Today’s news is powered by a little league game turned into a big-time event …

• A-Rod ^[1] has been diagnosed with a cyst on one of his hips, and will most likely miss participating in the WBC.
• Here’s the official press release ^[2] from the Yanks on the cyst-em of a down-ed player.

[My take: Unfortunately, one of the first things I thought of when I read this news was 'cysts can form around multiple injection sites, but its highly unlikely it developed five years after he stated he last used injected PEDs ... unless he was using HGH recently'.  (Yeah, I wanna give him the benefit of the doubt, but its so hard to given all that has gone on lately ...).]

• Rodriguez ^[3] complimented the play of Jose Reyes, but may have slighted his BFF Jeter in doing so:

“I wish he was leading off on our team, playing on our team,” Rodriguez said of Reyes, who hustled to take an extra base in the fifth inning and then stole third and scored in the Dominican team’s 10-1 win over the Marlins. “That’s fun to watch. Anytime you have that type of speed… I mean, we have a guy in (Brett) Gardner that’ll be fun. That’s probably the most you can have, watching those guys run.”

Rodriguez may have forgotten who plays shortstop for the Yankees these days, but he quickly remembered once his brief press conference was over. A Dominican team spokesman told reporters that Rodriguez’s compliment of Reyes was not intended as a shot at Jeter, the Yankees captain who has remained somewhat distant since A-Rod’s steroid admission.

[My take: Its the subject of our poll today (see below).]

• PeteAbe ^[4] seems to think A-Rod stuck his foot in his mouth again.
• Darryl Strawberry ^[5] empathizes with Rodriguez’s steroid situation, and adds some interesting quotes:

“I’m not saying that was the right thing to do,” Strawberry said. “But somebody asked me, If I’d faced it, what would I have done? If that was going on in the ’80s, it definitely would have been in my system, too.”

“I was stupid, too, when I was 24, 25,” he added, referring to Rodriguez’s comments that he was stupid and naïve during the time he used steroids. “I’ve done a lot of stupid things.”

Strawberry expressed sympathy and admiration for the way Rodriguez has handled the news cycle, and said he was disappointed by the players union. He believed that the union should have destroyed the 2003 tests — which were meant to remain anonymous — when it had the chance.

• Joel Sherman ^[6] writes that the Yanks have finished up signing players on their 40-man roster (and lists the salaries for each).

[My take: I may be a bit naive, and I know lots of minor leaguers have off-season jobs, but for some of them their minor league salaries are in the $20,000-$35,000 range.  Its not all peaches and cream, is it?]

• A.J. Burnett ^[7] “felt strong” after his simulated game outing on Tuesday.
• Brett Gardner was named Yankees ^[8] minor league player of the year, and Phil Coke took the pitcher honors, for 2008.
• Yahoo! Sports ^[9] has come up with a list of various team’s season ticket plans that are actually cheaper than one $350 seat to one Yankee game.
• PeteAbe ^[10] details the TeamUSA love of their captain, Derek Jeter.

Poll time!

[poll id="18"]