Did You Ever Notice

...that when a team "shows up" they win. And when they don't "show up" they lose? It has to be true because Mike Lupica (I used to love watching The Sports Reporters)is writing about it:

Alex Rodriguez must step up for Yankees in Game 6 of ALCS against Rangers in Texas

I know he didn't write the headline, but whoever did really 7 Mary 3'd it there. Because it's cumbersome. And they had this song in the nineties. It was called 'Cumbersome'. It was like, "I have becoooooommmme Cumbersooooommmmme." You remember it, don't lie. My point being the last half of it should be cut out.

They are the Yankees,

BOOOOO! Oh sorry, gut reaction.

defending champions of the sport, best team money can buy, most expensive pitching staff ever assembled. They are Mo Rivera, the greatest money player of them all, and Derek Jeter

BOOOO!!! Sorry...sorry...

and Alex Rodriguez

BOOO!!! And no, I'm not sorry this time.

and Robinson Cano,

...-shrug-

their best player this season, maybe the MVP of the league and the league championship series before it's over. And here is where they are in Arlington Friday night: Playing for their season. Again. Trying to win a play-in game to get to Cliff Lee.
The Yankees showed up on Wednesday in Game 5, they did, hundred percent.

So did they not bother to try in the first few games? Is Texas so bad that the Yankees just need to "show up" and they'll win? I thought they were in this position because the Texas offense has been clubbing them to death with 25 runs in 3 games.

Now they have to do it again in Texas, or they become another big, bad Yankee team of this decade that got hit somewhere before the World Series and never recovered.
You know who is supposed to show up Friday night for Game 6? Alex Rodriguez.

You know who's not? Shawn Dunston. But "by gum it" he'll show up anyway, like that guy at the Halloween party who doesn't wear a costume. He's unwanted, but he's a friend of a friend so there's not much you can really do.

So far he has three hits in the series and only one of them - two-RBI single that Michael Young should have made a play on, eighth inning of Game 1 - has mattered.

Ha! So the only thing he's done is get a huge hit in one of the two games the Yankees have won. That's why they call him Choke-Rod!

There have been times when he seemed perfectly happy to take a walk, leave it to Cano when Cano was still hitting behind him.

UGH!!!! Are you kidding Lupica? I'm not sure if this is even worth making a joke about at this point. Seems too obvious. How about we go this way: The games the Yankees lost have been by 5, 8, and 7 runs. I'm pretty sure that's not just on A-rod. It certainly isn't because he was patient enough to get on base and help the team's odds of winning, as opposed to reaching out of the strike-zone like...well...Shawn Dunston. And you know what? This year, leaving it to Cano is not a bad idea, as you pointed out, in this article, when you called him a potential MVP.

This game Friday night, then in Game 7 if the Yankees make it, would be a good time for A-Rod to remind us that October and November of 2009 actually happened.

Great, so now the New York media is moving on to the, yeah he got hot once, but that proves nothing. So New York worships guys like Boone who had ONE big at bat for them, but rips the best player on the franchise for the past few years because he only had one good ENTIRE PLAYOFF RUN. Honestly, you guys don't deserve A-rod. He would be a god if he was a Cub or a Red, but the New York media seems determined to find something wrong with him. Oh no, I'm sorry, it's his fault for taking all that money, the rest of us would have turned it down.

Cano isn't supposed to have to carry this offense on his own. Carrying an offense is supposed to be Rodriguez's job description.

That is just ridiculous. Actually lets take a look at what Cano has done in this series while carrying the offense. Game one he did great, but so did A-rod so we're not including that. We're just talking about when he had to "carry" the offense:
Game 2: Double and a HR (win for Lupica)
Game 3: 0-3 (Win for me!)
Game 4: Another HR (Lupica)
Game 5: Another HR (Lupica)
Alright, so that did not work out the way I thought it would. Cano has 4 HR's in 5 games. That is definitely what Lupica calls: 'carrying the offense'. But my original point was...eh forget it, Cano is awesome, I'll just leave it at that.

Rodriguez got his numbers this season, the way he always does in the end, got to 30 home runs and 125 RBI, even hitting just .270. Friday night he is the one who's supposed to hit the ball over the fence, do something to get his team to Cliff Lee. This is the night when big Yankees show up, make the kind of swing A-Rod made against the Twins in the last postseason, the Angels, the Phillies.

Why can't Jeter do something? Isn't he the new Mr. October?

It is a good thing he did knock in those two runs in the Game 1 rally, or this October would remind people, exactly, of the ones when he looked like the easiest out on the team.
He's not the only one in the order who hasn't shown enough stick. Derek Jeter has hits, but has struck out six times.

YES! Someone actually laid some blame on the chosen one's doorstep. It's a big day for the New York media. And honestly, how can you go through this whole article and not blame the pitching at all? 25 runs in 3 games. Tough to get to the World Series with those kind of numbers.

Case Closed!

Jeter Beats Up Corpse of Ruth

Catchy headline right? You'll remember that. The key is brevity, unlike this headline by Filip Bondy who's parents obviously didn't know how to spell "Phillip.":

Derek Jeter's accomplishments with Yankees can be celebrated, but he can't be compared to Babe Ruth

It's like comparing apples and Apple iPods.

