his father last summer. We don't know if he was truly hammered or just over the limit, if the open container was a light beer or a 40 ounce bottle bag, and if the speeding was 5 over the limit with an expensive car in a cash-strapped area, or something a lot more than that. Hell, we don't even know if any of this is true. It's not as if a trooper has never seen a famous name on a driver's license and decided to up the ante.

But there's one thing I do know. Bad franchises get to be bad franchises by needing overly young and/or questionable character guys to do, and be, everything. And right now, Chamberlain is the only guy on the Yankee roster with the stuff to be a #1 starter... and he's screwing it up.

It will also lead to Treatment and Tabloids and Condemnation, because hell, New York would like to talk about anything other than how Boston's still playing games.

And when the Yankees finish third in the AL East and out of the playoffs again next year -- and it's hard to see how they get better than either Boston or Tampa right now -- the failure of Chamberlain to become a 15 to 20 win guy is going to be one of the biggest reasons why.

Oh, and he also gets to endure a lifetime of drinking heckles. When, oh when, will athletes learn to just have a designated driver at all times?

No One Walks Away

Here's your headline from today's New York Times: "Mussina's 20th Victory May Be His Last." The story notes that the 2008 Yankees ace has an expired contract, a 40th birthday celebration in December, and a family that wants him home for good. (He's also, of course, the oldest guy to win 20 who hadn't before, and stops being the guy with the most wins to never win 20 in a season. Whatever.)

Now, here is the list of pitchers who voluntarily retired in the last 100 years after a 20 win season.

Sandy Koufax

Who did it, of course, for crippling elbow pain in a time when medical technology could offer him no relief... so you can argue about the voluntary part there, too. (To be sure, there were also two Black Sox who won 20 and never pitched again. Hence, the qualifier "voluntarily.")

Now, everyone in pinstripes has to honor Mike and his possibly quitting talk, since he's a decent guy who didn't suck at all this year, and telling a guy that he's full of crap for wanting to walk away from a probable eight figure salary in 2009, not to mention his continued assault on Mount 300 (with the win yesterday, he's at 270), is rude. Besides, he's going to the Hall -- no Cy Youngs or World Series championships , but a jaw-dropping .638 winning percentage, and only five guys have more wins and a higher rate (Grover Cleveland Alexander, Christy Mathewson, Roger Clemens, Lefty Groves and Randy Johnson).

If and when he gets hurt or ineffective, maybe then he gives it up. If and when the Yankees decide to screw around with his contract, and try to pay him as someone who will give them less than 200 innings with a 4.5 ERA, a 1.3 WHIP and a 13-8 record (i.e., what he's overwhelmingly likely to revert back to next year, given that his recent career seems to be an every-other year thing, and no one knows if the new stadium will be as kind to right-handed pitching as the old), maybe he gets bent and holds out. If he has to go ply his trade in, say, Pittsburgh for a comparative pittance, maybe then he quits.

But it's not as if the Yankees have many better ideas than him right now, or that a guy who's made over $133 million in MLB is really going to turn his nose down at $10 million more... especially when he's only two to three years away from 300, and the team would really like some new history to be made at the new yard.

The family can wait. They have for this long.