On Derek Jeter's Calf Strain, and Our Ticket Giveaway

Derek Jeter had the calf strain heard 'round the world during last night's game. Well, maybe not 'round the world, but it certainly was the sports story of the night.

Paul O'Neill was the first Yankee broadcaster to note that something was wrong with Jeter. Now everybody is worrying about when Jeter will get 3,000 hits. What's a little interesting is that I haven't heard much talk about the team implications if the captain is out; it's all about the hit record. 

Anyhow, I know from personal experience what a Grade 1 calf strain, which is what the Captain has, feels like. I was gong to catch the subway three years ago, and I tore my calf with just that little burst of energy to get into the subway before it closed. The pain I felt when I had the calf strain felt like I was shot in the leg! Longtime Squawker readers may remember that I had to be helped off the subway, as I could not walk on that leg. It took a few weeks, and a bunch of physical therapy sessions, for my calf to get back to normal. 

Granted, Jeter has more tools for quick healing at his disposal, but I wouldn't be surprised if he goes on the DL for two weeks over this. 

I read Filip Bondy suggest that overuse could have led to this injury:

And it is quite possible, in 20-20 hindsight, that Jeter was asked to play too many games in a row, at age 36, in order to assure he achieved the landmark hit in the Bronx instead of in Chicago or Cincinnati.

He hadn't sat out a Yankee game since May 5, though there were four off days built in the schedule and he'd been a DH five times during that stretch. It had become clear the Yanks were going to get Jeter as many at-bats as possible, and in the end it may have come back to bite them.

If there's any consolation in any of this, it is that once again Jeter was right. We don't know, and Jeter doesn't know, where or when he'll reach 3,000.

Nonsense. Players get calf strains all the time -- Adrian Beltre had one in spring training this year. Was that due to overuse? Jimmy Rollins and A-Rod also had the issue last year, to name a few examples. Heck, like I said, I had the injury myself, and I'm not exactly an elite professional athlete! To suggest that it's because Jeter didn't have a complete day off in an entire month is a bit silly, especially when he had four off-days and five days off in the field. Stuff happens.

And Bondy acts like the issue is the Yankees somehow driving Jeter into the ground to get the hit record. But, as Joel Sherman notes, the captain has 12 seasons with 150+ games played per year. He wants to play every day. 

Besides, up until this month, there was no way to know for sure when Jeter might possibly break the record. If he had kept up the brief hot streak he had starting in Texas, he would have hit 3,000 by now!

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In other news, we are giving away free tickets to Sunday's Mets game, courtesy of Blimpie. Go here to enter!

What do you think?

Shocker: Filip Bondy responds to my screed about his column

I wrote Saturday about New York Daily News columnist Filip Bondy's inexplicable and, yes, clueless, omission of Zack Greinke's battles with Social Anxiety Disorder in his article exhorting the Yankees to trade for the Kansas City pitcher. I couldn't understand why he would leave that issue out, so I wondered, "Guess Filip was too busy watching soccer or figure skating to pay attention to baseball."

Whenever I write a column criticizing anybody, I always figure in the back of my mind that there's always the chance that the person I criticized might actually write back. It hasn't happened often (although I was hoping in the back of my mind that Derek Jeter would go off on me in his presser last week and make me famous!). But it did in the columnist's case! Bondy wrote me a response in the comments section of Subway Squawkers:
 
Here's the comment:

filipbondy said...


Well, here's the thing, Lisa. I wish I could cover more figure skating, but the fact is I'm lucky if I get to write more than two columns on the subject per year.


Who do you like at the U.S. championships, BTW? Rachael Flatt didn't do so hot in Beijing, as you know.


As for Greinke... You get the side out in order at the All-Star Game, strike out two, I think that's handling pressure.


Cheers, filip

I have to tip my cap to Bondy for writing pretty much a letter-perfect response. It's got humor, self-deprecation, and even a point behind it. While I still stand by my own points -- that Bondy should have mentioned Greinke's battles with depression when talking about trading for him, and that Greinke's personal issues are a concern when it comes to trading for him -- I do appreciate that he took the time to respond to me. I was speechless (a rare thing, I know!) when I read his response.

