I say son, what in the name of Sam Horn are you trying to do here? "I" was wrong for doing that stuff? "We" made a mistake? "We" should have apologized? Man, have you ever watched an episode of Law & Order? Can you say "incriminating testimony"? The last time you did this whole veiled-apology-thing you conveniently left out the pronouns, but it appears you've had a few grammar lessons since then, eh? So you say, and I quote, "that stuff didn't help me hit home runs. I don't care what people say, nothing is going to give you that gift of hitting a baseball." Oh and did I mention you used the word "steroids" in close enough proximity to the words "that stuff" that no self respecting grammarian is going to accuse you of misplacing any of your modifiers? So while "that stuff" (cough! steroids! cough!) may not have helped you hit homers, admitting, however indirectly, that "I" did "that stuff" is going to land you in prison! I think we all know what you're trying to do here, but you can forget about turning that frown upside down because if anyone's got enough balls to make a case here, they're going to turn those pinstripes of yours sideways!

Speaking of the Yankees; and haven't we spoken just a little too much about a sub .500 team these past few entries? Well, I think I've found the man responsible for all those pitchers going down to injury and his name is our very own Trader Neil! Allow me to explain, it's actually quite simple to find if you know where to look. Week 4, Neil Reserves El Duque, Adds Philip Hughes. Later in Week 4, Hughes goes down… Week 5, Neil Reserves Hughes, Adds Darrel Rasner. Shortly thereafter, Rasner goes down… Week 7, Neil Reserves Rasner, Adds Tyler Clippard. And the exception that proves the rule? Neil did not pick up Matt DeSalvo and he's still healthy. Now if I was a non-paroled betting man, I'd be betting some of my disposable income on a hamstring pull for Mr. Tyler "No I Am Not Clay Aiken" Clippard sometime mid-next start, wouldn't you? And if you're really feeling lucky, maybe a teaser of "hamstring for Clippard" and "groin pull for Clemens in his next minor league start"? What do you think? Easy money if you ask me. Now if the rest of you owners can find a way to make sure Neil trades for Mussina, Wang and Pettitte I think we can finally put this Yankee thing to bed. What's that Jason? Goodnight and you're sorry? OK, let's say a prayer for you. "Now I lay me down to sleep, and babble out more BALCO leaks"…

What exactly has happened to inter-league play? I think we're getting away from the very simple days of NL East vs AL East and NL West vs AL West aren't we? I'm looking at the schedules and reading all these complaints about how certain teams have to play other teams that their division rivals might not have to and I'm thinking hey that's not too fair is it? But that's not really the whole story here. I'm looking at these unbalanced schedules and seeing some serious imbalance in talent here. I mean the Braves playing the Red Sox while the Nationals are playing the Orioles isn't such a big deal but check out these little nuggets I gleaned from looking ahead at the inter-league schedule and tell me what you think. I see that the Arizona Diamondbacks have to play Arsenal while the Los Angeles Dodgers get to play Aston Villa, and the Dodgers get to use David Beckham in that game on loan from the LA Galaxy of the MLS. Along those same lines, the Minnesota Twins play Manchester United while the Detroit Tigers play Sheffield United. Or was that just Gary Sheffield flying United to get to the game? I'll have to check that one… And here's another one, the Phillies have to play AC Milan but the Marlins get to play a team comprised of ex-Mets from the late-1970's including Felix Millan. And in a gross imbalance of religious proportions, the Blue Jays play the San Diego Padres while the Yankees play the Little Sisters Of The Poor, and at The Stadium no less! But don't worry, I hear that the Padres are going to have Trader Neil sitting in the visitor's owners box for that entire game. Give me $10 on multiple tendon tears in the bullpen please…

Remember last entry when we were saying hello to my little friend, Braves catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia? Well I think I found the perfect battery-mate for him. The Oakland A's have a pitcher down in Single-A named Craig "Mambo" Italiano. I kid you not, look it up if you doubt me. This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to find a perfect double play partner for Esteban German. Too bad Mariners pitcher Dan Reichert isn't a shortstop and the only Berlin I know is St. Louis Rams QB Brock Berlin. Oh well, the search continues…

And finally, I leave you with another music special. For the crooners out there, grab Mr. Microphone and sing along as, by special request of Marc D'Allesandro, the illegitimate father of Dannilynn, we set the Commish Office Karaoke Machine to the tune of "Abraham, Martin & John"

Has anybody here seen my old friend Alfonso

May 15th, 2007

A few quick thoughts while we're between major news stories in the world of baseball…

