Glavine And Thomas Call It A Career

Good morning Fackers. While we wait for Johnny Damon and Chien-Ming Wang to officially become former Yankees, two of my favorite non-Yankees of the past twenty years officially became former Major Leaguers over the past two days.

Despite not having played at the Major League level since 2008, neither Frank Thomas nor Tom Glavine had officially announced their retirement. That changed Thursday, as Glavine took an advisory job with the Braves, patching up whatever differences he had with the organization after they callously cut him during his rehab last year.

Later on Thursday, word broke that Frank Thomas, who last played with the A's in 2008, was calling it a career. The Big Hurt confirmed that at a Chicago press conference Friday morning, where the White Sox announced they would retire his number 35, a nice step following his acrimonious departure from the organization after the 2005 season and subsequent pissing match with GM Ken Williams.

Both Glavine and Thomas were excellent all-around athletes. Glavine's fondness for golf has been well documented and for a pitcher, he had some pretty good years with the bat, earning four Silver Slugger awards. He was also a very good hockey player, selected by the Los Angeles Kings in the fourth round of the 1984 NHL Draft, ahead of eventual Hall of Famers Luc Robtaille and Brett Hull.

Thomas, like Bo Jackson before him, was a two sport athlete at Auburn, doubling as a tight end on the Tigers football team before an injury derailed his football career. I, like Aaron Gleeman at Hardball Talk, and Joe Pawlikowski at RAB, was a fan of the Big Hurt despite him not playing for our favorite team. Joe went so far as to imagine what it would have been like had Thomas come up with the Yankees instead. Unfortunately, the closest we ever got to that was his turn as the unnamed rookie in Mr. Baseball, whose emergence prompted the Yankees to ship aging Jack Elliot off to the Land of the Rising Sun.

Both Glavine and Thomas were active off the field as well. Glavine has long been an important and involved member of the Players Association and was one of their central figures in the '94 strike. Thomas was perhaps the most outspoken player when it came to the issues of performance enhancing drugs in baseball, was one of the few witnesses not to embarrass himself at the 2005 Congressional Hearings, and was the only active player to willing cooperate with the Mitchell Report investigation.

But above all, what both will be remembered for is being one of the premier pitchers and premier hitters of the 1990s. Both should be part of what promises to be an outstanding 2014 Hall of Fame class.

Bias? What Bias?

It is with trepidation that I even wade into the cesspool that is the steroids debate, but Jack Cust opened his mouth, and the Yankees are currently playing Oakland, and I don't really have anything else I want to write about right now, so here goes....

For some unknown reason, Cust gave an interview with the AP yesterday, in which he touched upon his name being in the Mitchell Report and railed against the entire investigation, claiming it was biased due to George Mitchell's presence on the Red Sox Board of Directors:

With all the other stuff going on, with a lot of the guys coming out recently — big-name guys — to me it's kind of funny they spent all that money on the Mitchell Report and a bunch of hearsay and the guy who made all the money off it happened to work for the Red Sox. Were there any Red Sox on the report? To me, that's kind of a joke. How does that happen? It's coming out now with guys on that team. The guy worked for the Red Sox — they spent all kinds of millions of dollars — and then no one there had their name brought up.

That's not entirely accurate. Off the top of my head, two players were named in the report for events that took place during their tenure with the Sox: Paxton Crawford and Manny Alexander. Not exactly world beaters there, but it's a start.

I'm not sure where to begin this. First, the report was an absolute mess from the word "go", and will likely stand as the biggest in a series of blunders that has marked Bud Selig's now seventeen year tenure as Commissioner. While an investigation into steroid use in the sport was likely warranted, Bud jumped on that train about fifteen years too late, closing the barn door long after the entire stable of horses had run out. Choosing a principal investigator with a potential conflict of interest was a poor decision*. Sending him out to lead a multi-year, multi-million dollar investigation without any sort of subpoena power or any ability to grant immunity was a poorer one.
*As was naming an owner to serve as "acting" commissioner for six years, then letting him keep the job for an additional eleven and counting...

Without any ability to force people to talk to him, Mitchell was grasping at straws from the start. Exactly two active Major Leaguers spoke with him: Frank Thomas, of his own volition, and Jason Giambi who had the option of either cooperating or being suspended after he committed the cardinal sin of stating that baseball as a whole was wrong in the way they handled performance enhancing drugs.

Without player cooperation, nearly the entire Mitchell Report was based on the testimony of stool pigeons Kurt Radomski and Brian McNamee, who were forced to cooperate as part of federal plea deals. Radomski was a longtime clubbie with the Mets, McNamee a former strength and conditioning coach with the Yankees. Around which city and which teams do you think the majority of the report would focus?

While I do find it curious that there is a general lack of players from Mitchell's organization appearing in the report, I'd imagine that's more a result of the investigation being toothless than it is a function of any bias. If anything, the recent revelations of positive tests from both Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz (illegally leaked by employees of our federal government by the way, who in turn possess that information via a direct violation of labor law) should illustrate that no team, no clubhouse, not the Red Sox, not the Yankees, not anyone, was immune from this garbage.

As for Cust, I can understand his frustration with carrying the scarlett letter of being named in the Mitchell Report. His inclusion was tenuous at best, hearsay at worst. On a daily basis, Cust is likely surrounded by both teammates and opponents who did things as bad, if not worse, and haven't been outed.

That said, Cust was given every opportunity to respond to Mitchell, and like all card carrying MLBPA memebers, he refused to do so. From a legal perspective, I can understand that position. But if Cust, or any other of the accused, punts on his opportunity to clear his name, he loses much of his right to complain about it. And that see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil mentality is exactly how the MLB and MLBPA found themselves in this mess in the first place.

Phillips Off To The Land Of The Rising Sun

No, unfortunately it's not Steve Phillips.

Former Yankee Andy Phillips has signed a deal with the Hiroshima Carp of Japan's Central League. Phillips homered in his first Major League at bat and hit .253/.294/.384 over parts of four seasons with the Yanks. He spent time with the Mets and Reds last year and had been in AAA with both the White Sox and Pirates this year.

Phillips becomes the third former member of the Yankees organization to head to the Far East in the past year. Darrell Rasner was sold to the Rakuten Golden Eagles last November, and Scranton outfielder Todd Linden was sold to the same team two weeks ago.

With Hideki Matsui's knees shot and contract expiring at the end of the year, there were rumors last week that he may return to Japan next season to play for the Hanshin Tigers. If so, Matsui would be the biggest Yankee slugger to move to the Japanese Leagues since Jack Elliot in 1992.


And yes, that is Frank Thomas in a Yankee uniform.