Subway Series Game 2: Yankees resume their rightful dominance in the universe

We're getting the band back together --
Ethan, Lisa and Jon.

I am still peeved that Squawker Jon and I were unable to get Subway Series tickets this time around, but at least we got to watch most of Game 2 together.

We also made it a mini-Daily News reunion, as we met with our old web room friend and cohort Ethan Sacks at Henry's on the Upper West Side to watch the game. We have known each other for ages, but it has been a while since I had seen Ethan -- too long! So it was great to catch up with him yesterday.

Ethan is a fellow Yankee fan, but *not* an A-Rod fan! Fortunately, there were no fisticuffs at our reunion.

Daily News readers will recognize this shirt
-- it is an Ed Murawinski cartoon from the
2000 Subway Series. Murawinski was one
of the DN staffers laid off this week.

It took my express bus forever to get to Manhattan, though, so I missed seeing Carlos Beltran's 1st inning homer, although I did listen to it via the MLB At-Bat app. (Note: I listened to Mets broadcasters Howie Rose and Josh Lewin, as opposed to John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman. You know, because I actually wanted to know what was happening in the game!) We did see when Michael Pineda was taken out, and wonder why Joe Girardi was doing his usual overmanaging.

I read in today's New York Post the latest bloviating from Yankees GM Brian (Fredo) Cashman. Cash, who thinks he's a badass because he rides a bicycle without a helmet (I think that makes him a moron, but I digress), “If we are world champions, I don’t care how we got there," he tells George King, sounding like he is conceding the AL East. Um, Bri, maybe it's too much bike riding without a helmet, but you do understand that the Wild Card no longer automatically entitles teams to postseason ALDS series bids, and that the Yanks will have to win a one-game playoff in order to advance? So your cockiness is moronic.

Oh, and I posted a photo of myself on Facebook yesterday holding a mimosa and toasting the Yankees' victory in the Subway Series. Unfortunately, I made a typo and spelled "Series" as "Seties." Not good for the professional proofreader!

I blame my bad typing on my iPhone, but others are blaming it on the al-al-al-al-alcohol. Two of the members of my running club's fantasy football league mocked me for this typo. Josh had this to say -- make that, to snark!: "'Seties?!' Must we correct the Proofreader?! Just say no to drinking and posting."

My response? "Josh and Mark, you got me! How embarrassing! Speaking of embarrassing, Thor wasn't much of a superhero today, eh?" Heh. (Note that I didn't attempt to spell Noah Syndergaard then! Imagine how I could have butchered that name!)

* * *

Squawker Jon was getting on me today for being tardy in my writing. Dude is like Robert DeNiro in "Awakenings" -- after years of slumbering, he is all of a sudden Squawking up a storm. Today he made Matt Harvey babying jokes. And Jon was nagging me to finish my Squawk early this afternoon.

I saw this Tyvek suit on the side of the
road today during my run. Is Jesse Pinkman
back in business -- this time on
Staten Island?

Look, I ran 10 miles (!) this morning. I am in training for the Staten Island Half-Marathon, which is happening in three weeks. And this is the first time I have ever run past nine miles, other than in my previous half-marathon. So I was exhausted, and just wanted to relax when I got home. Jon's big journey today was going to Zabar's to get a bagel!

I did make a point of picking up the Sunday New York Daily News today. I was hoping that they would allow Bill Madden, Filip Bondy, David Hinckley, et al to say farewell to their readers. After all, each of them has been at the paper for at least three decades before being laid off.

And as much as Madden drove me nuts with his anti-A-Rod crusade, I still read his baseball column every Sunday. Unfortunately, after nearly forty years at the News, they didn't even give him the courtesy of letting him write a farewell column to his readers. The closest the News gave to a Madden tribute is letting Mike Lupica, who is still on the payroll, write about him today. My eyes rolled so hard over that, they're in the back of my head now! The newspaper business is a really cruel one.

Remembering the New York Daily News Sports Section

After Squawker Lisa and I lost our jobs at the New York Daily News website in 2008, I stopped reading the paper for awhile. But eventually nydailynews.com resumed its place as an essential part of my websurfing day. And the main reason was the sports section.

When I joined the Daily News website just before its launch in 1996, one of the first projects I developed was to put a classic sports column from The News' archives on the site once a week. In the early days of the site, Ethan Sacks and I delighted in poring through old microfilm to see what columnists such as Jimmy Cannon and Dick Young had to say about the great sporting events of their day. (While I was no fan of Young for his role in hounding Tom Seaver out of town and for his politics, he could turn out a great column in his heyday.)

In 2000, Ethan created a massive web package celebrating the classic back (and sometimes front) pages of The News' sports coverage. I contributed two pieces. One was on the 1969 Mets winning the World Series.

The other, appropriately enough for this Subway Series weekend, was on the first time the Mets and Yankees ever played, an exhibition game that made both the front and back page on March 23, 1962. A sellout crowd in St. Petersburg, FL came out to see Casey Stengel, fired by the Yankees two years earlier despite winning 10 pennants and seven World Series in 12 years, lead the newborn Mets against the Yankees, who had just left St. Pete to train in Fort Lauderdale.

Here's how Young described the crowd:

They were heavily pro-Mets, these people who for years had rooted for the Yankees. They didn't boo the Yanks for their defection to Fort Lauderdale (except for Maris, who got a few razzes) but their hearts are with Ole Case. He could manage the Rinkeydinks and they'd be on his side. 

