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The Veteran’s Committe did not elect anyone to the Hall of Fame yesterday. (Say what you want about Maury Wills, but I don’t get how he gets twice as many votes as Minnie Minoso…okay, I understand how, I just don’t think it’s fair.) In the Times, columnist Dave Anderson questions the committe’s methods:

After two veterans committee shutouts, it’s fair to wonder how responsibly do the Hall of Famers, especially the 58 ex-players among them, take their duty as voters?

Do they really study the two pages of statistics, rankings and highlights supplied to them for each of the 25 candidates on the ballot – particularly those of players from other eras whom they never competed against and probably know nothing about?

Do they just glance at the list and make a snap judgment?

…Particularly annoying is that three committee members did not cast a ballot. (A fourth committee member, Murray Chass, the baseball columnist of The New York Times, does not vote, in accordance with the newspaper’s policies.) If they were ill, that’s understandable. But if they simply did not care enough about the process to fill out the ballot, they should be removed from the committee. No vote this time, no ballot in two years when the committee will be polled again.

For more excellent Hall of Fame coverage, check out what my label-mate Mike Carminati has to say. (Oh, and while you are there, Yankee and Red Sox fans should definately read the first part of Mike’s history of trades between the two teams.)

The Yankees play their first exhibition game of the spring today, and all is quiet in the clubhouse, much to the chagrin of some. Man, oh man, how I wish I was at home watching. Just cause, you know?

Former Met Al Leiter thinks that syndicated radio personalities Mike and the Mad Dog done him wrong. In today’s Daily News, he tells John Harper:

“They influence not only fans but organizations,” said Leiter, who is paid to do a weekly spot on Michael Kay’s ESPN radio show. “Teams in New York listen to those guys. Why I don’t know. One guy’s a know-it-all, and his opinions are better than anybody else’s, and the other guy is a clown who throws a ball 47 miles-an-hour and plays tennis.

“They called me every name in the book, and questioned my integrity. Chris said I was done in 2003, and then when I had a strong second half, he said, ‘I guess I was wrong.’ Like a 10-second retraction was enough after he ripped me up and down in every way as if I’d done something to his wife and kids.”

Anyone listening to Fatso and Fruit Loops this afternoon? If so, let me know how they respond. I love bullcrap like this.

So, will anyone be elected to the Hall of Fame later this afternoon? My vote would go to Ron Santo, Minnie Minoso, Joe Gordon and Dick Allen.

Randy Johnson has a sore left calf and will miss his first spring training start. Johnson insists that this is not a big issue. Meanwhile, Kevin Brown pitched two innings yesterday in a intra-squad game and felt good when all was said and done. It would be curious if Brown ended up being a valuable contributor in 2005, particularly after how he finished 2004.

Part three of Rich Lederer’s chat with Bill James is up:

BJ: Rickey [Henderson] is one of a kind. Someone should write a really good book about Rickey. There is an essential connection between ego and greatness and no one better illustrated that than Rickey. When Rickey is 52, he will still believe that he could play in the majors. You can say that his ego is out of scale to his real world, but his ego is what made him so special. Somebody should document mannerisms and Rickey was a walking catalog of annoying mannerisms. He was a show. Every at-bat was a show. It’s not like a Reggie Jackson show where it’s done for television. It’s a live show. It’s done for the guys in the ballpark and the guys on the field. The show made him totally unique.

Tim Raines was almost as great of a leadoff man and almost as great of a player. Tim is a good guy, just a nice, reasonable person that everybody likes. Rickey is a show. [laughs] The show was essential to his greatness.

I really enjoyed this conversation. I can’t wait for lunch.

Part Two of Rich Lederer’s “Breakfast with Bill” interview is up. I like this exchange regarding a trio of James’ former assistants:

RL:…I was wondering if you could talk about some of the different people that worked for you. The fact that your disciples have become notable in their own right reminds me of the success of Bill Walsh and his assistant coaches.

BJ: Jim Baker is a very talented person. I conducted perhaps an over-organized search for an assistant at that time and hired him. He was the most talented person I could find. He is an extremely funny writer. He’s hilarious. I think everybody who knows Jim and knows how good his stuff is has been waiting for him to explode as a popular pop icon for 20 years. It hasn’t happened yet and maybe it won’t, but he’s a very talented guy.

RL: Rob Neyer was your second assistant.

