Make Youk Shave (For A Good Cause)

Good morning, Fackers. Although we devote an unhealthy amount of time here to negative pursuits such as hating Kevin Youkilis, lampooning columnists in the New York papers, calling out other Yankee bloggers, terrorizing our neighbors and demanding fistfights between politicians, we'd like to think that we can still make positive contributions to society at large.

In that light, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that the Fackin' Youkstah is allowing his facial hair configuration for Opening Day to be determined by a vote. In order to make your opinion heard, you have to donate $1 to his charity, Hits For Kids. The choices are "Fu Manchu", "Goatee", "Mustache" and "Clean Shaven".

Obviously, the selection is quite limited. Noticeably absent are the mutton chops, chinstrap, zigzag, neckbeard, halfbeard, flamebeard, Hasidic, Wyatt Earp, Amish, Loop-de-loop, Islamic fundamentalist, and whatever it is that you would like to call this. Expand the possibilities, Youk!

Despite the limited options and our reputation as the most distinguished anti-Red Sox blog on the interwebz, we at Fack Youk have taken the initiative of donating $20 and voted for him to go clean shaven. Considering that Youk is a bona fide facial hair aficionado, we are guessing the thing he least wants to do is see all of his grittily-grown whiskers literally go down the drain.

Won't you, loyal readers, join in our quest to make the man shave? Perhaps the Red Sox will never abide by an upstanding grooming policy like the one the Yankees enforce, but we can do out part to make Youk look like a respectable member of society, even if it's just for a few days.

Too Bad I'm Not A Parent...

Or else I could teach my children the virtues of hating the Yankees (h/t Joe P):

My mom, Michele, is one of the nicest people in the world (I'm admittedly a bit biased, but this is true). She finds the good in everyone. Well, just about everyone. She cannot stand the New York Yankees! This does not make my mom unique. Throughout the Major League Baseball playoffs, I have encountered only one person who wants the Yankees to win the World Series.

With an tiny niche fanbase like the one the Yankees have, I find this statement to be totally believable.

The Yankees have the highest payroll every year. This year their payroll is nearly 50% higher than the 2nd highest payroll (the New York Mets)! They play in a stadium built two years ago [sic] for more than one billion dollars. During the offseason, the Yankees signed C.C. Sabbathia [sic], A.J. Burnett, and Marx [sic] Teixeira for nearly half a billion dollars in long-term contracts. It's clear that rooting for the Yankees is roughly the same as cheering for the bully down the street to bloody another nose.

Except that bully hasn't won a fight in 9 years. It's clear that picking on a pop psychology piece for baseball inaccuracies is like picking on a baseball piece for trying to use pop psychology. But that doesn't make it any less enjoyable.

But how should we tell our children to hate the Yankees?

"I hate the Yankees" does little to teach our children lessons about hope, persistence, and teamwork. We ought to focus on the positive characteristics of the underdog, rather than the negative qualities about the evil Yankees. Below are five suggestions for what parents can say to kids about the Yankees while staying away from negativity:

Get your notepads ready:

1) "The Twins never quit, even though they don't have the same amount of money to spend on players as the Yankees." (a message about doing the best with what one has)

Or about making excuses.

3) "Even though the Yankees make a lot of money, watch their players. They hustle, encourage each other, and play great baseball. To win, a team must hit, field, and pitch better than their opponent." (a message that money doesn't get hits, and that substance wins over style)

Except the players on the Yankees make a lot of money because they play great baseball, not despite the fact.

4) "Notice how focused all of the players in the World Series are on each play." (a message about concentration, and how all players can work on this skill)

"But not the Yankees who are only calculating how much money they are making with each passing out".

5) If all else fails, remind your kids that the Phillies won the World Series in 2008 and that the Yankees have not won a championship since 2000.

An important lesson in sportsmanship: It's not whether you win or lose... it's whether you win or lose.

Please, folks, educate your children about the virtues of hating the Yankees. Their fragile little brains can't handle the realities of "free agency", the "size of the market they play in", or " the desire to win being more important than making profit on a sports franchise".

Programming Note

Both Matt and I are pretty busy this afternoon and, in the interest of full disclosure, won't have anything new posted until tomorrow morning. It doesn't happen too often around these parts, so we wanted to give you folks a heads up.

In the meantime, feel free to check out the slow motion train wreck that should have already been unfolding over at Deadspin involving Daulerio's threat to publish every tip about improper sexual relations concerning ESPN employees ever emailed to his tip line. And to think, none of this would have happened if Steve Phillips was a better talent evaluator.