After the Mets beat the Yankees in the bottom of the ninth, Young described how jubilant former Giant and Dodger fans packed New York bars, including the legendary Toots Shor's, to celebrate.

"It's like New Year's Eve in this joint," Shor yelled to Stengel over the phone.

Through the years, you could always count on Daily News sports columnists for their unique voices and feel for the city. As with Young, I didn't always agree with what Bill Madden and Filip Bondy had to say, especially Bondy's Met-bashing. But when Bondy covered international events such as the Olympics or Wimbledon, I would often read his entertaining dispatches about his experiences on the road ahead of the actual event coverage.

When I was at the paper, the biggest regular-season Mets-Yankees Subway Series ever would have meant a special section with lots of extra content and a cover cartoon from Ed Murawinski. I still have my T-shirt with the cover Murawinski drew for the 2000 World Series.

It is impossible to imagine this weekend's Subway Series without Madden, Bondy and Murawinski. It is impossible to imagine the sports section without other longtime writers such as Wayne Coffey, Hank Gola and Roger Rubin. Just last week, Coffey broke the James Blake-NYPD story. Those of us who still care about the steroids issue could always count on Teri Thompson's I-Team to pursue the issue. Now Thompson, too, is gone.

Mike Lupica's heyday was well in the past, but his departure certainly marks the end of an era. (There are reports that Lupica may not be out after all, which would make the loss of all these fine journalists that much more of a travesty.)

For most of my time at The News, the web staff was largely separate from the print edition, so I hardly ever saw most of the people mentioned here, but I was fortunate to have the chance to work with Teri in getting I-Team exclusives up on the site. Teri saw the potential of the site to break news at a time when some on the print side sill saw the web as trying to scoop the paper, rather than as part of the same team.

On a personal note, that era's separation of web and print enabled the existence of Subway Squawkers. Lisa and I will always be grateful to our editor Kevin Hayes for giving us the space on the Daily News website to create this blog in 2006.

One of the smartest things I did at the News was to team up with a writer as talented as Lisa. It was Lisa's piece on the Daily News "Firemageddon" that inspired me to take a crack at writing my own.

During my almost 13 years at The News, I went through numerous redesigns of the website. In the early days, we fought with consultants who told us that it was too complicated to create columnist pages where each columnist could have their work archived. Later redesigns would attempt to make the columnists hard to find. It never made any sense to me that the powers that be would seek to minimize that value of the unique voices that make up the heart and soul of the New York Daily News.

It still doesn't make any sense.

On rewriting your life with a pursuit of happiness: It is never too late to be what you might have been

I have lots of inspirational magnets on my
refrigerator door. This saying is one of them.

Warning: Squawker Jon may call this "navel gazing," as he sometimes does when I write anything personal. I will also talk about 9/11, A-Rod, the New York Daily News, running and death. Be forewarned!

A few things over the past week reminded me how, in the words of the Grateful Dead's "Box of Rain," what a "short time to be there" we have, and how we really need to make the most of our time on earth to be happy, and be who we should have been in the first place.

The anniversary of 9/11 is one of those reminders. I used to whine about how old I was getting each year, until the Twin Towers were destroyed. What made me stop complaining about my age was looking at the names and birthdates of the people honored at Staten Island's 9/11 Postcards memorial. They never got the opportunity to grow old with their families. Growing older means that we're still alive, after all.

Another sobering thing is the news of the layoffs at the New York Daily News, my alma mater. It just goes to show how life can change in an instant. Those staffers gave their hearts and souls to the paper, and are being thrown out like yesterday's news (no pun intended.)

I was on my pal Paul Francis Sullivan's Sully Baseball show again recently, talking about the state of the Yankees. A-Rod's continued success this year, both professionally and reputationally, spurred me to wax philosophical. My point was that Alex has proven that as long as you're breathing, you have the chance to rewrite your life and come up with a better ending.

Sully and I also agreed, though, that there are exceptions to this rule, of course. Because they are predators, Bill Cosby and Subway spokesman Jared Fogle are not going to be able to rehabilitate themselves!

But in general, the point holds. If A-Rod had retired, the way Bill Madden wanted him to do, he never would have gotten the chance to rewrite his story. But Alex didn't, and now he has a much better reputation than he did a year ago.

Over the past two years, and especially over the past year, I have really tried to change my life in many ways. While I am still a work in progress, I have lost 55 pounds so far, and will be running my second half-marathon next month. Plus, I actually have a real writing career now!

Because of my being so candid about my struggles, others have talked to me about their own issues. If you look at Facebook posts, you'd think most people are happy, but they're not. There really is an epidemic of unhappiness in this country. And you can trace so many problems and addictions that people have to this. I know part of the reason I overate was because of being unhappy with my lot in life. And it was also easier to eat than to fix the things wrong with life then. However, we all need hope that things will be better in the future, even if that may be a long way away. And even if others around us want to continue to keep us down.

Whether you have faith in a higher power or not, we weren't put on this earth to be miserable, or to stay miserable. Especially given that we are privileged to live in the United States. This country was built on the principle of the pursuit of happiness; it's written in the Declaration of Independence, after all! Yet we sometimes think we don't deserve happiness, as if there is nobility in misery. There isn't.

