Keep On Trucks-ing

As Alex Belth pointed out this morning, you can feel baseball getting closer. The air is starting to smell like spring just a little bit. I don't need to turn on my headlights on my drive home from work at the end of the day. Daylight Savings Time begins twelve days from now; the Spring Equinox comes six days later. Spring Training games start tomorrow.

Elsewhere in the world, the other rites of spring are taking place. The NHL trade deadline is tomorrow. NCAA Conference Tournaments begin over the next week and March Madness will soon follow.

For me, another rite of spring is the Allman Brothers Band's annual NYC residency. As we detailed last June, the ABB is vacating the Beacon Theater this year and heading waaaaay uptown to the United Palace Theatre for thirteen shows beginning March 11th.

Derek Trucks will be part of it, as he has been since joining the band at twenty years old following the 1999 Beacon run. We've talked about Derek quite often here, including detailing his family ties to former Tigers, Browns, White Sox, and A's pitcher, as well as the oldest living former Yankee, Virgil Trucks.

At MLB.com Saturday, Peter Gammons took an extended look at Virgil's career, in a great column that details how Derek's baseball fandom spurred him to seek out the relative he had never met:

Virgil Trucks had just turned 91 two years ago when this boyish kid who looked as if he were 20 showed up at his door. The kid introduced himself as Derek Trucks, Virgil's nephew's son, and they spent the day tying together the frayed generations of Trucks, of baseball stories Derek loved hearing, and music that Virgil says he didn't fully understand.

For years, Derek had Virgil "Fire" Trucks' baseball card on the back of his guitar, with the Allman Brothers or The Derek Trucks Band, with his wife Susan Tedeschi, playing lead on the Eric Clapton tour, backing Buddy Guy. That he told Virgil, and that Derek's uncle Butch, who has been the Allman's drummer since they formed in 1969, has often had another baseball card on his drums. "I haven't listened to the Allman Brothers too much," says Virgil. "They don't play them much on the Birmingham station."

When Virgil was told that Derek has a 1952 Tiger uniform with Virgil's 23 hanging in a trophy case, he said, "maybe I should start listening to the Allmans a little more."

For the Gammons haters out there - and you know I'm not one of them - you can take solace in the fact that Peter incorrectly claims Derek is Virgil's great-nephew. As we posted here in December, with thanks to Derek's cousin Vaylor, Virgil is the first cousin of Derek's grandfather, making them third cousins twice removed. That's the type of hard-hitting analysis you Fackers get here, something a Ford Frick Award winner can't bring you.

That notwithstanding, it's a great column. Head over and give it read. Just be sure to ignore the part about how the family of Derek's wife Susan Tedeschi are long-time Red Sox season ticket holders, or how they're taking their eight year old son to Red Sox camp this week. Hey - nobody's perfect.
As Jay detailed after we attended the Derek Trucks Band's concert at The Egg in December, the dTb is now on an extended hiatus. Derek and Susan are forming a new band, which at present appears to feature a rotating cast of musicians. They have dates scheduled through the spring and into summer, including stops as part of outstanding line ups at the Wanee Music Festival in Florida and the Mountain Jam in Hunter, NY.

Rays To Connecticut? Not A Chance

Good morning Fackers. As I've mentioned here a few times before, I'm a Connecticut guy, born and bred. The sporting landscape here in Connecticut is an odd one. The entirety of the state is within two hours of either New York or Boston; much of the state is virtually equidistant from the two cities. As such, there's this weird sort of sporting identity here in the Nutmeg State. Baseball fans are every bit as passionate as they are in New York or Boston, but things are far less homogeneous. The state is pretty well divided between Yankee and Red Sox fans, with a small and unfortunate minority pledging their allegiance to the Mets.

But it's slim pickings when comes to teams to call our own. We temporarily hosted the Giants while Yankee Stadium was being renovated and Giants Stadium was being built. The NHL's Hartford Whalers skipped town in April of 1997. The following year the state struck a deal to build a new stadium for the New England Patriots, only to see Robert Kraft use it as leverage to secure a new stadium in Foxboro. We've hosted AA teams for both the Yankees and Red Sox. Currently the state is home to two AHL minor league hockey franchises in Bridgeport and Hartford, and independent Atlantic League ballclub in Bridgeport, the Twins' AA affiliate in New Britain, and as of yesterday, the Tigers' short-season A club in Norwich. None of those squads register much in the consciousness of the locals, who by and large spend their summers following the Yanks, Sox, or Mets, and their winters obsessing over both the men's and women's UConn basketball teams.

