Oh no, Mo! Mariano Rivera tears his ACL; career in jeopardy

This is one of the saddest posts I have written for our Subway Squawkers blog since we started writing the blog in 2006.  Mariano Rivera's career may be over, thanks to a torn ACL and a torn meniscus. Geez, it's painful even to write that. I'm still in shock over what happened.

I was out for a walk last night, talking on the phone with one of my brothers, when Squawker Jon kept on trying to call me. After a few times, I finally picked up. Jon then said he wouldn't keep on calling me if it weren't important, and told me that Mariano Rivera was carted off the field after shagging flies. Yikes, talk about a punch in the stomach.

Although Jon did say that Mo was smiling on the cart while leaving the field, as soon as I saw the clip when I got home, I figured his initial reaction indicated a torn ACL, and unfortunately, that suspicion turned out to be correct. What a nightmare.

I was very tired last night, and went to bed before the game was over, so I didn't get to hear the official diagnosis. But Squawker Jon did stay up and watch the postgame, and he sent me an email about it last night, saying that "Just saw Mariano interviewed and he was teary. Even I'm upset." I also heard from some other Met fan friends, sending prayers and positive thoughts Mariano's way.

Needless to say, Mo's absence will be felt with the Yankees. He is the greatest closer of all time, and the Yankees would never have won four rings in five years without him. He is also a great human being, too. I got to meet him a few years ago, and was very impressed with him as a person.

Some in the media are trying to insinuate that him getting hurt while shagging balls was a preventable injury. Nonsense. We're not talking about him jumping on a trampoline; Mo was doing something baseball-related. This is why I have so little patience for those who get injured off the field being reckless; there is enough that can happen within baseball to hurt a career, without going out looking for things!

There will be enough time in a later blog entry to speculate about who will ultimately replace Mo. Today isn't the time for it. I'm still heartbroken over the loss of Mariano Rivera.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Yankees pummel Red Sox, and I miss all of it!

Squawker Jon and I were meeting up in Battery Park City to see the premiere of Knuckleball! last night, so we missed seeing the Yankees-Red Sox game. To be blunt, when I saw that Freddy Garcia was pitching for the Yanks, I didn't expect much, especially given that it was a FOX broadcast, which the Yanks have a bad record on. Nor did the Yanks get much -- Garcia didn't make it out of the second inning.

Anyhow, when I saw that the score was 9-0 Red Sox, I figured that the game was over. Then the Yanks kept on coming back. We ran into the Mighty Quinn Media Machine in the VIP section of the movie showing while waiting for the movie to start (more on the flick in a separate post!) and every time one of us took a look at the score, it seemed like the Yanks were threatening. Then somehow, they ended up putting on 15 runs on the boards, without Boston scoring another run in the game! Unbelievable!

Needless to say, I was pleased as punch at the results, while my Red Sox fan and Met fan cohorts were not exactly thrilled by the turn of events. Heh!

I am watching the replay of MLB TV via Roku right now. I just bought a subscription to MLB TV, and this is the first time I've watched a game on it. I immediately skipped to the top of the inning, and was thrilled to hear no broadcasters. No McCarver, no Buck. It was aweseome! Then they started yakking again -- the reason some of the broadcast replay did not have them is because apparently the FOX broadcast had cut to Philip Humber's perfect game, so people watching live missed seeing Nick Swisher's grand slam live! If I had been one of them, I would have been ticked off. (By the way, how about it -- yet another former Met pitches a perfect game!)

Message to Joba Chamberlain: Time to grow up

Joba Chamberlain is his own worst enemy. Not only did he never really apologize Tuesday for his recklessness in jumping on a trampoline when recovering from Tommy John surgery, when he explained how he messed up his ankle, he refused to even admit that he really had an open dislocation in the first place. (Brian Cashman had to do damage control later, explaining the exact nature of the injury.)
 
Talk about denial not being just a river in Egypt. Joba denied he felt much pain. He denied that he would miss much time from this injury; insisting he would be back in 2012. He even denied that this was much of a setback from his recovery from Tommy John surgery, saying:

"It's going to give me more time to rehab," he said. "It's going to allow me to continue my shoulder strengthening and everything that goes along with that. It will put me past that year mark of June. It will be stronger for that and I think that's a positive."

There must be a pony in there somewhere, Joba!

Let's review. A 250+ pound professional ballplayer, who is paid for what his body can do, and who is recovering from Tommy John surgery, thought it was a good idea to jump on a trampoline. Then, he still won't even acknowledge that it was a bad decision, trying to put a positive spin on it. Good grief.

And call me hardhearted, but I'm not buying him pulling the dad card here, when he explained the "biggest thing" he took away from this: 

“This game is very important to me. It allows me to do a lot of things, but my son is my pride and joy. The biggest thing is to don’t be so hard on yourself and realize what you were doing; you were trying to be a great dad."

Yeah, because that's the biggest problem with Joba Chamberlain; that he's just too hard on himself. Now I'm worried he's going to get another injury -- hurting his arm again from patting himself on the back so hard!

And sorry, but I guess I missed  how recklessly risking your career and your future earning powers makes you "a great dad." As my friend Sully Baseball put it, "Do you know what a REALLY good father would do? Not put at risk a career that could not only take care of his kids financially but their grandkids as well."

Joba also said, "I’m never going to look at anything I do with my son as reckless.” Not even when he had to sign a waiver warning him of paralysis, death, and all sorts of injuries that could ensue when going to this trampoline facility. Using Joba's logic, that skateboarder who fell with his kid at a skateboarding park is a candidate for Father of the Year!

He also called the incident "another thing in the book of Joba." Is that book written in crayon?

