The Rantings & Ravings Of A (Formerly) Mad Mailman

Rational Pastime has some interesting, albeit unsurprising, information about MLB’s perceived competitive balance problem:

That said, we don’t yet have enough evidence to make this claim just yet. A deeper investigation of the level of competitive balance in baseball and other sports requires more than a look at regular season win distributions. We also need to look at the distribution of playoff appearances, as well as the volatility of win totals from year to year (what sociologists and economists would refer to as “mobility” were we discussing household and personal incomes rather than success in sport).

So there you have it–based on win distributions, the MLB is clearly the most balanced American sports league, and the NFL the least balanced, contrary to popular opinion. This tells us that there is something inherent in baseball that is generating a great deal of fairness for the teams that play, regardless of payroll disparity. This also raises the possibility that Baseball’s “competitive balance problem” may be nothing more than a public relations problem (which isn’t insignificant, it’s just not a problem that can be fixed by modifying the distribution of payrolls).

This isn’t exactly news to me. In fact, I have been saying it for some time.

Every time some egghead runs one of these studies, they find the same thing: Major League Baseball’s competitive balance, as measured by regular-season wins, compares favorably with the other sports.

I’m not even sure you need an egghead (or me) to tell you this. Just look around. The worst baseball teams will lose roughly 65 percent of their games. The worst football teams will lose 90 percent of their games; the worst basketball teams, roughly 85 percent.

MLB has had more different World Series winners over the last 20 years than any other sport can claim. It’s kind of obvious to those who can just get past the fact that, sadly, their teams suck or are just mis-managed all to hell.

So, I get it. Do you?

You should also get that the Royals, Reds and Pirates haven’t been truly competitive since today’s graduating college seniors were in diapers.

That is a public-relations problem for Major League Baseball and a management problem for a handful of teams.

So lay off the whining about a lack of competitive balance in baseball.

Free agency has always been first and foremost on LeBron Jame’s mind for as long as we can remember.

So how fitting is it that he uses something as shallow and senseless as the “Larry King Show” to upstage and NBA Finals battle between the two most storied franchises the league has?

As the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers gathered for a championship series to remind us of what built the league, what made it great, here’s LeBron James with a public ode on LeBron James.

“I’m the ringleader,” he told King.

Only, he has no rings.

D’oh! Oh well, that’s a minor detail.

He was talking about the free-agent crop of stars, because that’s mostly what James has cared about for two years now. He tried to win a title with the Cleveland Cavaliers. He really did.

He has surrounded himself with a collection of nitwits and hangers-on, sneaker reps and childhood buddies and middlemen whom he calls his “team”.

Somehow, this army couldn’t let him stay quiet until the playoffs were over, until everyone had pushed past the way he entered the witness protection program in the conference semifinals.

He did a vapid sit-down with King to air on Friday night, and then made sure to leak out a transcript that drones out the start of the NBA Finals.

Now some might want to dismiss this fact because, after all, it is the 25^th Anniversary week for our suspender wearing friend.

I am not one of those people. James appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel show only reinforced what I suspected all along. The man can’t see past the tip of his nose.

In so many ways, he’s a young Alex Rodriguez, so insecure with himself and his MVP awards, so desperate to find validation in the courtship of free agency.

And we all remember how A-Rod was absolutely vilified for similar behavior a few years back. He was ravaged by the media, myself included, and called out for disrespecting the World Series and the game itself.

“He seems more enthusiastic about this than he did trying to beat the Celtics,” said one Western Conference GM. “I mean, who goes on Larry King to talk about ‘when I become a free agent’?”

Um, nobody does. Or at least, until this point nobody had.

Different times, different measures of self. James refuses to see himself in the context of sport, in the lineage of those before him.

There are two preps-to-the-pros stars in these NBA Finals – Kobe Bryant(notes) and Kevin Garnett(notes) – and sometimes people forget how much they struggled early on, how no one ever anointed them as skinny high schoolers leaping straight into the draft. They were talents, but they never had childhoods like James.

James climbed out of limousines at prep All-American sneaker camps. He wore shades and shirts which proclaimed himself King. He never learned to treat people with many manners or treat authority with respect. When he had something to say about himself, LeBron James never needed to consider the circumstances surrounding him.

Now, it happens again.

Free agency has enough hype without this selfish stunt, without him thinking that somehow everyone else is just a prop for his drama.

Two seasons ago, I watched James march into Madison Square Garden and sounded like a carnival barker, bellowing: “If you guys want to go to sleep right now and not wake up until July 1, 2010, then go ahead because it’s going to be a big day.”

He sat on a news-conference podium, with uncomfortable Cavaliers officials looking on, spitting out the date his personal playoffs begin: July 1, 2010. He loves to hear other free agents – Dwyane Wade(notes), Chris Bosh(notes), Amar’e Stoudemire(notes) and Carlos Boozer(notes) – all insist this process starts with him. He loves that no can make a move in July until he does.

He absolutely loves anything that strokes his ego.

The NBA had always been about June, but LeBron James couldn’t stand this month without him. The Celtics and Lakers earned themselves this stage, a throwback rivalry that makes those in the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s so proud of the way these two teams, these champions, comport themselves.

The Celtics and Lakers are the NBA’s test of time – Bryant and Garnett, Gasol and Pierce. They’ve come to understand that those teams, those uniforms, represent something bigger than themselves, something that’s sustained this league forever.

Maybe someday LeBron James will find it, but something tells you of the emptiness awaiting him in July. Eventually, he’s going to have to find a team, sign a contract and the “Season of Me” will be over.

All he’s ever truly wanted was to be the so-called ringleader of free agency, and it’s almost here, almost his now. All these years, all these stars who lived for June, and now maybe the most gifted of them all has never stopped talking about July.

There is something incredibly, incredibly wrong about that fact.

Major League Baseball can’t deny it — the game needs to expand its instant-replay system.

Last postseason, by itself, has proven that.

For instance, the Twins’ Joe Mauer hit a blooper down the left-field line in Game 2 of Minnesota’s series against New York. The ball landed a good half foot inside the line, but, somehow, the foul-line umpire called it foul.

The call might have cost the Twins the game and a chance to make that series interesting.

And there’s no excuse to miss calls like the one in Game 4 of the Yankees-Angels ALCS series, when Mike Napoli clearly tagged out two Yankees by third base who weren’t touching the bag. Innocently but very incorrectly, respected umpire Tim McClelland ruled that Robinson Cano had his foot on third base.

The first replay showed what I had thought when I saw the play live — Cano’s foot was a good 6 inches from touching the rubber.

That could have been changed in a matter of a minute.

Nice and quick.

Those only illustrated the need for the expansion of instant replay.

During the past two weeks of the current season, there has been a plethora of badly missed calls. If you’ve watched the games with one eye, you know what I’m referring to.

All the umpires have been able to do is apologize. They can’t dispute the calls, because, um, their mistakes have been obvious. Really, really, really obvious.

