Baseball players say the dumbest things

Two months after Cole Hamels played along with a radio bit and declared that the Mets did in fact choke the last two years, the Mets continue to flap their gums. Carlos Beltran took it to a new low this week:

The only thing that I know is he will be watched every time he faces us. Hopefully we kill him, and then he'll have to deal with the situation.

I wonder if that is "gangsta" enough for his manager, Jerry Manuel. What kind of thugs do they have up there? If someone associated with Philadelphia advocated killing an opponent, he would be vilified more than any other athlete not named Alex Rodriguez this week.

Oh, and speaker of A-Roid ... teammate Johnny Damon made a public service announcement, saying there are worse things Slappy could have done:

Murdering someone, you know there's plenty of other things that could be worse than what he did... Yeah, he did some bad things. He took a steroid, definitely do not condone that, at all. But there are a lot worse things he could have been doing out there. He hasn't done a crime.

Oh yes, taking illegal drugs purchased in a foreign country is definitely not a crime, Johnny. He has always reminded me of Saturday Night Live's Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, but Phil Hartman presented much better defense arguments than Damon.

While New Yorkers did their city proud this week, we had a good ol' Sox and Phils feud across the coasts. Apparently, Larry Bowa isn't Brad Penny's favorite coach and vice versa.

"A lot of stuff went on last year," Penny told Tim Brown of Yahoo! Sports. "There were a few people I didn't get along with on the coaching staff that don't respect people. I mean, me and Joe [Torre] got along fine. I just feel like nobody had my back there. You're in the clubhouse and you have players coming up to you saying coaches are saying this to them about you. And that's just not a good situation to be in."

When asked which of the coaches Penny had issues with, Penny replied. "Your boy, Larry Bowa."

Asked for a reaction, Bowa fired right back without waiting to hear what Penny said:

"You mean the same guy who was never on time, out of shape and has one complete game? He has more stuff to worry about in the A.L. East than me. He has to worry about getting people out. He was never on time, was out of shape and never helped the kids out. Put that on the (expletive) dot-com. Put it in the headline," Bowa told Tony Jackson of Inside The Dodgers.

Christine said this exchange speaks poorly of Penny's character. I think it was just a symptom of poor coaching. He will flourish with the championship-caliber coaching staff in Boston.

Belated rebuttal

Two days after Cole Hamels stated the obvious - the Mets have choked away the last two seasons - New York's official rebuttal came today from recent signing Francisco Rodriguez, who backed into proclaiming his new team the one to beat in the NL East.

"Of course, we're going to try to win the division. Of course, we're going to be the front-runner. Of course, we're going to be the team to beat," he said Saturday ... "I don't want there to be a controversy or the other ballclubs in that division to take it personally or take it in a bad way," he said. "If they ask me, 'Oh, which ballclub is going to win the National League East?' It's going to be the Mets. Easy question."

Like his teammate Carlos Beltran did early in 2008, F-Rod ripped off Jimmy Rollins' 2007 move. Again, there are some differences:

1. Not original. There should be at least a 10-year moratorium on proclaiming your team the one to beat in the NL East.
2. The team with the highest payroll should be the favorite.
3. The team with the highest payroll in this case has choked away the division the last two years in monumental fashion.
4. Until/unless they're eliminated from the playoffs, the Phillies remain the team to beat by virtue of their 2008 World Championship.

Otherwise, not much doing in SoxandPhils land. Personally, though, we had a very nice day and did a couple things I hope become part of our Christmas tradition.

Bring on CC or Manny

After a tense 9th inning in which Christine bit my nails, the Phillies are NL East Champions for the second consecutive year. They are once again the team to beat, just as Carlos Beltran predicted in the spring.

In New York, Johan Santana tossed a gutsy shutout on short rest to keep their hopes alive for a few more hours. OK, they're now tied for the Wild Card, but after being up 3.5 games for the division on Sept. 10, this is another collapse.

Tonight's game ended with Brad Lidge, who as Harry Kalas noted has been nearly perfect this year, walking the tightrope but escaping with an unblemished save tally in the regular season. Jamie Moyer, who won last year's division clincher, tied the record for most wins in a season by a pitcher older than 45.

But what a 9th inning:

1. Strikeout. Christine thinks I'm flashing a peace sign when I hold up two fingers meaning two outs to go.
2-3. Base hit and walk. Uh-oh.
4. A little bloop between Chase Utley and Jayson Werth. A run narrowly scores, and the runners hold at first and second. Phillies still up 4-3, but I'm getting nervous about Christine's mental/emotional status if they blow this one.
5. Base hit to center - no one scores. Bases loaded with one out.
6. Ryan Zimmerman grounds one up the middle - looks like a surefire hit. I had been holding Christine's hand, and she nervously bit my thumb, forgetting that it wasn't hers. I thought Jimmy Rollins might get one out, but I didn't think the Phils had time to turn two. But they did.