When asked what he learned from this debacle, Joba said this:

"Never question being a father," Chamberlain said. ""I felt like I let my team down, to be perfectly honest with you, and that's the most frustrating part. But when I looked back and realized what was going on, I will never question being a father."

Oh, great. Thanks in no small part to the Bob Klapisches of the world, who have been pushing this "he was just being a good dad" nonsense, Joba really believes this stuff.

But maybe it's time for Mr. Chamberlain to start questioning things -- starting with his terrible decision-making, and continuing with his lack of conditioning and commitment to the game.
 .
And it's time for Joba to grow up already. Is he really trying to tell us there was nothing that he could have done with his son in Tampa, Florida, one of the great vacation spots in this country, that didn't involve risking his career and health. Really?

Joba  also said:

“It’s still frustrating because I feel that I let [the team] down,’’ he said, “but that’s the biggest thing that I got. It’s just another hill that I’ve had to climb, and we’ll get over it and we’ll get going and be better for it.’’

Except he's the one who put the hill there. Not anybody else. He really is his own worst enemy.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

The curious case of Joba Chamberlain and the trampoline

Squawker Jon called me yesterday to tell me the news of Joba Chamberlain suffering an open dislocation on an ankle due to jumping on a trampoline. This was the second Friday in a row with shocking news -- last week, of course, was Andy Pettitte's return. But this week's news, of course, is really awful.

First of all, I hope Chamberlain makes a full recovery -- it sounds like a horrible, gruesome injury, and he reportedly lost a lot of blood. And what a terrible thing for his young son to see. Ankle injuries are serious stuff -- it's taken nearly two years for Kendrys Morales to recover from busting up his ankle. Joba's got a long haul ahead of him, that's for sure.

That being said, I know I will get some grief for this, but I have to wonder what the heck he was thinking here. Any time you engage in a physical activity, it's a risk, especially when you are a professional ballplayer who is paid based on being able to perform physical tasks, which is why the Yanks ban so much off-season physical activities, including pickup basketball, as Aaron Boone learned. (If I ran the Yankees, I would ban players from doing anything more strenuous in their free time than tiddlywinks and Monopoly, but that's me!)

Anyhow, given that Joba is recovering from Tommy John surgery, you would think that he would think, if nothing else, that if he were to stumble on the trampoline, that he could mess up his arm again. In addition, according to Daily News columnist Bill Madden, Joba had been "explicitly told by the Yankee trainers not to engage in any sort of physical activity that would potentially put his arm in harm’s way."

And trampolines are more dangerous than you might think. Did you know that a lot of homeowners' insurance companies will not cover you if you have a trampoline? They are that dangerous. As the Bleeding Yankee Blue blog pointed out, a lot of people -- over one hundred thousand in 2006 -- get hurt jumping on trampolines. And, as I discovered today, a few people have even died from using trampolines.

In addition, I did some research on Tampa play centers that have trampolines. We do not know as of yet which place Chamberlain went to with his son, but I found information on two big trampoline centers in Tampa --AirHeads Trampoline Arena and Boing! Jump Center. And at both places, you have to sign waivers detailing all the risks you potentially face at their facilities. Here is just some of what the two-page AirHeads waiver says:

All participants acknowledge that participation in ATA trampoline games or activities entails known and unanticipated risks that could result in physical or emotional injury, paralysis, death, or damage to myself, my child, to property or to third parties.  I understand that such risks simply cannot be eliminated without jeopardizing the essential qualities of the activity. The risks include, but are not limited to: Slipping and falling, collision with fixed objects or people, injuries that include: sprains, fractures, scrapes, bruises, cuts, dislocations, pinched fingers, and serious injuries to the head, back or neck; the negligence of other participants, myself, or my child; my own or my child’s physical condition; physical contact with others; and failure to warn of an inherent risk.  

The Boing! waiver says, in part, that:

Such risks could result in, but not be limited to, damage and/or injury to myself, to property, and/or to third parties and/or entities, including, but not limited to: loss of property, loss of balance, fatigue, dizziness, paralysis, quadriplegia, death, and/or physical and/or emotional injuries, including, but not limited to, sprains, strains, contusions, abrasions, fractures, scrapes, bumps, bruises, cuts, lacerations, soft tissue damage, dislocations, pinched fingers and/or nerves, and/or serious, crippling and/or disabling injuries to the face, arms, hands, legs, feet, head, back, shoulders, spine, spinal cord, neck, internal body parts and/or any other body parts.

So, if Joba went to either of these places or to another other trampoline facility, chances are extremely likely that he would have had to sign such a waiver. Why didn't it occur to him, when signing a waiver saying about how you could potentially die or become a quadriplegic from jumping on a trampoline, that perhaps it wasn't the greatest idea in the world to do so?

I have heard people defend Chamberlain for going to a play center, suggesting that he was just being a good dad with his son. Yet he could have just let his son jump on the trampoline, or picked a less dangerous activity to do with his son for that day instead. You can think I'm too judgmental if you want, but I can't get past why an injury-ridden ballplayer recovering from surgery would think that jumping on a trampoline would be a wise decision. This isn't like getting injured by riding the Dumbo kiddie ride at Walt Disney World, after all.

So, I hope Joba fully recovers from the ankle dislocation. But I also hope that he starts taking things more seriously. As much as I think the Derek Jeter worship in this town is over the top, I do appreciate that Derek has always taken care of himself and stayed out of situations that could jeopardize his health and his career. It might do Joba some good to think to himself once in a while, "What would Derek Jeter do?"

What do you think about Joba Chamberlain? Tell us about it!

Were Jason Giambi and Roger Clemens Drinking in the Dugout?

I have been enjoying the heck out of the Boston Red Sox Fried Chicken and Beer (and Video Games!) scandal. What the heck were Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, and John Lackey thinking? They were paid to be part of a baseball team; not to act like something out of "Animal House" or something!