All of which is my long-winded way of saying that the unique sporting culture of the state is its lack of an identity to call its own. As much as it galls many of the locals, when it comes to professional sports Connecticut is nothing more than a suburb to the two neighboring metropolises. And there's nothing wrong with that; it's just the way it is. The population of the entire state is just 3.5 million, one million less than the Boston metropolitan area, and less than one fifth the size of the New York City metropolitan area. There is neither the city, nor the people to support a major sports franchise, particularly one located so closely to three of the biggest teams in the game.

So it was with great surprise yesterday that I saw an article from NESN, riffing on a piece from Peter Gammons, speculating that if the Tampa Bay Rays should fail to secure a new stadium, southern Connecticut could be a potential landing spot. We're a few weeks into the dead period of the baseball off season, so it's getting to be slim pickings for news. As such, stories like this will inevitably crop up. And really, this is just an extension of the hypothetical pondering last month of whether New York could support a third team.

But, since this is a slow time of year and since it involves my home state, I'm going to put on my debunking cap and pick this one apart. Here's a look at the cities in southern Connecticut, starting in the east and heading west, and here's why they can't support a Major League team:

• Norwich / New London: The least likely of any southern Connecticut city to host a team. This is one of the most sparsely populated areas of the state; there simply aren't enough people here to support a team, and one certainly wouldn't be enough to draw Red Sox fans from nearby Rhode Island. The Yankees had their AA club in Norwich from 1995 through 2002, before switching affiliations to Trenton in order to have the squad closer to the parent club. Norwich picked up the Giants' AA squad, which left town after last season. Just yesterday the city announced that the Tigers' NY-Penn League club would move from Oneonta for the 2009 season (interestingly enough the Yankees had their NY-Penn club in Oneonta from 1967 until the creation of the Staten Island Yankees in 1999). On the plus side, these cities are located close to the two gigantic casinos in the state, so if Pete Rose is ever reinstated this would be a good spot for him to revive his managerial career.

• New Haven: Another failed minor league city, the last 35 years have seen the New York Giants, two different AHL clubs, a AA Eastern League club, and an independent Can-Am League club leave town. Location wise, the Elm City may be the best location for a club. Centrally located at the junction of Interstates 91 and 95, New Haven is relatively accessible from the state's most populous areas of metro Hartford and Fairfield County.

• Bridgeport: The state's biggest city, Bridgeport has the state's most up to date sports venues in the Arena at Harbor Yard and the Ballpark at Harbor Yard, home to the AHL's Sound Tigers and the Atlantic League's Bluefish respectively. The Ballpark was the site of Jose Offerman's first on field assault. It's also just down the road from Shelton, home of Whiffle Ball. On the negative side, Bridgeport is located in metro NYC, placing it firmly in the Mets' and Yankees' territory. It's not easily accessible from metro Hartford, and it would be an extremely tough sell to get one of the state's poorest cities to build a Major League ballpark a mere decade after the construction of the Habor Yard complex.

• Stamford: The most financially healthy city on the Connecticut shoreline, Stamford is located in the heart of affluent Fairfield County and is home to several financial firms and the YES Network's studios. Unlike the other cities on the list, its best days are not behind it, and there is enough business and industry present to have something resembling a bustling downtown. On the negative side, Stamford is a stone's throw from NYC, making it an unrealistic possibility. Besides, it couldn't even support a Dunder Mifflin branch; how could it support a Major League franchise?

Even if something could be worked out to convince the Yankees, Mets, and/or Red Sox to relinquish territorial rights - an unlikely scenario - there just isn't a city or the people to support in team in southern Connecticut or anywhere else in the state. Even if there were, a Connecticut club would be facing an uphill battle. Part of the reason the Whalers failed was that too many Connecticut hockey fans were loyal to the Rangers or Bruins. That problem would be infinitely greater for a baseball team, as the loyalties to the Yankees, Red Sox, and even the Mets are stronger and have been forged over generations. The Rays, or any other team, would have very little chance of succeeding here. And in the end, I'm sure the Rays will get their new stadium in either Tampa, St. Petersburg, or Orlando.