Now we have the Detroit Tiger’s Armando Galarraga being robbed of baseball immortality.

In case you missed it, the Motown pitcher was starting in place of the recently deposed Dontrelle Willis and tossed an absolute gem of a game. A marvel of efficiency the righty only struck out three batters, but also needed just 88 pitches to complete his masterpiece.

Then, inexplicably, as the Tiger’s clearly recorded the final out veteran umpire Jim Joyce blew the call. Just flat out blew it. Every replay angle on earth showed the Indians Jason Donald was out by a couple of steps, but Joyce didn’t see it that way.

“It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the (stuff) out of it,” Joyce said, looking and sounding distraught as he paced in the umpires’ locker room.

“I just cost that kid a perfect game,” Joyce said after seeking out the young pitcher to apologize personally. “I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay.”

“I don’t blame them a bit or anything that was said. I would’ve said it myself if I had been Galarraga. I would’ve been the first person in my face, and he never said a word to me.”

Joyce will also undoubtedly get plenty of criticism over why he was ruling such a close play safe considering the circumstances. Yes, a tie does go to the runner … except when there is a perfect game on the line (thanks to some appendage to that rascally book of “unwritten rules” we hear about now and then.)

Joyce is only human and you can bet that this call will spur another heated debate over expanded instant replay in baseball that might actually go somewhere. And it should.

We now have a true instance of a single bad umpiring decision irrevocably changing the course of baseball history. One that could have been easily corrected by a review, even if the moment had already been spoiled. This is far from over.

As well it shouldn’t be, but not for the reason most think.

Galarraga was cooler than you or I might have been, going as far as to utter the most ironic of words in telling Joyce “Nobody’s perfect”.

I hope that isn’t lost in all of this because in today’s day & age of “me first” athletes he should really be commended for that fact.

The mere fact that baseball refused to take greater action over replay after last year’s gaffes clearly had a significant impact on it’s post-season games (therefore the season’s outcome), yet will undoubtedly do so now because of what amounts to a blown personal achievement that has no impact beyond the record book is not lost on me.

If change comes, make no mistake it will come for entirely the wrong reason.

We most certainly need to have an expansion of instant replay in the sport I love so much. Not because of some lost personal accolade, but rather so that we make sure the right team wins. But hell, I’ll take it anyway I can get it.

For all the baseball purists out there, I agree with you that MLB shouldn’t let managers be involved in the reviewing process.

Rather, the ump in the box should have all the authority to overturn, not “review,” any call that appears clearly incorrect.

In other words, if they see a replay and know right away that the call on the field wasn’t right, then overturn it.

If two replays don’t show conclusive evidence, play on. And no, balls and strikes should never be reviewed regardless of how many pitches are called wrong — that’s part of the game and always should be.

The fix is simple.

As many of the baseball sages have suggested, put an umpire in the press box with a TV. When he sees a call such as the Mauer one that’s transparently wrong, he’ll signal down to the field umpires in some fashion (helloooo, I can launch the space shuttle from my iPhone, they can figure something out).

The call is reversed. Everyone is happy. (Well, maybe not the team that was the beneficiary of the bad call. But they won’t feel so guilty about getting a break. … Scratch that — they probably wouldn’t feel guilty in the first place, but you get my drift.)

The point is, this is a simply fix. This isn’t football, when some fumble-or-no-fumble reviews are so close, they take 5 minutes, 43 seconds (and seven beer commercials) to review.

In the end, baseball can do what is absolutely right by the game, something it failed so miserably at during the Steroid Era. That would be a huge step in repairing the damage done to America’s past-time in recent years.

(P.S. It took only seconds for Joyce’s Wikipedia page to be defaced. The Internet abides!)

Tuesday night’s Nebraska boys state soccer championship has sparked some national interest, but it wasn’t because of the game or Lincoln East’s undefeated season. It is now being called “the green card” incident.

A championship victory, an exciting overtime win, the triumphant end to a perfect season, all of it could be overshadowed by the Lincoln East fan reaction.

Some knucklehead, racist, backwoods ass rednecks thought the best way to celebrate their win was to toss fake “green cards” in the air as a taunt to their fallen opponents.

The student body of South High is approximately 60% latino.

Manuel Lira says, “That is something to be ashamed of.”

Manuel Lira’s last game was a disappointing one, but he says what happened after the game was even more so.

The perception of the South High student body is not unique to Lincoln East students.

Manuel Lira says, “It’s not like this is new to us because it has happened many other times in a lot of other situations it is not the first time.”

Joe Maass has been coaching soccer at South for more than a decade and says what happened last night is similar to past incidents, but the stage was different.

Maass felt the paper fall on him, even went through the medal ceremonies before he realized what he thought was confetti was actually a racial slam.

Joe Maass says, “It was just sort of a disgrace that a great event like the state soccer championship would have something like that occur.”

Susan Cassata agrees, as Principal of Lincoln East she wants to make sure something like the green card incident never happens again.

Cassata says the actions of a few have hurt East’s reputation.

Susan Cassata says, “Inexcusable something that I don’t even have words to articulate how devastating the interaction or behavior or the intent was.”

But the East administration does have the power to do something about the behavior.

Cassata said that school administrators have interviewed 25 to 30 students. Fewer than five had been suspended by Wednesday afternoon.

Now, hopefully this isn’t just lip service that is being tossed about to appease those of us that find this kind of behavior to be both disgusting and intolerable.

From what several people involved have said this isn’t an isolated incident, that there have been similar situations in the past.

We have seen this with the infamous “Jena 6” trial (one that involved an actual “white’s only” tree in a schoolyard and nooses), segregated proms in Georgia and some nitwit in a Jersey Wal-Mart living up to that states unfortunate stereotype of ignorance.

Three varying degrees of severity. Three different parts of the country. Stupidity clearly knows no bounds.

Clearly, some significant steps need to be taken to address this kind of crap that is occurring all too often.

America is the melting pot. If you think that somehow that isn’t a good thing then you don’t get it and all hope is lost for you my friend.

If you want to live in a place that is genetically homogenous move to Iceland, otherwise learn to play well with others please.

Eric Byrnes is back in the lineup as an everyday player! Every Wednesday, anyway. Byrnes is now the starting left fielder for the Dutch Goose, a slow-pitch softball team sponsored by a Menlo Park burger barn.

Until a week and a half ago, Byrnes was a Seattle Mariner, so some might see this as a step down. To me that is debatable. To Byrnes it’s just another exciting chapter of life.

Wednesday night, in the Menlo Park League, Byrnes, the cleanup hitter, led off the bottom of the second inning against Vintage Construction.

The Vintage pitcher was Bill Lopez, who, as a local Little League coach, passed over 9-year-old Eric Byrnes in a draft. Man, talk about payback.

25 years later Byrnes hit the first pitch deep over the left-field fence. When he arrived back at the dugout, Lopez nodded and rolled the ball to Byrnes, a souvenir of his first slow-pitch homer.

