Who let the dogs out? A-Rod! Yes, Alex Rodriguez was responsible for the song being a hit

I loved the Ken Jeong/Alex Rodriguez apology skit at the ESPYs this week (see clip below). The comedian read apologies from A-Rod for inventing gluten, for the Knicks (as well as even for the TV show "The Knick"!) and for a slew of other silly items. The clip got Mike Lupica so angry that the Daily News writer channeled his inner Mushnick and wrote a whole column about how offensive it was.

There is one thing, though, that Alex still needs to apologize for: making "Who Let the Dogs Out" popular!

No joke. This is the 15th anniversary of the song, and Ben Reiter of Sports Illustrated looked back at it as part of their "Where Are They Now" issue. Even NPR (!) got into the act, interviewing Reiter about his article. And yes, it was A-Rod who made the song a hit!

Here are some fun facts about the Baha Men's "Who Let the Dogs Out":

• The Seattle Mariners were the first team to play the song. They initially did so as a goof on "a country-western catcher named Joe Oliver," Reiter said. The team "played it one time, then another player on the Mariners said, 'You know what? I want you to play that song as my at-bat music.' That player was Alex Rodriguez — A-Rod was really the one who first made this song popular."
• Steve Greenberg, the song's producer, also produced Hanson's "MMMMBop," thus making him responsible for two of the worst songs of all time.
• In the 2000 MLB playoffs, five of the teams "(the Cardinals, Giants, Mariners, Mets and White Sox) were playing 'WLTDO' as their rally song," Sports Illustrated notes.
• I had moved to New York City from Texas in the fall of 2000, and my uncles took me to see the Mets in a postseason game -- they clinched the first round of the playoffs against the San Francisco Giants. I don't remember much about the game except for them playing "Who Let the Dogs Out" after they won!
• But the SI article notes that when the Mets met the Yankees in the Subway Series that year, actually hired the Baha Men to play their hit before Game 4 at Shea Stadium. To which I note, no wonder Derek Jeter had to shut fans up with his leadoff homer in that game! 
• Nelson Doubleday hated the song: "I can’t stand that ‘Let Out the Dogs’ song," he said then. "I have three dogs of my own."

So c'mon, Alex, you have to apologize for this song, and the fact that it's stuck in my head right now and won't go away!

Shocker: The New York Post's Phil Mushnick sounds like a crank about Bernie Williams Night

I think that New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick frequently makes good points, and can be a much-needed force for good in the New York sports media. This recent column is not one of those times.

Mushnick is irate that Bernie Wiliams Night was being held tonight. the sports columnist writes:

So the Yankees had to choose the Sunday before Memorial Day, a holiday when tributes are traditionally, logically and respectfully devoted to our war dead, to honor Bernie Williams.

Wait a second here. Memorial Day itself is one day -- May 25 (traditional day for it was May 30, but it was moved to the last Monday in May in 1968.) Memorial Day weekend is considered the first weekend of summer. The day before is not the same thing. Not to mention that the Yankees will be commemorating Memorial Day on -- wait for it -- their Memorial Day game! Crazy, huh?

I don't understand Mushnick's point here. What about people who have a birthday the day before Memorial Day? Are they supposed to sit around in sackcloth and ashes?

Mushnick bashes the Yankees, MLB and ESPN for Bernie Williams Night and says:

...it didn’t matter to any of the above parties that Williams didn’t serve in the U.S. military, let alone risk his life in combat. And Williams, too, might have known that this Sunday afternoon or night on Memorial Day weekend was not the time to honor him, thus, flattered as he is, the above parties, given that it’s only May, should choose another date.

Oh, please. It is not enough to think of the war dead on Memorial Day, but the day before (and the day before that, I presume) have to be solely dedicated to them, too? C'mon now. Mushnick needs to get off his high horse here.

Look, I am not being disrespectful to fallen veterans here. As some of you know, my late father was a World War II veteran who is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. And my brother had been in the military for 35 years. He is a lieutenant colonel in the Army reserve serving in Kosovo right now. (He also served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.) And you know what he was doing today in his free time? Talking about the Yankees with me and others on Facebook. The horror!

Some well-meaning people get mad about others celebrating Memorial Day weekend. My philosophy on it is this: these soldiers and sailors died to ensure that we have the freedom to enjoy life. That includes having cookouts, picnics, and, yes, watching baseball games.

