responding to a prompt

I was asked a while back to post some thoughts about ARod's most recent debacle. I haven't, mostly because I don't have any original thoughts about *this* debacle. I think the same of Rodriguez now as I did before I knew he did steroids: this is a teenager in an extraordinarily talented adult's body. He's been treated as though rules don't apply to him for most of his life, because of that talent. It's not at all surprising that he took drugs when everyone else was, too.

Though I won't actually say that I feel badly for ARod, I do recognize in him a deeply talented, deeply hurting guy. He wants to be liked and has no idea how to go about doing that-- his social instincts are all off, and yet he follows them. For me, the truly sad part is that he would have been among the best baseball players ever without drugs. He's tainted that legacy, which is too bad-- because in the end, baseball talent may be all the man has.

confused

can someone explain to me why I feel badly for Andy Pettitte?

a tour of Yankee Stadium that I didn't take

LHJ went with a friend of ours who is a Yankee fan, but whom we love anyway, on a "behind the scenes" tour of Yankee Stadium on Sunday. He was generally unimpressed by the tour, but I like this one picture he took...


...for obvious reasons. We're not going to Tampa, but we are going to Spring Training!!

is MLB in bed with Neil Diamond?

the Boston Red Sox have done a singalong to Neil Diamond's classic "Sweet Caroline" for a long time now. after it was featured in the fun movie Fever Pitch, they started doing it at Shea. though I love a good singalong and like the song itself, I didn't understand why the singalong at Shea needed to be the same song they use in Boston. tonight, as SNY came back to Dodger Stadium, I heard the crowd in a singalong. you already know what song they were singing.

is this going on in other ballparks?

all the good stuff happens after I'm gone

$35 will get you a bleacher seat and all you can eat (no alcohol) at Dodger Stadium. this is a fantastic deal, but I think the best part is that this means no lines for food-- you go down to the concourse, pick up two hot dogs and some crackerjacks, and you're back in your seat by the time the next guy has come to the plate.

genius.

The Other Team

I'm not much of a trash-talker. sure, if I'm antagonized, I can verbally throw down with a Yankee fan, but I don't seek out the confrontation. hostility isn't a part of my fandom, and I don't understand those for whom hostility toward another team is as defining a quality of their life as a ball fan as love of their own team is a defining quality.

yes, I hate the Yankees. but I don't hate the Yankees the way my father does, the way my uncles do, the way anyone who ever was a Brooklyn Dodger fan does. and I don't hate the Yankees the way any Boston Red Sox fan does, for obvious reasons. I hate the Yankees for two reasons-- first, because the Mets can do nothing without it in some way being compared with what the Yanks are doing (check out my ongoing NYC sports press watch for evidence of this). the other reason is that, while I count a number of Yankee fans as friends, the overwhelming majority of Yankee fans I've observed and come into contact with are represented well by the Yanks' biggest fan.

and yet today, the strangest thing happened-- while watching the Yanks struggle against and lose to the Blue Jays today, after being swept at home by the Angels and on their way to get beaten into the ground in Boston over the weekend, I actually felt a twinge of sympathy for the Yankees and (ok, some of) their fans. I remember what it feels like to watch your team seem to lose all luck, spin out of control and spend more than a decade in the woods. it happened in the '90s for the Mets, but not since before I was born were the Yanks as bad as they are now. it must feel as though the world is crashing down on them, and they have no idea what to do to hold it up. it's legitimately sad to watch.

well, it is for a minute anyway. thankfully, the feeling passed quickly, and I went right back to enjoying the Yankees slide into American League oblivion.

Quotable Hernandez

"It's a 25 man team. That's a bunch of bull."

--Keith Hernandez, on Roger Clemens' contract stipulation that he goes home to Huston when the Yankees go on the road.

14 letters is for weaklings!

throughout the Braves-Phillies game in Atlanta last night, the commentators would not shut up about Jarrod Saltalamacchia and how his is the longest last name in Major League history. at 14 letters, I admit it's pretty long for a single surname, but color me unimpressed. as my given last name is 19 characters, I'm still left to wonder how a ballclub would fit it on the back of a uniform.