Category Archives: Baseball

Down with Dope, Up with Hype!

During Monday night’s Home Run Derby, Josh Hamilton hit some of the most impressive moon shots ever clubbed within the confines of the House that Ruth Built. And as we all know, anything accomplished at Yankee Stadium is at least 10 times more important than anything accomplished anywhere else.

The only things bigger than the home runs Hamilton hit were the lengths to which the ESPN talking heads went to praise him. You see, Josh Hamilton’s a recovering heroin addict–perhaps you heard about it when you weren’t too busy not living under a rock for the last year.

Granted, Derek Jeter wasn’t taking part in the Derby, so ESPN had to find someone else to verbally fellate. But their unblinking love of Hamilton–a man they couldn’t pick out of a lineup before the night began–was so embarrassing, it was approaching near Favre-ian levels.

Continue reading Down with Dope, Up with Hype!

A New Role Model for Reyes

manuel.jpgJose, we can’t have you throwing tantrums out on the field. You’re a grown man and you can’t act that way anymore.
reyes.gifI know, coach, I just get so emotional about this game.
manuel.jpgEmotion is good, but you
can’t let it get the best of you. That’s why I brought in a New York
baseball legend to set you straight. He’s an expert in learning how to
control your emotional impulses.

reyes.gifWow, four-time world champion Paul O’Neill!

oneill.jpgThat’s FIVE time world champion, you ASSHOLE!
/rips off batting gloves, flings them across clubhouse

reyes.gifOh yeah, I forget you won one with the Reds.

oneill.jpgHow could you forget that?! We swept the A’s!! I mean, C’MONNN!!
/takes off batting helmet, bounces it off ground 12 feet in the air

reyes.gifI’m sorry, I was just a little kid when that happened.

oneill.jpgAnd it woulda been SIX if stupid Mariano could’ve shut the door on the fucking DIAMONDBACKS!! JESUS!!
/bites knuckles until bloody

reyes.gifWhoah, that’s not fair. Mariano Rivera is, like, the best closer in the history of time.

oneill.jpgYou don’t know what you’re TALKING ABOUT! That ball was nowhere NEAR the plate!
/yanks jersey out of pants, pops three buttons

reyes.gifBall? What ball?

oneill.jpgYeah, exactly–it was a BALL!! I don’t take strikes, okay? I CRUSH THEM! If I don’t swing, that means IT’S NOT A STRIKE!
/bashes water cooler with Louisville Slugger

manuel.jpgYou see, Jose? This is the way a professional athlete acts.

reyes.gifIt looks more like the way a whiny crybaby acts to me.

oneill.jpgWHAT?!
/puts hands on hips, rolls eyes skyward

manuel.jpgNo, you don’t understand. He’s showing passion!

reyes.gifDoes “showing passion” include kicking his cleats off and eating them?

oneill.jpg/gnaws on Nikes

manuel.jpgYes, it shows he’s fiery! That’s how he led the Yankees to four World Series titles!

reyes.gifI thought it was because he was a good hitter in a lineup full of other good hitters. Plus all their pitchers were on steroids.

manuel.jpgWell, yeah, that too.

oneill.jpgWhen you put on the pinstripes, you have a duty to uphold the legacy of Ruth and Mantle and…OH, YOU GOTTA BE SHITTING ME WITH THIS STRIKE ZONE, UMP!!
/rips open sunflower seed pack with teeth, swallows entire pack, spits it out onto floor

manuel.jpgYou see, Jose, you have a long way to go before you can be the kind of inspirational leader that Paul was in his prime.

reyes.gifSo if I wanna act like a spoiled brat, I have to be old, white, and on a winning team that’s not full of broken down veterans.

manuel.jpgPretty much, yeah.

oneill.jpgGOD, I will EAT your CHILDREN!!
/pulls leather strings out of fielder’s mitt one by one with his teeth

Willie Randolph’s Dismissal Was Totally Unfair to Mike Lupica

lupica2.jpgEven coming from a franchise with a long history of bad personnel moves, the Willie Randolph firing really takes the cake. How could the Mets be so disrespectful as to fire their manager after three am eastern time, when I’m sound asleep?