Changing your life is extraordinarily hard, though. I know that from personal experience. It has taken a long time to lose those 55 pounds, and I still have a ways to go. But, as my running coach Mario says about me, I have the consistent persistence to keep on going. I think this comes from the desperation I felt in wanting to change my life, plus the success I have had with small victories has kept me going. I still wonder, though, how I had the courage to join a running club when I weighed 252 pounds!

Unfortunately, in many cases, some of our "loved ones" don't really want to see us make positive changes. They would prefer us to stay miserable. One of the things friends who had lost weight told me to watch out for was that I would see that some of my loved ones would not be supportive of my fitness journey, and would prefer for me to stay fat and unhappy. Sad but true.

If I could give one word of advice, though, it would be that there is no time like the present to change your life. Especially for people in my age range, where we start seeing our peers dying suddenly.

If I were to die tomorrow, I would want two things to be done at my funeral. First, I'd like to be eulogized as having tried to make my life better by getting off the couch. The second is to have "The Eyes of Texas," the school song for the University of Texas, played and sung at the service, and for everybody to do the Hook 'em Horns signs like at Lady Bird Johnson's funeral. But I digress.

I am a big believer these days in positive slogans and books, which would surprise my old Daily News colleagues who saw me as a cynical person in that cynical environment. I even have a slew of inspirational magnets on my refrigerator. One says that it is never too late to be what you might have been. I truly believe that. I also live by Eminem's lyrics in "Not Afraid," where he says: "I'm a be what I set out to be, without a doubt undoubtedly." Not the best grammar, but I agree with the sentiment!

The New York Daily News' Firemageddon wrecks me to the core

For better or worse, the New York Daily News was a huge part of my life from an early age. I grew up reading the paper every day, starting from 1977, when I was 10 years old. Between the New York Yankees' "Bronx Zoo"-era coverage, and the Son of Sam stories, the paper was an enormous influence on my way of thinking.  Then, when I ended up working at the tabloid in 2000, being at the paper -- and the friends I made there -- helped turn me from a rube (my idea of fine dining then was Red Lobster!) into a real New Yorker.

Plus, I met Squawker Jon (he hired me and got me out of Texas) and other people who are friends to this day. Way back in 2006, Jon suggested that we start something called a "blog" together, where he would argue for the Mets, and I would for the Yankees. Without the Daily News, there would be no Subway Squawkers! 

I had always wanted to be a writer, but my only outlet then was writing about the Yankees on various local message boards. If it weren't for Jon suggesting that we create the blog, I would be nowhere in my writing career.

The News helped make me who I am today. I refer to it as my "alma mater" because of that reason. There were some really good times (Dina and Andy: remember the Whizzinator joke!), but some really terrible times as well, especially towards the end of our days there. (Jon and I got laid off on the same day during the Great Recession.)

I have such bittersweet emotions about the place. It was the most negative work environment I have ever been in; so much so that I think I had PTSD towards the end of my tenure there, I also learned a lot at the paper. I was (privately) bitter for a long time after losing my job, but I can now acknowledge now that there were many good times mixed in there, too, 

It has been almost seven years since I worked at the  Daily News, but I still have old friends and old colleagues there, and I still read at least parts of the paper fairly regularly. And while I expected that there would be layoffs after it was announced that owner Mort Zuckerman was unable to find a buyer for the paper, even I was stunned to see how many good people are now losing their jobs this week. 

With the news of the job losses, I also had flashbacks to when I got laid off, and how devastated (yet relieved) I felt at the time. My last few months at the paper (with a boss who despised me, and who I despised) were like being stuck in an abusive relationship (he even stole stuff from me!), and it reminded me how miserable I was then. Fortunately, my life is much better now, although it took a long time to get there.

I also can see now that losing my job there was ultimately a net positive, as it set me on a different career trajectory. Because I worked nights them, I really didn't know anybody in New York City. Losing my job forced me to meet new people and network and get out there, instead of thinking that life was all about West 33rd Street. 

A word to the wise -- if you know someone who has suffered a job loss, whether at the DN or elsewhere, please don't tell them nonsense like "everything happens for a reason" or "you'll be better off in no time." That is not realistic. And everything doesn't happen for a reason, unless you think there is some cosmic value to, say, children getting cancer. 

I can tell people from personal experience that I went through rough times after my Daily News job loss, ultimately became a stronger person through such a trial by fire, and am much happier now. But it certainly didn't happen overnight. As the Ringo Starr song said, "It Don't Come Easy." Nothing worth having does. 

And the single best thing you can do, other than listening to your friend's concerns after a job loss, is to give them a lead for a new job. I reached out to some contacts tonight on behalf of a few of my old friends. I hope this will help them get back on their feet soon.

I was a little sad to hear that lead A-Rod basher Bill Madden and sports editor and investigative team leader Teri Thompson lost their jobs, even though part of me finds it amusing that during this time, A-Rod is riding so high! I grew up reading Madden and still have several of his books on my shelves, before he went so wacky against A-Rod. Thompson may not have been nice to A-Rod, but she was always nice to me personally.

On the other hand, I have nothing but schadenfreude about Mike Lupica. Heaven help the web editor who didn't turn off the comments section on his articles. (He refused to allow anybody to comment on his work!)  Here's a comment: What a tool!

