Yankees = wusses

Instead of just adding "Look back at 2008" at the bottom of today's post, I'm going to lead off with it.

A year ago tonight, Christine and I were scrambling to prepare the house for a small party the next day while getting ready to watch the Phillies first home World Series game in 15 years. I remember the night vividly because there was torrential rain as I went to the store to pick up some last-minute items.

It was kind of reminiscent of last night's rain, except last October was much colder than yesterday's humid 60+ degrees.

The Phillies and Rays waited out the rain and then played a truly memorable game. Jamie Moyer gutted out 6 1/3 innings. We later found out that he had a sleepless night with stomach ailments. The Phillies won in the wee hours of the morning in the bottom of the 9th when Carlos Ruiz hit a ball to third slow enough to score Eric Bruntlett. The Phillies showed championship grit with the weather and the Rays, and pretty much set themselves up for the series win.

The Yankees found themselves in a similar position before last night's scheduled Game 6 of the ALCS. Did they wait out the heavy rain and then play in what were better conditions than what the Phillies and Rays (and Philly fans) suffered through last year? Nope, the game was called off hours before it started.

At home, I couldn't believe it when I hard a host on the MLB Network say "awesome" when they showed a clip of Andy Pettitte having a catch in the drizzle.

If he wants to see a truly "awesome" pitching performance in the rain, he should skip ahead to Thursday's look back at 2008 to review our recap of the first half of Game 5 of the World Series.

I still can't believe we sat through that crap. Christine can't believe that no one understands how bad it was. The Yankees and their fans certainly never will.

I hope New York wins tonight ... against the Arizona Cardinals.

Go Angels!

Cowboy Summer

Shouldn't balmy April weather be called Cowboy Summer if unusually hot autumn weather is Indian Summer?

Anyhoo ... a combination of this gorgeous summery day (hittin' weather, eh Cholly?), a planned day off from work and the fact we had no obligations tonight placed Christine and I in front of the TV for the Phillies game to just watch and vege. Christine noted that it felt like the first normal game of the season.

Joe Blanton seemed to oblige in the first inning, looking dominant against the Nationals. But he quickly imploded. Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez (Elvis who?) saved the day with grand slams in the 5th and 8th innings, covering up for what's turning out to be a glaring hole in this team: pitching.

Funny, Todd Zolecki in this morning's blog suggested that the Phillies pitching could be righted against the Nationals. Oops.

Red Sox: They can't stop winning. It's now 11 straight with a 3-1 win over the Indians. I'm starting to get nervous that they're peaking too soon. Tim Wakefield's complete game streak ended at two. He's got to do better: seven innings, no runs with four walks and a hit.

Stolen series: I got to watch the Red Sox-Yankees game Sunday, and I'm still amazed at what I saw. After watching the Yankees intentionally walk the bases loaded for J.D. Drew, he swung through the first pitch. I stared at the ESPN ticker trying to figure out why their scoreboard had the count at 1-0. I kept staring at it as Andy Pettitte began to pitch. Then, I couldn't figure out why the crowd was getting louder as he completed his motion, which seemed to be in slow motion. Then, Jacoby Ellsbury streaked home as the pitch arrived.

Unbelievable.

Christine was grumbling because she had stepped out of the room for a second and missed it. Pettitte, perhaps in a bit of roid rage, was grumbling even more. He was rattled and gave up a double to Drew to put the Sox up 4-1, which is how the game and three-game sweep ended.

Dude

Subscribing to HBO would be a waste of money for me; I don't have the time to watch much of its programming. But there are times I wish I had it, such as now to see the Real Sports profile on Lenny Dykstra, the financial whiz.

The Inquirer had some of the transcript. Most impressive about Dykstra's transformation from the Dude to Money Dude is this exchange between Bernard Goldberg and Jim Cramer of Mad Money:

Cramer: "If I didn't know any better I would tell you that everything you hear from Lenny is an act. Because there's no way that he would ever, that you would ever feel like he's as smart as he really is, if you listen to him. Now, there are probably four or five people in the world who, if they sent me an e-mail, told me to learn a stock, I would actually take them seriously."
Goldberg: "And he's one of them?"
Cramer: "He's one of them. He's one of them."

I first heard about this on WIP this morning. Here's a summary of a real interesting story Angelo Cataldi told. I caught it midway, so I didn't hear where he got it from:

Goldberg asked Dykstra about steroids and the Mitchell report. Dykstra denied juicing on camera. After the cameras stopped, Goldberg apologized for the questioning but said he had to because it's been in the news. Dykstra replied, "It's OK. I hope you don't mind that my answer was a lie." Later, Goldberg called him to make sure he understood properly. "Nah, I was just kidding," Dykstra replied.