The 2008 division flag was soon on the field.

Post-game notes: It was kind of sad not being at the park for the clincher after we were there last year. ... Pat Burrell brought his bulldog, Elvis, on the field - we hoped we would see him last year, but he didn't appear then. ... Werth drove Ryan Howard around the field in a golf cart with an open champagne bottle in his hand; isn't that illegal? ... Pedro Feliz and Chris Coste took some bikes from cops and rode them around the field; I'm pretty sure that's illegal, too. ... Brett Myers guaranteed the Phils will win at least one playoff game this year. ... Despite all of this, the celebration seemed a little more subdued than last year's.

Post-season notes: It's been a long, hard season that started on March 25 in Japan. Our faith wavered at times, but we never completely lost hope. We kept hanging in there to see if our teams would pull it off. The Sox couldn't win their division, but the Phillies did. And now each stands seven wins away from the 2008 SoxandPhils World Series we've been waiting for since the Phillies were swept by the Rockies last October.

We will welcome the Phillies to Fenway for Game 1, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 8 p.m. Game on.

Meantime, we have one more game - which is almost as meaningless as the March 29 exhibition game against the Blue Jays - before the playoffs. We will be rooting hard tomorrow for the Brewers and Marlins to give Shea Stadium the kind of sendoff that it deserves as the Mets complete their collapse.

[Photo credit: Associated Press]

Manny's going to be a bad man for quite some time ...

For the first time since the last time the Sox were reigning champs, Manny has reported on time. He's not making any contract demands or creating controversy. And his workouts in Arizona have done him so much good that he's saying he may play until he's 50:

You've said you want to be like Julio Franco. How long are you going to play?

"I'm going to go until the wheels fall off. I'm going to keep going. API, they're one of the greats. They're great people to go and work out and I'm going to keep doing it."

He'd like to finish his career in Boston, but he won't demand a new contract.

Philly's big man got his new contract - an arbitration record win of $10 million. Did the Phillies mind losing this one since it assures one year of contract peace with Ryan Howard? Or will it make the long-term deal he wants harder to reach?

MVP Jimmy Rollins, scraping by on a five-year, $40 million contract, isn't complaining. His pay has been subsidized by Nike:

Nike rewarded the Phillies shortstop with his own custom-made sneakers. They are red, white and blue, and feature a Liberty Bell logo and, of course, the letters MVP.

"They definitely look nice," said Rollins, hoisting one of the shoes from a box yesterday. "Definitely hooked up."

How does no one have a picture of this masterpiece?

He also responded to Beltran:

One, there are four other teams in our division who are going to make sure that doesn't happen. And, two, has anyone ever heard of plagiarism?

Uh-oh. Is J-Roll fearing the Nationals this year?

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.

Beltran's pick and other rants

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.

He even called out the MVP:

Let me tell you this: Without (Johan) Santana, we felt as a team we have a chance to win in our division. With him now, I have no doubt that we’re going to win in our division. I have no doubt in that. We’ve got what it takes. We have good chemistry as a team. He fits great because he’s a great guy. He’s one of the best pitchers in the game. Who doesn’t want to have him on any ballclub? Without him last year we did good until the end of the season. So this year, to Jimmy Rollins, we are the team to beat.

Hopefully, come October, Carlos and his mates will still be wondering if the champagne is sweeter, if they will be dancing into the fall and whether the season truly starts on the last weekend in September.

Is this even worth responding to? Just like last year, the Mets are supposedly better on paper. Just like last year, preseason predictions have the Mets winning the division. Are the Phillies in the Mets heads that much? Are they that desperate and think the only way they can win is to make this prediction? Stick with what you do best, Beltran.

Maybe the Mets know they can't win on the field, so they're trying to win the preseason war of the words.

Less trivial: Good read in the Globe on Jon Lester's journey from cancer to champion.

Stop the presses: Pretty Boy Jeter's a bad fielder. Some local guy (Philly) has a new way of measuring fielding. It not only shows that the Yankees captain has been the worst shortstop in the majors the past few years, he has cost the Empire more runs than any other player at any position. That includes Manny, who is also deemed defensively-challenged.

Quandary: The Yogi Berra Museum has removed Roidger Clemens' jersey from its display of the drug-infested Empire championships. This blurb makes no mention whether Yankee hero Andy Pettitte will get similar treatment.

But it does pose an interesting dilemma: What do I do with my old No. 21?