So if you want to do something to honor those who died defending our country, go to your local Memorial Day parade tomorrow. Visit a local cemetery. Say a prayer. Do some other tribute, if you'd like. (I am running in the Staten Island Advance 4-Mile Memorial Day Race myself, which is dedicated to these fallen heroes.) Go to see the Yankees (or Mets) on Memorial Day and watch the commemorative events.

But don't listen to Phil Mushnick. There was absolutely nothing wrong with honoring Bernie Williams Sunday night.

A-Rod shows up early. People complain. Why?

A-Rod makes the front and back pages.

Guess who's back. Back again. A-Rod's back. Tell a friend. As Eminem once rapped, guess who's back? None other than Alex Rodriguez. But some people are not happy about that.

Let me get this straight. The Yankees -- and their enablers in the press, most notably the New York Daily News -- are irritated that Alex Rodriguez showed up three days early to spring training. One "baseball executive" -- is that a euphemism for Brian Cashman? -- told the News: "He’s learned nothing. He’s the same old guy. He just did what he wanted to do."Yeah, heaven forbid somebody who hasn't played in a year should want to get cracking as soon as possible.

At any rate, the Yanks ought to be thanking their lucky stars that Rodriguez was the shiny object that is distracting media and fans from discussing them not getting Moncada.

I would say that complaining about Rodriguez showing up early is the dumbest thing I have heard from the media this month regarding A-Rod, but it's not. There was Mike Lupica mocking Rodriguez's mental health and criticizing him for cooperating with the feds against Tony Bosch.

Even more ridiculous was Juliet Macur of the New York Times, who wrote an entire column fulminating with outrage because of Rodriguez writing in his apology that he wanted to "help us win." Her objection is of him daring to use the word "us" to describe himself as part of the Yankees. Huh? She thinks that the letter "should have been the moment when the Yankees finally turned their collective back on Rodriguez and his warm and fuzzy (and very distorted) version of 'us,'" with the team releasing him for good.  Because she believes that the Yanks ought to be sooooo outraged that the player with the longest tenure on the team actually had the nerve to refer to himself as a Yankee. And you thought fans were ridiculous with the "true Yankee" nonsense!

I always have to laugh when I hear sportswriters like Macur talk about how other people should spend their money. Journalists run to get free pizza in the newsroom on Election Night like it was their last meal, and bring home free swag like they're an Oscar nominee, but they're going to tell the Yanks to dump A-Rod with $61 million on his contract just because they say so? Good grief.

Look, A-Rod didn't need to apologize to me. That's why, while I appreciate the effort, I am not part of the whole #forgive13 movement. And, if you didn't already know this, that interesting ESPN the Magazine's article about A-Rod showed what a mess he is. It is such a compelling read that even Curt Schilling felt empathy for Rodriguez after reading it.

The article confirmed what I have said for years. That would be that A-Rod never really got over his father leaving the family, and that he desperately wanted to go to college and feels insecure about his brainpower. I have been saying for years that the main difference between Jeter and A-Rod that explains them is that Jeter grew up in a stable, loving two-parent home, A-Rod lost his father at the age of 10 and never got over it.

The article has a bunch of stirring moments, and him visiting 40 (!) college campuses over the years to soak in college life was especially poignant, and made me appreciate my own college degree more than ever.

These sentences really struck me: "Readings and lectures and bookstores are his guilty pleasures. Especially bookstores. You can go in, he says, have a cup of coffee, and for an hour or two pretend you're smart." No wonder he has been so easily led by people who don't have his best interests at heart -- because he doesn't trust his own brains.

Reading the piece made me value my own life a little more. It just goes to show that money can't buy you happiness.

If Yankee fans are going to boo A-Rod tonight, then they ought to also boo...

There has been a whole to-do this week about whether Yankee fans should boo Alex Rodriguez at home, and whether the Bleacher Creatures should include him in Roll Call. After getting some grief from fellow Yankee fans, Bald Vinny Milano, spokesman for the Bleacher Creatures, had some sensible comments for CBSLocal.com on the whole thing, saying that they were "definitely not going to skip him":

Not for nothing, I feel like the guy needs a little bit of love,” Milano said. “It feels like nobody’s in his corner. For that brief minute we can show him that, yes, we’re in your corner, we’ve got your back. If you’re fighting for the Yankees and you’re trying to help us win, God damn it I’m gonna yell for you.”