Don't Worry About The Yanks, Ron

Good morning, Fackers. Whether the gap between the highest and lowest grossing teams in baseball is widening, narrowing or staying the say depends largely on where you stand. To wit, here is Ron Gardnehire talking about his Twins in relation to the Yankees:

"When you look at the Yankees, their lineup stretches seven and eight-deep of all-stars," said Gardenhire, who was speaking at the Quality Inn in Winona on Tuesday as part of the Twins' annual Winter Caravan. "We're getting closer to that now. You look at our lineup, and we're almost to the point now where we've got six or seven guys that are all-star-caliber people."

Last year, Minnesota had 5 players who got more than 350 plate appearances and had an OPS+ of 91 or lower. The Yankees, on the other hand, had 9 players with over 430 plate appearances and Melky Cabrera was the least potent, with a 99 OPS+. The Twins brought in shortstop J.J. Hardy (career OPS+ 95), but I don't think many would consider him "all-star-caliber" although he did sneak onto the NL roster in 2007.

How about pitching? The Yankees team ERA was a quarter of a run lower than the Twins' last year, and the Yanks also picked up Javier Vazquez, who would probably compete with Nick Blackburn for the top spot in Minnesota's rotation.

I know Gardenhire is in the business of being optimistic about his team, but it's pretty clear that the Yankees were a whole lot better than the Twins last year and the gap, if anything, is widening. The Yankees have just as many resources as they've always had and Brain Cashman has been deploying them awfully efficiently as of late.

Peter Gammons notes this fact in an article on MLB.com this morning when he says "general manager Brian Cashman has turned his club into an efficient organizational model that has depth running through the system".

Rob Neyer, riffing off that article from Gammons talks about "the plight of small market franchises" and explains that there aren't enough good markets to house all 30 MLB teams. But Minneapolis is one of those good markets. It has 3.5 million people - making it the 13th largest media market in the country - and they are moving into a new ballpark next year.

The important thing to note is that the Twins don't have the same problem that the Rays, Orioles or Blue Jays do. They don't need to close to gap between them and the Yankees. They play in a division that has 4 small to moderate payroll teams and one current big spender that's in the process of coming back down to earth (Detroit). They haven't had much success in the playoffs despite winning their division 5 times in the past 8 years, but that has more to do with luck that the disparity between them and the Yanks.

With Target Field set to open this April and the walleye-on-a-stick scheduled to hit the fry-o-lators shortly thereafter, the Twins are primed to continue their dominance of the AL Central. The new revenue will certainly help them compete with the likes of the Tigers, White Sox and the Indians, but they are going to have to put a huge chunk of that money into action if they are going to get discernibly "closer" to the Yankees. Locking up Joe Mauer long term would certainly be a good start.

I Know That Face: McGwire, A-Rod and Posnanski

I didn't really want to talk about this subject, but for some odd reason, I've been thinking a lot about Mark McGwire over the past two days. The reason of course is obvious, but it's odd because I've never really cared much about McGwire before Monday. When you say "baseball" and "1998" the first thing that comes to mind is the unstoppable version of the Yankees that won 114 games and the World Series. I never really cared that Big Mac took steroids, but I still consider the single season home run record to be 61 (although Maris' 1961 campaign obviously comes with its own set of caveats). Basically, I was fairly indifferent about the guy and still am about steroid use in general.

But then I read the part of his statement where he said "wished he never played during the steroid era" and quickly realized this wasn't going to be an actual apology. Then I watched the interview with Bob Costas on Monday night and listened to McGwire refuse to acknowledge that there might be some connection between him taking steroids and hitting lots of home runs and I grew more disenchanted. My first mistake was expecting a real apology in the first place. My second mistake was watching the interview.