I can't say I'm paying much attention to figure skating, though. This is Subway Squawkers, not Subway Skaters!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Filip Bondy cluelessly touts Zack Greinke over Cliff Lee for the Yankees

Daily News columnist Filip Bondy has finally done it. He's written something even more out there than his column claiming that the Yankees would beat the Texas Rangers in the ALCS simply by "throwing their pinstriped uniforms onto the field and reading from a few pages of The Baseball Encyclopedia." (Still waiting for Bondy's mea culpa on that ridiculous article, by the way!)

Today's column shows Bondy's general cluelessness about baseball when it comes to doing anything more strenuous than writing his usual snarky whines. His great idea for the Yankees is that they should forget about Cliff Lee and go after Kansas City hurler Zack Greinke. But Bondy apparently doesn't know -- or chose not to mention -- the fact that the Kansas City pitcher has battled social anxiety disorder.

Bondy writes:

When you look at this thing calmly, without the Sox dangling above, it may turn out that the best thing for the Yanks would be Lee returning to Texas and its friendly tax code. Then the Zack Greinke stakes can begin in earnest, and Cashman can finally try to complete a big deal.

Cashman hasn't really done a lot of trading, just patchwork bartering. He didn't trade for Johan Santana, patiently and constructively waiting instead to sign CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. That worked out fine. Eventually, though, Cashman did dump prospects Austin Jackson and Ian Kennedy in the deal for Curtis Granderson. That trade doesn't look all that great right now, but you know what, that's how it works. Once in a while, a GM must take the sort of chance that can backfire, or make him look like a genius.

Cashman would need to throw some real talent out there in order to get Greinke from the Royals. If he succeeds, however, he would be getting a top pitcher in his prime. Greinke is 27, and has two years left on a reasonable contract at $13.5 million per season. The Yanks would be able to renegotiate and extend it easily enough.....

Two things wrong with this idea:

* It just astonishes me that Bondy would completely leave out Greinke's issues with social anxiety disorder, and whether a pitcher with a history of anxiety and depression could handle the Bronx.

True, there was a recent Yahoo sports report saying that a source close to Greinke claimed the pitcher might waive his limited no-trade clause -- which includes the Yankees -- to play for a winner. And Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal said he's heard that Greinke is ready "to go anywhere." But Bondy doesn't mention any of those things.

Look, I think Greinke winning a Cy Young Award after dealing with social anxiety disorder is really admirable. (Read this Sports Illustrated article to see how far he once fell.) I'm rooting hard for him to succeed in his career and in his life.

But I also know what the media is like in this town, and what some Yankee fans are like (and Bondy should know, too, given how much he's written about the Bleacher Creatures.) Being able to handle New York pressure is kind of important -- look what happened with Ed Whitson and Chuck Knoblauch, just to name two examples.

I remember how Javier Vazquez got booed by Yankee fans this year in the early innings of the very first home game he pitched this year. I know that a certain segment of the fan base considers it a badge of honor to scapegoat their own players, and boo them like it's nobody's business. Would Greinke be able to handle that? I dunno, but it's a serious thing worth discussing before the Yankees try to trade for him. Yet Bondy apparently isn't even aware that it's an issue!

* As we've seen over and over, Cashman is rarely able to make good trades (Nick Swisher for Wilson Betemit was the best one in recent years. but it was also a White Sox salary dump/player dump.) Invariably, the other team's GM holds up Cash for more than the player is worth, just because they're the Yankees. Remember how much Minnesota wanted from the Yankees for Johan Santana, and how little the Mets got him for? Remember how Cashman thought he had a deal for Cliff Lee this summer, only to have the Seattle Mariners turn around and demand more at the last minute? That's why the Yankees end up doing so much on the free agent market; because other teams' asking price is always higher for the Bombers than for anybody else.