The best part of the interview was this:

There’s no question that fans are hurt, disappointed, angry — you name it. One person even told CBS 2 that A-Rod “cheated me” and “broke my heart.”

“The weeping of ‘You broke my heart,’ that’s silly,” Milano said. “I don’t see anybody weeping over Francisco Cervelli.

That leads me to the point of this article (thanks for bearing with me!) It's how the booing of A-Rod for doing PEDs is more than a little hypocritical for Yankee fans to do so. And most of it has to do with people who didn't like A-Rod in the first place for various reasons, most having nothing to do with steroids or other PEDs or anything else. It's like the sentiment I've heard recently about how A-Rod's a cheating bum, and the Yanks ought to replace him with Detroit's Jhonny Peralta at third base next year. Never mind that Peralta was also suspended in the Biogenesis scandal!

Because if Yankee fans' sense of outrage were consistent, they would boo Andy Pettitte. Yet 9.9 times out of 10, whenever I mention this to a Yankee fan, I get back the lie "He only did it one time to heal from an injury!" Was there *ever* talk of booing Andy Pettitte in 2008 or since? Of course not.

And what about Cervelli? And what about supergenius GM Brian Cashman acquiring former Met Fernando Martinez this year *after* he was named to Biogenesis? And what about the many players suspected of juicing that Cash has signed in recent years?

Most notably, what about the 2000 Yankees? Nine of them were in the Mitchell Report. Is anybody suggesting that we no longer count 2000 as part of the 27 World Series titles? And are we not going to count 2009 anymore, either, because A-Rod was the No. 1 reason for No. 27? How about 1996, 1998, and 1999? Steroid users were on those teams, too.

Maybe to be on the safe side, we Yankee fans should start saying that our team only has 22 titles, because all the rest are tainted in some way. You think that will fly?

* * *

I thought about going to A-Rod's return, but I will *not* be at Friday's game. Here's why -- I'm afraid I will end up sitting next to some jerk booing A-Rod, I will say something, we'll end up in an argument, I will have a lousy time, and I'll be ticked off all the way home. Not to mention having to pay money for the privilege! Nah, I will watch the game for free on TV instead. Going there in person is not worth the hassle.

Frankly, given how poorly this team has played as of late, A-Rod's return is going to be the only thing that increases ticket sales or ratings!

And finally somebody in the New York media says what I have been saying for ages -- that the A-Rod saga distracts people from all the other issues with this team. Of course, it's Wally Matthews with ESPN New York, and he *still* won't give Brian Cashman any of the blame. Shocker.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

In Defense of Ian O'Connor's Derek Jeter Book

Yes, I'm going there. After many months of criticizing ESPN New York columnist Ian O'Connor for his writing a half-dozen fawning articles about Derek Jeter this winter without disclosing that he was writing a book that promised "unique access" to the Yankee captain, I actually feel compelled to defend O'Connor on a couple of things that I think he's being unfairly criticized for.

First off, there's the curious case of Jeter going up to New York Post writer George King the morning after the Post published a front-page story about the book. That article discussed how The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter revealed how Jeter's dislike of teammate Alex Rodriguez put A-Rod in the Yankee "snubhouse" (The Post's term, not O'Connor's!)

In a followup piece by King entitled "Jeter: It's not my book," Jeter didn't confirm or deny any of the tidbits. But he told King:

"Make sure everyone knows it's not mine," Jeter said. "I had nothing to do with that book."

Well, nobody had suggested that Jeter had actually authored the tome himself. But if he really had "nothing to do with that book," a book that has been promoted of giving "unique access" to Jeter, then why is he quoted talking to O'Connor in the book, according to an ESPN New York article about the tome? And why would Newsday columnist Ken Davidoff, who witnessed the King-Jeter conversation, write that "Jeter was aware [the book] was being written and agreed to be interviewed for it"?

Not to mention the fact that O'Connor did over 200 interviews for the book, many of whom were people in the Jeter camp. Did Jeter have control over everything written in O'Connor's book? Doubtful. But he did agree to be interviewed for it, and many of the people close to him were also interviewed for it. To say that he had "nothing to do with" the book is pretty disingenuous.