That or take a look at this chart and jump to conclusions in regards to what it implies about Joe Girardi's managerial ability (via BBTF). Or check out Lisa Swan's takedown of Tom Verducci and try to explain how CC Sabathia was responsible for the Indians losing Games 6 & 7 of the ALCS to the Red Sox in '07 despite not actually pitching in them. Or try to figure out how on earth our buddy Craig got a freaking death threat over at NBC for talking about the Mariano Rivera incident yesterday. (Hint: You'll never figure the last one out.)

Okay, or just make fun of this whippersnapper who was photographed during Game 3.

Wait, I think I know that kid!

Alright I gotta get outta here before I make fun of more Angels fans under the age of 10. Two in one day is probably enough. Catch you later on.

Cranky, Eh?

If this bit of news were recorded by PeteAbe himself and not his fill-in Josh Thomson, I wouldn't have needed to make this connection:

Mariano Rivera didn’t throw at all today and was unavailable to pitch. “He was feeling a little cranky today,” Joe Girardi said. Rivera told us his right shoulder was sore, but he did not classify the soreness as painful. He said he has felt this pain before and felt fine soon after. Girardi said he’d be “shocked” if Rivera weren’t available tomorrow in Seattle.

Of course, "cranky" was the term Girardi used at the end of last season, when Mariano was supposedly leaving to go back to New York from Toronto for "a physical" instead of going with the team to Boston:

Girardi was asked several times and in several ways whether Rivera had an injury to his elbow and shoulder. He denied it every time. The questions were very exact. “He said his whole body was cranky,” Girardi said.

The beat writers all found this to be perplexing, since Rivera could have got a physical just about anywhere and if they were intent on having it done by a certain team doctor, they could have flown him out to Mo, not the other way around. Some of the writers called Brian Cashman, who said that Rivera need an MRI which ultimately revealed that he needed surgery.

Again Mariano is making travel arrangements separate from the team for personal reasons, according to Thomson in the same article. Marc Carig of the Star Ledger talked to team spokesperson Jason Zillo who said it has nothing to do with health issues. "No tests were done and none are scheduled" and Mo will be in Seattle for the game.

Is there a reason that Girardi chooses "cranky"? Cranky is a strange and vague term to use for describing injuries. We all know was "sore" and "stiff" and "tight" mean. It seems like cranky is his go-to line when he doesn't want to give away information about an injury because it means nothing to anyone but him. Cranky is what a four year old is when you wake them up from a nap. Cranky is how your grandmother got when your little brother broke her lamp.

Rivera hits these rough patches seemingly every season and Girardi has dramatically improved the way he relates to the media so hopefully the the connection is nothing more than semantics. If nothing else, every time there is an sort of uncertainty about Rivera's health, it makes you take stock of how important and valuable he is to the team. In Mo we trust.

"Henry & Me"

A couple Yankees are contributing to an animated film called "Henry & Me". The title character turns out to be (SPOLIER ALERT!) Lou Gehrig and will be portrayed by Richard Gere.

Since it's a children's book, everyone has predictably altrustic motives. Here is the author of the book the movie is based upon:

"We can give the innocence of the game back to the children," Negron said. "Goodbye steroids, hello grassroots."

Which sounds great, right?

But A-Rod is in the movie. You'd think that if you were really trying to say "goodbye steroids" or whatever, you might not want to include an admitted steroid user in the fucking cast. But then they probably wouldn't get Newsday to write a story about the movie with A-Rod's part as the lede, would they?

It was George Steinbrenner who gave Negron a job as a Yankees batboy in the 1970s, after The Boss caught Negron spray-painting the team logo on the old Yankee Stadium.

"This is a tribute to George Steinbrenner, and his passion for all of the young kids in the country," Negron said.

It's a shame he's not alive to see it.

Feel Good Story Of The Morning

From the Post (of all places). Meet the only person in the world who thought Brett Gardner would hit a home run last night:

"I met with several different children, probably 15 or 20, and one little girl, she gave me a bracelet," Gardner said of his pregame trip to Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital at New York Presbyterian yesterday, before he went out and played a huge role -- including delivering an inside the park home run -- in the Yanks' 5-4 win over the Twins. "I asked what it was for and she said it was for me and she told me that if I kept it I would hit a home run and she said I'd hit a home run tonight."

He kept the gift in his locker. He hit a home run. He did lots more. He met so many kids, he doesn't remember the little girl's name -- but he remembers her face. And he'll always remember last night.

This girl clearly does not have access to Baseball-Reference in her room. It took Gardner 222 Major League plate appearances to hit his first home run and two games later, when he wasn't even in the starting line-up, he rips around the bases for an inside-the-parker, which single-handedly brought the crowd back into the game. What are the odds?

