$210 Million Doesn't Buy What it Used To

Vacation to the tropics was fun and relaxing. As much as I've wanted to get back to it, my mind has stayed on vacation ever since and I haven't been motivated to sit down and think hard about the things I'm enjoying about this season.
Until last night.
The Yanks got spanked again by the DRays.
Let me repeat that sentence because I'm having a hard time believing that I just wrote it.
The Yanks got spanked by the DRays.
At 11-18, the only thing now standing between the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the basement of the AL East is a random fluke of an ancient semitic ordering choice.
In light of the Devil Rays' taking three-of-four from the Bronx Bumblers, newspaper folks should throw convention to the wind and list the Yankees where they rightfully belong -- beneath the Devil Rays.
This collection of Yankee players proves one thing -- money can't buy you love or a championship.
The Yankee payroll is $208 Million dollars. Or, counting a different way, that'd be just under $19 million per victory. Or, counting yet another way, just $170 million more than the DRays payroll. Or counting yet another way, all but four other teams could field double rosters for the amount of money the Yankees are spending this year.
And the Rays just took three-of-four from the Yanks.

The Yankees are falling out of this race faster than a Steinbrenner mule trying to race the Derby.
Best of all, the team itself is in turmoil.
Fans are calling for the heads of Cashman and Torre. Steinbrenner memos hint at firing the whole braintrust.
On the field, Bernie Baseball gets benched because he can't hit anymore, he can't catch anymore, he can't run anymore, he still has a worse arm than Johnny Damon, and he gets the worst jump on flyballs of any player within smelling distance of the big leagues.
They moved Tony Womack and his .327 slugging percentage to left field, Benihana takes his middling zone rating to the spacious reaches of center field, and they call up rookie Robinson "Can't Do" Canu to play second, where he makes two costly errors in his first two games.
But instead of kicking a horse that's already down (though it is a fun temptation), let's try to figure out why the Yankees suck so bad between the lines.
Their defense is horrible. Since 1972, the worst defensive efficiency rating in baseball has been by the above-mentioned DRays in 1999, when they posted a rating of 66.17. The Yankees currently stand at 64.69.
Defensive efficiency is simply the rate at which a team turns a batted ball into an out. Yankee fielders just can't get to the ball to catch it. Nothing they've done improves their defense.
They are slloooowwwww. They steal the ocassional base, but they get thrown out a ton too. They rank 21st in the league in stolen bases per attempt.
They don't have situational hitters. Jeter is a great hitter in any situation. But the rest of that lineup is filled with sluggers and not hitters.
The day Rodriguez takes the ball the other way with regularity is the day he becomes the best player in Yankee history. Guys get on base ahead of him and he tried to hit the ball 800 feet.
Sheffield is a scary guy in a 1-run game. Any lead greater than 1-0 and he's about useless.
Matsui has got a big hole in his swing.
Womack, Tino, Bernie, Giambi just can't hit anymore.
Georgie looks tired.
When Womack bats leadoff, he doesn't get on base. When Jeter leads off, you lose your best bet of getting the leadoff man to third with less than two down.
Their bench is horrible. Sierra is one dimensional and has displayed a slow bat this year. Crosby is OK defensively, but can't hit his weight.
The pitching has been horrible and might, at best, get decent at some point.
And they are horrible defensively.
Wright is what everyone else in baseball expected -- injured. Pavano has been anything but dominant. Johnson will probably be OK (but is is back or groin shot?) but who else do they have? Kevin Brown? Puh-leeeze. Even the dreamy eyed Yankee fans can't put any faith in that.
All the while, my Red Sox continue to roll on without Schilling and without Wells. Yeah, we're number 2 in payroll, but the $80 million difference between us and the Yankees puts the Yankees in a class by themselves.
Which goes to prove one more thing. With their money, the Yankees can buy all the all-stars they want but they can't buy first class.