The second thing I will defend O'Connor on, albeit in a backhanded way, is the notion that he was somehow out to get Jeter. I've even heard him compared to Selena Roberts. Really? Roberts wrote nasty column after nasty column about A-Rod before writing an entire bile-filled book on him. O'Connor is just the opposite. In a town where burnishing the Jeter legend is par for the course with New York columnists, O'Connor is in a class by himself. Remember these moments, all written without any mention of the upcoming book?

* October 24, 2010:  In an article entitled, "Expect Yankees to splash cash on Jeter," O' Connor said, "I believe a fair deal would be for four years at $23 million per."

* October 28, 2010:  O'Connor writes a bizarre column tying in Joe Girardi's job fortune to Jeter's, saying that Girardi should get a warning with his next contract saying, "Change, or we'll hire someone else to bench The Captain."

*November 21, 2010: O'Connor interviews Jeter's personal trainer Jason Riley for a column. Ian managed to keep a straight face when Riley said "I think it's very realistic" for Jeter to play through 2017, and when Riley said, "The desire to be the greatest can never be turned down by Father Time."

O'Connor also uncritically ran this other Riley comment (basically, most of the article is an infomercial for Jeter and his trainer): "You can't put an age on the heart of an athlete, and Derek's got one of the purest hearts in sports," Riley said. "He's not going to allow himself to have another down year, if he even considers 2010 a down year. His internal drive separates him from others. I've worked with very few people who go after the game like he does." The piece ends with O'Connor saying, "If the trainer is right, this next contract Jeter signs won't be his last." Oy.

* December 5, 2010: Regarding the Yankees coming to terms with Jeter on a new contract, O'Connor wrote, "The Yankees could have offered Jeter minimum wage, free parking and cab fare to and from the ballpark, and he would have found a way to accept it."

* March 26, 2011:  "For now, Jeter is still Jeter, a future Hall of Famer who just needed some extra face time with the hitting coach, Kevin Long. With the contract done and the footwork adjusted, the smart money says the captain will make something of a comeback this year."


There's also O'Connor writing for the Bergen Record in spring 2009 that the Yankees would be a better team without A-Rod, and that the team should just release him. So it's not like O'Connor is a Team A-Rod writer.


I haven't gotten to read O'Connor's book yet, but I just find it hard to believe that O'Connor did a hatchet job on the captain. Go to Houghton Mifflin's web site and read the book description, and an excerpt from Chapter One, and see what I mean. Heck, the book starts with this line, "Like all good stories about a prince, this one starts in a castle." Does that sound like an author with an agenda to get Jeter? I don't think so. Just because O'Connor has written that Jeter isn't always perfect doesn't make this a smear.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Media, ESPN start to go after Derek Jeter this year

A few weeks ago, my high school classmate Steve asked me what I thought of Derek Jeter's season, and wondered if it meant anything that he was selling his NYC apartment. I don't think Jeter is retiring, or planning on leaving town, or anything like that. But I have noticed something different this year. For maybe the first time ever, he is getting a little criticism from the media. It started with the Bob Sheppard funeral debacle, continued when Jeter slumped for the second half of the season, and built up steam when he pretended to get hit by a pitch versus Tampa Bay.

Granted, there is still stuff like when Michael Kay practically had a coronary when Derek Jeter got a hit in the ninth inning of the season finale. Kay pointed out that the hit would put him at a season average of .270, as opposed to .269.Whoopee. Do you think Jeter's wiping his brow with relief over that? Come on now.

Anyhow, I noticed that in preparation for the playoffs, ESPN New York had a whole slew of articles this week about the captain, with varying degrees of criticism. ESPN is known for its Yankee-bashing, but they generally treat Derek with kid gloves. Not this time.

ESPN Insider columnist Matt Meyers posited the provocative theory that A-Rod is a better clutch player than Jeter. Wally Matthews slammed Jeter for not working with hitting coach Kevin Long until September 11, months into his slump. Andrew Marchand found a former GM who said Jeter was only really worth "twelve million dollars over two years."