Byrnes walked to the stands and presented the ball to his proud mom, Judy.

It was a relief to see Byrnes seemingly happy and reasonably sane. The reports out of Seattle on his release by the Mariners were more than a little weird and at some times disturbing.

The cut came as absolutely no surprise. Byrnes, 34, had been battling injuries, was cut in January by the Diamondbacks, was picked up on the cheap by the Mariners (as the D’Backs were footin’ most of the $11 million in guaranteed salary this season), was relegated to part-time duty and wasn’t hitting a lick.

Two Fridays ago, in extra innings of a scoreless game in Seattle, Byrnes pulled his bat back on a suicide squeeze, rendering teammate Ichiro Suzuki a dead duck at the plate. The Mariners lost 2-0 and I was sent into a fiery rage penning this in the process.

Minutes after the game, Byrnes (ever the odd bird) burst out of the clubhouse riding a beach-cruiser bicycle, blew past the media and almost ran down Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik, hurrying to the clubhouse to address his sinking team.

Days later, Byrnes was cut, announcing in a radio interview he was done with baseball for good but would soon be playing slow-pitch softball.

Those of us who remember Byrnes when he played for the A’s remember the Bay Area kid (St. Francis High in Mountain View) as quite the free spirit. He was always a high energy guy, nicknamed Captain America by his Dominican Winter League teammates, and just threw himself around with a reckless abandon.

But the reports made it sound as if one of Byrnesy’s notoriously loose screws had jammed and sent him spinning out of control.

To the above reports, Byrnes pleads guilty, but with an explanation. He hadn’t lost it; he merely flamed out, and retired from baseball with as much dignity as you can muster making your exit on a beach cruiser.

Byrnes said that when Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu and Zduriencik cut him, they offered to make calls to other teams on his behalf.

“I told him, ‘I appreciate it, Jack, but this is it. I’m done,’ ” Byrnes said. “I went to shake Don’s hand and he pushed it away and hugged me. He said, ‘Hey, I never had anyone play harder for me.’

“To be honest, I don’t really have any interest (in trying to play more baseball). I’ve never been scared for it to be done, for life after baseball, and it’s not because I didn’t love the game.”

Byrnes played the game with the type of zeal that very few have. While he was prone to leave us scratching our heads from time to time, his joy for the game could never be questioned.

But all of that seemed to have changed recently.

Byrnes’ version of events in Seattle vary from the news reports. On the failed squeeze bunt, he said the pitch was so far outside he said he knew he couldn’t reach it, so he pulled back and hoped to obstruct the catcher to allow Ichiro to score.

After the game, he was upset with himself, so after showering he hopped on his bike (he lived near the ballpark) and pedaled off, not deliberately blowing off the media.

Byrnes said he left baseball, and the Mariners, on good terms.

“Ask any of my teammates if I gave a” darn, he said. “Ask Wakamatsu. Ask Mike Sweeney. … I didn’t give up on baseball. I played, in my mind, to the end. My time just ran out. … I busted my ass for 11 years, I gave this game all I had.”

He drove home from Seattle to Half Moon Bay and slept a couple of hours at home, then hit the golf course.

Tuesday he played golf, then went surfing. Wednesday, softball.

“People keep asking me, ‘Are you really done’ ” with baseball? Byrnes said. “I’m beyond OK with (retirement). This is awesome for me.”

As it turns out the Florida Marlins had suspected the Phillies were guilty of stealing signs long before the Philadelphia bullpen coach was caught gazing through binoculars at Coors Field earlier in the week, which has led to a reprimand from Major League Baseball.

“We’ve always had our suspicions,” said Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez.

Gonzalez said that the way the tiered bullpens are configured in Philadelphia, with one on top of the other behind the center field wall, their suspicions reached a point last season where bullpen coach Steve Foster and bullpen catcher Pierre Arsenault looked over the top and inside the Phillies pen to make sure they weren’t stealing signs from that vantage point.

“We never caught anybody,” Gonzalez said. “But we had our suspicions. It’s so easy. It’s so tempting.”

Interestingly enough, the Marlins went 7-2 in Philadelphia last season.

Catcher John Baker said suspicions that the Phillies were stealing signs started in 2008.

“Some of their guys took some strange swings at some pitches that went against the scouting report, that were really surprising,” Baker said. “(Former pitching coach) Mark Wiley and I had a sense that they knew what was coming that pitch, even when there was nobody on second base. It could have been great hitting and they guessed right.”

I know, I know. Everybody steals signs, as Paul Hagen of the Philadelphia Daily News points out, and everybody is looking for any advantage they can get. But the use of technology is what has irked Rockies’ skipper Jim Tracy.

Similar to the New England Patriots’ Spygate scandal in 2007, the use of synthetic devices escalates an otherwise routine occurrence into a national news event.

Billmeyer says he was simply trying to monitor the defensive positioning of Rockies catcher Miguel Olivo. As unrealistic as it seems, that’s his explanation and he’s sticking to it.

There’s been some back and forth in the days following the release of the video, but the buzz off the field is likely to end right here.

On the field buzzings, however, could be an entirely different story.

With each passing day the events surrounding Ken Griffey Jrs. alleged mid-game snooze are becoming less and less clear in the eyes of many within the sport.

Seattle Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu said that Ken Griffey Jr. was not asleep in the clubhouse in the eighth inning last Saturday night, he was indeed on the bench and available to pinch-hit, contradicting parts of a story that appeared in The Tacoma (Wash.) News Tribune on Monday.

In case you yourself were napping and missed it The News Tribune story quoted two young players, who spoke off the record, saying that Griffey was asleep in the clubhouse during the game Saturday night.

When asked whether he was asleep in the clubhouse, Griffey was vague. He didn’t answer the specific question but said, “I wish they [the unnamed players] had been man enough to talk to me.”

Upon being asked if Griffey had been asleep in the clubhouse during the game Saturday night, Wakamatsu said Tuesday, “He wasn’t asleep. He was available to pinch hit and I chose not to use him as the manager.”

Before Tuesday night’s game against the Baltimore Orioles, the Mariners held a players-only meeting. A club source said the meeting was organized by Mike Sweeney and “was 100 percent about Griffey” and was designed to support Griffey.

The source said that Griffey was upset and hurt by the story and cried briefly during the meeting. Sweeney chastised the anonymous young players for speaking about something that had happened in the clubhouse, in essence challenging the clubhouse Deep Throats to a fight, according to the source.

And therein lies the rub.

If Griffey was indeed NOT asleep and available then where was the need to chastise these younger players? What clubhouse incident were they relaying to the world that justified this admonishment?

There is absolutely nothing that makes sense in the teams statements and the whole thing smells fishier than the Pike Place Fish Market.

The incident continues to make waves as each day goes by.

After the Mariners beat the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday night, winning pitcher Cliff Lee started to address the media, then stopped and said he could not continue until the reporter from The Tacoma (Wash.) News Tribune left.