Maybe Willie deserved to go, and maybe he didn’t. I do know one thing for certain: there was no reason to treat me this way.

If the Mets were intent on firing Randolph midseason, they had numerous opportunities to do so before Tuesday. After losing three out of four at home to the lowly Nationals. After being swept in San Diego by an even worse Padres team. Even after the Billy Wagner-assisted losses to the Diamondbacks. Any of these occasions would’ve been better times to hand Willie his pink slip. Preferably before lunch.

But canning him in the wee hours of the morning shows a disgraceful lack of regard for my schedule.

Sure, firing Willie might turn things around. It might be the wake-up call this team has needed so desperately since the collapse of last September. It might ensure more fannies in the seats when CitiField opens next year.

But did the Wilpons ever stop to think about me, having to drive into the Daily News office on two hours’ worth of sleep? No, they had no thought for anyone but themselves. Just like the inconsiderate jackasses who got into a three-car pileup on the Merrick this morning. Stop-and-go traffic from Trumbull all the way to the New England Thruway. Thanks a lot, guys.

If Mets ownership had given a second thought before bringing down the axe on Willie Randolph, maybe they should’ve spared one for their fans, who’ve been forced to suffer one indignity after another in the past year. Now, after Randolph’s ill-time, badly managed firing, the fans have to contend with yet another wound on their collective psyche.

A wound almost as deep as the one on my index finger, which I got while trying to butter an English muffin this morning. I was so tired I didn’t even know I’d cut myself until I saw the blood on my kitchen countertop. It really smarts.

Willie Randolph certainly isn’t blameless for the Mets’ struggles this year. But not enough fire has been directed at general manager Omar Minaya. He constructed a team with too many brittle veterans, one almost guaranteed to break down. He may have gotten Johan Santana, but he decimated the farm system to do so, leaving the team without serviceable backups once the inevitable injuries occurred.

He’s also the person who couldn’t wait until today to fire Willie. What’s the rush? You could’ve done it first thing in the morning California time, which would’ve been around noon back east. That would give me plenty of time to file my column and get back home before Jeopardy starts.

Instead, I have to fix a pot of coffee at four in the morning so I can stay up and wait for the stupid beat writers to call me back with their little tidbits of info from Anaheim. I hate beat writers. Think they’re so tough just ’cause they go in the locker room.

And there’s nothing to watch at four in the morning either, not even on cable. I’d pop in a DVD, but then I’d have to find the right input on the TV. My kids have, like, seven different video game systems. S-Video, HDMI–I don’t even know what those things mean.

Is Fred Wilpon going to explain to me what HDMI stands for?

Now my editor tells me he wants me to fly out to LA and cover the team in person during their hour of turmoil. So I have to cancel a golf game at Bethpage on Sunday. Bethpage! It’s easier to get a table at Momofuku than it is to get a tee time at Bethpage.

Can Fred Wilpon explain to me how I’m supposed to squash other writers’ stories from the West Coast?

This is the kind of royal screwup that can damage fans’ faith in their team. In 1977, I was fresh out of college and working as a typesetter at a small newspaper in upstate New York. It was just after midnight. We’d just finished setting the sports section, and it was ready to go to press, when news came over the wire that the Mets had traded Tom Seaver to the Reds. That move decimated the franchise for years, and they would never truly recover until the mid-1980s.

Mets fans never forgave general manager M. Donald Grant, and the team’s clueless ownership, for trading away their most beloved player. Me, I’ll never forgive Grant for forcing me to reset the entire sports section all over again. And this was back before desktop publishing, you know! I didn’t have Quark or InDesign to help me!

Maybe what this team needs isn’t a new manager, or a new GM, but new ownership. Owners that know what the fans have been through. Owners who won’t throw gasoline on a burning fire.

Owners who won’t make me have to pound Red Bull at 11 in the morning.

For all he’s done for his city, Mike Lupica deserves at least that much.