Yankee Pitching Spitting the Bit

After getting swept in embarrassing fashion by the O's, the Boss got PO'd and called his team a bunch of "Fake Yankees," WFAN got innundated with "The Sky is Falling" calls from entitled-to-the-world Yankee fans, and Yankee players were left to seek out Stuart Smalley because they felt neither good enough nor smart enough and they thought nobody liked them.

But have no fear Yankeedom, the instant cure arrived in the Big Apple last night in the form of Lou Pinnella and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. At one point, the DRays held a share of first place in the division. Of course, that was after just a few games. Talent plays to it's level and the DRays have quickly landed in the cellar, tied with the Yankees for the ass end of the AL East.

The drooling Bronx Bumblers took the field and ate up the DRays, 19-8.

First, we present the good news for Yankee fans.

The Bumbler Bats have finally awoken! They sent 17 men to the plate in the second inning and plated 13 of them. They had 11 straight hits! Tino hit a granny. And during the game he hit a grand slam. Bernie Williams was able to get his walker down to first base a few times. AFraud actually got a hit with a runner in scoring positon. Heck, even lead-off man extraordinairre Tony Womack (now hitting in the 9-hole) got a hit.

Now for the bad news. First, they did all this against the DRays. A horrible team with a payroll 1/8th the size of the New York Yankees.

(By the way, can we please stop hearing/reading stories about how it's the Yankees and Red Sox in the top tier of spenders? It's ridiculous. Comparing Yankee to Red Sox payroll is like comparing Red Sox to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Literally. The gap between the #1 and #2 teams is the same as the gap between the #2 and the #28 team. I'll write about this in the near future.)

The Yankees did this against starter Rob Bell. I think Anthony Perkins could have shown Rob Bell something about throwing a baseball. Seriously, if you owned or managed a team would you trade a bag of Dimitri Young's dirty doo-rags for Rob Bell?

Worst news of all is that the DRays were actually able to score eight runs and kinda make it a game for a while there. There wasn't a soul in Yankee stadium who felt confident about a win despite a seven-run lead in the sixth-inning.

Jaret Wright got hammered again and was booed off the mound. In his first game, he got lit up for six runs in four innings. Last night, he gave up eight runs in five-and-a-third. The only "good" game he had came against the Red Sox where he gave up two runs in five innings.

(It should be noted that the Red Sox stranded about 12 men in those five innings. Give credit to Wright for getting out of the jams, but having ducks on the pond in every inning is a sure path to despair).

This staff gave up eight runs to the Devil Rays, who,in their 13 games, have only scored more than five runs four times, including last night.

In 10 of their 13 games this year, the Yankees have allowed seven or more runs. Some people will blame the bullpen, and while it's true Mariano seems to have lost his edge against the Red Sox and Tom Gordon can't seem to get that third strike by anyone, I think the problem lies more with the starters and the Yankee defense.

$5.6M Jaret Wright's ERA is now a robust 10.05.
$9M stud free agent Carl Pavano boasts a respectable ERA of 3.86. But in only one of his three starts has he made it into the 7th inning.
$15.5M superstud Randy Johnson's ERA is 4.74 and he couldn't hold two leads against Boston as he got tagged for three bombs and five runs in seven innings. (I think something's wrong there -- maybe his back. He's not throwing the peas he used to throw yet...)
$19M Mike Mussina's ERA is 4.32 but his WHIP is up around 1.81, which, again, is living dangerously
$15.8M Kevin Brown's ERA is 9, albeit after only one game. He gave up six in six innings.

So, $57M gets you a starting staff that, in 70 innings of work, has given up 46 earned runs for an ERA of 5.91 and more than 1.7 walks/hits per inning pitched.

And when the defense behind you is responsible for nearly another run per game (10 unearned runs scored on those starters) winning becomes particularly difficult. If you include unearned runs, that starting staff has a 7.2 RA.

Not that the relievers are much better. Their combined ERA is 5.14 with a WHIP of greater than 1.6. Good relievers allow about one walk or hit per inning pitched. Bad ones allow about 1.5. They've allowed more than .6 of an earned run per inning worked, and that's a killer considering how old/frail the Yankees staff is.