To see good people like Filip Bondy and Roger Rubin and Wayne Coffey and David Hinckley lose their jobs just floors me. Especially Hinckley. I wrote the following on Facebook after I heard about him being part of the layoffs:

I just heard that entertainment columnist David Hinckley was one of the casualties of the New York Daily News' Firemageddon. I am not ashamed to admit that this news literally made me have to leave my desk so I could go have a good cry. There have been a lot of bad losses to the paper over the past day, but this is the worst.

Nobody wrote as much as Hinckley did for the Daily News, or as well. He was able to write quickly and intelligently on any entertainment topic you could think of. Hinckley was my very favorite writer at the paper. And it wasn’t just due to his writing; it was due to what a generous, kind person he was. He was a true team player in a very cynical industry.

In my last 18 months at the paper as a web editor, I was tasked with getting original online-only entertainment content for the site. However, I had no budget. Instead, I was expected to use my powers of persuasion to get the paper’s already overworked entertainment writers to create content for the web for no additional compensation. 

Needless to say, this wasn’t an easy thing to get done. But not with Hinckley. He never turned down a request, even if it meant him writing at home for free on his own time. Sometimes, if there was a breaking entertainment story, like when Heath Ledger died, Hinckley would even offer on his own to do a web-only piece, like when he put Ledger’s death in context with other actors under 30. 

Squawker Jon and I used to joke that if a real Armageddon came, they could put out an entire paper just with Hinckley’s writing. He was that prolific – and that good. I guess the paper’s plan is to replace the older writers they fired with younger, cheaper people, the way they did with the web site. But in my opinion, they may as well just shut the paper down now. Without Hinckley, and the many sports layoff casualties, they have gotten rid of pretty much every single interesting voice at the Daily News. This makes me very sad.

Should A-Rod get his buddy Warren Buffett to buy the New York Daily News?

I just read the recent story in the New York Times about the potential sale of the New York Daily News. The story, by "Bronx Is Burning" author Jonathan Mahler, goes into great detail about the potential bidders for the paper, and about how much circulation has dropped. It is down to just 312,000 per day now; 25 years ago it was over a million, and when Jon and I worked there in the 2000s, it was about 750,000.

I remember that number because at one point, the New York Post  huge advertisement outside the old Daily News headquarters at 450 West 33rd Street, with its circulation numbers written like an odometer, showing that the Post's numbers were 652,000 and rising. The tagline? "Go ahead and stare. They’re real." This ad was visible to all of us walking to and from work, and was also able to be seen from some of the offices. Ah, those were the days of the good old tabloid wars! Unfortunately, those numbers aren't so real now, for either paper.

In the Times article, Mahler talks with grocery store mogul John Catsimatidis (who was furious at the News back when we were there after the paper negatively talked about the cleanliness of Gristedes supermarkets), who is one of the potential bidders for the paper. He discusses an idea he has to save the paper:

“Let’s say you wake up in the morning and it’s snowing,” Mr. Catsimatidis said. “You don’t want to run down to the newsstand and buy a newspaper. So you press a button and you get a virtual two-page image in front of you, the complete paper with the advertising.” 

Um, isn't that what the Internet is? Plus, purists who want to see the paper online exactly the way it looks in print can purchase the digital edition now.

Mahler's article also talks about the state of the paper in recent years:

The News has not abandoned hard-hitting journalism; when it lands a punch, it is still felt in the corridors of power. Last year, a series on the low wages of airport workers prompted Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to demand raises on their behalf. In more recent years, though, Mr. Zuckerman has imported a series of British-style tabloid editors to spice up the paper, which has struck some News veterans as a betrayal of its legacy.

The article must have ruffled some feathers in Newsland, as the paper's gossip column had this angry response to it.

At any rate, the story reminded me of an idea my friend Joe suggested -- that Alex Rodriguez get Warren Buffett, who has purchased a number of newspapers in recent years -- to purchase the paper. Heh. That would ensure that the News' relentless tone against A-Rod, the man Bill Madden once called "The Whitey Bulger of Baseball," would change bigtime!  The piece that Daily News Yankee beat writer Mark Feinsand wrote on A-Rod today was really positive, though. Feinsand interviewed him talking about Bryce Harper, and it was actually a fair article.

But let's face it, most of the News stuff is anti-A-Rod. I would also like to see Buffett buy the News to restore the paper to what it once was. (Helpful hint: hire people who actually read the paper!) After all, if it weren't for the News, there would be no Subway Squawkers. Not only did this blog start there on March 1, 2006, but Jon and I met at the paper. (He was my boss once upon a time and responsible for hiring me and having me move from Texas to New York in 2000!) And we had some very good times working for the Daily News. I was always proud to work there!

Also, I was a newspaper junkie as a kid growing up in New Jersey, and the News was my favorite paper of all. One of my fondest memories as a child was how each Saturday night, my father would come home from work as a police officer, and bring home hot, fresh bagels and the bulldog (early) edition of the Sunday News. It was such a treat to get to read the news before everybody else. I felt that same way about getting to read the news for anyone else when I worked there. I also liked talking to legends like Bill Gallo, a truly great man.

Anyhow, I wish the paper becomes a must-read tabloid again, with interesting, provocative columnists with original takes, as opposed to Mike Lupica being a one-man show, issuing banalities in both sports and news. Jon and I still have friends there, too, and we want the best for them.