Anyhow, I'm a  little disappointed to see all the rationalizations for their shameful behavior out there -- Babe Ruth drank, Dwight Gooden did coke, blah blah blah. Of course, these rationalizations only go for booze and recreational drugs, not performance-enhancing drugs -- you'll never hear somebody say that doing steroids is okay because Mark McGwire did it, or taking HGH is okay because Andy Pettitte did it. 

Besides, it's 2011. Maybe it's time that people stop doing stupid things just because other people did them in the past. And you cannot justify drinking alcohol during a game when you are an MLB player, no matter how much people try to. If players cannot wait three hours until the game over before getting their drink on, they've got issues.

And I have said on Facebook, I would be equally as outraged if The Three Stupidos were Yankees. And now it's time to put my money where my mouth is. Today's New York Daily News has a combination apologia for boozing in baseball, combined with details on other players who drank before, during, and after games. Yet there's no mention of St. Louis pitcher Josh Hancock, who died in an accident after driving drunk. Nor of the six MLB players who were arrested for driving under the influence this season. But the article does claim that Jason Giambi and Roger Clemens drank in the dugout during games:

According to one of the insiders, Jason Giambi and Roger Clemens would routinely drink beer on the dugout bench when they played for the Yankees, passing back and forth what Giambi called his "protein shake," code for a cup of beer, the source said.

If this is true, where was Joe Torre? Snoozing in the dugout again? How can you not detect the smell of beer -- it doesn't exactly smell like a protein shake!

The article also talks about unnamed Mets players drinking during games, and Keith Hernandez drinking after games. Um, drinking a beer after the game is over is not the same thing at all as doing it during games, so I don't know why that Keith Hernandez tidbit was included. 

Anyhow, I think it's perfectly reasonable for the Red Sox pitchers to get their share of ridicule and scrutiny right now. You go 7-20 in September, and have the worst collapse in regular season history, you deserve all the grief you get. But please, enough with the "everybody does it" argument. Everybody does not do it. 

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Are the 2011 Boston Red Sox Turning Into the 2007 New York Mets?

Saturday's game was the very first Yankees-Red Sox game that the Bombers have won this year at home, and the Yanks looked about as dominant against Boston as they have since they swept them in that August 2009 series in the Bronx. Jon Lester, who usually gives the Yankees fits, looked more like John Lackey. And Jesus Montero looked like a star. It was fun to have a blowout win, and the game actually lasted less than three hours. Shocking, I know!

I have been trying to keep myself from doing a full-on Snoopy Dance about the Boston Red Sox's September swoon -- they need to be officially out of the Wild Card race before I will put on my dancing shoes. That being said, what I've seen so far reminds me a lot of the 2007 New York Mets. (Squawker Jon, are you listening?)

The angriest I have ever heard Jon in the decade I have known him was when Tom Glavine coughed up seven runs in the first inning of the last game of the season, to put the nail in his team's coffin. Tom Terrible lasted all of one-third of an inning before getting knocked out of the game. Jon was appalled by Glavine's horrific performance and wrote a rant in Subway Squawkers that made my anti-Joe Torre rants look tame. And that was before Glavine poured salt in the wounds of Mets fans everywhere by proclaiming that he wasn't devastated by the loss. Good grief.

Anyhow, I've been reading talk about how it would be unfair to get rid of Terry Francona, because he has two rings, blah blah blah. Nonsense. If the Sox don't make the postseason, after everybody and his brother predicted them to win the World Series, the manager has to go. One of the many mistakes the Mets made in recent years was not getting rid of Willie Randolph after the 2007 collapse, instead waiting until the following June to fire him in the middle of the night after a West Coast win.

The same with the Yankees keeping on Joe Torre after 2004. It's the manager's job to keep the team grounded, and not letting the team drive into the ditch, the way Boston is right now. It's not all Carl Crawford's fault, you know, as much as some people in the media would like to make it that way.

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to today's doubleheader, but apparently the matchup I was hoping for -- A.J. Burnett vs. John Lackey -- is apparently not going to happen. Alas. They could have called the game the Toilet Bowl.


What do you think? Tell us about it!

Remembering the Horrors of September 11, Ten Years Later

These are my thoughts on remembering September 11, 2001, and the aftermath of the terrorist attack that killed 3000+ Americans. There will be a few baseball-related comments, but most of this post is going to be about 9/11. If you can't bear to read anything more on the subject, I will totally understand -- we do try to keep this blog all about New York baseball, but I feel like I have to say something today about the 10th anniversary of September 11.

I woke up that Tuesday morning in 2001 around noon. At the time, I worked nights as a web editor for the New York Daily News. That night was a particularly late evening at work, as the Giants were on Monday Night Football, and I worked until after 3 a.m. or so, and didn't get to sleep around 5. When my clock radio went off that morning, there was a reporter on the news talking about being on the site of the World Trade Center. I didn't know what he was talking about; even in my groggy state, I remembered that the anniversary of the 1993 attack on the building was in February, so I couldn't understand what the report was about.

Then I got up, looked at my computer, and saw on the Daily News home page that the Twin Towers were destroyed, and the Pentagon hit. How could the World Trade Center be destroyed? How could the Pentagon have been attacked? It seemed like a nightmare too bad to be true; I thought I was having a bad reaction from having taken a Tylenol P.M. the night before or something. Even after talking to several friends on the phone asking what happened, I didn't quite believe the Twin Towers were gone until physically walking up Staten Island's Richmond Terrace until I could see the skyline. When I saw two huge plumes of smoke where the Twin Towers used to be, the horrific truth was confirmed, and my jaw dropped.