BJ: Rob is the easiest person to work with that I’ve had. I hired him just because I liked him. I knew he was a big baseball fan. It was sort of a trial thing and I didn’t really know how long it would last. He is a natural assistant to me because I’m not organized enough to spend any time directing anybody’s work. You give Neyer a stack full of baseball books and he’s busy. He was naturally doing it by his own intellectual curiosity and interests so I never really had to worry about what he was doing, which was a good thing for me.

RL: How about John Sickels?

BJ: I hired John because I was looking for an assistant. We went to lunch and one of the things I did was draw up a list of young players. I thought I’d ask John to see if he knew anything about them as sort of an intern test. He knew far more about these players than I did! Just off the top of his head, he could rattle off where they were last year and what they were doing. I was quite amazed at that. John always had — and it doesn’t have anything to do with me — an area of expertise. He always knew more about that stuff than anybody did. Through working with me, he was able to let people know all of the expertise he had in that area.

Chris Smith has a good profile of Mets general manager Omar Minaya in the latest issue of New York magazine. I don’t know whether or not Minaya is a good GM, but I like him:

In private conversation, the six-foot-tall Minaya leans forward, establishing an intimacy. Heís resolutely upbeat, flashing a broad smile, and instead of launching into monologues, he frequently stops and asks questions, appearing genuinely curious instead of slick.

…”When you grow up in New York, you go to it,” Minaya says. “You donít expect it to come to you. Maybe some of the tools we learn as New Yorkers

Rich Lederer has the first of his three-part interview with Bill James up today over at The Baseball Analysts. Anyone who has an even passing interest in James is in for a treat. It’s not often that he gives long interviews, and, if the first part is any indication, Lederer’s work is bound go down as a classic. It could end up being the definitive Bill James interview. I’ll link the second two installments as they appear.

“He certainly has the right to say what he wants to say. But don’t get yourself thinking that you have to respond to it. You do what you want. I don’t tell guys what to do. I just tell them this is part of being here. He’s The Boss. It’s something they should have known before they got here, anyway. Any time he says something, it’s news.” Joe Torre on his Boss (Newsday)

As expected, there a more thoughts on Steinbrenner’s weekend outburst today. Here’s a good one from Murray Chass in the Times:

Steinbrenner’s outburst risked jeopardizing the dual support for Giambi by focusing even greater attention on him, if that’s possible. Giambi has enough pressure on him without Steinbrenner creating more.

“I shouldn’t have said it, but that’s how I feel,” Cashman said Steinbrenner told him. Maybe Steinbrenner has withdrawn so far into the background in the past year or two that he has forgotten the impact his words can have. Or, as always, he doesn’t care what impact his words have.

This time at least, he did not direct the words at one of his players. That left some room for humor. “Matsui said he wished he could speak better English,” Tellem said. “If he did, he could act as a marriage counselor for George and me.”

Speaking of the Boss, my good pal Repoz is what you’d call a classic-Steinbrenner-hater. It’s a label that he wears proudly. Growing up, Repoz fondly recalls the Mike Burke/CBS days, when he and his friends could move down to the good seats at the end of a game and actually shoot the breeze with Burke. Last Friday, Repoz sent me this bit from Burke’s 1984 autobiography:

I finally came across the Michael Burke book “Outrageous Good Fortune” from 1984 and I thought you would dig this little passage about the whole facade todo. During the planning stages of the The Yankee Stadium renovation, Burke was notified by architects, that the new Stadium could not support the facade without girders…so there could be no facade. Michael Burke wanted some of the facade to remain…somewhere.

From the book…Burke to the acrhitects…

“Then take it down and mount it around the perimeter wall behind the bleachers. We’ve got to preserve that characteristic somehow. Come back and
tell me you can do that.” They found a way.

Years later, long after I left the Yankees, I happened across a television interview with George Steinbrenner. The reporter asked him about preserving the facade, applauding the fact that it had been done. In response George
related how it came about. “You see, I was watching a game at the Stadium
one night in 1972, the last year in the old park. My good friend Cary Grant
was my guest. ‘George’, he said, ‘you’ve just got to keep that facade. It’s so characteristic of the Yankees.’ ‘OK, Cary,’ I said; ‘we’ll do it for you’ And we did.”

Oh, well.”

Alex…the book is chock full of anti-Stein material….a must read for those with that lovely trace of hatred still left in our soul.

The Don

Oh, and I liked this little bit buried in a Mets “notes” piece:

Willie Randolph called Joe Torre on Friday morning and got positive feedback from the Yankees’ skipper. “He said you guys have been nice to me,” Randolph said, referring to the media. “He said I’m doing okay. As long as I’m getting approval from the godfather, I’m all right.”