Hey, A-Rod -- time to nudge your buddy to open up his wallet! Or maybe you could open up your wallet -- and join your frenemy Derek Jeter in the media business!

Pay the man: Why the Yankees will have to pay out A-Rod's milestones

I think it is hilarious, in a way, that the Yankees are so dead set against paying out Alex Rodriguez's milestones in the contract that they signed, that they don't want to see that he is about the only interesting thing going in Yankeeland these days. Oh, and by the way, he can still play well, which is more than I say for some of their other high-paid players.

Five games in, not only have the 2015 Yankees been playing miserably so far (so much for that great defense, eh?) but they are a snoozer of a team, especially against the Red Sox. Yes, I know it's early, and perhaps their bats will get better, but they just aren't very compelling to watch. Brett Gardner -- nice player. Very good player. Not a superstar, as Fred Wilpon would say. A-Rod is pretty much their only compelling personality.

Anyhow, the New York Daily News' Bill Madden, the court stenographer for the Yankee front office, announced the other day that the Yankees still intend on fighting paying him any of the $30 million in milestone money that they owe him. Not the $6M for tying Willie Mays, nothing -- they intend on fighting all of it.

Madden, who once claimed that A-Rod would never play again (click for a list of his many wrong-headed predictions), writes:

According to a source familiar with the agreement, signed in 2007 after Rodriguez agreed to re-up with the Yankees, it is up to the club to declare A-Rod’s accomplishments “milestones,” which they will not do. “They say the records are tainted,” the source said, “and therefore they’re not milestones that can be marketed.”

Madden then writes about how A-Rod could take the issue to arbitration, but thinks he would not want to:

According to the source, the Yankees would then have to show an arbitrator they acted in good faith in declining to pay the bonuses. The timing of a hearing would be up to Rodriguez and the union, although it is unlikely they would want to schedule it in the middle of the season. “The steroids stuff will all come up again,” said the source. “It’s doubtful he wants that.”

First of all, I would like to see the actual wording of this contract. I don't think the Yankees can unilaterally decide something is or isn't a milestone. After all, MLB, unlike college football, doesn't erase milestones. Whatever you think of Barry Bonds, he holds the all-time home run record.

Second, the players' union will fight hard here, due to the precedent involved. Look at how Angels' owner Arte Moreno is licking his chops, hoping to void Josh Hamilton's contract because the most famous MLB recovering drug addict of all time had a relapse. Think the players' union wants to have the Yankees win here? No way.

Third, about the person who told Madden: “The steroids stuff will all come up again,” said the source. “It’s doubtful he wants that.” If Madden actually were still a journalist, and not that court stenographer for the Yankees, he would think about who has more to lose here: A-Rod or the Yankees.

Everybody knows what A-Rod did. Heck, his steroid habits have been written endlessly in books and newspapers. But what we still don't know for sure is how much the Yankees knew about Rodriguez juicing. What if Rodriguez has evidence that they knew (and given that his alleged nickname in early years was b*tch t*ts, and given how many juicers the team had over the years, it's pretty clear they knew the signs of a PED user)? How are they going to explain that?

Fourth, I would like to know what the t-shirt sales for A-Rod are like. How does he rank this year compared to the rest of the team? How many of the #Forg1v3 shirts has Bald Vinny sold? When Rodriguez gets close to 660, will ticket sales and ratings increase? All of these things can and will be used when it comes to talking about how the Yankees can market A-Rod's homer milestones.

I noticed that the New York Times wrote a less inflammatory article on the issue, issuing what appeared to be a trial balloon of having MLB step in and negotiate a settlement, with having A-Rod make some sort of donation to charity with at least some of the money. To which I say, it's Alex's money, fair and square. Pay the man, Yankees, and be done with it.

The questions Bill Madden neglected to ask Hal Steinbrenner in his exclusive interview

It's payback time! New York Daily News MLB columnist Bill Madden has snagged what is billed as an "exclusive" interview with Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner. But despite that access, the interview is a real snoozer. And there are many unanswered questions here -- both in lack of follow-ups to Hal's points, as well as in questions that are never raised in the first place.

So I decided to help rectify that. Here are the things Madden should have asked in his interview, but didn't:

1. Hal, you don't like being called a cheapskate for not signing Yoan Moncada, and you said the following regarding that issue:

“I found that very interesting,” he said, smiling, “given that we offered $25 million (for Moncada) and spent substantially in the international market (a reported $26.82 million in bonuses and penalties for greatly exceeding their bonus allotment). I’m not saying we’ll never give another seven-year contract, but going in you know you’re probably only going to get three-four good years out of it. It remains my goal to get under that $189 million (luxury-tax threshold), but it’s not going to happen for at least two more years when these big contracts we have expire. But I’ve continued to say you shouldn’t need $200 million to win a championship.”

Do you understand that spending $7M more on Moncada would have been a better risk than the money spent on international bonuses, which were given to 16-year-old players without Moncada's track record? And given your opinions here, then why did you give out two seven-year contracts just last year: a $153M deal to Jacoby Ellsbury, and a $155M deal to Masahiro Tanaka? Also, are you aware that giving a three-year, $45M contract to an aging, injury-prone Carlos Beltran is essentially paying for the worst three years of a seven-year deal, without getting the good years?

