As this point you should probably just buy a subscription to baseballprospectus.com:
“No, I guess what I’m saying is we don’t want these huge media circuses that were associated with my father. I mean, he wasn’t Jonas Salk.”
“The deadline is the deadline,” Steinbrenner said in a telephone interview. “I extended it a few hours more, and that was it. So it’s done.”
So was it the deadline or not?
I love the Yankees.
Once again, from BaseballProspectus.com, the keeper of all that is good:
Johan Santana to the Red Sox is all but done. Jon Lester, a center fielder, Justin Masterson and Ryan Kalish are the package. More details now.
We’ll see what “all but done” means today, methinks.
… I read this on BaseballProspectus.com:
The buzz around the media room right now is the makings of a huge deal between the Marlins and Tigers, with both Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis heading to Motown for a five-player package that leads off with Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller. Right now, who the other three are is apparently being worked out, and while there’’s plenty that could still go wrong, multiple sources confirm that the talks are real.
Crikey.
If the Twins were satisfied with Lester’s medicals, it’s believed they would accept a swap of him, Coco Crisp, shortstop prospect Jed Lowrie and either highly regarded pitching prospect Justin Masterson or another player.
That’s from Jayson Stark’s column on Johan. I just want to point out that paragraphs like this pop up all the time, but they are completely worthless. “It’s believed they would accept a swap…” Um, “it’s believed?” By who?
This is why a million trade rumors get spread around and there are about a dozen trades.
Of course, I hope it happens.
The Patriots pulled off a wild one last night, beating the Ravens 27-24 to remain undefeated. It was a heck of a football game, and as someone smarter than I wrote, shows that you need as much luck as skill to go undefeated. But think about this: what would be different if the Patriots lost that game?
Answer: not much.
Here’s a little secret: until the I realized the game itself was something special — you know, the type of game you’ll talk about for years — I didn’t particularly care whether the Patriots won or not. I’m sick of the “19-0” stories the same way I was sick of them the first time a particularly overzealous Patriots fan friend started saying the Patriots would go 19-0 this year, and that anything else would be unacceptable. Really? I love the Pats, but it’s good to be battle-tested. That’s why I was so happy with this game, which was a coin flip in the end. I think this was better than a blowout win, but it could have gone either way. Let’s not forget our real goal: we want to win the Super Bowl. That’s all there is to it.
It’s almost as if the Patriots’ constant success over the last 7 years has made people lose sight of what made those teams great. Sure, they won many, many games, but they had one goal, and that was winning the Super Bowl. They didn’t care about whether Tom Brady was better than Peyton Manning, or going undefeated. They just cared about winning the last game.
For the life of me, I will never understand the Peyton Manning thing. It seems to me that this is a vestige of the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry, where Boston fans are eager to show that their player is better than a Yankees player, but the only reason we did that is we never won. It’s all we had. Why do I care that other people think Peyton Manning is better than Tom Brady? Tom Brady won 3 Super Bowls and is 12-0 this year? What does any of that have to do with Peyton Manning?
The answer is “nothing.” And, just to be fair (human?), I will admit that it’s fun to tweak each player occasionally w/r/t the other. But a good number of Patriots fans carry this chip on their shoulder about Brady, that he has to be better than Manning for… well, for some reason I can’t put my finger on. Isn’t winning enough?
Getting back to the original topic, sure, I will be disappointed if they lose. But not all that disappointed (unless they lose to the Steelers, because I will have to comply with the terms of a rather humiliating bet). The great teams don’t win every game, but they make it close when they’re not playing their best, and give themselves a chance to win. Sometimes it happens, and sometimes it doesn’t. Last night it did. All I know is that I want no part of Lady Luck come January.
From Boston.com:
Steinbrenner told Newsday he expects the Yankees’ offer – top pitching prospect Phil Hughes, outfielder Melky Cabrera, and another prospect – to trump whatever the Sox place on the table.
“I think our offer is the best offer,” Steinbrenner told the newspaper.
“We have the best young pitchers in the game, even better than Boston.”
For those who say the Red Sox are the new Yankees… this is why that will never be the case. The arrogance here is striking. And we can’t match it, nor will we ever. And that’s why we’ll never be the Yankees, as big-headed and obnoxious as we get.
Until he goes somewhere, I’ll more or less refrain from commenting on all the rumors that are out there, but needless to say I like this one. It sounds like the Red Sox and Yankees are going toe-to-toe again. About time.
This does bring up the uglier side of baseball, to some people, as these are the two teams that really don’t need to get better. My brother was excited by the Red Sox’ World Series victory, but he wasn’t all that surprised. His response was, “Yeah, but they spent a lot of money on players.” Which is true. The casual fan, these things can be offputting.
I am not the casual fan.
In last night’s CNN/YouTube debate, Mitt Romney said he waited 87 long years to celebrate a Red Sox title. I wonder why he waited until 2005.
As for Giuliani, I think the AL/NL divide goes back to when the leagues were smaller, so I don’t have an issue with it. I think there was a lot more league pride when there were fewer teams.
Jim Valvano at the 1993 ESPYs. Needs no further introduction.
Bryan Joiner 