Man, it was a decent Sunday for the sports pages in New York as they finally had some Boss George news to splash. Okay, it isn’t that interesting

A couple of days ago, I was thinking about remarkable it is that we just don’t hear boo about our boy Hideki Matsui. Today, Joel Sherman has a really nice column on him:

Nothing changes at Legends Field for Matsui. He is still the most covered player on the most covered team. Whatever attention Randy Johnson is getting, or Alex Rodriguez or Derek Jeter, it pales when compared to Matsui.

…Under Joe Torre, the Yankees have wanted to portray a style that honors their heritage: Show up ready every day to play well, but never show up the opponent. Matsui embodies that as well as any player who was drafted and developed in the organization.

“You couldn’t ask for a better Yankee,” said Afterman, whose ties to Japan helped facilitate Matsui’s signing.

After improving offensively last season, and performing well in the playoffs, Matsui has become a fan favorite in New York. The Yankees are expected to try and work out an extension with Godzilla sometime this spring.

Room Service

The brightest moment out of Yankee camp yesterday was when Mike Stanton served a bp meatball to Bernie Williams, which was promptly crushed over the left field fence. Felix Rodriguez threw well, while Flash Gordon still hasn’t been able to entirely shake off his poor performance against the Red Sox last fall. Still, his manager thinks he’s a stand-up guy:

“He’s honest, and you can’t help but want to hug the guy.” – Joe Torre on Tom Gordon‘s admission that he was very anxious before pitching in Game 5 of ALCS last fall. (N.Y. Daily News)

Gone, But Not Forgotten

Finally, Bill Madden has a piece on Jon Lieber, the one who got away:

“To be honest,” Lieber was saying yesterday in the solitude of the clubhouse of the Phillies’ spring training complex, “I thought I’d be back, but there was always the chance they might decide otherwise. I guess that’s what happened. I have no hard feelings toward them. It was just business. I really appreciate everything they did for me. They stuck their necks out for me, gave me a chance when all the other clubs weren’t willing to go there. They committed to me for two years.”

But here’s the telling quote:

“In retrospect we probably should have picked up the option,” Yankee GM Brian Cashman said yesterday. “But who knew the market was going to explode the way it did?”

Straight-shooting from Cash.

My good pals Rich Lederer and Bryan Smith have launched a new baseball blog called, The Baseball Analysts. Anyone familiar with their work won’t be surprised to find that it is an excellent read. Rich has kicked off their first week with an entertaining three-part series (one, two and three) simply titled, “Who Was Your Favorite Player Growing Up?” It’s terrific stuff.

Spring training means puff pieces galore for baseball fans. Sometimes it feels like fool’s gold: there are lots of stories, but none that are especially meaningful. Still, it’s better than nothing, and I ain’t complaining. Today gives news about Boss George, Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, Doug Glanville, Rey Sanchez, Ugie Urbina, Cookie Monster, Sammy Sosa, and Willie Randolph and his new-look Mets.

Here’s a little blurb from Sam Borden that appears in today’s Daily News:

[Bernie] Williams offered the first strong defense of A-Rod yesterday when asked for his reaction to the procession of Red Sox players who have bashed Rodriguez over the past week, calling him a “clown” and saying he wasn’t a “Yankee type.” Several Sox implied A-Rod wasn’t a true Yankee because he hadn’t been part of the championship teams of the late ’90s, but Williams said that was a silly sentiment.

“You have probably one of the greatest Yankees that ever wore this uniform, and that’s Cap (Don Mattingly), and who would argue that he’s not a true Yankee?” Williams said. “Still, he didn’t win a World Series here. I just don’t think that’s an accurate statement.”

Could this be Bernie’s last year with the Yanks? Will he possibly hang em up for good at the end of the year? According to Newsday:

“Some days I feel like I want to retire right at that moment, and some days I feel like I want to play another 10 years,” Williams said.

I’ve always imagined that Bernie is the kind of guy who will walk away from the game. I don’t think of him as someone who will be a coach or a broadcaster. But who knows? Maybe he wouldn’t mind playing for three or four more years as a part-time player. I don’t see it, but stranger things have happened.

Rodriguez, Sheff, Giambi, The Big Unit, more from Trot Nixon…Thank goodness the Yanks have Joe Torre. His calming influence makes for what John Harper calls, “The Perfect Zoo Keeper”:

“We’re here to get in shape for the season,” Torre continued, “so whatever the distractions, let’s air them out here. Let’s get it out, get it over with – let’s deal with it. You don’t hide from it, you deal with it and move on.