Anyhow, I don't think the Yankees will get Cliff Lee (something I will elaborate on further in a column later this morning) but I also don't think getting Zack Greinke is the slam-dunk solution, either, the way Bondy does. Guess Filip was too busy watching soccer or figure skating to pay attention to baseball.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

The morning after: Thoughts on the Yankees' ALCS loss

I had the worst dream last night. The Yankees got shut down by Colby Lewis and the Rangers, and lost the ALCS. What a nightmare. Oh, wait, that actually happened! Bummer.

I was very angry during last night's game, and I still think that Joe Girardi did a terrible job with his bullpen management moves. He had a quicker hook in the Taco Bell commercial for the chalupa eater than he did for pitchers who deserved to be taken out!

And you don't put in David Robertson with the game on the line when you have CC Sabathia, Kerry Wood, and Mariano Rivera in the bullpen. But hey, at least Mo was well-rested this week, thanks to him not being used on Monday, to pitch the bottom of the eighth in last night's 6-1 loss!

But those weren't the only things that went wrong during the ALCS. The Yankees got outplayed in every single facet of the game in this series. And for all of Michael Kay's talk on 1050 ESPN Radio about how Ron Washington is a terrible manager, Washington outmanaged, and his team outplayed, Girardi and the Yankees.

That being said, this loss was a team effort. You can't get stymied -- twice! -- by Colby Bleeping Lewis and expect to win.

However, even though I'm still bummed, I've calmed down a little, and I actually feel the least terrible that I have had in years after a Yankees series loss. I'm still peeved, but I'm not in complete despair or anything. After all, the Yankees did win the World Series just a year ago. As a friend said on Twitter this morning, "You know when people say 'act like you've been there before'? That applies to losing as well. The Yankees can't and don't win all the time."

Nothing will ever match the pain of 2004. Ever. Even now, I will still swivel my head like something out of "The Exorcist" if I see a clip on TV from that year. I have several good Facebook friends in Red Sox documentaries about that year, but there is no chance I will ever watch them in it!

But there have been some other bad Yankes series losses over the years. 2006 (Torre batting A-Rod eighth and being outmanaged by Jim Leyland) and 2007 (Bug Game) were worse than this year. 2001 was gut-wrenching at the time, but in retrospect, it was a miracle the Yankees even made it past Game 5. But I still won't watch clips from Game 7 of that series!

Funny thing is, though, is that I was able to deal with seeing the Texas Rangers and their fans celebrating last night without it making me want to pull an Elvis on the television set. Maybe it's because my nephew is a lifelong Rangers fan. Maybe it's because I lived in the state for so long. Maybe it's because it was interesting to see a football-loving state like Texas get excited over baseball instead of football. But I don't really have any vitriol towards the Rangers.

But as I noted last night, what I am still ticked off about are people like Mayor Bloomberg talking about planning the parade route, and Michael Kay showing such hubris in declaring the series over after one game. Oh, and Filip Bondy's thoroughly obnoxious "Count the Rings" take on the series still rubs me the wrong way:

[Nolan] Ryan's no-hitters aside, this ALCS represents one of sports' great historical mismatches, 40 pennants versus zero. The Yanks should win this series just by throwing their pinstriped uniforms onto the field and reading from a few pages of The Baseball Encyclopedia.

If only Bud Selig would agree to waive a few silly postseason rules, the Bombers might send their Scranton/Wilkes-Barre roster to Arlington for the first couple of games, make this a fair fight....

The Rangers are the oldest of three existing major league clubs never to have won a pennant. They should be ashamed to bring their media guides to the Bronx....

Why are they even playing this series? Why don't they just use the scores from '96, '98 and '99?

"I can't even think back to those years," Jorge Posada said. "It's over. I don't think it matters."

It matters. The Yankees lead, 27 titles to none. Play ball.

So much for that, dude. Too bad Bondy, like his colleague Mike Lupica, does not allow readers to comment on his articles, because he deserves to be mocked mercilessly for writing those words. Worst. Column. Ever.

What do you think? Tell us about it!