Speaking of steroids and outfielders from the '80s, the Globe has more from Mike Greenwell and his lamenting of the steroid era. He has a point about how drugged-up players have overshadowed his career, but Greenwell loses credibility by defending Roger Clemens:

Greenwell said his former teammate, Roger Clemens, belongs in the Hall of Fame.
"First of all, he's one of the hardest workers I've ever met in my life," said Greenwell. "I mean, period - in sports and out of sports. It would just blow me away with how much he worked.
"Do I know, or think, or have an idea whether he did do any of that stuff? I really don't. I don't have any idea. My thought is no because he's such a hard worker that he wouldn't do that. Then when you watch the hearings and you see the things going on, it does cast doubt, but I certainly hope people don't judge his career on that. I think that's a shame."

Speaking of roiding Yankees pitchers: Hide the HGH - Andy Pettitte is injured.

Houston, we have a problem

In 2003, my work week ran Sunday through Thursday. That was a good thing on Oct. 17 - the day after Grady Little earned a middle name. After a late night and the most painful loss I have experienced, I was in no condition to work.

Little's inept management and a roider named Giambi cost a nearly certain, first-ever meaningful victory over the Empire. I was in shock and sputtered through that Friday, unsure if the game really unfolded like that. The joy of '04 took away the sting, but I still feel cheated as we have learned of more and more taint to the Empire.

Last night, watching highlights of the Andy Pettitte apology (although he's not a cheater, you know), a thought occurred to me: He and the prime roider, Roger Clemens, also fueled the Astros to the postseason. In 2005, when they went to the World Series, they narrowly edged the Phillies for the wild card.

While everyone marveled that the 'Stros finished 16 games over .500 after falling 15 games under in May, no one really questioned how an aging team could recover like that. Now we know it was fueled by the best 1-2 combo drugs could produce: Andy Pettitte and the Roidger. Each had what can be considered a career-best season: 17-9, 2.39 for Pettitte and 13-8, 1.87 for the 42-year-old Clemens.

In what I've considered - until now - to be a Phillies' choke job, the Astros won the wild card by 1 game. Looking back, the Astros swept the six-game season series, with Pettitte and Clemens winning half of those games. Then-Phils closer Billy Wagner blew two of the other games in a September series in Philly. The first blow, a home run by Craig Biggio, sounded like it killed Harry Kalas

I can't say the Phils would have replaced the Astros as league champions, but they did have winning records against all the other playoff teams that year. Why hasn't Arlen Specter tacked this onto his investigation of the Eagles-Pats Super Bowl?

Addendum: It seems as if that Kalas call isn't anywhere on the Internet, as this post from Crashburn Alley recounts an interview with Kalas on WIP.

About 32 minutes into the clip, Cataldi is asking Kalas about the most downtrodden he’s been on the air, and before he even said it, I was thinking “Craig Biggio’s ninth-inning three-run home run off of Billy Wagner in 2005.” I can remember Harry’s voice clearly to this day and it may have been the furthest my heart has sunk in my entire life.

"Probably the most downer call I ever made, Angelo, is Billy Wagner’s last year with the Phillies when Biggio hit a home run off him and we were on our way to perhaps post-season, and when Biggio hit that home run — I mean I heard a replay of that …"

The WIP team struggled with finding a clip of Harry’s call, and, unfortunately, there isn’t one on MLB.com, as they have the FSN Houston broadcast team for the September 7, 2005, game in question.

Our first tiff of the season

After railing against Carlos Beltran yesterday, Christine saw this nugget from Jonathan Papelbon:

If we're not the team to beat, I'd like to know who is. I think that our No. 1 thing is to stay healthy. If we do that, I don't know who can really compete with us.

Truth be told, I had read that quote before I saw Beltran's and didn't give it a second thought when I wrote:

Carlos Beltran has made a bold prediction: The Mets, with the league's highest payroll and probably the best team on paper, will win the division this year. The team that should win has no right making that pronouncement.

Clearly, the Sox have a higher payroll than any team except the Empire and possibly the Mets. And since the Sox won last year and have suffered no major losses in the off-season, it qualifies as a team that should win it this year.

So the question becomes: should Papelbon be talking like that, and is it hypocritical of me to have glossed over it? My gut reaction is that Papelbon has earned the right to say his team is the best until it's proved otherwise.

I disagree, on two levels.

1. I think Greg is being a hypocrite. He is willing to call out one player for being classless but not willing to do the same when that player is on his own team. What I think it boils down to is, and I have said this before, he is an apologist for his team. That’s not always a bad thing. I make excuses for the Phillies. I try to justify most of the things that they do. But I’m also willing to criticize and be upset with them when they say or do something stupid.

If my team won last year, I know I would be more critical of them and the things they say and do. I would hold them to a higher standard because they would be the standard that everyone else is trying to achieve. There would be no need for them to proclaim themselves the team to beat. Which leads into my next point.

2. What Papelbon said is not necessary. Greg has said that he thinks the Beltran statement is newsworthy because of last year’s choke.

However, if the Mets won last year, that quote would not exist. The Red Sox won last year, and Papelbon still said that. Why? What are you trying to prove? You won last year. You’re expected to win again this year. You can’t play underdog and act like you’re going to upset the frontrunner when you are the frontrunner.