But wait a minute, Roger Clemens threw 71 pitches today in a bullpen in Tampa, isn't that a major news story Mr. Commish? OK, were moving on…

This new kid that's catching for the Atlanta Braves? Is this the same guy who was in that Karate Kid movie? Ralph Macchio? No. OK, I thought that's what I heard… Then he's that opera dude, the Man from La Mancha? No, not that either? Hmmm… Man, I can't get the name right! Salt and Pepa's here, and I'm in a fix… Wait, that's it! Salt, salta, saltala… Saltalamacchia! God bless you, why thank you… Jarrod Saltalamacchia, nice eye-talian boy I take it? Well the name does actually sounds like something you'd find on an Italian grinder (sorry for you guys in NJ that's a sub/hero/sandwich up here in New England). Let's see, we've got the cappicola (pronounced sort of like "gabba-gall" for the heathens amongst you), the prosciutto ("pru-zoot-toe") and the saltalamacchia ("wax on, wax off") and of course some Oil Can Boyd and Vinegar Bend Mizell to top it all off…

Now I'm not sure I read this headline correctly on Rotoworld, but if I did I think we've just made history with our first ever in-game surgical procedure… "Colon removed in 2nd inning". Wow, did this colonoscopy actually take place on the mound or in the clubhouse? Apparently, it's Bartolo Colon we're talking about here and he left a game a few weeks back with a biceps strain and all his other internal organs intact but hey, it surely made for some good reading! It's a good thing they didn't have Rotoworld and their short headlines back in the 1970s because there was this guy in the Red Sox bullpen named Dick Pole…

OK, so despite all the high visibility surrounding the HGH thing, we're still getting guys suspended for steroid-type violations? Where are their minds? Oh right, never mind… Anyway, Juan Salas, a reliever for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (don't worry I had to look him up also), has been suspended 50 games for taking "performance enhancing" drugs. And why exactly did I use quotation marks there you ask? Well, if you ask me, if you're going to get suspended for it anyway, should the drug you take actually, well you know, enhance your performance? Salas is his last name, eh? Take a look at that and what do you see? Well, let me put it to you this way. What might a man whose last name reads the same backwards or forwards use to inject his performance enhancers? Why none other than a "palindromic hypodermic"! Thank you very much, I'm here 'til Thursday…

I'm watching one of the out-of-town games on the dish the other night, can't quite recall which team it was, but I got a huge kick out of one of the on-screen stats that they put up. It was the "Caught Stealing" leaders amongst catchers (i.e. which catcher has the best percentage throwing out runners) and of course, the presentation of the stat had to have a sponsor right? Well the "Caught Stealing" leaders were sponsored by, get this…. Lo-Jack! Of course! Great tie-in there and kudos to the genius intern in the marketing department that thought that one up!

Ok, do you really want some more Clemens news? Well I was doing the math on this contract the other day and my was surprised to find that my calculator was telling me that each start Clemens makes is going to cost the Yankees roughly $1 million dollars (outstretched pinky touching side of mouth Dr. Evil style here!)… So that got me thinking, aside from Roger Clemens who else would make the All-Money team? Well I came up with the following on short notice, feel free to e-mail me with any I might have missed (Doug I know how much you like this game!)… Sterling Hitchcock, Hunter Pence, Curt Schilling, Brad Penny, anyone named Mark (preferably from Germany), anyone named Frank (France or Switzerland please) and Jae "Pay" Seo…

And finally, I leave you with two awesome quotes I read somewhere else (man am I good with the footnoting tonight or what?) about the Yankees signing of Clemens, read 'em and weep (from laughing so hard you cry)…

Am I the only one that finds this Clemens/Pettitte thing more than a little odd? I can imagine that when Roger told his wife that he was going back to the Yankees she had the same look on her face that Michelle Williams did when Heath Ledger told her he was going 'fishing' with Jake Gyllenhaal."

"This is historic … who ever heard of a rat jumping ON a sinking ship?"

Please drive home safely and be sure to tip your waitresses. They work hard for their money (so hard for it honey)…

May 6th, 2007

Wait a minute! Hold the Cinco De Mayo, we've got breaking news coming across The Commish's office teletype machine… Yes, I said teletype machine. Don't ask, it's old, it still works fine, rarely breaks down and it's leased. As a matter of fact, that's exactly what this latest newsbreak is all about! Speaking of things that are old and being leased, I'm sure you've all heard already but ladies and gentlmen (and of course Yankee fans too), Roger Clemens is wearing the pinstripes once again…

So nice diversion there firing the strength and conditioning coach as a smokescreen, eh? Media's head is turned the other way trying to figure out exactly who this guy is and they go ahead and sign Clemens right out in plain sight and no one knows it until he shows up at Yankee Stadium in the middle of the game on Sunday? Maybe George isn't as dumb as we think? As a matter of fact, I bet he's so happy he could sing! Somebody get me Mr. Microphone and cue up the Elton John, it's karaoke time in The Commish's Office…

Checked Joe's baggage last night; pre-flight

And I think it's gonna be a short short time...