At that point I was ensnared in the story. I read reaction after reaction yesterday, some echoing the disapproval Tom Verducci and Ken Rosenthal showed on the MLB Network after the interview and some questioning why McGwire's apology wasn't good enough for us. Even those who claimed not to care were adamant in their apathy.

While no one was particularly surprised by McGwire's admission, the story still got huge and reached a point of ridiculous oversaturation. Basically everyone with a voice in the baseball media offered their opinion and there were responses to the interview and also retorts to those responses.

Well, here I am with a rebuttal to a retort to the responses. When you are a media bottom feeder like myself and you wait 36 hours to give your opinion on a story like this, all that's left is the backwash of the backlash. So here goes nothing...

If you don't read Joe Posnanski's blog, you are truly missing out. If there was a sports writers draft tomorrow, he would be snatched up with the first pick. He weaves together disparate topics with ease and makes seemingly uninteresting things worth reading about. His posts are long and nuanced and are meant to be read in full, but I'm going to blockquote him here (and take him out of context) to make a point.

From his reaction to the McGwire interview (or more accurately, his reaction to other's reactions):

I didn't agree with or even follow everything McGwire said, but I never thought that was the point. I never thought apologizing was an Olympic sport with stoned-faced people judging how straight his toes were pointed and if he made too big a splash. McGwire is not a public speaker. He's not a philosopher. He's not a politician. He is not even an especially open person. He is a guy who dedicated his life to hitting baseballs hard. Expecting him to become Hamlet doesn't seem fair.

This is a valid viewpoint. I happen to disagree, but two people can watch the same lengthy interview and come away with completely different perceptions of what just took place. There's a lot of wiggle room in 54 minutes of two-way conversation.

But look at Posnanski's reaction to A-Rod's interview with Peter Gammons last year:

I thought Alex Rodriguez’s ”apology“ was one of the most absurd shams of recent memory. I thought it was so pathetic that, for the first time, that ”A-Fraud“ moniker finally made some sense to me. As a baseball fan, I wasn’t mad at A-Rod when the steroid story broke. As a baseball fan, I was furious at A-Rod when he and his handlers put together this infomercial apology.

To me that sounds like Joe judging A-Rod's apology, something that "wasn't the point" when it was McGwire's turn in the hot seat. Again, there is a lot of room for interpretation and there are significant differences between the two situations and subsequent interviews (namely the interviewer), but it's hard to reconcile those two statements.

Both of these guys had handlers and given the attention that they were bound to garner by admitting to using steroids, they should have. The biggest difference was that McGwire's team had a month to orchestrate his PR offensive while A-Rod found out that he was going to have to face the music three days prior while he was running on a treadmill and confronted by Selena Roberts.

Poz goes on to suggest (about A-Rod):

That this is a PR campaign ordered up by a very rich man who got caught and the only goal was to admit as little as humanly possible and make excuses for the little he does admit.

McGwire didn't get caught, but the only reason that he's admitting this now is that he wants to be the hitting coach for the Cardinals and he knows he has to pay his pound of flesh to the media and get this out of the way now. But his PR campaign was far more calculated than A-Rod's was and similarly unbelievable.

If you're Mark McGwire, you don't pay the big bucks to a "crisis-communications company" to tell the whole truth. You hire them to conveniently confine your steroid usage to the smallest believable window, and claim you used them only to recover from injuries. You flatly deny Jose Canseco's account because he still doesn't have any real credibility despite the fact that most of the stuff he said was true. You say that you only used steroids in "very, very low dosage". You don't acknowledge that they might have made you a superhuman home run machine, because that would be cheating, you see? You just took them to get back to where you were. Heck, talk about the "backspin" you put on the ball and act like you unlocked some key to hitting. You're going to be a hitting coach after all!

When you hire a crisis-communications company, they feed you lines like "walking M*A*S*H unit" that you repeat over and over again. They find a way to spin your bungled appearance in front of congress in 2005 so it looks like it wasn't your fault. They make sure you don't incriminate your former coach and future boss by saying he had knowledge of your steroid use. They remind you to say that you "wish you never played in the steroid era". Because like A-Rod being naive and trying to live up to the expectations of a giant contract in Texas, you were a victim of circumstance - an injury-plagued slugger who just happened to play in the steroid era.

