Daily Archives: June 5, 2003

FALLOUT

Rob Neyer has a great column on the Sammy Sosa fiasco. Neyer doesn’t think the corked bat incident should change the way we look at Sosa as a ballplayer:

With that out of the way, should this change our opinion of Sammy Sosa, the man? Well, sure. Maybe a little. After all, he did cheat. So if anybody out there thought that Sammy Sosa was perfect, now they know better. But do we think Graig Nettles was a bad guy because he put rubber balls in his bat? No, we don’t. Do we think Billy Hatcher was a bad guy because he put cork in his bat? No, we don’t. Do we think Albert Belle was a bad guy because he put cork in his bat? No, we don’t (we think Albert Belle was a bad guy for a lot of other reasons).

Nobody’s perfect, and a significant percentage of players would cheat if they thought they could get away with it. In fact, there’s a famous saying in baseball, “It ain’t cheatin’ if you don’t get caught.” Which reminds me, what’s with the double standard in baseball? Gaylord Perry, who was famous for throwing a greaseball, sailed into the Hall of Fame. Mike Scott won the Cy Young Award in 1986, even though everybody knew he was scuffing the ball. In the later years of his career, Whitey Ford knew every trick in the book and he used all of them.

When pitchers cheat, it’s “colorful.” When hitters cheat, it’s “cheating.”

To me, it’s all cheating. But let’s not hold Sammy Sosa to a different standard than we hold Gaylord Perry and Whitey Ford.

In my mind, Sammy Sosa’s still a Hall of Famer. And as for what kind of man he is, I can’t say I know much more today than I did yesterday.

Amen to that.

Players around the league had mixed reactions to the incident, but most of them seemed supportive of Sosa. Heck, even Manny Ramirez broke his code of silence to speak up for Sammy.

A FINE MESS

Call em’ what you like: listless, careless (nice tag, Soriano), even hapless (Godzilla). One thing is for sure, the Yankees are a slumping mess. My girlfriend Emily has been saying for over a month now that Hideki Matsui looks depressed. Maybe it’s an epidemic.

Mike Mussina was cruising for the first four innings against the Reds, but then they tagged him for four homers, and the Yanks fell to the Reds, 6-2. The Bombers offense didn’t put up much of a fight, and made Paul Wilson look like the ace he’s not. In fact Wilson is the first Reds starter in 17 games to notch a victory. How do you think they are going to look against the likes of Kerry Woods?

Oy fuggin vey.

The Red Sox took two from the Pirates yesterday, and the Yanks find themselves in second place this morning.

But wait, it gets worse. The Yankees are now 0-18 when trailing after six innings this year. This is not your older brother’s Yankees.

According to The Daily News:

Torre felt that the Yanks looked listless once the Reds’ barrage was over.

“We certainly look that way,” he said. “That shouldn’t happen. We should be professional enough to go out and play nine innings. Not that we’re not working hard. We’re pressing.

“It just doesn’t look like we’re comfortable right now.”

“This is more than a stretch now,” Mussina said, referring to the Yanks’ 10-19 stumble since May 3. “We just haven’t played consistently good since we got out of April. We haven’t gotten hot offensively or pitched consistently well.

“We’re just not the same team. It’s in there somewhere.”

…”We’re putting a lot of pressure on Contreras,” Torre said. “Welcome to the starting rotation, right?”

It won’t be long now before the Yanks go out and get some reinforcements. The Post reports that they have their eyes on Kenny Lofton. I’ve never been a Kenny Lofton fan, but I’d welcome him in place of a hacker like Juan Rivera in a New York minute.

I wish I had something wise or even funny to say (I’ll leave the comedy to Boomski Wells). But I’m afraid I’ve been lulled into a depressed state myself. OK, I do have one positive piece of news to report: Jason Giambi appears to be coming around. He hit another homer last night (his fourth of the road trip), and has put together some very solid at bats recently. They need him now more than ever.