But "Derek Jeter needs to put his ego aside," Johnette Howard's article on him, was the most harsh, even from the perspective of a Squawker who frequently notes that the shortstop's name is Jeter, not Jesus. She writes:

Jeter has done a terrific job of hiding his ego throughout his career with his aw-shucks, team-first mantra. But the disassembling of the 36-year-old Jeter's ability and sacred-cow status already has started. And we're about to get a peek behind the curtain and see just how big his ego really is.

Wait a minute here. For fifteen years, the media has lionized Jeter as nothing short of a baseball saint. Now, they tell us that he's an image-conscious phony with a big ego? Which one is it?

I'm not exactly shocked to hear of an athlete having a big ego. That pretty much comes with the territory, and it really doesn't bother me. You have to have an ego to complete at that level. But it was the media who told us for all these years that Jeter was somehow above such things.They built up the very pedestal that they're now starting to chip away at.

Howard continues:

As Jeter reminded people during one of his longer hitting slumps this season, "I've never really had a problem with confidence." But Jeter has shown a growing sensitivity to criticism in the past year.


If you ask Jeter a question about moving to a position other than shortstop someday -- something even iron man Cal Ripken Jr. had to do -- you're likely to get a long pause and perhaps a slightly annoyed look.


People who are around the Yankees every day say Jeter was even unhappy about the outside rebukes he caught for failing to represent the players at the recent funeral of the team's iconic public address announcer, Bob Sheppard.

Uh-oh. Wonder if he got ticked off over my Squawker column about the issue!

Howard then unfavorably compares Jeter to Julius Erving and Tom Brady. But after that, she appears to lose her nerve, and goes on a mini-rant suggesting that Jeter should stay at shortstop forever, even though she argued just a few paragraphs earlier that even Cal Ripken Jr. had to switch positions:

Compared to agreeing on the money or length of his next contract, Jeter's stated desire to keep playing shortstop until 40 and beyond is the easiest problem to solve. He's not moving anywhere. Why should he?


Jeter's subpar defensive range drives the stats junkies nuts. But really, how is Jeter's presence at shortstop hurting the Yankees?....


Jeter doesn't have terrific defensive range, but he still caught 98.9 percent of 100 balls he got to his season and had only six errors -- both career bests...

There's even a Jeter-friendly sabermetric argument to be made for why moving Jeter to the outfield would be worse.

You can't start your column criticizing Jeter for him acting peeved when anybody suggests he move from shortstop, and end it saying that he should stay in that spot for the rest of his career. That doesn't even make any sense. What a mess.


What do you think? Tell us about it!

Review: "The House of Steinbrenner"

So I finally got around to watching Barbara Kopple's "The House of Steinbrenner" today. I had very low expectations for it, given that it was part of ESPN's "30 for 30" series. I figured that it would be very critical. It really isn't as harsh as I expected, but it is something nearly as bad -- it's pretty dull.

The documentary is extremely slow-paced and ramblng; it takes a good 20 minutes (out of a 60 minute episode!) to even get into discussing Steinbrenner himself. And if you're looking for a coherent narrative explaining even how many titles the Yankees won under Steinbrenner, forget it. It's not that kind of documentary.

Instead. "The House of Steinbrenner" wastes a lot of time with those annoying "fan on the street" type interviews that I hate, where fans whine about every little thing, like the who says the new stadium isn't for "real fans" because it has a sushi stand. Dude, if you don't like it, don't eat there. Nobody has taken away your ability to get a hot dog at the new ballpark.

Aside from the behind-the-scenes footage of the old Stadium being dismantled, and some shots of the ticker tape parade, the most interesting thing is hearing Hal Steinbrenner talk. He's a very likeable guy, albeit neither colorful nor bombastic. (If only Hank had agreed to appear in this documentary, it would have been much more fun.) Hal looks like a combination of George Steinbrenner and Tucker Carlson, but sounds like his father on Xanax.

One of the big surprises was that Hal is a pilot; I can't imagine given what happened to Thurman Munson and Cory Lidle, that The Boss was too thrilled with his son's hobby, though. And seeing Thurm's picture behind Hal when he's going on about his love of flying was too spooky for me.

It made me sad to see the old clips of Steinbrenner, back when he was the larger-than-life character. And to see the Warner Wolf interview in 2004. where you could see in retrospect that he was starting to decline, although we didn't know it at the time.