I don't like being lied to. I don't appreciate the fact that, not only does Mark McGwire think that he was a better home run hitter than Babe Ruth because of his "God-given ability", but that he is also smarter than everyone else and thinks he can pass off a partial admission because he hired a company to calculate exactly how much he had to admit.

The problem is that a story gets this big, and the mainstream media reaction becomes the villian. Everyone needs a take and no one wants to hear you repeat what Tom Verducci said 10 seconds after the interview concluded.

The one common thread between Posnanski's take on McGwire and A-Rod is that he says that he's shocked that he disagrees with everyone's else's reaction in both. I don't find that surprising at all. I think the best writers make a living on the opposite end of the spectrum (our pal Craig Calcaterra comes to mind). Not to say that they don't believe their own opinions, but the guys I most enjoy reading typically come down diametrically opposed to the majority reaction when a story like this breaks. They are good at finding something about conventional wisdom to disagree with and that makes their opinion interesting to read.

Well this time, I think the original consensus was right. I think McGwire's "admission" was, in many ways, just as bad as A-Rod's. I'm not willing to believe that he really took steroids just to get healthy and I think deep down he knows that they made him better.

If you grant that the truth lies between what Jose Canseco said and what McGwire did, well McGwire's lying because he said there was "absolutely no truth to that whatsoever". And what good is an apology if you're not going to tell the truth? Besides, I wasn't asking for an apology anyway. McGwire did this for himself. Which shouldn't be a surprise, because if he was doing it for everyone else, it would have happened years ago.

Best Of Luck Peter Gammons

As we mentioned very briefly yesterday, Peter Gammons has announced that after more than twenty years he's leaving ESPN at the conclusion of the Winter Meetings. Shortly after the initial announcement, the predictable news broke that Gammons will be joining both MLBN and NESN.

First off, I have great respect and admiration for Peter Gammons. Many Yankee fans loathe the man for what they perceive to be blatant pro-Red Sox bias. Frankly, I don't see it. I find it akin to the anti-Yankee bias many find with Joe Buck or other on the national stage. Are we that accustomed to John Sterling, Suzyn Waldman, and Michael Kay blowing sunshine up our ass that we can't stomach anything that's not definitively pro-Yankee?

Regardless, this isn't about other baseball journalists. I find Peter Gammons to be exceedingly genuine, and I think he's one of the best, if not the best ambassador the game has. Yes, I do find him to be somewhat Red Sox centric, but I don't consider it a bias, and I don't think it negatively impacts his work. Part of what appeals to me about Peter Gammons as a baseball analyst is that I find him to be genuine. That he's a fan of the game and someone who truly cares about baseball at large is evident in his work. Much of that is because in many ways Peter Gammons is still the kid he was growing up in Massachusetts as a big Red Sox fan. Even as a national baseball journalist, that's still part of who he is. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I'll take Gammons' slight bias as part of his character anyday - far better than the wooden delivery of Ken Rosenthal, the smarmy-ness of Jon Heyman, or even the smooth professionalism of guys like Tom Verducci and Buster Olney, who I actually like. Gammons is a fan who was fortunate enough to become one of the top journalists in the game. Isn't that what so many fans dream of doing?

Whatever your feelings on Gammons, this is a huge gain for MLBN. Let's face it, ESPN is becoming an absolute joke. It's about who's "now" or "next", or having an LA studio so Snoop or the Jonas Brothers can narrate the Top Ten each night. With Gammons gone now, Olney is the only baseball TV personality there I repsect. Most baseball fans have spent the past year raving about how good MLBN is, especially in comparison to ESPN and Baseball Tonight. This only further solidifies that position. ESPN is shifting more and more towards entertainment; MLBN is legitimate baseball analysis.

Yes MLBN has an advantage as a single sport network, and yes MLBN is not without their share of on-air morons, but I'll take MLBN over BBTN any day. In grabbing the likes of Costas, Verducci, even Rosenthal, and now Gammons, MLBN is truly making a mark for themselves.

Best of luck to Peter Gammons in his new endeavors. I certainly look forward to seeing him as part of the MLBN.

More Reaction To The Granderson Trade

As the opinions pour in on today's three team trade, the Diamondbacks are getting universally branded as the deal's big loser. Here's another opinion that's much the same.