I don't think anyone thought it was a good thing when Johnny Damon got ejected, but stepping into the #2 spot, Gardner singled in the fifth, hit the inside the park home run in the seventh and tripled to lead off the ninth. Not a bad night to catch a game in the Bronx. 

Roger Clemens Would Like You To Know That He Is Still Delusional

[Update: Here is the interview]

This morning, Roger Clemens appeared on Mike and Mike in the Morning, to react to the book American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids In America's Pastime which was released today. And by "react to", I mean "hammer the same trite talking points that no one has bought since this information came out". Another amusing aspect of this is it only serves to raise awareness of the book well beyond its authors or publishers ever could have hoped to do themselves.

If he wasn't such a defiantly arrogant prick, you might almost feel bad for the guy. He comes on a nationally syndicated radio program and aside from Rusty Hardin, he might be the only person who actually believes what he is saying. For a more complete synopsis of the main points of questioning and Clemens' reactions to them, check out what Jason at IIATM,S posted.

Right out of the gate, he busts out with two painfully contrived stunts. First, he makes it clear that this is the only interview he is going to be able to do because he is supposedly going away for a week.

Clemens: I'm gettin' ready to go out of town, err, out of the country for a week... 

[...]

RC (About a minute later): Deb and I are getting ready to go out of town, err, out of the country for a week.

The fact that he instantly corrects himself both times and makes a point to say that he is leaving the country, would indicate that it was a talking point fed to him by Hardin or one of his other advisers. Why would it be important where he is going (unless he wanted to make it look like he wasn't dodging other interviews)? He came on Mike and Mike because he know they weren't going to be overly aggressive with their questioning. They did a pretty good job, but let him off the hook repeatedly. Has Clemens ever even left the country (aside from playing in Toronto)?He doesn't really strike me as much of an international traveler. Where is he going? Obviously not Mexico...

However, it was the second one I found most egregious.

RC: [Talking lowly away from the phone]

Mike Greenberg: Roger, are you still with us?

RC: [Still talking away from the phone, but audibly now] Okay buddy, I'll get ready to take you to school in a minute.

Are... you... fucking... kidding... me? This is your first interview in over a year, and you couldn't get your wife or one of your fifteen advisers to watch your kids for 10 minutes? I'm calling bullshit. This just happened to occur withing the first minute of the interview? His youngest child is no less than TWELVE YEARS OLD. It's not like he's got some clueless kindergartner wandering around the house.

Clemens also provides another iron clad reason that he couldn't have possibly used steroids: People in his family have suffered from heart conditions. He lists off two people who have suffered heart attacks, one of which was his stepfather. Roger Clemens - Nobel Prize Winning Geneticist.

RC: Our family has a history of heart conditions. My brother had a heart attack in his late 40's, my stepdad died of a heart attack... Uh, I mean, it would be suicidal for me to, even think about taking any of these dangerous drugs. 

No. No it would not. This is the worst defense you could possibly put forth. How could I have done this, it would have been inadvisable for me to do so?1?! Never mind the possibility that he could have resurrected his entire career, profited nine figure sums, won multiple World Series, and achieved international fame and athletic glory. But for him to potentially take a few years off of his life would have prevented him from doing steroids. Nice try, but I don't think so. 

A few other notes:

• Throughout the interview, Clemens refereed to the book as "piling on". Does he want to us to feel sorry for him? "Piling on" doesn't imply that what is being said is false. 
  
  
• He did later refer to McNamee's accusations as "totally false" and "impossible". Roger, your trainer, Brain McNamee injected your wife (not a professional athlete) with HGH. It is certainly not impossible, much less implausible that he did the same to you, considering that you had the world to gain by letting him so do.
  
  
• Still says that Andy Pettitte "misremembers" and they are still friends
  
  
• Danced around A-Rod and Manny questions, saying he didn't know the details about Manny's test and that he watched only a portion of A-Rod's interview with Peter Gammons and none of his second press conference.
  
  
• Constantly talked about "the kids" and how he has been throwing batting practice to them, how steroids are bad for them, etc. 
  
  
• Claimed he has been getting "great responses" in all of the cities he has been traveling to. 
  
  
• And finally, at the very end of the interview when Golic asked him whether he was finished playing, he compared himself to Brett Favre and said that if Favre comes back, he might have to start "pounding the pavement". 

I hadn't thought of the comparison, but it's certainly interesting one, with the most glaring similarity being that I wish both of them would take the millions of dollars they have made from playing professional sports and fucking dissapear forever.