I had moved to Staten Island the year before when I started working at the News, and one of the things I cherished was seeing the skyline every day on my drive to work. I used to make sure and look for the Twin Towers each time I passed it by. Now I would never see those buildings again. For years afterward, I couldn't even bear to look at the skyline, finding it too sad. Come to think of it, the New York City skyline has never looked quite right to me since the World Trade Center was destroyed. Still doesn't.

I never made it into work that day, as all the Staten Island bridges were closed, and the Staten Island Ferry wasn't running to Manhattan. But Squawker Jon did. He was called in early by our boss after the second tower was hit, and worked all day, putting up stories on the web site about the horrors. Back then, it was expected that maybe 10,000 of our countrymen were dead. We also didn't know at first about Flight 93.

The next day, I went back to work after a very long commute into the city. You could smell the burning Twin Towers from West 33rd Street. That first evening back, there was an emergency evacuation of the building. I remember a big, burly guy from the sports department barreling past me on his way down the stairs. People were scared out of their minds then, and rightfully so.

Some of that time after 9/11 is a blur. Other things I remember clearly, like walking around town and seeing all the handmade "Missing" signs. Or seeing Staten Island firefighters in formal dress over and over, them attending yet another funeral. (My borough lost close to 300 citizens, a good portion of them firefighters and police officers raising their families in Staten Island).  The sound of bagpipes. You couldn't get away from thinking about 9/11 every minute, especially working at a daily newspaper. While we didn't lose anybody we know, we lost almost 3000 of our fellow New Yorkers. I think I might have cried every day for a good two months afterwards.

(Note: After reading this, Squawker Jon reminded me of the anthrax attacks on media companies during that time, and how we were all afraid to get the mail at our office. That's something I had kind of blocked out over the years!)

But there were moments that we cheered, like when watching the defiant, passionate "Concert for New York" on TV.  Even Yankee fans like me rooted for the Mets to beat the Braves that Friday night (although I knew things had changed forever when I saw Chipper Jones get hugged by Mets players!)

Then there was the Yankees' playoff run, with even some Red Sox fans cheering for New York. My memories of the World Series that I like to remember are President Bush throwing out the first pitch for a strike in Game 3, Challenger flying into Yankee Stadium that night. And, of course, the Yankees going deep against Kim two nights in a row to win Games 4 and 5. And the gut punch that was Game 7 of that World Series just seemed cruel, although it did put a smile on Squawker Jon's face!

In the months following the horrors, we all kind of waited for the other shoe to drop. People were scared, and sad, and angry. The latter is something I think has been forgotten since 2001. There's been a mountain of news coverage this week, most focused on the sadness back then, and very little about the anger many of us felt back then. I remember how filled with rage I was that those bastards attacked us. This morning, when I saw Google's "Remembering September 11" link today describing the day this way: "The events of September 11, 2001 changed the lives of so many people around the world," and never mentioning that it was a terrorist attack, not just some random sad thing, I got ticked off all over again. Spare me the euphemisms, please.

We also don't do enough remembering of those who lost their lives in the wars after 9/11. The closest thing to a memorial that they have now is Section 60 of Arlington Memorial Cemetery. I went there with my brother on Christmas 2007, to see our father's grave there -- he had died on September 10 that year. I held up okay after seeing our father's tombstone for the first time, but completely lost it when I saw the graves of those who died in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of them in their teens and early 20s. In addition to thinking about those who lost their lives in 9/11, today I'm remembering those who lost their lives after 9/11 in service to their country.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

That Boy Ain't Right: A.J. Burnett Throws a Hissy Fit, Shows Up Joe Girardi

Squawker Jon and I went to Asbury Park for a day of fun in the sun at the beach, so I missed most of last night's game. When I got into the car to head home, I heard John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman talk about the 9-1 score, and how Aaron Laffey did a good job after the game was out of reach. They went on and on about Laffey, without ever mentioning who put the Yankees in the hole in the first place -- A.J. Burnett!

Anyhow, when I got home, I looked up what happened, and made a snarky remark on Facebook referencing Brian Cashman's Objective Pipe, I wondered how he would insist that A.J. really had a good game, even though he gave up seven runs in 1 2/3 innings. Then I heard from Facebook friends about A.J.'s hissy fit -- how he cursed at Joe Girardi when taken out of the game, saying "That's B*llsh*t," and stormed into the clubhouse after being removed. Then Girardi followed him into the clubhouse, with the body language of an angry father. A.J. came back into the dugout, then left again, after the runs scored, before the inning was over.

I couldn't quite believe Burnett would be so outrageous, but sure enough, the clips shown in the postgame showed exactly that. To their credit, YES analysts Ken Singleton and Bob Lorenz were very critical of what A.J. did, and called it like they saw it. My thoughts after seeing Burnett in action was to channel a Hank Hill line, about how "That boy ain't right."



But then, in the postgame, Joe Girardi came up with a ridiculous story about how Burnett was really upset with the umpire, not him, and was really cursing at the ump calling that pitch to Joe Mauer Strike Three, and not Ball Four. Girardi was very confrontational with YES' Jack Curry, one of the most respected voices in baseball. Joe blamed the media for making something out of nothing, and trying to make a problem with Burnett and Girardi when there was none. Basically, Girardi said to the press, "Who are you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?" (Read the transcript of the conversation, and watch the exchange here.)

Look, there are plenty of times when the media makes something out of nothing -- like Mark Feinsand's absolutely shameful attempt to link Alex Rodriguez to the University of Miami football scandal because A-Rod is on the school's Board of Trustees, even though there isn't a shred of evidence linking A-Rod to it.  But the Burnett issue isn't one of them. For one thing, Burnett was looking at Girardi, not the ump, when he cursed. Second, according to Burnett, Girardi asked him if the comment was directed at him. And finally, Burnett has a history of losing his cool like this -- it wasn't reported much at the time, but Burnett started taking off his uniform in the dugout after being taken out of a White Sox game a few weeks ago. Also, remember how he cut up his hands after slamming them on the clubhouse door last year?