2. You tell Madden you are excited about the NYCFC playing at Yankee Stadium. But what about the concerns from Yankee players about what this was going to do to the field? Mark Teixeira told the Daily News that "it's going to suck" and "tear up the infield," and Brett Gardner and Jacoby Ellsbury have also expressed concerns with soccer being played on the field. So what is in place to make sure the field will be pristine for baseball?

3. You said this winter that you gave Brian Cashman a contract extension because of the moves he made midseason to help the team. But are you aware that the Yankees had an identical winning percentage -- .514 -- both at the end of July, and at the end of the season, despite Cashman's dealing? Also, did you know that the Yanks and Kansas City Royals both had the same 55-52 winning record at the end of July, yet even with Cashman's pickups, the Royals, not the Yanks, made the postseason?

4. If you are so sold on the current players in the farm system, then why are neither Rob Refsnyder nor Jose Pirela given the chance this spring to compete for the second base job? What does it say to the folks on the farm when Stephen Drew gets $5M plus incentives for the spot, despite hitting below the Mendoza line last season, and the team refused to consider putting a rookie in the role, even though Drew has been hitting under .100 for most of spring training?

5. Why did you give Brian Cashman a contract extension and a raise when you acknowledge how poor player development has been, and how badly the minor league system was managed? In Yankeeland, does the GM hold any responsibility for the people under him? Under Cashman's watch of the farm system, there has been exactly one superstar -- Robinson Cano -- and zero No. 1 starting pitchers. Does that concern you?

6. Are you aware that when all is said and done, your team will have paid Martin Prado $10M for two months of his services in a year when your team didn't even make the playoffs?

7. Your team's front office has anonymously made negative snipes to the media over and over about Alex Rodriguez, including criticizing him for showing up *early* to spring training.  On the other hand, your team's Twitter feeds -- both the @Yankees and @YankeesPR -- have not mentioned him once this spring, completely ignoring his good performance in spring training. Do you think this a professional way to run a ballclub?

8. You told Madden that the team needed to get off to a good start in order for the team's attendance to be good. What if they don't? Aside from all the number retirement ceremonies this year, how are you going to put fannies in the seats, as your father would say, if this team is a snoozer this year?

9. You told Bill Madden, "we have to win," and claimed that there actually would be accountability if the Yankees don't make the playoffs again this season, saying, "We’re all accountable here, starting with me. I’m the one who approved all these contracts." Does that mean you will fire yourself if the Yankees miss the playoffs this year?

10. And finally, since you approved all these contracts, including the performance contract giving A-Rod $6M each time he reaches a certain home run milestone, why are you now trying to wriggle out of paying him? If it is because of him doing steroids, than why are you honoring admitted PED user Andy Pettitte with a retired number and a plaque in Monument Park?

A look at Bill Madden's many wrong-headed A-Rod pronouncements

Funny how Alex Rodriguez, the player Bill Madden repeatedly insisted "will never play another game for the Yankees," is arguably the biggest reason that the Yankees have won 11 of their last 14 games and are now just 3 1/2 games out of a wild card spot, and 6 games out of the division lead. So where is Bill Madden's mea culpa?

It isn't happening, of course. The next time Madden admits he was wrong on A-Rod will be the first time. Instead, in today's Daily News column, Madden dances around the fact that A-Rod's return had much to do with the Yankees' resurgence, giving him as little credit as possible for it. (Full disclosure, I used to work at the Daily News, but I would feel the same way about Madden no matter what!)

Madden has made repeated wrong-headed pronouncements about Rodriguez, not to mention saying bizarre and outrageous things about A-Rod, like calling him "the Whitey Bulger of baseball." (Not to mention him telling WFAN's Boomer and Carton that there was "no vendetta on [Bud] Selig’s part" against A-Rod) And Madden has never acknowledged that his pontifications were wrong, not even when the FAN's Mike Francesa, in one of the greatest radio moments of this year, called him on it. (I've made lots of wrong pronouncements, too, but I will willingly cop to them!)

And I haven't even gotten into the fact that Madden repeatedly insisted that A-Rod undergoing serious surgery, and going through grueling rehab, was simply a ploy to be declared physically unable to perform, and to collect insurance money. Remember this Madden gem, from July 11?:

It is now a frantic footrace with the MLB drug posse for Alex Rodriguez, who will never play another game for the Yankees but is desperately trying to make sure he doesn’t lose a penny of the $100 million owed him on the last 4½ years of his contract.

In plain view, A-Rod is going through the motions, playing in rehab games for the Class-A Tampa Yankees in the Florida State League, all in the name of making his way back to the Bronx by the end of the month. It is just an elaborate charade.

Madden also wrote this, on June 26:

Alex Rodriguez has 114 million reasons for telling the world that he has the green light to play baseball games again.

According to sources close to the ongoing drama surrounding the star-crossed Yankee third baseman, Rodriguez and his advisers are so concerned that Major League Baseball’s drug posse is quickly closing in on him that they have racheted up the timetable for him to return to game action.

Once he’s back playing in rehab games, the sources say, he could then claim he is physically unable to perform because of the serious hip injury he is recovering from, “retire” from the game, and still collect the full amount of his salary — $114 million over the next five years.

How is that "evil plan," as the Daily News once called it on the back page (on the very same day Aaron Hernandez was arrested as a result of an investigation into a murder -- a real evil plan!) working, Bill? Not only has Rodriguez looked great at the plate, but he made some nifty plays in the field and even stole a base yesterday! What insurer in his right mind would pay out a dime to him now?