"The House of Steinbrenner" isn't a complete waste of time, but it's also not exactly must-see TV, either. I made sure to write this review right after watching, because I figured I would forget it in a day or two! It's that inconsequential.

Media should stop griping about Erin Andrews and "Dancing With the Stars"

As Subway Squawkers readers already know, I'm rooting bigtime for Chad Ochocinco on "Dancing With the Stars." But Erin Andrews has also been very good on the show, even though she's been getting some media criticism for her even being on the program in the first place.

I wrote a piece for The Faster Times about that criticism. She's not the first ESPN personality to be on "DWTS" - Kenny Mayne was on in the show's second season - but Andrews is getting all sorts of grief for somehow sullying sports journalism by being on the show. Please. If anything, Andrews has gotten to show more range on "Dancing With the Stars" than she gets to do on ESPN.

Anyhow, check out my article, and tell me what you think.

Nick Swisher sez "No way, dude" to Clay Buchholz's "Sweet Caroline" singalong

I am on record as despising the Neil Diamond song "Sweet Caroline." I hate it oh so very, very much.

It's bad enough that "Sweet Caroline" has become a Red Sox anthem, but then the Mets started using it as their own singalong, which made it even more annoying. Fortunately, I think the Mets finally stopped playing it last year, but this tradition still goes on at Fenway Park.

And the song is just plain creepy. Neil Diamond (you know, the dude in that cringeworthy album photo cover above) said the Caroline he wrote about was Caroline Kennedy. She was all of nine years old at the time. How disgusting are these lyrics being sung to a little girl?:


Hands, touchin' hands
Reachin' out
Touchin' me
Touchin' you

Or these?:

Look at the night
And it don't seem so lonely
We fill it up with only two
And when I hurt
Hurtin' runs off my shoulders
How can I hurt when holdin' you

Yuck.

Anyhow, Nick Swisher is in an ESPN commercial with Clay Buchholz, of all people (Hat tip to Sox and Dawgs for the video) and Swisher also has a negative reaction to the song.

Here's the scene: Buchholz, actor Adam Scott (whoever he is!), and Swisher are sitting around the living room together when the first two burst into a "Sweet Caroline" singalong. They try to get Swisher to join in, and he says, "No way, dude." Left unsaid is why Swisher was hanging out with a Red Sox. At the very least, I hope Swish kept his laptop hidden!

And I might not have known that was Clay Buchholz in the video if it weren't for the description. He's not exactly Youk when it comes to being recognizable!

Anyhow, here's the video:





What do you think of "Sweet Caroline"? Creepy or cool? Leave us a comment!

Mocking Buster Olney about his dopey Pujols-Howard trade story

I wrote a piece for The Faster Times about ESPN senior writer Buster Olney's ridiculous story about the possibility of the Philadelphia Phillies trading Ryan Howard to the St. Louis Cardinals for Albert Pujols.

Olney's article is literally based on nothing more than an anonymous front office discussion in the Phillies front office. The speculation should have stayed there, instead of hitting the front page at ESPN.com, and becoming a breathless story on the Worldwide Leader.

Anyhow, my point was that if a blogger wrote anything like what Olney did, based on nothing more than some front office water cooler talk somebody happened to tell the writer about, we'd still be hearing the denunciations from the mainstream media about how completely irresponsible the story was. And if a sports radio caller were to suggest such a deal, he'd get hung up on in mid-dream.

As I note in the article, I've taken everything Olney writes with a grain of salt ever since his Last Night of the Yankees Dynasty book, which had Mariano Rivera at Yankee Stadium, not in Arizona's ballpark (the BOB, or whatever they're calling it these days) on the cover. If you're going to suggest that Game 7 of the 2001 World Series was the end of an era, you should show a photo from that night, not one from a victory the week before!

What do you think? Tell us about it.

Yankees have lost weekend at Fenway Park

So, what was the worst loss of these three Yankees-Red Sox games? Easy. Last night's. Because I have a feeling we're going to see that video of Jacoby Ellsbury stealing home a time or two this year, even more than we'll see the replays of Jason Bay's or Kevin Youkilis' homers. Especially since ESPN broadcast last night's game. Heck, we're going to see that replay more than Susan Boyle singing on "Britain's Got Talent"!