Other Mariners players followed suit with the newspaper at their lockers, according to Seattle-area media reports.

Look, I don’t want to admonish anyone for being a good team mate and looking out for one of their guys.

The sanctity of the clubhouse is one of the values held most dear across Major League Baseball and the Mariners can’t be happy that two of their teammates allegedly violated that trust while creating a big media controversy in the process.

But from all appearances the events outlined in the initial report seem to be in all likelihood fairly accurate, meaning the Mariners are doing nothing more than killing the messenger here.

So Seattle’s management keep giving your contradictory statements. Cliff Lee Go on blackballing the reporter who wrote the piece. Mike Sweeney keep offering up “stitches for the snitches”. All y’all just keep doin’ your thing.

But if your trying to sell me that their is little or no truth to the initial story just know that I’m not buying it.

So far this season has been, shall we say, "uncomfortable" for the Boston Red Sox and their fans.

The pitchers being paid tens of millions of dollars to get people out aren’t getting people out. The hitters making tens of millions of dollars aren’t hitting, and the fielders on this team supposedly built to prevent runs are seemingly providing Boston’s opponents with 30 outs a game.

Simply put, this team has been terrible.

So far this team has already gone 6-11 versus the A.L. East, 1-8 versus the Yankees and Rays (all of the games having been at home) and lost 4 of 5 games on their own field to the rival Yankees by a combined score of of 40-20. As bad as that sounds, when you consider that 9 of those 20 runs came in the very first game of the season it actually gets WORSE.

What should be absolutely frightening to Red Sox Nation is that one glance on the calender for the month of May shows it won't get any better anytime soon.

After completion of this weekends series with the Yankees, Toronto brings one of the leagues best pitching staffs into Fenway for a 3 game set. That will be followed by a five game road trip to Detroit and New York (May 14-18), a quick two game set back in Fenway vs. the A.L. Central leading Twins, 3 games on the road in Philadelphia (May 21-23) as Inter-league play kicks off, 3 games versus Tampa @ Tropicana Field and finally closing the month with a 4 game series against the Royals back home at Fenway.

In fact, it's not like the rest of the season gets much better for the team in terms of schedule relief. The simple fact of the matter is the Red Sox had an early schedule that put the team in the perfect position to get off to a good start, possibly even building somewhat of a little lead in the division. They played a disproportionate number of games at home, many of them against their biggest rivals.

Now, because of this squandered opportunity, they face the prospect of overcoming sizable deficits in the standings, and doing all of that work on the road. That is not good news.

This team struggled mightily on the road last season, posting a losing record. It is a team that doesn't exactly play it's finest baseball away from the friendly confines of Fenway Park.

They need to look no further than last season's Tampa Bay Rays for a glimpse of what thier future may have in store for them.

A year ago, the Rays got off to the same type of bad start as the Red Sox, stumbling to a 23-27 start. From May 29 through Aug. 5, the Rays went 37-21, the third-best record in the majors, pulling within three games of the Sox and 5 1/2 of the Yankees. But then they faded, going 24-30 the rest of the way.

The Sox, a much older club, are even more unlikely to sustain such a taxing charge. This year’s Rays & Yankees do not figure to maintain their 120 win pace, but even when they come back to earth a bit it will still require the Sox to play at that kind of pace just to make up the lost ground.

The Red Sox have to get hot and they have to get hot now.

One can no longer get away with saying it's too early for Red Sox fans to panic about their team’s struggles — and “struggles” is an understatement — at this point in the 2010 campaign.

The clock is ticking - in more ways than one.

“Play ground. By the swings. 3 o’clock. Be there or…”

No matter where you sat on the whole brewhaha involving A’s pitcher Dallas Braden and the man we love to hate, a.k.a. Alex Rodriguez, this is pretty much what one has to hear every time the young hurler opens his mouth.

Which is quite often.

Braden didn't care for Rodriguez running across his mound a few weeks ago. OK, fine, even though it's hard to find anyone who had ever heard of that as one of baseball's unwritten rules. The general consensus seems to range from “I have never really heard about that one” to “I never gave much thought about it man”.

The A's pitcher had his say at the time and it seemed like it was a genuine display emotion, in a way that made you respect the guy as a competitor.

But now he is just looking like an ass. He's out of line insinuating, as he did this week, that a fight is brewing if and when he faces A-Rod in July, the next time the teams meet.

First of all, if Braden wants to be a tough guy, in the old-school manner of Don Drysdale, why doesn't he just drill Rodriguez in the ribs the next time he faced him in that very game? Why wait then tell the world about it two months ahead of time?

"There are things that are going to have to happen," Braden told CSN Bay Area on Wednesday. "Out of respect to my teammates, out of respect to the game. I think he's probably garnered a new respect for the unwritten rules and the people who hold them close to their game. But I think you're right, we don't do much talking in the 209."

Um, excuse me? We don't do much talking in the 209?

How can you take a guy seriously who refers to the area code where he lives, in Stockton, Calif., as if to explain why you shouldn't mess with him?

CC Sabathia, an Oakland native, certainly has a hard time doing so:

“He's a clown,” CC Sabathia said of Braden. “Guy says he's from the 209, what the [bleep] is that? That's where I'm from and I don't know what he's talking about. Two-oh-nine. He needs to just calm down - put that in the paper. That's just tired.”

Braden kept digging that hole a ‘lil deeper by going on call Rodriguez a "fool" for the crack he made at the time of the incident, when he laughed off the A's pitcher as someone "with a handful of wins" in the big leagues.

While I am not a big fan of the “who the hell is Karim Garcia?” defense method, it’s not like there isn’t an argument for a player letting his play do most of his talking for him, preferably over a respectable amount of time.

Finally, Braden took the prima donna angle on Rodriguez.

"He's an individualistic player," Braden said. "He plays for the name on the back of the jersey, not the front. I don't know if he's noticed, but he doesn't have a name on the back over there so he should play for the name on the front."

In the past I would have done nothing but agree with this one, at one time early in the 2004 season even having listed the slugging third basemen on eBay for what could best be described as “a really low freakin’ price”.

But one can’t ignore the fact that until this incident we had been seeing a completely new A-Rod over the last year.

The guy has been carrying himself differently, playing his ass off (even in clutch situations) and by all accounts been a solid team mate. It was Rodriguez who took Robinson Cano aside early in spring training, telling him that “a player with your talent could have a couple of MVPs by now”.

Cano recounts drills where Rodriguez would create RBI scenarios such as second and third, one out. Cano would take 15 swings and then A-Rod would “break down not just the mechanics, but -- just as vital -- the mindset."

Judging by the start to this season for the Yankees second basemen I’d say it had a profound impact.

Nope, sorry Mr. Braden, any attempt to paint him with that same broad brush we once did just isn’t going to get the job done anymore.