And I find myself agreeing with ESPN New York's Wally Matthews, of all people, in his very critical assessment of Girardi's coddling of Burnett:

Either Joe Girardi is one of the staunchest managerial defenders of any and all players who have ever worn a Yankee uniform or he is a lot more afraid of his own players than he is of looking foolish and untruthful on live television.

There really is no third choice.

You know, for all the grief the media has given A-Rod for being "bush league," I don't remember him ever showing up his manager, even when the manager showed him up by batting him eighth. Yet A.J. gets away with it. Why? As Matthews writes:

"A.J. was angry at himself," Girardi said afterward.

Well, it's about time someone other than A.J. got angry at A.J. Someone like the manager, who turns the other cheek each time he gets his face publicly spat on, or the GM who signed Burnett to the five-year, $82.5 million deal and now admonishes fans to "smoke the objective pipe" and see A.J. through pinstriped glasses.

I completely agree. Enough is enough. Burnett needs to be taken out of the rotation. Now. How can there be any justification for keeping him in, when Phil Hughes is pitching his heart out these days -- and acting a heck of a lot mature, to boot.

As for Burnett, that boy ain't right. And somebody needs to be a grownup in Yankeeland and hold him accountable until he gets right.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

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!

* * *

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?

Why I Find the "Overrated Baseball Players" List Amusing

There was a whole to-do yesterday over four Yankees being named to Sports Illustrated's poll of the Most Overrated MLB players, with Alex Rodriguez, Joba Chamberlain, and Derek Jeter taking the top three spots, and Nick Swisher tying Jayson Werth and Jonathan Papelbon for fourth place.

And for once, A-Rod, the "winner" of the contest voted on by his peers, outdid Derek Jeter, No. 3 on the list, when it came to handling negative attention with a smile and a laugh. For that matter, Joba Chamberlain, who came in second, said all the right things, too. Jeter, not so much.

Here's the scoop. Erik Boland of Newsday describes the scene in the clubhouse yesterday, with Joba, who "won" the title last year, teasing A-Rod about it:

"I lost," Chamberlain proclaimed for the rest of the clubhouse to hear. "I got beat out. No. 2, though...I guess I passed the torch on to Alex."


Upon seeing Rodriguez enter the clubhouse, Chamberlain, surrounded by reporters, yelled at the third baseman.


"You’re next Al, you’re next!"

Here's how A-Rod reacted:

Rodriguez smiled for almost the entirety of the time he spent talking about the anonymous poll.


"I’ve been on this list before," A-Rod said before pausing and taking note of 3/5 of the list comprising Yankees. "So it’s three Yankees? So I’ll see you guys next summer again."


Rodriguez also poked fun at his past reasons for making headlines.


Players vote?


"I’m sure I’ll be on it next summer so I’ll try to come up with some better material for you guys," he said.   "But, I will say this. If this is the only thing we’re talking about, fellas, we’re doing good."

 Here was Jeter's reaction, which wasn't quite so jovial:

Jeter was not close to being amused.


"We're doing this again?" he said. "I have no comment on anonymous polls. I've never understood those anonymous polls."


He added: "It's the same thing they do every year, right? I'm focused on more positive things. How about that? There's your quote."


Discussing his chase of 3,000 hits later on, Jeter amended that.


"Consistency is underrated," he said, putting emphasis on "underrated." "That's the quote."

Jeter usually has the right thing to say, as in saying nothing while saying something, but I thought he came off as really cranky here. This poll, voted on by 185 MLB players, is the quintessential example of the "you're just jealous" sentiment. Yankees win every year (Jeter was just as perturbed when he "won" the honor a few years back), because players are jealous of the attention and money they get.

Jayson Werth is on the list this year because he's making a ton of money with the Washington Nationals, and others are envious of his money. Nick Swisher is on the list because of his fame, endorsements, and probably jealousy about his TV-star wife. I would like to think that Jonathan Papelbon is on the list for being annoying, but his inclusion is most likely about jealousy, too. Any player who is on this list ought to consider it a badge of honor, quite frankly. A-Rod and Chamberlain took it in that spirit, while Jeter was peeved.

At any rate, Jeter's talk of his "consistency" is no longer applicable to his career, unless you consider consistently hitting .257 over the past year, with just seven homers, as a good thing. From the start of his career, until May 31, 2010, he put up the following stats:

.317 BA .387 OBP .458 Slug .845 OPS

Here are his stats from June 1, 2010 through yesterday:

.257 BA .333 OBP .336 Slug .670 OPS

Yikes!

In Defense of Ian O'Connor's Derek Jeter Book

Yes, I'm going there. After many months of criticizing ESPN New York columnist Ian O'Connor for his writing a half-dozen fawning articles about Derek Jeter this winter without disclosing that he was writing a book that promised "unique access" to the Yankee captain, I actually feel compelled to defend O'Connor on a couple of things that I think he's being unfairly criticized for.

First off, there's the curious case of Jeter going up to New York Post writer George King the morning after the Post published a front-page story about the book. That article discussed how The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter revealed how Jeter's dislike of teammate Alex Rodriguez put A-Rod in the Yankee "snubhouse" (The Post's term, not O'Connor's!)

In a followup piece by King entitled "Jeter: It's not my book," Jeter didn't confirm or deny any of the tidbits. But he told King:

"Make sure everyone knows it's not mine," Jeter said. "I had nothing to do with that book."

Well, nobody had suggested that Jeter had actually authored the tome himself. But if he really had "nothing to do with that book," a book that has been promoted of giving "unique access" to Jeter, then why is he quoted talking to O'Connor in the book, according to an ESPN New York article about the tome? And why would Newsday columnist Ken Davidoff, who witnessed the King-Jeter conversation, write that "Jeter was aware [the book] was being written and agreed to be interviewed for it"?