The kicker is that Madden, without ever conceding that any of his hateful screeds were wrong, wrote this just the other day about Rodriguez. Madden says that this winter, A-Rod was "told by the first doctor who operated on his right hip that if he wants to be able to play with his kids when he’s 50 years old, he should really get the second right hip surgery done as well. Operating on both hips, however, would assure that he would never play baseball again." 

Hmmmm. If Rodriguez were simply looking for a way to simply collect the $114 million owed to him, wouldn't he have simply gotten both surgeries done then and called it a day? 

But I guess being a Hall of Fame baseball columnist means never having to write that you were wrong. Madden just keeps on going and going with his usual nonsense -- kind of like the Energizer Bunny of MLB columnists! 

Newspaper reports A-Rod was AWOL - and also reports that he showed up!

The media has been all over the story of A-Rod being AWOL from his Friday rehab. The Daily News wrote on Saturday night that Rodriguez was "chastised by the Yankees Saturday for failing to report to the team’s complex for Friday night’s game following a four-and-a-half hour meeting with MLB officials who outlined their case against him." The article also says that:

According to another source, Rodriguez’s meeting with MLB ended at about 4 p.m., and a clearly shaken Rodriguez then met with MLB Players Association reps for an hour and a half to discuss what had been outlined by MLB officials. When Rodriguez didn’t show up at the Yankee complex, GM Brian Cashman then tried to reach the three-time AL MVP, who told him that he “just couldn’t make it.”

Yet the same newspaper, and some of the same writers, wrote earlier in the day that A-Rod did show up!

Hours after meeting with MLB at an undisclosed Tampa location, Rodriguez trotted onto Steinbrenner Field, the team’s spring training site, to the hushed applause of maybe 50 fans. But a deluge delayed the game, which was eventually postponed.

Both articles are still live on the DN website. As James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal says about such coverage, it's two newspapers in one!

I also have trouble believing the story that A-Rod and his attorneys are negotiating a plea deal for 150 games. The article also quotes an anonymous source that says:

“I can see a scenario where if they’ve got multiple offenses (against A-Rod) that rather than going for his career with an arbitrator, baseball might settle on something like 150 games,” said one of the sources.

If they are, they are the stupidest attorneys in the world, because MLB's Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program clearly lists a 50-game suspension for a first offense, and a 100-game suspension for a second offense, with a lifetime ban only coming after the third offense. And try as I may, I could not find anything in MLB's rules on the matter which would justify 150 games, even for alleged multiple offenses at the same time. There is also nothing that says that a player could be banned for life if he were caught at one time with multiple PEDs.

And by the way, as I have pointed out before, Melky Cabrera's people set up a fake website to make it look like the substance he tested positive for was legal, and he still only got a 50-game suspension. What is the precedent here for Rodriguez? Why would a 150-game ban be, as another source says in the article, "a victory for both sides"? How does that make any sense?

Tabloid sez, without any evidence, that Steinbrenners could sell Yankees

Journalists whine that bloggers make something out of nothing, but that was my reaction after reading today's Michael O'Keeffe and Bill Madden piece for the New York Daily News saying that the Yankees could be up for sale soon. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I think that sportswriters ought to have something more than hearsay and rumors and anonymous quotes before writing such an explosive story.

O'Keeffe and Madden write that:

Multiple baseball and finance sources told the Daily News they are hearing that the team the Steinbrenner family has led to seven World Series titles could be put on the block in the wake of the record sale price of $2.175 billion the Los Angeles Dodgers went for in April.

“There has been chatter all around the banking and financial industries in the city for a couple of weeks now,” one high-level baseball source told The News.

This is worthy of front-page and back-page covers in the New York Daily News? Because some anonymous Wall Street workers and baseball names are speculating about how much the Yankees could be worth, because the Dodgers were sold for so much? Spare me.

Look, it is always possible that the Steinbrenners could sell the team one day, or even sell it in the near future. But where is any evidence that this is going to happen? O'Keeffe and Madden do not have a single hard fact or on-the-record source showing that this could happen, yet they have written a news story, not an opinion column, saying that the Yanks could be for sale soon. There is only one named source in the article, Yankees president Randy Levine, who gave a flat denial to the News saying: "The Steinbrenners are not selling the team. Heck, there's not even an anonymous source saying that they will sell the team; just that they could sell the team. 

Full disclosure -- as long-time readers know, I used to work at the News, but my opinion would be exactly the same on this article whether I had worked there or not.

O'Keeffe and Madden not only make a whole lot out of supposition and rumors, they insinuate that Hal Steinbrenner may want to sell the team because he said this spring that he was a "finance geek" and that a good team didn't need a $220 million payroll in order to win. Then the article misrepresents Hal's position on the A-Rod re-signing in 2007, blaming Hank Steinbrenner for it.

They continue, "Hal Steinbrenner rarely attends games, and according to those who know him, abhors doling out the huge money long-term contracts such as the Rodriguez deal." Really? Then why did Hal sign off on that deal, as well as the CC Sabathia (seven years, and then an additional two years) and Mark Teixeira (eight years) contracts? Not to mention paying A.J. Burnett $82 million, and then paying nearly 2/3 of Burnett's last two years on the contract for him to pitch for the Pittsburgh Pirates?