In case you didn't hear earlier, longtime ESPN baseball analyst Peter Gammons will be leaving the network following the Winter Meetings (more on this later). As such, ESPN is already holding auditions for Gammons' replacement. First up is current ESPN NFL analyst Mark Schlereth. Fack Youk has received an exclusive transcript:

"Look. This is a BAD TRADE for the Arizona Diamondbacks. You DO NOT succeed in MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL without a bona fide left handed reliever in your bullpen. If I'm Josh Byrnes, I have to go out and GET MYSELF another LEFT HANDED relief specialist to replace MY SON Daniel Schlereth and his EIGHTEEN innings of relief work this year.

This kid is a BASEBALL PLAYER. And he throws STRAIGHT GAS. This kid goes out and BLOWS BATTERS AWAY. Look, the Diamondbacks finished LAST in the NATIONAL LEAGUE WEST last year, and they're not going to get any better by going out and trading young FIREBALLING FLAME THROWERS!

Schlereth is a hard hat, lunch pail kind of guy who is gonna go out and PUNCH BATTERS IN THE MOUTH when THE GAME IS ON THE LINE!"

Thanks Mark; we appreciate your insight. Don't quit your day job.

Speaking of day jobs I've been absolutely inundated at the office today. And it's hard to get any work done when Google Reader is handing 15 new "rumors" every five minutes. I'll be back later tonight with more thoughts on the Granderson deal.

(Photo courtesy of The Sports Hernia)

Pulling For Joe?

Great news, my fellow baseball fans, our long national (pastime's) nightmare is over. Those were a couple very cold and lonely nights without baseball gracing our television screens. As Yankee fans, we were eased into this break with Game 4 of the Phillies vs. Rockies series on Monday and we'll be eased out of it with Game 1 of the NLCS at 8:07 tonight.

You may be familiar with the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers - his name is Joe Torre. He worked for the Yankees for a couple of nondescript years in a low profile position a while back. Anyway, Peter Gammons was on Michael Kay's radio show yesterday and insinuated that Mr. Torre, despite his affinity for wheatgrass, is not enjoying his time in the City of Angels (link via BBTF):

Kay asked Gammons if he agreed that Joe Torre would only stay on as the Dodgers' manager through the 2010 season, when his contract ends.

"Yes, I do buy that," said Gammons. " ... I wouldn't be surprised and I think a lot of things will probably come out here in the next few months but I think (Torre's) life with the Dodgers is pretty much a living hell."

Kay: "Really!?"

Gammons: "Oh, yeah."

Kay: "So he thought he had it bad in New York and it's worse there?"

Gammons: "Oh, yeah ... Oh, yeah. There'll be a lot that comes out in time with Dodger ownership, but that is a mess [link added], and I don't think anyone wants to have to put up with it too long."

This may give some of you a bit of satisfaction since the reason that Torre ended up in LA in the first place was because he was "insulted" by an offer from the Yankees that would have made his the highest paying manager in the Major Leagues before any of the incentives involved with the deal kicked in. Or others who thought it was a little hypocritical to compare Michael Kay to Rhona Barrett to gain respect from his players when he first arrived on the scene and then write a tell-all book with Tom Verducci called "The Yankee Years" after he left.

Torre responded to comments, sounding a bit like your ex-girlfriend who broke up with you only to find out that what you had wasn't so bad, saying, “My relationship is fine here”and forcing a smile.

I never held it against Torre that he turned down the Yankees offer, probably because I thought it was time for a new manager anyway. My old roommate and I were actually at Mickey Mantle's on Central Park South the day that he flew down to Tampa to inform the Yanks of his decision. We were interviewed by one of the local news stations who sent a crew to the bar and I said something about it being "time to turn over the chain of command to someone a bit younger who can handle the pitching staff better" or something like that, except even more unintelligible since it was in front of the camera.

Oddly enough, Torre is now being lauded for his bullpen management after he brought in his closer, Jonathan Broxton in the 8th inning to face the heart of the Cardinals' order despite being down a run. Torre knew that Broxton would likely have to be removed for a pinch hitter if the Dodgers got anyone on base in the home half of the inning (which they did), but he still chose his best pitcher for the highest leverage situation, something that sabermetricians have been suggesting for years. Pretty crazy, huh?