Not to mention the fact that O'Connor did over 200 interviews for the book, many of whom were people in the Jeter camp. Did Jeter have control over everything written in O'Connor's book? Doubtful. But he did agree to be interviewed for it, and many of the people close to him were also interviewed for it. To say that he had "nothing to do with" the book is pretty disingenuous.

The second thing I will defend O'Connor on, albeit in a backhanded way, is the notion that he was somehow out to get Jeter. I've even heard him compared to Selena Roberts. Really? Roberts wrote nasty column after nasty column about A-Rod before writing an entire bile-filled book on him. O'Connor is just the opposite. In a town where burnishing the Jeter legend is par for the course with New York columnists, O'Connor is in a class by himself. Remember these moments, all written without any mention of the upcoming book?

* October 24, 2010:  In an article entitled, "Expect Yankees to splash cash on Jeter," O' Connor said, "I believe a fair deal would be for four years at $23 million per."

* October 28, 2010:  O'Connor writes a bizarre column tying in Joe Girardi's job fortune to Jeter's, saying that Girardi should get a warning with his next contract saying, "Change, or we'll hire someone else to bench The Captain."

*November 21, 2010: O'Connor interviews Jeter's personal trainer Jason Riley for a column. Ian managed to keep a straight face when Riley said "I think it's very realistic" for Jeter to play through 2017, and when Riley said, "The desire to be the greatest can never be turned down by Father Time."

O'Connor also uncritically ran this other Riley comment (basically, most of the article is an infomercial for Jeter and his trainer): "You can't put an age on the heart of an athlete, and Derek's got one of the purest hearts in sports," Riley said. "He's not going to allow himself to have another down year, if he even considers 2010 a down year. His internal drive separates him from others. I've worked with very few people who go after the game like he does." The piece ends with O'Connor saying, "If the trainer is right, this next contract Jeter signs won't be his last." Oy.

* December 5, 2010: Regarding the Yankees coming to terms with Jeter on a new contract, O'Connor wrote, "The Yankees could have offered Jeter minimum wage, free parking and cab fare to and from the ballpark, and he would have found a way to accept it."

* March 26, 2011:  "For now, Jeter is still Jeter, a future Hall of Famer who just needed some extra face time with the hitting coach, Kevin Long. With the contract done and the footwork adjusted, the smart money says the captain will make something of a comeback this year."


There's also O'Connor writing for the Bergen Record in spring 2009 that the Yankees would be a better team without A-Rod, and that the team should just release him. So it's not like O'Connor is a Team A-Rod writer.


I haven't gotten to read O'Connor's book yet, but I just find it hard to believe that O'Connor did a hatchet job on the captain. Go to Houghton Mifflin's web site and read the book description, and an excerpt from Chapter One, and see what I mean. Heck, the book starts with this line, "Like all good stories about a prince, this one starts in a castle." Does that sound like an author with an agenda to get Jeter? I don't think so. Just because O'Connor has written that Jeter isn't always perfect doesn't make this a smear.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Is It Time to Get Phil Hughes to a Doctor?

I am Officially Concerned about Phil Hughes. Because it's not just that he's had two bad starts, it's two bad starts and a very disappointing second half of 2010. Yes, yes, I know he won 18 games last year, but didn't , yesterday was an example of how it's silly to judge a player on that? John Lackey got the win, and Bartolo Colon the loss. Never mind that Colon was terrific, limiting the Sox to just two hits and one run over 4+ innings. And don't get me started on Boome Logan, the lefty specialist who can't seem to get lefties out so far this year.

It seems to me that a medical exam is in order for Hughes, given that his fastball has lost his speed. But the Yankees insist Hughes doesn't need that. I really don't see what the harm is in getting him checked out. It's not like when George Steinbrenner humiliated Reggie Jackson towards the end of his time in New York by making him get his eyes checked. I feel terrible for Hughes -- he looked upset on the mound, and sounded devastated after the game. It reminds me of when Chien-Ming Wang couldn't get it together a few years ago.

* * *

I really wish the Yankees had been at least been able to hold off the Sox for one more game, just to ruin Boston's home opener. Alas, it was not to be.

It's funny, though, how the game was mostly overshadowed by the news that Manny Ramirez was retiring due to failing another PED test. Manny was one the greatest hitters I've ever seen. Watching him was like watching The Rock back in the day in pro wrestling. You either loved him, or loved to hate him, but either way, he was so entertaining, you couldn't not watch him! The most electrifying men in sports entertainment!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Getting Ready for the Yankees-Red Sox Series

I am very happy that the Red Sox have started their season 0-6. I love the smell of panic in the morning. It smells like victory!

However, the Yankees can't let the Sox win the series. Heck, even one win will be celebrated in Red Sox Nation like they won the World Series.

I like my Red Sox fan friends, and appreciate their reading Subway Squawkers. But I want them to be the ones wailing and gnashing their teeth after this series, and not me!

Squawker Jon said the Sox just called up Alfredo Aceves. It figures.

* * *

Longtime Squawker reader Uncle Mike has weighed in with his tips for Yankee fans visiting Boston. Check out his blog to read them. Warning -- Uncle Mike actually writes outrageous things like "most Sox fans are intelligent, and love the game as well as their own team." Shocking, I know!

Do you have any predictions for the series? I was on deadline for something, so I didn't have time to write my own!