No. No Filip, it's not at all like that.

On the night when Derek Jeter passed Babe Ruth in total career hits - and when Jeter's milestone baseball was flipped by Josh Beckett in the second inning to Alex Rodriguez, of all people, for safekeeping - it was probably a good time to discuss just how silly these historic comparisons can become.

Who's comparing Jeter and Ruth? Outside of you Filip? Really, I haven't heard anyone do that.


You want to keep count of these things, go ahead.

Who? Me personally? What did I do to you?

The Yanks make a cottage industry out of it.

Out of what? Keeping tract of stats? I don't think that's what they're known for, I could be wrong.

They're entitled to their celebrations, and so are the modern players. But this is a shaky link between generations, more a rickety footbridge than a steel span.

What link? Baseball? Baseball is a shakey link between generations? I always thought the
opposite, but ok.

"I don't compare it, so I have to ask you if it's fun," Derek Jeter said after adding a second hit, No. 2875, during the 7-2 victory over Boston. "It's two completely different kind of players."

Who is making these comparisons? Jeter is no where NEAR the player Ruth was.


There is nothing about Jeter's job description that even vaguely resembles Ruth's,

Well, the hitting and fielding. Those are vaguely similar.

and the Yankees of 2010 are every bit as different from the 1927 Bombers as a shortstop is very much unlike a right fielder/starting pitcher.

This statement is so dumb, I can't even break it down. Yes, most of the 1927 Yankees are dead now, so they've had to get different players. What that has to do with the difference between a shortstop and RF I have no idea. And I dislike it when people point out that Ruth was a great pitcher as if they have some sort of inside knowledge everyone else doesn't. Most baseball fans know this, even casual fans. I'll prove it in a lunch time survey and post the results after.


If Ruth hadn't "wasted" his time for five or six seasons as a potential Hall of Fame pitcher with the Red Sox,

Like that.

then he might well have collected 500 more hits and rescued the world from home run records by Barry Bonds and A-Rod.

True.


The times, the teams, and the teammates are utterly dissimilar.

Because people that played with or against Ruth are, for the most part, DEAD. That's why we have weighted stats like OPS+ to help compare from era to era.
Then Filip write a bunch of stats from the old team. They were great, blah, blah, blah.

By comparison, these best-in-baseball Yanks are from hunger. Sunday night, they started only one player, Robinson Cano, batting above .300, and only Mark Teixeira, who homered to lead off the fifth inning, has as many as 25 homers. Their showcase slugger, A-Rod, is rapidly sliding toward the .260 mark.

And all of this is greatly relevant to the Ruth vs. Jeter comparison.


But you take what you can get in a game diluted by expansion,

How is having A-rod, Teixeira and Cano a case of expansion diluting the talent pool?

and in this case the Yankees will gladly accept their solid victory over the Sox and a cushy seven-game bulge over Boston.

Ha...bulge...


Jeter received a nice ovation for dumping a single into center, his 2,874th career hit, and heaven knows he deserves it. He actually owns one more championship than Ruth, though he still trails the Babe by 481 homers and 94 pitching victories.

Ugh, that's why NO ONE compares the two. And hey! Did you know Ruth used to pitch? I had no idea till it was mentioned for a 3rd time this article.

"I didn't know till someone told me about it a few days ago," Jeter said.

I know it's impossible to prove, but I frickin guarantee what he said is bull.

"It's a spcial (sic) moment (though) it's not like it was a goal of mine because I wasn't aware of it."

Again...bull. And they just let Jeter get away with saying that crap. If it was A-Rod, no one would buy it.

These days, one Yankee or another is setting some kind of record or joining some sort of select club almost every day. Sunday, there were three such moments - Jeter passed Ruth in hits, Teixeira became one of four players to have at least 25 homers in his first eight seasons, and Rodriguez collected his 300th stolen base to go with his 600 homers.

Yeah, the Yankees have a lot of all-time greats on their team. It's probably why they're so good.

Jeter's was the most noteworthy, because of the name he surpassed. Yet it is all nonsense, really. This is now, that was 1927. Ruth is Ruth, arguably the greatest player in the history of baseball and one of the largest figures in all of sports.

All those are reasons why no one is comparing the two. Also, how is it nonsense that he passed Ruth in hits?


"The first thing I think of is Yankees," Jeter said when asked about his image of Ruth. You don't measure Ruth in singles or doubles. It just diminishes the legend. And you don't measure Jeter, the steady captain, against Ruth, the eclectic, magnificent Sultan of Swat. You measure him against Phil Rizzuto, Maury Wills, Luis Aparicio and maybe Cal Ripken Jr.
You're back to apples and oranges then, at least a little better.

So the point of the article is that Derek Jeter isn't as good as Babe Ruth. Groundbreaking stuff there Filip. I just love that he is complaining that everyone needs to stop comparing the two players when he is the only person I've read doing it.

Case Closed.

Ugh, It's Stuff Like This

That keeps me from liking Jeter:

Derek Jeter has constructed a 16-year major league career out of clutch hits.

Just a lame exaggeration.