Farewell to Jason Varitek: the catcher who fights like a girl

So new Boston Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine is trying to ingratiate himself with Red Sox Nation by, among other things, praising retiring catcher Jason Varitek saying the Red Sox captain was "able to beat up Alex" Rodriguez. (Bobby V also said that Derek Jeter never actually practiced the flip play, and he nearly hurt himself the next day having to do a 180 and take that back!)

Anyhow, I have never understood why Red Sox fans praise that "fight" as being some great moment for their team, nor do I think that Tek "beat up" anybody. Because, frankly, Jason Varitek fought like a girl in the brouhaha. First of all, you cannot be considered a tough guy when you keep your catcher's mask during a fight. Some warrior. Second, he kept his catcher's mitt on, too. Third, he grabbed at A-Rod's face like a girl would in a hair-pulling snit fit or something. Fourth, he grabbed at Alex's crotch, too. Again, that's fighting like a girl, too.

The whole "fight" was stupid -- and orchestrated. If you may remember, Rodriguez helped the Yanks beat the Red Sox the night before, so Bronson (aka "Brandon," as A-Rod always called him) Arroyo plunked A-Rod to start something, one of the many, many times Yankees got plunked over the years by Boston pitchers. (And how long did it take for David Ortiz to get his? A decade? But I digress.)

Here is what one Red Sox blogger said the other day praising Varitek in the week that, as he puts it, "the warrior is hanging up his armor" (you mean the catcher's mask he hid in?) Emphasis added by me:

Arroyo buzzed him squarely in the back on his second trip to the plate. Rodriguez didn't like it and started jawing (that's polite for cursing out Arroyo) as he slowly walked to first base.


Sox catcher Jason Varitek decidedly didn't like what he heard, stood between Arroyo and ARod, asked ARod to repeat himself, ARod obliged and it was on. Rodriguez's head jolted back as Tek mashed his face with his catcher's mitt and then, frankly, raunched him by getting his right arm under ARod's crotch and clasped his left hand behind the ARod's buttocks and lifted. It hurts just to write about it.

Oooh, what a fighter! Puh-lease.

Look, other than the fight, I really don't dislike Varitek -- he stood up and participated in the "It Gets Better" project, and he seems like a decent enough guy, although his leadership during the fried chicken and beer brouhaha last year left something to be desired. For years, he hasn't even cracked  my least favorite Red Sox list. But please, stop telling me what a great fighter Varitek was against A-Rod. I've seen tougher fights in the girls' bathroom in high school.

What do you say? Does Jason Varitek fight like a girl?

Bronson Arroyo (!) thinks what A-Rod did is no big deal

Even though you might expect Bronson Arroyo to take offense at Alex Rodriguez's supposed breach of unwritten rules against Dallas Braden, the Cincinnati Reds pitcher thought it was no big thing.

The victim of A-Rod's infamous 2004 slap play told MLB.com his opinion on the issue:

Arroyo, discussing Thursday's incident in Oakland when the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez ran over the pitchers' mound after a foul ball prompting a stern reaction from A's pitcher Dallas Braden, said it was really no big deal.

"Honestly, the thing about running across the mound, I vaguely know that the rule is there," Arroyo said. "I've never been on a team where it happened and somebody got fired up about it. I wouldn't think twice about A-Rod running across the top of my mound."

Not surprisingly, this quote hasn't gotten any coverage. I found it buried in a roundup-type piece on MLB.com. Of course, if it had been a negative quote, it would have been front-page news. And people wonder why I complain about the sports media's bias!

That's not all. Two big-name Atlanta Braves players thought Braden was completely in the wrong. Check out these quotes, buried in the middle of a Mets notes piece:

Both Tim Hudson and Chipper Jones thought A's pitcher Dallas Braden went overboard with his verbal salvo against A-Rod after the Yankee star crossed the pitcher's mound while returning to first base.

"To be honest with you, I think it's a little much," said Hudson. "That's not an unwritten rule. Obviously Braden wanted to make a point. ... It looks a little bit silly. I think (Braden) might have took two or three cups of coffee too deep that day."

Added Jones: "I didn't realize that pitchers got that upset. I think it was blown out of proportion. Seemed pretty childish to me. There are better ways to handle it, I think. ... I'll go out of my way to avoid the mound now."

So yeah, most baseball fans aren't aware of those quotes, or even of the way that Derek Jeter and other Yankee teammates have had their third baseman's back.

On the other hand, David Wells' criticism of A-Rod was treated by the media like he was the Oracle of Baseball or something. Given the way that he helped cost the Yankees the 2003 World Series by his inability to take care of himself - or to tell Yankee management his back was hurting - I wouldn't give his words any credibility whatsoever. But the New York Post's George King does, giving them more play than anybody else in an article on the issue.

"A-Rod is full of [bleep], that he never heard of that," Wells told The Post from San Diego yesterday. "He has been around the game long enough to know that."....

"I hated it when runners did that. I yelled at plenty of them," Wells said. "It's one thing to cross in the front of the mound before it goes up, but on top of it, that's wrong. The cleats [mess] up the mound. Pitchers don't go in front of fielders and put their spikes in the dirt.

"I totally agree [with Braden] 'Get off my mound.' I would have done the same thing with A-Rod, or anybody else. [Bleep] it."

I have two questions for Wells:

* If it's such an unwritten rule that everybody knows, then why did so many runners in your day do this to you?

* And if it happened so often that you "yelled at plenty of them," can you please name one of the players who did this? Thanks!

Something tells me that if any reporter probed Wells further, he'd have nothing to back up his claims. Kind of like the way he had to backtrack on his own autobiography!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Is Bronson Arroyo auditioning to be a Yankee?

I wrote a piece for The Faster Times about Bronson Arroyo's very candid USA Today interview, where he copped to using supplements, andro, and amphetamines. His father even weighed in and said in the article that his son started using supplements at the age of five! Unreal.

I've never been much of a Bronson (or, as A-Rod calls him, Brandon) Arroyo fan, but I applaud his  candor. He didn't just talk about PED use - he also talked about baseball's spending. Yankee fans will be particularly interested in this tidbit:

“People don’t own teams to lose money,” he said. He suggested that “if you ask any owner whether they would rather make $20 million and come in last place or lose $20 million and win a World Series, there’s only one guy who honestly would take that championship: George Steinbrenner (of the Yankees). Nobody else.”

Hmmm. Arroyo cleared waivers earlier this month. Would I be surprised to see the Yankees try to trade for him as a No. 5 starter, especially given that Chien-Ming Wang could be out for a year? No, I would not.

Arroyo has a ridiculous contract. And while I respect his truth-telling, I don't want him as a Yankee. But I wouldn't be surprised if somebody in the Steinbrenner family looks at that quote and thinks that Arroyo would be a great fit for the Yankees.  

Could he be a better fit as a No. 5 starter than Chad Gaudin or Sergio Mitre? Of course. But he's also owed $11 million next year. Yikes!

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In other news, how about that Yankee walkoff victory yesterday? No matter what the odds, this team just keeps on coming back!

Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez both got hit hard - literally - in yesterday's game. Should they have pulled a Youk?

What do you think? Leave us a comment!