I do know I've officially decided that the ESPN broadcasters are worse than FOX. Joe Buck and nonwasher Tim McCarver are annoying, to be sure. But I've never heard either of them shriek the way Jon Miller did over Ellsbury stealing home. That was just flat-out embarrassing.

Miller, who is known for yelling "THE SPLITTER" about Curt Schilling, and pronouncing Carlos Beltran's last name as Bell-TRON, is simply horrible. His counterpart, (Should Be Fired) Joe Morgan, is no great shakes, either.

And if that weren't enough, they added Steve Phillips into the mix. Who, exactly, thinks this clown is any good? Steve had the gall to refer to his playing days during last night's broadcast. Dude, you make John Flaherty's career look like Johnny Bench's. Just stop.

Oh, and how is that noted Red Sox fan Peter Gammons gets to be part of the Yankees-Red Sox pre-game broadcast? How does that work, exactly? I thought journalists are supposed to be, you know, objective.

Back to the game. Who to blame for the steal? Is it Andy Pettitte's or Jorge Posada's fault, or both? This is usually the type of thing that gets blamed on A-Rod or something, instead of one of the "True Yankee" dynasty guys. (Quick joke - Q. How many True Yankees does it take to change a lightbulb? A. - Shut up, they've got four rings!)

Speaking of A-Rod, can Joe Girardi put in Ramiro Pena instead of Angel Berroa until Alex Rodriguez comes back? Berroa was terrible last night, making two errors. That is to be expected, though, since he has virtually no experience at third. Pena is a rookie, and he's not that experienced there as well, but he's worth more of a try, I think.

Anyhow, I'm kind of worn out after this lost weekend. At least Oliver Perez was the Bad Ollie again, so my writing partner Squawker Jon's taunting might be a little subdued!

What do you think? Leave us a comment!

ESPN and Steve Phillips will annoy baseball viewers even more than usual in 2009

Here's some news that's even more of an outrage than Melky Cabrera getting a $938,800 raise this year:

Newsday's Neil Best reports that Steve Phillips is joining ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball broadcast booth. As if Jon Miller and Joe Morgan weren't insufferable enough. Good grief.

Talk about torturous. It wasn't enough to have to hear Joe Morgan blathering on against Moneyball, and reminiscing about the Big Red Machine, each Sunday night broadcast. It wasn't enough to have to put up with Jon Miller screaming "The Splitter!" every five minutes and overly enunciating Carlos Beltran's last name as "Bell-TRON."

Now we're going to be "treated" to Steve Phillips blathering in the Sunday night broadcast booth. In this bad economy, the fact that Phillips not just has a good job, but just got a promotion, is an outrage.

As Squawker Jon would undoubtedly agree, Phillips was a lousy Mets general manager whose shining accomplishment was trading for Mo Vaughn. And he's just as "good" a broadcaster as he was a GM, which is to say, he's the worst. Has anybody ever turned on ESPN specifically to hear Phillips blather on baseball? I don't think so.

Remember, this is a guy who announced in the summer of 2006, after Alex Rodriguez had a three-error game, that A-Rod's career would never recover, and that the Yanks should trade him while they still could get something for him. Too bad for Steve that Alex only went on to have the best Yankee season since Mickey Mantle the following year.

Maybe Phillips was still trying to justify him passing on A-Rod (remember the whole 24 and 1 brouhaha?) when Phillips was the Mets GM. But it was still pretty ridiculous.

The Yankees, of course, are frequently on ESPN's Sunday night baseball, between Yanks-Red Sox and Subway Series games. And I wish I could just mute the sound and put Sterling and Suzyn's radio broadcast on. But the problem is that thanks to the seven-second or so delay on ESPN's so-called "live" baseball broadcast, the game ends up being out of sync.

There needs to be a solution for this. You know how you can hit the SAP button to get the Spanish-language broadcast? Why can't ESPN offer an NAB button - for Non-Annoying Broadcast, and have people in the booth who don't get on fans' last nerves? Heck, I'd rather even hear the gruesome twosome of FOX's Tim McCarver and Joe Buck to ESPN's terrible new trio, and that's saying something. Please, make it stop!

What do you think about Steve Phillips? Tell us about it!