I hear Roger's already lining up endorsement deals, including this one from Mastercard:

Monthly salary for Roger Clemens: 4.5 million dollars

Well, he's not exactly "priceless" is he? Roger actually comes with a very big price tag. So how will these now "frugal" Yankees afford this? Well as we said before they've already fired the strength and conditioning coach so that frees up about $5.35 an hour in salary (what is the minimum wage in the state of NY anyway?). So who else can now go? Well we've got the assistant to the traveling secretary position that can be eliminated. How much did Costanza make? OK, that's good… Let's see, there's the clubhouse assistant? Only he's dealing in steroids, so instead of firing him perhaps we just garnish his tips? Oh wait, that's the team on the other side of town! Sorry. OK then if we're not getting any payola from anyone else, let's just put Carl Pavano on a plane, get him out of town, then we can certainly afford this.

"Mr. Pavano, paging stand-by customer Mr. Carl Pavano. Please report to the check-in desk. Your one-way ticket on Lidle Airlines is ready and your flight will be boarding shortly…"

May 2nd, 2007

OK, here we go, the first long column of the season…

This column is being simulcast at 1010 AM on your radio dial. Yes, that's 1010 W-I-N-S, as in "it's a long time between Yankee" WINS ladies and gentlemen. And those of you in the NY area know the slogan, "W-I-N-S. Where the Joe Torre Watch never stops. You give us 22 losses, we'll give you a new manager…" So with the Yankee ship taking on more water than the 9th Ward do you think this would be a good time for some beat reporter to ask A-Rod, "so how does it feel to be the best player on a last place team?" Oh wait, he's already been asked that how many times? But never fear Yankee fans, I hear that help is indeed on the way to cure those pitching woes. As a matter of fact, the YES Network has just signed none other than Jeff Foxworthy himself, to lead the charge. How can Jeff Foxworthy help the Yanks you ask? Well, to find out be sure to tune in to the YES network every Wednesday night at 9PM on non-game days when Jeff hosts the newest game show craze, "Are You Better Than Our 5th Starter". The game in which contestants vie for a chance to pitch 4 1/3 innings in the next Yankee home game. {Fast talking game show announcer voice doing disclaimer}: Winning contestants agree to be relieved by Sean Henn and Brian Bruney and will not be eligible to receive a win or get their own commemorative collectible medallion from the New York Post…

So what exactly does King George have to say about all this? Well, he did release a statement claiming his support of the team but I think it needs a little reading "between the lines" if you know what I mean?

"The season is still very young,

"but up to now the results are clearly not acceptable to me or to Yankee fans"

"However, Brian Cashman, our general manager, Joe Torre, our manager,

"and our players all believe that they will turn this around quickly."

"I believe in them. I am here to support them in any way to help them accomplish this turnaround.

"It is time to put excuses and talk away.

"It is time to see if people are ready to step up and accept their responsibilities.

"It is time for all of them to show me and the fans what they are made of.

"Let's get going. Let's go out and win and bring a world championship back to New York. That's what I want."

And on that note, we leave the Yankees and move up the East Coast to Boston where the question on everyone's mind of course is… "Well was it a bloody sock or wasn't it"? And I'm not speaking with a British accent here! The debate rages on over whether or not the red substance on Curt Schilling's sock was blood from his ankle or some Heinz Fancy Ketchup from one of those little white packets lifted from the pre-game buffet table. Now if you ask me, I'm gonna go with the "it was definitely blood" crowd but isn't this much ado over nothing really? I mean nothing's going to change if we find out otherwise and it's not going to bring back a Yankee win or anything (I'm typing this as George runs by screaming with a sword and the rest of the Tampa front office behind him shouting "Big Papi! Dead! Manny! Dead!") Besides, this is a freakin' sock we're talking about! Now if anyone's got a bloody Bruno Magli laying around they want to do some DNA testing on well then I've got to think that would be a much better use of the CSI Crime Labs time now wouldn't you…