“I’ve always done it this way, even before I was with the Yankees. Obviously I didn’t have as many talented people as I have now. Every year we get more high-profile people, but you find out that once they come in, they’re easy to talk to.

“That makes my job easier … talking, the basics, it’s common sense. As far as I know, anyway, it’s common sense.”

Capice?

And what about the newest members of the Bronx Bombers? Here’s Jayson Stark on Randy Johnson and Tyler Kepner on Jaret Wright.

On the lighter side, Jack Curry had a nice, long piece covering Bernie Williams’ five-day tour of Venezuela and Colombia as U.S. cultural ambassador last week.

And Bob Klapisch recently caught up with Mariano Rivera to talk about how the 2004 ALCS may have effected his pysche:

To even suggest the Sox are in his head evokes a smile out of Rivera, who playfully says, “Come on, bro, no way. That’s not possible.”

That’s not a lie. That’s not a boast. Rivera is among the least neurotic players in the clubhouse, having made a permanent peace with the leadoff walk to Kevin Millar in the ninth inning of Game 4, ultimately costing the Bombers a chance to sweep the Sox.

But no one counted on Rivera walking Millar on a full-count fastball just inches inside. That started the Yankees on a downward spiral that turned into the most traumatic postseason collapse in baseball history.

Sitting at home days later, watching the Red Sox on TV in the World Series, Rivera said, “I asked myself, ‘What could we have done differently? What did I do wrong?’ It took me eight to 10 days to get over it. Then, I finally decided it wasn’t meant to be. Sometimes you just can’t explain it and you leave it at that.”

…”What’s the point of being angry at myself or at losing?” he said. “Life will go on. Baseball will go on. No one is supposed to succeed every time. I’ve always said, you learn more from failing than you do from winning.”

Roger Angell couldn’t have said it better himself.

The Alex Rodriguez story continued over the weekend as various members of the World Champs (Millar, Arroyo and newcomer, Matt Mantei) had their say. Rodriguez spoke with reporters at Legends Field on Sunday and addressed some of what has been flying around of late. John Harper doesn’t think Rodriguez is helping himself any, but Murray Chass holds the media responsible for all of this mishigoss:

One player, Trot Nixon, ignited the game with negative comments about Rodriguez last week and atorrent of teammates have followed. But the teammates’ comments have not been unsolicited. They were at the urging of reporters eager to inflame the game to incendiary levels. They were all but handed a script.

Athletes have long accused reporters of creating stories, and, sadly, this is one of those instances. It has become one of the most distasteful instances I have witnessed in 45 years of covering baseball.

…This story has not seen its last chapter. Twenty-four position players will be in the Red Sox’ camp tomorrow. That’s 24 more players who can be asked about A-Rod.

No, make that 23. Kevin Millar showed up yesterday and was asked the obligatory question. It doesn’t matter what he said in response. Just that he was asked was predictable and ridiculous enough.

Joe Torre is from the old school, and bemoans the current in-your-face culture of self-promotion and disrespect:

“As a whole, there is a lack of respect. It’s unfortunate and I know that I speak for my generation, but it’s reality. I don’t know. It certainly is against the grain for me.”

“I would like to believe when we win as a team, you understand how tough it is to win and you respect the other team that tried to beat you. You have to understand there is somebody else trying to do the same thing you are.”

The trash-talking continues between members of the Red Sox and Alex Rodriguez. Though Rodriguez has yet to report to camp, and offer any comebacks himself, he doesn’t need to be around to draw attention to himself. This story is already old, but it’ll be a running theme to contend with all season long. In other backpage news, ol’ quotable himself, Boomer Wells, was talking to the Daily News yesterday:

“I’ve never had a good relationship with Joe, we’ve had a few run-ins, and Mel Stottlemyre, as well,” Wells added. “Mel’s probably the best pitching coach I’ve ever had, but when you have run-ins like that, it just leaves a sour taste. And who needs it? I can understand their point, and hopefully, they can understand mine.

“There’s no hard feelings one way or another. Life moves on and now I’m in a Boston uniform and it’s my job … to go out there and beat the Yankees.”

Curt Schilling likes to talk even more than Wells does. Here is his relatively tame latest take on Alex Rodriguez:

“I’m pretty sure that me not liking Alex Rodriguez is not a groundbreaking story. I’m sure there’s a lot of guys in the big leagues that don’t like each other. The comments came about because of play in the field last year. I never really thought it was nearly as big a deal as people have made it. I’m pretty sure Alex could care less whether I like him or not. I don’t need somebody not liking me to motivate me to play. The guy’s an MVP.”

That’s couldn’t care less, but pernt taken.