I don't care how good your offense is, (and the Yankee offense on paper is better than average -- a column for another day) forcing the offense to score more than 7-8 runs a game is too much to ask from any team. Sure, they'll erupt on the odd day here and there for 19 runs, but they'll more often than not struggle to score those runs.

Yes, it's early, but if you're a Yankee fan, you should be concerned about your starting pitching.
Something's wrong with RJ. Kevin Brown is, well, Kevin Brown (see game 7 ALCS, 2004). Mussina is a now only slightly better than a league average pitcher. Wright is pitching like he did two years ago. Pavano looks like he'll be OK, but then again so did Vazquez last year in the first half.

Go ahead Yankee fans, start worrying now. Pitching will be your achillies heel all year and will be the reason your Bumblers do not make it out of the first round of the playoffs.

Not a 'True Yankee' in Sight

Way back this winter and spring, Red Sox players made a point of calling out AFraud, saying he wasn't a "True Yankee."

The George Bush reelection team would have been proud of the way Red Sox players stayed on message -- "ARod is a prima dona" and "He's not a True Yankee" were heard almost daily on sports radio in both Boston and New York.

Strangely, despite getting played over and over even the most boneheaded of Bronx Bumbler fans found it hard to come to his defense. His Yankee teammates said not a word in his defense. That whooshing sound we all heard was the cape of the Evil Empire rippling through the air as the entire Yankees organization spun on it's heel and turned their back on AFraud.

Eventually, tired of getting slapped with the "True Yankee" slur like a $10 hooker in a bukake flick gets slapped by a Big Unit, Yankee fans began to get a bit indignant. While they never actually defended AFraud as being a True Yankee, they did begin to bash the BoSox for their insistence on bringing it up in conversation or on the radio. And in true Yankee fan fashion, they changed the topic to divert attention from the real issue -- AFraud being a liability despite the skills.

(Strange (and typical) that a fanbase obsessed with both reliving the storied years of the Yankees dynasty and with shoving 1918 and Babe Ruth down our throats for the past twenty years would get upset with us for staying on message...)

Well, it turns out the Red Sox players were wrong, but not because AFraud is a true Yankee. He's not. They were wrong because they stopped at AFraud. Apparently, the rest of the Yankees aren't true Yankees either.

Hey, I might be biased against the Yankees, so don't take my word for it. Take the word of the owner of their beloved Yankees.

Enough is enough," Steinbrenner said in a statement after being swept by the Orioles. "I am bitterly disappointed, as I am sure all Yankee fans are, by the lack of performance by our team. It is unbelievable to me that the highest paid team in baseball would start the season in such a deep funk. They are not playing like true Yankees."

That's right, he said it. "They are not playing like true Yankees." Is it too early to nominate Steinbrenner for a Sublimey award? Presenters could include Trot Nixon and Curt Schilling.

It's still early. Too early to make any statements about the joyful crash of the once-mighty Yankees and the rise of our Beloved Sons of Fenway.

But it's great to see the Bronx Bumblers at the bottom of the American League East and to hear George bitch about his players and how the most expensive payroll in baseball isn't playing up to his standards.

It's 12:30 p.m. on Monday, the sun is shining, and it's 80 degrees in southwestern Connecticut. The Red Sox have crushed the Blue Jays in the annual Memorial Day game and the Yankees are getting bashed by the boss.

The only thing I'm missing is a frosty beverage and some cola-marinated steak tips for this to be the perfect day.

Jackazz

I turned on the tube last night to watch the final game of the Yanks-Sox series and a basketball game broke out.

There's always one dickhead in the crowd and last night it was some meathead down in the front row of the right field boxes.

This jag-off probably with a couple-too-many beers in his belly decided to act like it was a Pistons-Pacers game. Only this time, it was Gary Sheffield going (slowly I might add) after a ball rolling up against the right field wall and a fan threw a punch instead of a cup of ice water.

