It never ceases to amaze me how bad celebrities are throwing out the first pitch at baseball games.
Case in point, Adam Carolla at a recent Dodgers game:
When told of Carolla’s performance during the first pitch ceremonies, Dodgers’ manager Joe Torre shrugged and said, “It couldn’t have been any worse than Juan Pierre’s throws home.”
At 13-14 after last night’s 4-3 loss to the Rays, voices in and out of baseball are wondering if Girardi, who is in the second season of a three-year contract, is safe.
According to several organizational sources Girardi’s job security isn’t an issue. Too many injuries too early in the season and slow starts by CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira. And he hasn’t had cleanup hitter Alex Rodriguez play a game, lost Chien-Ming Wang early and Jorge Posada recently.
Though Girardi said he understands the attention that comes with managing the Yankees, he said he isn’t fixated on those who blame him for the pedestrian start and being dominated by the Red Sox.
“That’s not something I really focus on. I focus on the task at hand. Every day we do the best we can to prepare our club and every move we make is to win the game and that’s what I focus on,” said Girardi, who has been hamstrung by an awful bullpen.
As the article notes, Girardi can’t do anything about veterans like Sabathia and Teixeira getting off to slow starts, A-Fraud not being in the lineup and Wang forgetting that he’s not pitching in a home run derby contest every fifth day. Girardi will continue to catch heat because he replaced a manager in Joe Torre who should have never been fired in the first place, and the pressure to succeed will always be bestowed on Yankee managers because of how much the club spends to win. It just comes with the territory.
The manager is always on the front lines when a team is losing, but at some point the players are going to have to just step up and freaking produce. Girardi can’t manage situations that are unmanageable (i.e. the pitching staff turning the new Yankee Stadium into Coors Field).
Hardin will get to listen to more of McNamee’s statements. The trainer is scheduled to appear on The Howard Stern Show on Monday.
McNamee is not expected to talk about Clemens but he could react to being called a “gate crasher” and a “hustler” by former pitcher David Cone in The Yankee Years. The just-published book is by former manager Joe Torre and Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated.
“Brian is tired of walking on egg shells,” said Steve Cardillo, a friend of the trainer’s. “He won’t discuss the ongoing stuff with Clemens, but there is no reason why he can’t talk about Joe Torre driving the bus over him. He’s a little tweaked at that. He’s a little tweaked at (David) Cone, too.”
Does McNamee truly believe that Stern is going to have him on his show and not talk about Roger Clemens? Why even have Brian McNamee on a radio show (any radio show) and not talk about Roger Clemens?
In the wake of Joe Torre’s new book set to hit the shelves on Tuesday, Wallace Matthews of Newsday writes that Derek Jeter should step up and publicly defend Alex Rodriguez as his teammate and captain.
No one, of course, tells Derek Jeter what to do, and I don’t presume to try. But it is my considered opinion that Jeter can hide for only so long behind his stock answer, “I haven’t read the book yet.”
The book is out Tuesday. Time to start reading. And he doesn’t even have to read it to come out and say, simply: “Alex is my teammate. Alex is our guy. Everyone in this clubhouse stands behind him.”
And that has to include the captain. Because that’s what captains do.
And it’s the captain’s job to have his teammates’ backs, every one of them, even if it means taking a stand against a former manager and mentor. Torre isn’t a Yankee anymore, but Rodriguez is. The Yankees can win without Torre but not without A-Rod. For the good of his team, Captain Jeter had better choose which side of this argument he is on in a hurry.
And there would be no better time for him to announce his position than today, when Torre comes to town to kick off a media blitz designed to sell whatever odd copies of the book haven’t already been pre-ordered.
Today would be a fine day for Jeter to make himself available’ to the media, just to let everyone – and one guy in particular – know he’s got A-Rod’s back.
I agree to a point. As a leader, Jeter should stand up and defend his teammates and back them whenever they’re publicly criticized like A-Rod was in Torre’s book. But nobody knows what has really gone on in the Yankees’ clubhouse over the years and therefore nobody has the right to tell Jeter whom he should and shouldn’t defend.
Maybe A-Rod is the ultimate prick and he has already pissed Jeter off too many times to count. Maybe Jeter has already made an effort to back the guy and it’s come back to bit him in the ass. The point is, we don’t know what happens inside a clubhouse or what Jeter’s motivation is behind backing or not backing a teammate. And Jeter is a consummate pro so I wouldn’t question his motivates either way in a situation like this.
Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post writes that Joe Torre has ruined his legacy in the wake of his new book, which trashes Yankee management and takes shots his former players like Alex Rodriguez.
This book of yours, “The Yankee Years,” is that classy, Joe? Does it dignify what those 12 remarkable years were to baseball, to this city and, not incidentally, to your career? Was it necessary to air the fact that his teammates call Alex Rodriguez – an awfully easy target, by the way, Joe, and also a guy who won two MVPs while playing for you – “A-Fraud,” or to liken him to the crazed Jennifer Jason Leigh character in “Single White Female”?
Seriously, Joe. Did you even see “Single White Female”?
Why would you take shots at Brian Cashman? All he did during that lengthy post-2000 time, when you weren’t winning championships, was defend you exhaustively – to fans, to the press, to fellow Yankee executives, to various and sundry Steinbrenners, to your old front-office pal Randy Levine.
You never much cared to admit this, Joe, but Cashman was your boss. He could have sold you out. He didn’t.
Cashman deserved better, Joe. So did the Yankees. And, most important, so did you. You transformed yourself as a Yankee, earned yourself a certain Hall of Fame plaque.
There were lots of people who thought you were exiled wrongly in 2007, who winced when you hinted at a possible grudge with the Yankees, who figured, no, Joe is bigger than that. Joe is better than that.
Were we really that wrong, Joe? Really?
If you wanted to hurt the Yankees, Joe, understand this: Yesterday at Legends Field in Tampa, workers were manicuring the field, watering the lawn, getting ready for another spring training once the Super Bowl leaves town.
At the minor-league complex just down Dale Mabry Boulevard, kids were working out. Jorge Posada was said to have taken some swings. Derek Jeter will be here this week.
The Yankees have moved on, Joe. Isn’t it time you did, too?
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again – this doesn’t seem like Joe’s style.
I haven’t read the book, but already this doesn’t seem like a classy way to go about things. No matter how wronged Torre believes he was by the Yankees, you always take the high road. Most people in New York were going to remember Joe as the World Series-winning manager in pinstripes – and they still might. But this book definitely casts a shadow over Torre’s great career. Instead of remembering how great of a manager he was in the Bronx, people are going to point to when he called Alex Rodriguez, “A-Fraud” in his book. Is that how Joe wanted to be remembered?