Frankly, it's just time for you to act like an adult and let things go. You got your 15 minutes of fame, plucked from baseball obscurity by some odd confluence of events that could only happen to the human lightning rod known as Alex Rodriguez.

Now it's time you to let this pearl of wisdom from Crash Davis sink in real good.

"Don't think, Meat. It can only hurt the ball club."

In case you missed it, Will Ferrell made an “appearance” for the Pacific Coast League Round Rock Express on Thursday, where he broke out a new character; legendary Venezuelan pitching star Billy Ray "Rojo" Johnson. He was described thusly:

The Round Rock Express have acquired Billy Ray "Rojo" Johnson... Johnson, who was born in East Texas but was raised in Venezuela, recently had his prison sentence commuted. He served time for running a smuggling ring that imported rare and illegal species of reptiles into the United States from South America during the mid-to-late 1990s.

Rojo took his time warming up, downing a beer in the process, before finally throwing a pitch during the actual game; with the delivery sailing behind the Nashville Sounds hitter (another “plant”), resulting in Rojo being ejected. That led to the scene you see pictured here:

Now, as sick as I am of the sports movies that Will Ferrell continues to be in (Talladega Nights, Semi Pro, Blades of Glory), I can’t lie. I wasn a little bit excited to see Will Ferrell come out and do his thing.

Any pitcher that likes to drink a beer during the game and tosses an opponent in a Nolan Ryan-eque headlock is OK by me.

Ferrell was in the area to host today's inaugural Will Powered Golf Classic charity golf tournament at the nearby Cimarron Hills Country Club in Georgetown, Texas. From MLB.com's Danny Wild:

Johnson also appeared to have taken a bag of beer cans with him to the mound.

"Mentally, I feel like I have the strength of 10 men, after that," Johnson, who ripped off his mustache during the on-field chase, told reporters in a post-game press conference.

"Nashville showed a lot of stuff tonight," he added. "They've got a lot of moxie."

The Express pulled in more than 10,000 fans that night, including over four thousand walk-up sales, so no matter where one sits on weighing in on Ferrell's comedic abilities it has to be said that this one paid off in the end.

On a side note, it sure as hell is a good thing he wasn't pretending to be a hitter, or else the Astros would probably have called him up to be their clean-up hitter sometime real soon.

Milton Bradley has asked the Seattle Mariners management for help in dealing with personal issues. Rather unsurprisingly, that was the breaking news out of Seattle tonight.

Bradley met with manager Don Wakamatsu and GM Jack Zduriencik on Wednesday morning and told the pair "I need your help." Zduriencik says the team will do whatever it can to help Bradley.

Bradley told the Mariners management that his issues have put him in a position where he can't compete the way he expects and that "It's been a long time coming."

Not to make light of a man's unfortunate situation, but has there ever been a bigger understatement?

The guys career has been, to put it kindly, "colorful" up to this point. I think the fact that he once sustained a season ending injury while arguing with an umpire says just about everything one can say about his career track.

Simply put the man has burned more bridges than Sherman did on his way through Georgia.

Yet prior to this season someone in baseball gave him another chance to wipe the slate clean, to begin anew. The Seattle Mariners, in perhaps the most stress-free of markets came a callin' on the Chicago Cubs and tossed Milton one last lifeline.

GM Jack Zduriencik was certain things will work out with Bradley. Of Seattle manager Don Wakamatsu, Zduriencik said, "He allows players to be who they are." The only thing the big love-fest was missing was a throng of nature loving hippies singing Kumbaya.

And how did our poor, misunderstood soul repay that utterly naive display of faith from the Mariners organization?

The season wasn't even 10 games old and we saw Milton Bradley start 1-for-22, flip off the Texas crowd and have two closed-door meetings with Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu. Discussions were all over talk radio about how long the Mariners would wait before pulling the plug, as Jim Hendry and the Cubs did last September.

Bradley is constantly in the middle of some sort of tension, some sort of drama and that cannot be a coincidence. And it can't always be someone else's fault.

We're talking about a man who gets to play baseball for a living yet projects himself as if he's some poor schlepp struggling to make ends meet at some crumby job.

This guy takes his incredibly blessed life for granted, sports a misguided sense of entitlement and then has the audacity to act like it's a burden to walk around with his level of talent.

If you dare question his actions he has an arsenal of accusations to toss your way. Any criticism clearly indicates you are racist, insensitive and just don't have the capacity to understand the strife he feels on a daily basis. Remember, he's saddled with this talent that he didn't ask for.

Not to sound cruel, or indifferent to what could very well be some significant issues the man is going through, but this is the man that the world sees Milton Bradley as. He and his friends can regale us with tales of how he's a perfectionist and he just cares so much that his temper gets the best of him.

His agents can remind us of his impoverished upbringing and talk about how he tries to give back to the community. They can say it time and time again, "he's really a good person at heart", but it will more often than not fall on deaf ears.

Because that isn't the Milton Bradley that we know. The best way to start proving to people what a good person you are is to start showing it.

Hopefully this isn't the beginning of some sort of Oliver Stone worthy, paranoia fueled diatribe by the mercurial outfielder where he fails to take responsibility for the world he has carved out for himself.

I wish him the best of luck in dealing with the demons that are plaguing him, asking of him only one thing.

As you work your way thorugh these troubled times, look in the mirror with open and honest eyes. Then come back to us a different man than the Milton Bradley we now know.

"This... is a simple game... you throw the ball... you hit the ball... you catch the ball!"

Anyone that has ever seen the cinematic masterpiece that is Bull Durham came to understand the beautiful simplicity of the game of baseball during that hilarious shower room scene.

The exasperated manager comes in, tossing a rack full of baseball bats at the feet of his unsuspecting players in an effort to light a proverbial fire under their collective asses.

It was a message that I, for one, took to heart. From what I have been seeing from major leaguers this season, it may be time to make the thing mandatory viewing material on every major league team's chartered flight.

Sunday nights match-up between Philadelphia and New York was supposed to be a nail biter with first place in the division on the line, but the Phillies 4th inning eruption took care of that rather quickly.

One thing that DID catch my attention was a play involving Rod Barajas in the top of the 2nd inning. Barajas is on 2nd base with one out when Gary Mathews Jr. raps a grounder to the shortstop. Inexplicably the less than fleet-footed catcher breaks for third, even though the play is in front of him and more than a little ill-advised.

Needless to say he was out by about, oh, 20 feet.

Now my 10-year-old nephew can explain the many ways this play was an utter failure. The hitter was the 2nd consecutive one to pull a ball to the left side of the infield with a runner standing on 2nd base. That was painful enough to watch, but this absolutely dimwitted base running gaffe was just unbearable.

And make no mistake, this is not an isolated event.

Saturday's game between Cincinnati and San Diego featured a string of what we politely call "brain cramps" by Dusty Baker's team.

Long story short, Player A forgot how many outs there were and wanders off base only to be tagged out. The following inning Player B isn't paying attention and strays off base only to be picked off. A mere 4 outs later Player C does the exact same thing and 2 outs after that Player D forgets how many outs there are and tosses the ball into the stands prematurely.