Are you rooting for the Dodgers in this series? I don't think there's an appreciable difference in match-ups should the Yankees fulfill their end of the bargain which would be the first consideration, so it probably just comes down to preference. I'll admit that last year, since the Yanks did terribly, I wanted the Dodgers to get bounced as early as possible so that Torre's decision to spurn the Yanks wouldn't be vindicated (by the media anyway).

This year? Not so much. When you're happy with your own situation, it's a lot easier to pull for others.

[Update: Awesome gallery of old school Torre from Big League Stew]

Thursday Night News And Links

It's Thursday, and the Yankees once again have the night off. Former Yankees General Manager and Hall of Famer George M. Weiss has some suggestions to keep you occupied in the meantime.

The Red Sox play the Royals out in Kansas City tonight, which means they will be making a pretty late arrival to NYC tomorrow morning. The magic number is currently at 5 after a Sox win last night, but it could drop to 4 if they lose tonight. This means that the Yanks would have to take just two out of three to clinch the division at home against Boston. Something called Anthony Lerew would have to out pitch Clay Bucholz for that to happen, however.

The Twins and Angels are off, but Tigers are playing the Indians tonight and sending Justin Verlander to the hill. Detroit still holds a 2.5 game lead over Minnesota but those teams have 4 head to head games remaining against reach other, so anything could happen.

In college football, #4 Ole Miss (the highest ranking the school has had since Archie Manning played there) takes on South Carolina.

Peter Gammons has sure elicited some strong reaction after suggesting the MLB might want to "think" about adding one Wild Card team to each league. Craig Calcaterra thinks the system is fine the way it is. Kevin Kaduk concurs. Jason thinks it ain't broke neither. Joe from RAB would actually prefer the playoffs to be scaled down before they are expanded.

Joel Sherman is just about the only person I've heard agree with Gammons, citing the fact that it's nearly impossible for a team other than the Yankees and the Red Sox to make the postseason in the current format.

In related news, since the Blue Jays won't be contending any time soon, Joe from RAB suggests that the Jays trade Roy Halladay and get some value for him while they still can.

Fangraphs takes a look at A-Rod in the postseason since he's joined the Yankees and points out that over the same span, Derek Jeter hasn't been any great shakes either. An astute commenter points out that saying A-Rod "doesn't" hit well in the playoffs (like the post did) is much different that saying he "hasn't" which implies that he still could.

Speaking of FanGraphs, they released their iPhone app today. For $2.99, you get live WPA and most everything you'd expect to be available from the website. Yes, I've already downloaded it.

Jayson Stark ranks the playoff rotations.

Jon from Subway Squawkers wonders if the Yankees are a leading economic indicator.

Via Baseball Musings, Rays Index points out that before the Daily News crowns the Yankees' infield the best ever, they might want to take into consideration that the Rays' IF put up better numbers this year.

Jim Rice: Still an ass.

Our boy HowFresh calls out Plaxico Burress for the last meal he ate before he went to prison and shows him how it's done.

Terrible news for Giants fans.

And finally, this is pretty damn cool. (via Schiff on Google Reader)

Player 00

I'm guessing many of you are on the Yankees Shop email list, and recieved the same email shown above this morning. In light of the most recent A-Rod scandal, that jersey actually seems pretty appealing.

I don't have an authentic Yankee jersey. Before last season, I very nearly bought some Robinson Cano road threads on eBay for $90, but decided to pass at the last moment. Pretty happy about that decision, seeing that he only posted an 86 OPS+ in 2008.

During the apology contained in his interview with Peter Gammons last night A-Rod said he had "millions of fans". I've got to assume that pretty much all of them are under the age of 7, and don't immediately realize that he's not all that likeable even when he's not admitting to doing steroids.

If you have a kid with an A-Rod jersey, what do you do? Do you let them wear it because despite the fact that he made a mistake, he ultimately told the truth? Or does the fact that he cheated remove him as a role model for your kids? There's no easy answer. I'm glad I don't have to make that call.