Give credit to Sheffield, who, despite proper justification, didn't succumb to roid-rage and kept himself from going after the fan (aside from a quickly attemped girly slap. What is it with the girly slaps and the Yankees? Didn't any of these guys ever get into a fight as a kid? You'd think that after ARod's Hamburger Helper incident that the rest of these guys might go out and at least get a Tae Bo tape or some other Billy Blanks knock-off that shows them how to throw a punch).

In this case and the case of one of the Pacers, I've got nothing wrong with players defending themselves. If Sheffield had beaten that guy to a pulp, I would have testified for the defense in the resulting $50M lawsuit filed by the nitwit, that the nitwit deserved it.

Players should stay on the playing surface. And fans should stay in the stands. If you cross the line either way, you should be charged with assault and battery. In Indiana, Artest and Jackson went into the stands over a cup of ice. They both should have been suspended for the remainder of the season and charged with assault. Jermaine O'Neal with one punch wasted some guy who came onto the court with his fists raised (devastating right, by the way). I don't think he should have been suspended at all.

AS for last night's game, I watched that play the same 10 times everyone else did. I can't believe some people are actually arguing that the guy was going for the ball.

If that guy was going for the ball, someone please notify Tom Emansky. He's got it all wrong -- getting down on the ball is not a requirement.

I get off on the Red Sox winning. I get off on the Yankees losing. I get off on hearing Yankee fans moan about how the players they were crowing about getting aren't performing (Hello, again, ARod).

Now, all I'm going to hear on the fan are people bitching about the jerk in right field instead of how the Sox took Johnson deep three times and how former Sox hand Tom "Fizzle" Gordon once again blew a game against the Red Sox.

So, thanks, you big tool for taking the enjoyment of a nice victoy out of my hands.

The only saving grace I have is that when Yankee fans point to Sox fans as being morons, I can point to last year's game six where Yankee fans threw batteries and bottles at Red Sox players when ARod did his little girlie slap on Arroyo.

Just goes to show there are idiots everywhere I suppose.

Who Woulda Thunk It?

Life just gets better and better.

Last week at the ramshackle Hole that Ruth Built, Mariano Rivera got booed off the mound by the alzheimer's patients posing as Yankee fans.

Yesterday, at beautiful Fenway, the learned denizens of Red Sox nation gave Mariano a warm, one-minute long standing ovation after he was announced to the crowd during pregame introductions.

Mariano, reminiscent of our dearly-departed mango expert before ALCS game 2 at Yankee Stadium, briefly looked confused then doffed his cap to the adoring nation.

Who woulda thunk it -- Yankee fans booing the greatest closer in baseball history while Red Sox fans give him a standing ovation.

The reactions are typical for both sets of fans.

Yankee fans are the self-professed most intelligent fans in baseball. If that's true, and believe me when I say it's not, then their failing is a short-term memory worthy of Leonard Shelby.
Rivera is as much responsible for the Yankee domination in the late 90's as anyone in pinstripes. He was the reason Yankee games essentially were only seven innings long. If he gave up a run a week, that was a lot. And these idiots have the nerve to boo him off the mound.

That's pathetic. These are the same simpleton's who booed Jeter last year during his 0-for-May slump. Of course, the only part people around here (I live in Yankee-land) remember is the way Bronx cheered for him at the tail-end of that slump. They then patted themselves on the back for doing it. But the only reason they cheered Jeter in the end is because of the toungue-lashing they got about booing the Yankee captain from the talking heads on WFAN.

Red Sox fans are a bit more sublime. We don't act like Yankee fans, who rise and fall with the prevailing tide with no respect for the past.

Red Sox fans have functional memories. We love our hometown heroes, from Crazy Jimmy, to Johnny from the Window Boys, to the smartest DiMiaggio to play the game, to Rico, to Jim Ed, to RemDawg, to Tony C. We don't forget. Ever.

We did not boo Captain Carl after popping out to end the 1978 playoff game.

We did not boo Denny Doyle after he misheard Zim yelling "NO, NO!"

We did not boo Oil Can Boyd when his body failed him and he couldn't spot that devastating curveball with the same precision.

People in Boston still love Bob Stanley and Rich Gedman. What happened to poor Bill Buckner is another column for another day...