Four innings of baseball generating four aneurysm inducing mental breakdowns.

Watch any game and you are bound to see major league players performing actions that would make a little league managers blood boil.

Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington was recently ejected from a game on the most bizarre of plays. That shouldn’t come as a surprise I guess. The fact that it was a f@#$ up by one of the OPPOSING players makes it worth talking about.

With Ichiro on third base & Eric Byrnes in the batter's box, in the bottom of the 11th of a scoreless game, Mariner's skipper Don Wakamatsu puts the ol' suicide squeeze play on. Good, intelligent, aggressive baseball. The pitcher winds up, delivers the pitch and Ichiro breaks for home accordingly. Byrnes, for some god forsaken reason, pulls his bat back after presenting it to bunt, hanging Suzuki out to dry.

Now the pitch would have also been strike three on Byrnes, but home plate umpire Jim Wolf ruled that Byrnes hadn't offered at the pitch. Washington was vehement in arguing otherwise, eventually being ejected from the game.

When asked about it afterwards his only response was that there was no way he didn't see it right because "neither he nor anyone connected with professional baseball had ever seen a hitter pull back his bat with a squeeze play on."

After Byrnes took strike three looking on the next pitch Jim Caple described the incident on ESPN.com, barely facetiously, as "what may have been the worst at-bat in major league history."

I could offer a variety of theories that are being kicked around on this very issue, talking about how "big bonus babies" are being rushed to the show or latin players coming of the notorious baseball factories of that region, possessing all of the requisite skills to play the game yet lacking the knowledge and instincts that can only be nurtured on the diamond.

But at the end of the day it's all just an excuse. These are professional players that are part of big league clubs. From the lowest levels of rookie ball right on up to the show, every single person in these organizations that comes into contact with these young players needs to take corrective action.

There just isn't any excuse that is acceptable. None. Zip. Zilch.

We have all seen how the love of the highlight reel has created a basketball culture where there is no shame in putting up the "million dollar move followed by the five cent finish". Please, please, please don't let that happen to this most hallowed of games.

By now we have all seen the video, be it on your sports highlight show of choice or YouTube, of the Phillies fan doing his best Keystone Kops impression for all of about 30 seconds before landing in the "Don't Tase Me Bro!" hall of shame.

Ashamedly, I laughed at the images (just as many of you probably did). Make no mistake, however, there is nothing funny about incidents such as these.

Monica Seles was once stabbed in the back during a changeover in a match, Randy Myers was attacked on the mound at Wrigley Field and Royals first base coach Tommy Gamboa was once assaulted by a father and son combo in the midst of an alcohol fueled "family bonding experience".

We live in an era where the powers that be have recognized a direct correlation between a fans proximity/accessibility to the players leads to greater revenue streams.

Seats are closer to the field than ever before, players are being immersed into our lives increasingly through new avenues of the media and our society at large is cultivating a bloated sense of self-entitlement in regard to our celebrities.

Add that to the fact that we live in the "YouTube era" where infamy and notoriety are mistaken for some form of genuine fame and it's like tossin' turpentine on a brush fire.

It's those misguided beliefs that lead to moments like the one in Philly.

Yes, we do spend our hard earned money to make everyone associated with these millionaires. Yes, players, owners, and the leagues themselves have thrived during this renaissance period. But sports invoke passion and we live in violent times. To quote Fire Marshall Bill, "This could be dangerous!"

In regard to this specific incident, the use of a taser was most likely unwarranted. The whole scene was calling far louder for an overdub of "Yakety Sax" than the use of high voltage force.

Personally the only thing I take away from this display is that the field should be secured more effectively. And that some people should not be allowed to have children.

But don't let that distract you from the larger issue at hand. Players have no business going into the stands (yeah, I'm looking at you Milton Bradley) and fans should, under no circumstances, ever go out onto the field of play.

Nothing good can or ever will come from it.

For Red Sox fans there weren’t too many things to cheer about in the month of April. The team got off to a horrendous start, plagued by a surprising lack of pitching and a not-so-surprising lack of offensive punch. David Ortiz is once again showing himself to be “Big Pop-up” as opposed to “Big Papi” and the offseason acquistions of Scutaro, Beltre and Cameron have provided minimal run production.

Granted, they were chosen to emphasize a new strategy of “run prevention”, but they have struggled in that regard too. Bad pitching, shoddy defense and a lack of offensive production are not the traits quality teams are known for. Needless to say, this is NOT a quality team, right now.

Now comes word that a more ominous threat to Red Sox nation lingers on the horizon. Russ Smith at Splice Today notes that the a poor season by the Red Sox might cause John Henry some financial trouble:

"John Henry, the Sox’s principal owner, cannot be a happy man, for though he loves baseball, it’s safe to say the billionaire (a proud liberal, by the way; a gratuitous aside, granted, but I’m in a grumpy mood) loves profits even more. And the Sox, who’ve sold out Fenway Park for an MLB record-setting 763 consecutive games (as of May 2), are headed to an unfathomable .500 season, which means the sellouts will end, the revenue stream slows down, and disgust will envelop the greater New England territory all summer long."

Russ talks of a hope that maybe he can take solace in the fact that losing drives the bandwagon fans away. He fails to account for the fact that those are the fans who are driving up ticket prices and accordingly paying the bills. If the John Henry bubble collapses, it could be years before the Red Sox are able to pay top dollar for talent again. As much as they like to think of themselves as “the little engine that could”, the Red Sox are nothing more than the New York Yankees Lite (see the John Lackey deal, Dice-K’s contract, the Lugo & Renteria “throw away deals” etc…).

The problem lies in the fact that Henry’s group was highly leveraged when they bought the Red Sox, so they need to keep the team winning to pay the bills. This is why Theo Epstein once quit the Red Sox. He wanted to step back for a season and regroup, to set the franchise up for the long haul. The people who control the money wanted to win each & every year, because that’s how they pay the bills. If fans stop buying Red Sox Nation memberships, stop watching NESN, or decide that a few hundred dollars for a couple of good seats is too much, the bubble will quickly burst.

At this point you run the serious risk that the Red Sox suddenly became worth less than the amount borrowed to purchase the team? It happened to a whole lot of people who bought houses at the peak of that bubble, and it could happen to Boston. People think of the Red Sox now and all they see are sold out games, but it wasn’t that long ago when you could walk up to the ticket booth the day of the game and get a decent seat. It even wasn’t all that long ago where you could pretty much sit where you wanted in the damn park.

There is a lot at stake right now, more than just the teams position in the standings this season. A difficult season can have minimal negative impact on the long-term health of the franchise. A horrible season, i.e. one in which the Sox don’t get demonstrably better (and sooner rather than later), could cripple this franchise for some time to come.