Jon Heyman Criticizes Nick Swisher Over Slide, Tweet

It was great to see the Good A.J. Burnett pitch for the Yankees yesterday -- he's now 2-0. There was one sad thing in the win, though. Nick Swisher's slide into Minnesota Twins second baseman Tsuyoshi Nishioka (you can see the video here.) ended up knocking the player out of the game -- and breaking his leg. It seemed like a clean slide to me, and the Twins agreed. But it's a tough blow for the Japanese-born player in his first week of MLB.

Anyhow, Swisher did all the right things, as the Minneapolis Star-Tribune notes:

Swisher visited Nishioka in the X-ray room.

"The first thing I said was, 'I'm sorry, man. I thought you were going to jump,' " Swisher said. "And he said, 'It was my fault. I should have gotten out of the way.' I was just trying to break up a double play. I didn't mean to do that. Especially with a guy like that, just trying to make his mark over here."

Nishioka said he appreciated Swisher's apology but didn't feel it was necessary.

Added Gardenhire: "[Nishioka] just got caught a little flat-footed. Swisher's a clean player. That's just a good baseball slide, trying to break up a double play. There's no intent there."

The article also notes that Nishioka even apologized to Gardenhire for the play!

It looks like there's no bad blood between the Twins and Yankees over this, and best wishes to Nishioka on a full and speedy recovery. But there is at least one sportswriter who took issue with Swisher -- Jon Heyman of SI.com. On Heyman's Twitter account, he first wrote:

I'm sure all the yankee honks will come after me, but I didn't love that swisher slide. Too late. Best wishes to nishioka

Then he wrote this, retweeting a Swisher tweet after the game:

wheres the remorse? remember nishi? RT @nickswisher Great series win for the Bombers today ... Off to Boston baby!

I like Heyman -- he's emailed me replies when I've written to him, and tweeted back several times. He talks to fans a lot, and is accountable, which is good. And I do like his writing, and I enjoy hearing him on the radio.

All that being said, I think he is way off base here. He has a right to his opinion on the slide, but to gripe about Swisher not showing remorse is a bit much. (Heyman later acknowledged the possibility that it might not have been Swisher himself writing the tweet. But he still thought the post was wrong.)

Are journalists going to start demonizing players not just for not talking for them, but not showing what they deem to be sufficient remorse on their Twitter accounts? Good grief.

And, as I wrote Heyman on Twitter last night, plenty of journalists in newsrooms make black-comedy jokes about tragedies that are much worse than what Swisher did. When I first visited a newsroom in college (my professor was a TV weatherman who gave us a tour during a broadcast) he warned us that we might hear some offensive jokes, because that was the way journalists sometimes coped with horrible stories -- by cracking wise. And Swisher didn't even do that -- he just posted an innocuous tweet about winning the series and getting ready for the Red Sox.

It's a touchy thing when something bad happens. When my father died, I laughed at something somebody said during the wake, and was also delighted to see an unexpected face. Would somebody view that as not sufficiently mourning?

I suppose Swisher could have specifically tweeted his apology. But really, it makes no difference -- he apologized in person, which is the important thing. Whether or not he referred to it on Twitter is irrelevant to me.

At any rate, I don't want Swisher dwelling about what happened, if it constrains him as a player. What if, the next time he is supposed to slide, he is unable to do, because he's afraid of inadvertently hurting another player?

There are a lot of dopey things athletes do on Twitter. What Nick Swisher did wasn't one of them.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Opening Day, Allen Iverson, Practice, and Predictions

Finally! With Yankees Opening Day happening in just a few minutes, we're finally going to see real baseball. I must confess that I don't really get excited over watching spring training games. I don't think I watched more than a small amount of them this year. We're talking about practice, as Allen Iverson would say:



Anyhow, I guess I should do some predictions for the Yankees season. I'm not going to do like everybody else does, though, this year, with predicting standings, number of games won, etc. I will predict the following things, in a more quirky style:

* An angry Derek Jeter will be, um, "Driven" to have a great year, and prove the naysayers who think his best days are behind him wrong.

* Ian O'Connor will write at least three more stories about Jeter without mentioning his book about him. Then, when "The Captain" book comes out, ESPN New York will run an excerpt of the book!

* There will be at least four fallacious A-Rod/Cameron Diaz stories in the media. I will feel compelled to debunk at least two of them.

* Joba Chamberlain will be a nonfactor, and will get traded by July.

* As usual, A.J. Burnett will cause all sorts of mixed emotions in Yankeeland. Hoping it's more positive than negative!

I will probably come up with some more, but the game's about to start!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Stunner: Subway Squawkers Snubbed Again for Award

Given that this month marks the fifth anniversary of Subway Squawkers, I was hoping this would finally be the year we'd get recognized with some big ol' award. You know, like a Pulitzer, a MacArthur Genius Grant, something like that. No such luck so far. They announced this year's Peabody Awards today, and we were shut out again. This was my reaction:




On a happier note, while we might not be getting any awards, the Squawkers are featured in two different books. Jon and I are contributors to the Graphical Player 2011 book. And Jon's work is featured in the new Cambridge Companion to Baseball book. Jon and I will both be attending a signing event for the book tonight at Borders in Columbus Circle at 7 p.m. this evening. If you're in the city, and feel like stopping by to say hi, please do!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Curtis Granderson's Birthday -- And Brackets Challenge

Happy birthday to New York Yankees centerfielder Curtis Granderson, who turns 30 today. He got a Yankee Stadium replica birthday cake -- check out his Twitter page to see it.

Anyhow, Granderson is running a brackets contest for his foundation on his website. For a $10 donation to his Grand Kids Foundation, you can pick your college basketball brackets, and have the chance to win cool prizes, like autographed balls and bats and such.

I don't really do the whole bracket thing myself, but this deal makes me tempted! But sign up by tonight's deadline, if you want to compete.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Poll Finds That Derek Jeter, Not Babe Ruth, Is New York's Greatest Athlete Ever

Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player of all time. Some might say he was the greatest athlete of all time. But in a poll of New Yorkers, The Babe lost out to Derek Jeter (!) as New York's Greatest Athlete ever. Who voted in the poll -- Casey Close?