From bloody socks let's move onto Sacks. Dead Sacks, as in Johnny Sack, the New York crime boss who met his demise recently on a final season episode of The Sopranos. Moving away from baseball for a moment and into football (which is legal as the NFL Draft was on just this past weekend), do any of you Soprano fans want to claim naming rights here for next season's fantasy football team? The Johnny Sack Exchange? The Johnny Sack Dance? OK, just send me an e-mail if so, and be sure to "cc" Fabrizio on the note as well… Also in the $10,000 Pyramid category of "those whose run has reached an end" we've had to say goodbye to Sanjaya on American Idol a few weeks ago. So sad but the boy really wasn't carrying a tune all that well there was he? Which reminds me of a good joke! What do Sanjaya and Mark Prior have in common? They both have "no pitch" (rimshot, thank you I'm here 'til Thursday, please tip your waitresses)…

Back to New York, let's go cross town to Flushing where we find that a certain Mets fan named Frank Martinez (which I think is a common alias used by our own Bruce Lerman) has been banned from Shea Stadium for admitting that he shined a flashlight in the eyes of Mets opponents from behind home plate. Man, how stupid are people? If you wanted to do this right, you don't use a flashlight from behind home plate. You get one of those red laser pointer things and you sit way up in the mezzanine on the first base side of the stadium and start drawing red circular "targets" on opposing players heads as they sit in the dugout! If that doesn't scare them and make their play a little more erratic then I don't know what will! What's that? Where exactly are my seats at Shea? Well, they're on the first base side, up… Oh never mind!… Also in the news on this side of town the local police blotter shows us that a former New York Mets clubhouse worker who admitted selling performance-enhancing drugs to major league players testified last week before a federal grand jury investigating steroids. Now apparently these sales occurred between the years of 1985 to 1995 and we've got to think there were at least a few Mets involved here right? Couple that thought with the way these "guess who's been taking steroids" reveals go and I can't wait to find out that the list of Mets who have been "pumping up" includes none other than Kevin Elster, Butch Huskey, Macky Sasser and Dave Magadan…

I see Torii Hunter got himself in a whole mess of trouble by actually making good on a joke to send the Royals some champagne after helping the Twins clinch the AL Central title last season by sweeping the Tigers in the season's final series. So he sends a few bottles of Dom Perignon over to the K.C. clubhouse last time the two teams played and what does he get for his troubles? Royal starter Zack Greinke, the ungrateful bastard, hits him in the freakin' face with a pitch! Screw the Dom P Torii! You should've sent over a case of the $4.99 Korbel… Looking at the A's roster I see that they've got two pitchers named Huston (Street) and Dallas (Braden). So when does San Antonio Smith get the call up from Triple A Sacramento?… This Felix Pie guy on the Cubs? It's pronounced "Pee-Aye"? With no accent? Well that's a shame because I was just waiting for the "baseball, hot dogs, Felix Pie and Chevrolet" commercial to come out…

Looks like Rockies SS Troy Tulowitzki has turned in a very rare unassisted triple play the other night. Not sure how many times this has actually been pulled off but I do know that another guy with an unassisted triple play to his credit is named Bill Wambsganss. Must have something to do with the complexity of the last name, eh? How do I know this? Well to prove my point, I bet you that Ron Cey doesn't have one, does he?… The members of the Baltimore Orioles bullpen are apparently having a contest to see who can grow the best mustache. I don't have a picture handy to link to but from the looks of things, I can't really tell if we're looking at the cast of "Deadwood" {cue up the spaghetti western music} or "The Devil In Miss Jones" {funky guitar sound with a lot of wawa pedal} … The Brewers are in first place in the NL Central! Quick, somebody get Bernie Brewer to pee in a cup next time he hits the bottom of that slide…

News making it's way around the Monty says that our defending champs, The Old Swine, are experiencing a little "technical difficulties" as they currently sit in 15th place in the standings. Swine owner Mark Robinson is blaming the lack of fire in this year's team on co-owner Jim Kalach's very laissez-faire attitude in light of last season's victory. Jim claims that there's nothing wrong even going so far as to say "hey, I poured my Dom Perignon into a plastic cup before I entered the clubhouse, just like Mark asked me to! What does he want me to do, throw this stuff away? Torii paid good money for the bubbly, the least I can do is appreciate it as I sit in the team hot tub instead of spending time trolling the free agent wire for some suitable pitching!"

And finally, a late Baseball Tonight update says that the word from Heaven is that Connie Mack had to pull Darryl Kile after 6 1/3 innings of 4 hit ball with runners on 2nd and 3rd and one out in a 2 - 1 game. He's got a real tired bullpen and was looking for someone to finish the inning and get through the 8th so he wouldn't have to stretch out his closer Steve Olin. Rest in peace Josh Hancock and here's to hoping you can get Kile out of that jam…