Surprise surprise, the Red Sox seem to be the favorites (again) over at ESPN. One of the clowns, Rob Neyer, has them picked to win it all even though he chose the Yankees to win the division and the Rays to win the Wild Card. For those that don’t follow the sport…it is impossible to pull that one off. Literally impossible.

I seem to recall hearing the same raving reviews about the Red Sux pitching carrying them to a World Series title last year. Dice-Gay bla bla bla. Wakefield is so versatile and an innings eater (what a myth that is lol) Smoltz at mid-seaon bla bla bla. A resurgent Brad Penny bla bla bla. Bucholz will finally be consistent bla bla bla.

The Red Sox will be a great pitching team this year. Their starting pitching, esp 1-3, is some of the best in baseball. Beyond that though, you have huge question marks. Dice-K is horrible..again. Even when he shuts a team down it is for 5 innings and nothing more. Wakefield is marginally better than average. Has been that way his entire career. Bucholz can’t be trusted until he actually shows he can be trusted. Bonser is a reclamation project that is already looking like “Brady Penny Part Deux”

Don’t get me started on the bullpen. Okijima has been in a steady decline since his first 6 months in 2007. Daniel “I send it in 100 mph and you send it out 120 mph” Bard gives up way too many HRs to be considered effective at this point in his career. Manny Delcarmen has been, well, Manny Delcarmen. To borrow one from Crash Davis in Bull Durham “From what I hear meat you couldn’t hit water if you fell out of a f@#$in boat”. Billy Wagner, however short his stint with the team was, was their most effective guy out of the pen and he is in Atlanta now.

Paplebon will undoubtedly have a better year than last year, but who is going to be the bridge to him? Right now, that bridge looks a tad bit rickety. And make no mistake, this is the key to things. You keep hearing about the new found Red Sox devotion to defense and “run prevention”. They know they can’t just run roughshod over you etc…

Well if you are scoring less and relying on your starters to keep you in-games etc…it does you absolutely no good to hand the ball over to your 7th and 8th inning guys who then start serving up walks and gopher balls. Because, lets hear it class, there is no defense against the Homerun or the base on balls.

The Yankees will boast a deep rotation with Hughes emerging as a future ace. He added a cut fastball & a change-up to his arsenal and is primed to have a break out year. Even if one of the 5 starters underperforms it is no huge deal simply because they ALL have top 3 starter stuff.

The bullpen is insanely deep and crazy good. They stole Phillies best BP guy, Park (who’d have ever thunk one would say that haha?) and have put Joba in the pen for the entire year. His last few appearances out of the BP have been nasty. We have seen what they kid can do when he is allowed to just come in and go balls out, expect close to that again.

A staff that eats innings, allows a limited amount of runs and an offense that is just unrelenting. All of that adds up to a long, long year for those who think the Yankees are somehow in “tough shape”.

Lately, now that the Yankees have decided to toss Joba Chamberlain in the bullpen (where he belongs) I keep hearing people being critical of Chamberlain for all the wrong reasons. I have heard this phrase over and over again. Over-hyped punk.

Overhyped… That might be true with the “Joba Rules” etc. but can we really blame the kid for that. He’s not the one who decided that he needed to be brought through this disaster babying system. He didn’t push the Yankees organization into creating a situation where every single thing he did, didn’t do, or stopped doing because of a pitch count was broadcast on ESPN.

All Joba did was come on the scene a few years ago, dominate a three month stretch of season, and then do what he was told (or try to). So to call him overhyped as a jab to him is uncalled for.

If he is over-hyped then what the hell is Clay Bucholz? Other than the kids no-hitter what has he done to deserve the non-stop ass-kissing tossed his way? If you listen to everyone he is part of the reason why the Red Sox have a deeper, more stable rotation than the Yankees.

Joba’s career stats (some bullpen time but 90% plus as a starter)

IP = 281.1/ H = 266/ BB = 121/ K = 285/ ER = 113/ W = 15/ L = 9 / ERA = 3.61

Bucholz career stats (same amount of career starts and a few stints in the bullpen early on)

IP = 190.2 /H = 198/ BB = 87/ K = 162/ ER = 104/ W = 12/ L = 14/ ERA = 4.91

We won’t mention the fact that the “kid” Bucholz is one and half years older than Chamberlain and had a full extra season in the minors to develop at a leisurely pace before coming up. People need to think about the fact that Joba has been up in the bigs for how long? At this point in his career Papelbon was JUST ARRIVING in the show.

In addition, I fail to see how this whole situation makes Chamberlain a punk. The guy has listened to everything he’s been told to do without creating a stink. The Yankees told him to pitch 3 innings and get out whether he gave up 5 runs or had a no-hitter going… he did it. They told him they were pulling him out of the rotation and into the bullpen for the playoffs… he did it. They told him that Hughes was to be the 5th starter and he’d be in the bullpen… he did it.

So far I’ve heard nothing but positive, team-first quotes from Chamberlain about this (and judging by his publicity so far, we would have known if he said boo).

I also challenge any pitcher or athlete to succeed in a situation like the one Chamberlain went through last year. His role was constantly changing. He could pitch a whole game, then he couldn’t. He could pitch on regular rest, then he had to wait 9 days between starts (good luck staying in midseason form that way). In addition, everything he did along the way was scrutinized under the finest microscope, destroying his confidence. When Joba was off the leash as a reliever, he was electric.

In the few times that we saw him off the leash as a starter, he experienced at least a little success, including a 3 game stretch in late July where he had three wins, giving up a total of 2 runs in a span of 21.2 innings with 19 strikeouts and only 8 hits against the Rays, A’s, and Tigers. (It should be noted that his first 9 day rest was immediately after the 3rd game, totally breaking his rhythm). Consistency is what makes athletes what they are.

Give the kid a break and realize that it’s the Yankees organization that chose this way to handle things, not him. All he has done is quietly gone about his business every step of the way, not complaining once about it.

If you think that makes him a punk then I have news for you. You’re the punk moron.

They say that funeral homes are the only industries that are truly recession proof.

Baseball, however, is making a good case of why Bud Selig has more in common with your local undertaker (other than, you know, just looking like him).

According to numbers provided to our pal Maury Brown at Biz of Baseball, Major League Baseball brought in a record $6.6 billion in gross revenue during the 2009 season. That amount was a 1.5 percent increase over the previous high of $6.5 billion in ’08 and was produced despite a 6.58 percent decrease in total attendance from the previous year. Maury is also reporting that $433 million in revenue sharing money will be sent from the big-market behemoths to the teams crying poor in smaller markets.

Large or small market, this owning a baseball team business sounds like a pretty swell business to be in. Rake in plenty of cash during a down economy, all while turning your pockets inside out when agents, players and fans wonder why you’re not spending more in the offseason.

Then, when the news breaks that you’re actually printing money in denominations much larger than what you local schmoe ever sees you spin the news as evidence that baseball’s never been more popular. (Without, of course, mentioning that the cost of taking a family to one game is higher than it’s ever been.)