Jimmy Rollins said the Phillies were the team to beat in 2007, and it surprisingly turned out to be true. He has predicted 100 wins for 2008, but is anyone really taking that seriously? I don’t think so. (But I hope he’s psychic, and they cruise to an easy NL East title this year.) The only reason why that is newsworthy is because of what he said last year, and he had to try and top it. But note what he didn’t say: that they are the team to beat this year. He does not have to say that because the first-place finish shows that the title goes through Philadelphia. He has not called out other teams and said they are not competitive, like Papelbon did.

I realize that all of the back-and-forth is mostly to get the fans fired up, and the Phillies-Mets rivalry is going to be ridiculous this year – both on the field and in the stands. It will be scary fun. But come on: Do Red Sox fans need firing up? Everyone loves a ballplayer who gives good copy, but Papelbon just comes off sounding pompous.

While Christine wrote this, I sat downstairs watching the ’07 DVD. One of the first omissions I noticed was all the Manny showboating and lollygagging when it looked like we were going to lose to the Indians. I didn’t blog back then, but I was very critical of him. If the Sox didn’t come back, he would have put us fans in a tough spot of dealing not only with a playoff loss, but also the media rightfully killing Manny for poor sportsmanship. And I was very mad at management when they traded Bronson Arroyo after he took a hometown discount to stay in Boston.

Papelbon is the closer of the reigning champions; he has the right to talk a little smack. He’s not playing an underdog card. He’s basically saying “We proved our mettle last year and until someone proves otherwise, we’re top dog.”

OK, maybe he didn’t have to shoot down the whole league and say no one can even compete with the Sox.

Other pitchers talking: Today was a big day for pitchers on the squawk box. First Curt ends his silence, saying he didn’t say anything for days because he didn’t want to be a distraction. Yeah, it’s less distracting if Curt, who’s been at the center of a firestorm over his medical treatment, keeps his mouth shut.

Nationally, of course, the big story was Andy Pettitte. Give him credit for actually taking questions for an hour instead of issuing a prepared statement. But not too much since we still don’t know if he’s given the whole truth or just what he thinks is provable by others.

And old friend Eric Gagne issued one of those bogus statements, apologizing for distracting his new team and lauding baseball for cleaning up the sport – although we’re told the statement he gave to the French-speaking media may have been stronger. He should have apologized for giving me heartburn during the playoffs last year, although management deserved that tummy ache for knowingly dealing for a roider.

And which pitcher isn’t having issues today? Kyle Kendrick.

Hypocrites

A big name and a lesser name had some interesting comments in today's papers.

First up, old friend Joe Torre chimes in on baseball's steroid problem that he helped enable during his reign of the Empire:

"Our success in Major League Baseball is based on the trust of the people," the Dodgers manager said. "And it is our job to regain that trust. And whatever it takes for us to do that, we have to be willing to do it."

Too little, too late Joe. You could have taken a stand when you were in position to do so. You didn't, so hang your head with your pals Roger and Andy.

Also in that notes column was that former Phil Rod Barajas signed with the Blue Jays. Wasn't there some history where he agreed to go there, but backed out, which led to the glorious Barajas era in Philadelphia? Yup.

"That was last year. It's over with," said Toronto general manager J.P. Ricciardi. "I think in life, all of us, you need to go forward. There's nothing to be gained by going backwards."

The Toronto Star also said the move could affect another former Phils catcher:

The Barajas signing, however, couldn't have been particularly great news for veteran Sal Fasano, who'd signed a minor-league deal with the Jays last month.

YES

Cue the Suzy Waldman dramatics. Put the YES camera crews on call for an instant Yankeeography. Have Howard Rubenstein draft a missive from George.

The greatest baseball team we have ever seen is reuniting. Yes, the 1998 Yankees, they of the 114-48 record and 11-2 World Series run will join up again on Jan. 16 to regale Congress with tales of how they stole titles in the 90s and formed the best team drugs could inflate. Big-time players -- Roidger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch -- are slated, but so is the team's most valuable contributor, Brian McNamee.

No word yet whether other members of the Empire's dynasty -- like Justice, Holmes or Velarde -- will be called.

Or whether disgraced Red Sox and Phillies alums like Manny Alexander or Lenny Dykstra will be invited. {Note from Christine: I wouldn't say that Lenny Dykstra has been disgraced. Disappointing, yes, but I don't think anyone thinks less of him since the report came out. It's not a surprise that he was named. Especially since he talked with MLB officials about his steroid use in 2000 and yet nothing was done about steroids in baseball until years later.}

In other sports: A protracted Red Sox playoff run delayed my interest in football this year, I still can't believe the regular season's over. Like many, I'm going heavy on road warriors this weekend.

I'm jumping on the Redskins bandwagon, the Steelers are too beat up and the Giants will find a way to get past Tampa Bay. The only favorite who will play like it is the Chargers, who will look more like the '06 version than the '07 version against the Titans.

But we all know these four games are just appetizers for the weekend's main event: two Yankee blowhards pinky swear over steroids.