The great thing about the jersey above is that there is no risk involed. Fictional "Player 00" is never going to embarass you with their terrible performance, PED usage or off-the-field antics. You can still show your love for the team without hitching your wagon to any of the flawed human beings wearing your team's colors. Like Jerry Seinfeld said, we are just rooting for laundry.

A-Roid & Gammons Interview Reactions (With A Special Guest Appearance)

Not sure if anybody caught this, but it looks like Serena Roberts really has been stalking him. Check it out.
I know. It's pretty bad. But there really aren't that many pictures of her to choose from and no good place for her to be "hiding".

Some notes about the interview:

• I love how before he mentioned Selena Roberts by name he referred to her as "that lady from Sports Illustrated"
• He said she actually tried to break into his house and had documentation from the Miami Police to prove it, but Gammons didn't even ask to see it.
  
• He only apologized to his fans in Texas. Um, fuck that. You better feel sorry that you dicked over all of your Yankee fans over too. Because when you are cashing in $5M of our money for every legend you pass on the home run list, it's just going to dredge this shit up. If the Yankees were drafting your contract this offseason, they'd take those milestone clauses out in 2/3 of a second.
• Fiji Water? Nice choice.

• I originally thought that the reason he said he didn't know what exactly he was taking is that it was illegal at the time, and didn't want to incriminate himself. However, Craig from Shysterball was nice enough to answer my email and set me straight:

Me: Quick Question: Would there be a legal reason that A-Rod isn't admitting he knew what he took? Because they are/were illegal, etc... It sounds pretty stupid otherwise.

Craig: Quick Answer: No real legal reason I can think of. Even if he was doing crack, the statute of limitations on 2003 using would have run by now. My guess is that, in the permissive 2003-era, it was simply a matter of guys saying "give me some juice" and not really knowing what, exactly, they were taking beyond broad categories such as HGH or steroids.

Makes sense. Listening to the full interview, you get the feeling that he might have been trying to seem innocent because saying "give me some juice" is a lot more "naive" than talking about stacking Primobolan.

Anyway that was some quality television and despite the ribbing I've given him, he did come across as pretty genuine and remorseful and handled it pretty much as well as I could have hoped for. We're on the right track. Before the 2007 season, he got that pathetic Jeter friendship "issue" out in the open and had a banner year. It's a new season, in The New Stadium, and it's an odd numbered year. I'm predicting big things for Professor Purple Lips this season.

The Many (Awkward) Faces Of Alex Rodriguez

This was too easy. For one thing, I sort of stole the idea from The Sports Hernia.

But really, any person on planet Earth would make a ton of retarded-looking faces when they are being grilled on SportsCenter in front of tens of millions of people about something of this magnitude. Luckily for most of us, we won't have to answer those questions and if we did, some asshole probably wouldn't take the time to take pictures of it with their digital camera off their HDTV, resize and crop them and upload them on to their shitty blog.

However, my job is to not take any of that into account and instead use these screen grabs to make fun of him on these here internets. I watched it in slow motion to select the proper frames, and he looked like he was literally being tortured.

Anyway, here it goes. These pictures make it look like just he recorded the most emotional Proactiv testimonial ever given. I omitted any further snarky comments because they're honestly not even necessary.

It has been far and away our most colorful day here at Fack Youk. Apologies to our black and white traditionalists (Schiff), but it was all original content.

Fowah Mwah Yeaahs Of Fackin' Youk! [Breaking News]

As someone who very nearly met an early grave on the lonely expanses of the North Pacific almost exactly four years ago (Storm Stories did an episode on it), I'm very happy to be able to move on from that last post with some quite excellent news for the fate of this blog. Peter Gammons, via MLBTR:

Boston avoided arbitration with Kevin Youkilis, agreeing to a four-year contract with the first baseman worth more than $40 million, sources told ESPN's Peter Gammons. The deal includes an option for a fifth year. Youkilis enjoyed a breakout season in 2008, hitting .312 with 29 home runs and 115 RBIs.

Luckily, we have established a line of communication with Youk and his people and we are the very first media outlet to obtain a comment from him on the signing:

Exclusive! Thanks Youk.

Right back at you buddy.