Look, I don’t begrudge owners in making a good old American dollar off the good old American game. They’ve opened up new avenues of revenue and deserve the windfall.

All I’m saying is that you should keep this post in mind next time you hear an owner cut budgets or say he can’t afford to keep a homegrown star. The Yankees and Red Sox aren’t the only teams making money when it comes rolling in like this. These “small market teams” are turning a tidy profit AND saddling up the revenue sharing troth.

Last year the Yankees won their 27th World Series in franchise history, and first in almost a decade. With the exception of the Phil’s inability to move runners and a few defensive gaffs, it was a well played and entertaining series. But the playoffs, in general, were another story entirely. They were plague by a veritable catalog of every blown call an umpire can possibly make and extended deep into November, all thanks to far too many “off days”.

And all of that was a screaming success compared to LAST years fall classic. Who can forget game five of the Phils/Rays series. The heavens opened up and it was an obvious call. Suspend the game.

Or so we thought, when in the top of the 6th with the Rays down a run, rain poured and the wind howled, conditions which should have halted the game at least an inning earlier. With the game already official, the umpires kept the teams on the field when conditions were unsafe, giving the Rays the most chances to score and keep their hopes alive.

What no one seemed to know is that Commissioner Bud Selig had decided, that no matter what the weather, the rules would be bent and the game would go to completion. The problem was, he only told the owners this – he neglected to pass the information on to managers, players, umpires, FOX and the fans. This complete breakdown in communication resulted in players on the field risking injury, umpires who knew it wasn’t their place to decide the fate of the World Series and fans who looked just miserable. While I applaud Seligs approach to suspend an official game despite the score, I find it despicable that no one was made aware of it before hand. This is just one travesty of the game that Bud has presided over.

In the past, commissioners were elected to expand and improve the game. There have been those on the sides of the players: Happy Chandler, despite a unanimous vote against, upheld the integration of Baseball, Bowie Kent Kuhn who upheld arbitration and free agency, Ford Frick, who took millions of dollars that would have otherwise gone to owners and created the pension fund.

And there have been those on the side of the owners; General William Eckert, a career military man with a business degree, who had never played a day of baseball in his life, *Peter Ueberroth, another business man who lined the owners pockets with millions of dollars from TV deals. Kennesaw Mountain Landis a man who was brought in for the specific purpose to clean up baseball, and our own Alan H. Selig.

Bud is the ninth Commissioner of baseball, the first to be promoted from within the owners fraternity. This is a man who cares nothing for the fans or the players, as an owner he has only one thing on his mind: Rape and pillage to make as much money as you can before you die so you can be buried with it. Much like our friend Mr. Pohlad.

Never before had a commissioner been tied financially to a team. He had to step down as president and CEO of the Brewers, and was forced to sell the team when his status was changed from acting commish to just plain commish. But from the time he began tenure to when he finally sold the team, his stock prices rose, making him millions of dollars on top of his ridiculous $14.5 million salary.

The majority of his tenure has been riddled with embarrassment, the ’94 players strike, the umpire strike, the tied all-star game, that steroid scandal, and most notably for those who read this blog: contraction. There have also been parts of the game I personally don’t like but some seem to enjoy: Interleage play, unbalanced schedule (its good to a point, but why play one team 7 times in April and be done with them for the season?) and the World Baseball Classic. Though, I must admit through gritted teeth that I do enjoy the three division and wild card set-up.

So here we are and this lil tidbit of news comes out:

“The Milwaukee Brewers are erecting a statue of baseball commissioner Bud Selig outside Miller Park and will unveil it on Aug. 24.

Selig headed a group that bought the Seattle Pilots in bankruptcy court in 1970, moved the franchise to Milwaukee and renamed it the Brewers. He became acting commissioner in 1992 and took the job full-time six years later, turning control of the team over to his daughter, Wendy Selig-Prieb. The Selig family sold the team to a group headed by Mark Attanasio in 2005.

“The Brewers and Miller Park are in this city because of the commissioner’s vision and dedicated efforts,” Attanasio said Monday.”

I hear this and all I can do is think of the immortal Homer Simpson.

D’oh!!!

So Detroit tosses a journeymen Closer 2 yrs/$14 million and then Justin Verlander gets a big, fat $80 million contract and those are considered “good decisions”?

Simply put, and it kills me to say it against a guy I watched play his college ball right down the street at Old Dominion, is about as overrated as they come.

A quick look at last years breakdown.

- The division in which he pitches is by far the worst offensive division in the league, this accounts for about 50% of his starts, this division accounts for 2 of the 3 worst offenses as well as the other that he pitches against being in the bottom half

his stats vs. his division:

11-2
2.21 era
122 K
24 BB

His stats vs. other two divisions in his league:

7-5
4.04 era
109 K
37 BB

IN essence he feasts against mediocre competition is EXACTLY league average when facing off with teams that have more than a AAA caliber offense.

I have been a Yankee fan since about 1980, at 9 years old and that point where most passionate baseball fans begin their lifetime love affair with the game. I can tell you how gut-wrenching it felt to watch Willie Randolph take a called strike three from Royals closer Dan Quisenberry to close out the 1980 ALCS (I still say it was low and outside!) or how I went to my room and cried after watching Bob Watson fly out to the Dodger’s Ken Landreux to record the final out in a losing world series effort the following year.

I’ve always been a Yankees fan and I can honestly say that the “open the check book” option for the Yankees is annoying and a pain to defend. Haters will always hate the Yankees. I generally accept it. The following is something that you might find interesting. People tend to attack the Yankees a lot for financial reasons, but sometimes it is important to sit back and research how these financial “means” came about. Check out the below progression. You might have a new found respect for George Steinbrenner business savy.

1972: CBS presently own the Yankees and is about to declare Chapter 14 bankruptcy (the Yankees were that bad off) until Shipping Mogul George Steinbrenner buys the team for $10 million dollars.
1977: Team worth becomes $20 million after the WS win.
1982: Team worth becomes $40 million after WS appearance
1987: Team worth becomes $80 million after Mattingly and Winfield lure the NY press in to Yankee Stadium.
1992: Team worth becomes $160 million after Steinbrenner comes to terms with MSG network to show Yankee games abandoing WPIX 11 in NY. WPIX relegated to afternoon games including Saturday and Sundays.
1997: Team worth becomes 320 million after 1996 World Series
2001: Team, worth becomes 640 million coming off the profits of the YES Network created in 2000 (YES= Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network. NJ Nets and NJ Devils games shown solely on this network at that time. $$$$$)
2006: Team worth becomes 1.2 billion after several playoff appearance and TV Network deal with NJ Comcast cable to share the rights to the YES network.
2009: Forbes magazine values the Yankees organization at 1.5 billion dollars effective March 2009.

Now it seems to me, in this day and age where people decry anything and everything that restricts free enterprise that people should applaud this organization for what it truly is. The embodiment of our nation’s greatest attributes.