Here's the breakdown of the Top Ten Greatest New York Athletes ever, according to a Siena College Research Institute poll of 801 New York State residents:

Derek Jeter: 14%
Babe Ruth: 11%
Joe DiMaggio 4%
Mickey Mantle 4%
Joe Namath 4%
Patrick Ewing 3%
Carmelo Anthony 3%
Lou Gehrig 2%
Jakie (sic) Robinson (yes, that's the way the report spelled his name!): 2%
Jim Kelly 2%


What is wrong with these people? Did they find people who never watched a moment of sports in their lives? Actually, that's not that far off -- 41% of the people in the poll described themselves as not being sports fans! Why those 41% percent were asked a single question after that admission is beyond me.


Aside from the ridiculousness of Jeter winning this honor (by the way, he won the women's vote with 17%), how about Carmelo Anthony, who has been on the Knicks for less than a month, being No. 7? Outrageous, even if you add in 'Melo's Syracuse heroics. These are the most short-sighted and embarrassing poll results I've seen since Britons picked Princess Diana over Winston Churchill for that country's Person of the Century.

It gets worse on this New York poll. According to Siena's press release, "Among Yankee fans, Derek Jeter holds a commanding lead, 21 percent to Babe Ruth's 13 percent for New York's greatest athlete. Tied for third are DiMaggio and Mantle with Namath continuing in fifth."

I don't want to be the fan police here. But if you call yourself a Yankee fan, and you really think Jeter is a better player than Babe Flipping Ruth, I don't even know what to say to that. Sheesh. Our fan base prides themselves as being loyal and knowledgeable, but Jeter winning that poll is just plain sad.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Hank Steinbrenner Strikes Back at Derek Jeter and St. Jetersburg

Oh, snap. Hank Steinbrenner is at it again. He seemed to take a direct shot at Derek Jeter, who is building a Florida mansion the size of a Best Buy, in saying that some Yankees were "too busy building mansions" to concentrate on winning it all last year.

Here's the full Hank quote:

"I think, maybe, they celebrated too much last year," Steinbrenner said Monday. "Some of the players, too busy building mansions and doing other things and not concentrating on winning. I have no problem saying that."

I think Yammering Hank can forget an invite to St. Jeterburg's housewarming party!

Now, do I think the building of Jeter's new home was a distraction for him? Absolutely not -- it's not like he was at the property with a hardhat hammering nails or something.

However, I do think that the 2010 Yankees were a little complacent, especially evidenced by Joe Giradi lah-de-dahing the last few months into a Wild Card, when they should have won the division. You keep the pedal off the metal for too long, sometimes it's hard to get the engine going again.

And I do think Jeter should have asked for help from Kevin Long months before. Instead, he spent literally half the season in the hitting doldrums before finally approaching the hitting coach in mid-September. Was that complacency or pride? Maybe a little of both. But I have been predicting a big 2011 for Jeter, with the Angry Jeter taking over.

That wasn't all Hank said today -- he compared revenue sharing and luxury tax money to socialism and communism!

"We've got to do a little something about that, and I know Bud wants to correct it in some way," Steinbrenner said. "Obviously, we're very much allies with the Red Sox and the Mets, the Dodgers, the Cubs, whoever in that area."

"At some point, if you don't want to worry about teams in minor markets, don't put teams in minor markets, or don't leave teams in minor markets if they're truly minor," Steinbrenner said. "Socialism, communism, whatever you want to call it, is never the answer."

The funniest part of this wasn't him getting all Milton Friedman here. No, the thing that made me chortle was comparing the Yanks as being the same boat as the Mets! Heh.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

So What to Do About Joba Chamberlain?

There's been a whole to-do this week about the Yankees and weight. First, CC Sabathia said he lost 25 pounds after he dropped his habit of devouring full boxes of Cap'n Crunch cereal (hey, maybe that's what the CC stands for in his name!) Now Joba Chamberlain admits to packing on a few pounds, but claims it's all muscle. Right.

I'm of two minds about Joba. On the one hand, I think the Yankees did him a tremendous disservice with moving him from the bullpen to the starting rotation and back. And I think it was ridiculous for Brian Cashman to characterize anybody who disagreed with the Yankees' strategy as "stupid."

However, there's also some real questions, I think, about Chamberlain's work ethic. And showing up to spring training packing on a few extra pounds doesn't help. If you're working in a cubicle farm, it doesn't matter how much you weigh. But if you're a professional athlete struggling to keep his job, you might want to take a cue from your veteran teammates and show up in shape. Or at least pitch well enough so that your weight isn't an issue.

When I slammed the Yankees last month for the way they handled Joba, I got a lot of responses from Yankee fans who were angry at Chamberlain for his work ethic, for him not being in shape, etc. and who felt that he was the only one to blame for his predicament.

On the other hand, it seems like the Yanks have let him get away with that for a long time; it's interesting that only now Cashman mentions using the minor league options with Joba when he flat-out last year said they wouldn't do it.

Wally Matthews made a point I have wondered about myself when he wrote:

Fans ask me all the time if the Yankees know something about Joba Chamberlain that the rest of us don't, some unflattering bit of information that makes them continue to treat him as if he is fragile, or unstable, or in some way unreliable.

Clearly, they know the Joba Chamberlain who chose to reveal himself on Wednesday: the 25-year-old who already knows so much about pitching he no longer needs to bother with the little things anymore.

Like getting in shape.

I don't expect to hear the inside story, if there is one, anytime soon, though. Heck, I'm still waiting to hear how A.J. Burnett got that black eye!

What do you think? Tell us about it!