We boo when we are betrayed, cheated or stiffed. Roger Clemens was a fat pig his last two years in Boston. We hate his guts because he quit caring and he gave up on the Sox despite a $10M salary. We hate Roger Dodger because he's the worst kind of mercenary -- the kind who goes back on his word (He once said he would never pitch for the Yankees no matter how much money was offered).

(Funny, hippocrite Yankee fans thought Red Sox fans were childish for booing Clemens after "all he did" for us. But as soon as Clemens unretired to the Astros, Yankee fans turned on him in an instant, calling him a backstabber and whining about not getting their Humvee back.)

And best of all, we boo the enemy. We mock the enemy. We challenge the enemy. We engage the enemy in mental warfare. We do whatever we can to get under the skin and irritate. We know that if a player is weak between the ears, some tiny part of a player's mind will be thinking of shutting us up instead of doing his job.

Red Sox fans take a look at a body of work, dissect it, find it's weak spot then attack like a starving, beaten pitbull running free in a preschool playground.

From the haunting Daaaaarryyyyyyylllllll chants of 1986 to the ahead of the curve chants of STEEEEEEEERRROOOOOIIIIIDS everytime Canseco came to bat against the Red Sox, to the raucous applause ARod got for cleanly fielding a ground ball in the eighth inning yesteday, Red Sox fans go the extra mile.

God forbid if you can't take it.

Strawberry cracked and whiffed (and sniffed). Sheffield shook it off. Jeter takes it like the pro he is. ARod boots a grounder.

And Mariano doffs his cap!

A week ago, Yankee fans booed off the mound the greatest reliever in the history of baseball.

Yesterday, the Fenway faithful rose to their feet and applauded the greatest reliever to ever wear pinstripes.

Who woulda thunk it?

I am loving this...

Oh, yes, am I loving this.
How good is my life right now?
Aside from my personal life being off-the-charts great, my life as a Red Sox fan couldn't be any better.
I was on a beach in Tobago the day after opening day when I came across a guy wearing the interlocking NY on his blue cap. I smiled and told him I was a Red Sox fan. He smiled sadly and said "it was heartbreaking." I knew what he meant. I said "I know how you feel. But we were due."
He nodded.
I thought to myself, this is a miracle -- a classy Yankee fan. These are the kinds of fans I like to meet and talk to.
Then his wife, who had been sitting on her lard-ass burning like a side of bacon in a hot griddle, had to open her yap. "We won 9-2 last night."
My shoulders slumped in disillusion -- there always has to be some jackass in the crowd. Her husband even gave her the "Please shut up" look.
I took off my glasses, leaned in and looked right into her eyes and said "Did you see last night's game? Did you hear the annoucer say that 'no team had ever blown a 3-0 lead in baseball playoffs until last year when the Red Sox stormed back to win the ALCS?'"
She nodded.
"Well get used to hearing it. You'll be reminded that your team suffered the biggest choke in the history of sports everytime you see the Yankees play the Red Sox or every time the Yankees are in the playoffs.
"9-2 doesn't matter. 4-3 are the numbers that count."
She buried her scorched face back into her magazine.
I got goosebumps watching her crawl back into herself.

Most Yankee fans are like the wife, not the husband. For years, they've been walking around telling me they feel sorry for me that I'm a Red Sox fan. That the Yankees have always been and will always be better than the Red Sox. Now they're up in arms. Websites hating Red Sox Nation have sprung up in droves, including one by my old friend Big Bri, who really is a funny dude.

(You really need to know Big Bri. He's like Rudy with an attitude and a temper. (And if you have to ask who Rudy is, you belong on the website devoted to idiots .

This tells me we are under their skin -- we are like that itch on your back you just can't reach. It's awesome!!!

Today, the Red Sox get their rings and the Yankees have to sit there and watch. Open your window around 1 p.m. today and that sound you hear will be Yankee fans whining as their team has to sit and watch the Red Sox collect the hardware.

I could go on -- in fact I will in the future.