Buster Olney wrote the definitive version of what happened in the A-Rod contract -- I talked about it in Subway Squawkers last year. The gist of it is that Randy Levine, not bogeyman Hank Steinbrenner, did most of the negotiations with A-Rod and his people. And A-Rod had to go to Hal's house and apologize in person for the opting-out shenanigans before he would sign off on the contract, which he did. Contrary to this story, there is no evidence that Hal opposed the A-Rod deal, just that he was ticked off over the opting-out stuff.

But who needs actual facts when the News can have sources who say stuff like this:

“Hal’s a smart businessman,” the source said. “And I’m just not sure that he considers baseball to be a smart business. I think he looks at some of these other owners, throwing $200 million at players and thinks they’re idiots — idiots that unfortunately can affect the way he does business. You have to understand, it was in Hal’s formative years in the ’80s when he saw George at his worst in terms of throwing more and more good money at bad players like Pascual Perez, Dave LaPoint, Steve Kemp, Ed Whitson and Andy Hawkins.”

Let's review. By buying the Yankees in 1973, George Steinbrenner was able to take an under $10 million investment and build a team worth several billion. Tell me in what other legal business you can get that sort of rate of return.  Sounds pretty "smart" to me.

Again, Hal signed off on all of the modern big-spending Yankee deals. He also agreed to bring back Brian Cashman, the GM who has one tool in the toolbox -- the ability to spend money. Sure, Hal has made it clear he wants the payroll to go down, but that doesn't mean 1) that he doesn't bear his own share of responsibility for the Yankee payroll and 2) that he is going to sell the team anytime soon. Besides, there are four Steinbrenner children who would have to sign off on the sale.

O'Keeffe and Madden end their piece by quoting yet another anonymous source who says: “Hal hates the players and he hates the media.”

So there you have it. Michael O'Keeffe and Bill Madden have declared that the Yankees could be for sale soon, with the "evidence" for this based solely on rumors, speculation, and twisting around of the facts. I am eagerly waiting for the News' next report, about how Ferris Bueller passed out at 31 Flavors.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Bill Madden sez Derek Jeter wants $150 million (gulp!) from the Yankees

After a month of Derek Jeter contract stories, we finally have a reported figure of how much the Yankee captain is actually looking for. New York Daily News columnist Bill Madden says that Jeter and his agent Casey Close are seeking $25 million a year over the next six years. This number is an even higher average annual value than his previous contract, and an absolutely outrageous amount for an aging shortstop who hit .270 last year to expect.

Here's some of what Madden writes:

"Throughout this process, Close and Jeter have never revealed what they're actually looking for - which is why so many Yankee fans, opposing club officials and nationwide media types are asking: Why are the Yankees treating Jeter this way? But sources close to the Jeter/Close camp have said their starting point was six years, $150 million and that they aren't budging on $25 million per year - which would effectively get the captain about even in annual average salary to Alex Rodriguez, the real benchmark from their standpoint in this negotiation."

If these figures are true -- and I believe they are, simply because the Yankees would never have postured the way they had if the two parties weren't so far apart in what they wanted -- these are flat-out crazy numbers. Jeter never made $25 million in his prime. He thinks he deserves it now? Please.

I mean, really. Who's advising Jeter these days -- LeBron James?  Is Jeter, like King James was, surrounded by flunkies who tell him how wonderful he is all the time, without ever giving him a reality check? The longer this goes on, the more the captain looks completely out of touch as to how much he's actually worth. On what planet does Jeter think he's worth $25 million a year these days -- Planet Intangibles, where fist pumps and jump throws are worth more than hits and runs?

And don't tell me about the marketing. It doesn't matter if the Yankees sell a gazillion #2 t-shirts. You know how much the team makes on that? 1/30 on the licensing shares, even though they sell 27 % of the team merchandise sold.
Madden thinks the Yankees made a mistake in not revealing the numbers Jeter is looking for. He writes that the team:

"should have just told the world how greedy and unreasonable Jeter and his agent, Casey Close, are being in this negotiation. To do that, however, apparently would have been to betray an agreement the two sides made going in - which was not to negotiate in the media or reveal each other's positions. The reason the Yankees' offer is out there is because whenever a club makes an offer to a free agent it becomes common knowledge in the central offices of baseball and throughout the industry. On the other hand, the players' and agents' asking prices never get revealed unless they themselves let them be known."

And, as I've been saying for a while, it looks like the contract demands are driven by Jeter wanting to get paid like A-Rod:

"It's pretty apparent that what the Yankees chose to pay A-Rod - $275 million over 10 years until 2017 - is at the crux of Jeter's and Close's stance. But the circumstances of that deal - dumb as it was - were vastly different than these with Jeter. A-Rod was only 32, coming off a year in which he'd led the majors in homers (56) and RBI (156) and had not yet revealed he'd been a steroids cheat. He was also going to have plenty of suitors in his pursuit of the all-time home run record - not at those ridiculous numbers, but he was going to get his money - and, in the meantime, the Yankees were facing losing their cleanup hitter.


So what you have here is Jeter and Close telling the Yankees: "Who has meant more to this franchise?" Except that it doesn't work that way. "

Remember, Madden isn't exactly Alex Rodriguez's biggest fan -- he suggested that the Yankees release him and eat the money on his contract after the steroid scandal. He also said that A-Rod will never get his Hall of Fame vote. But even Madden acknowleges that A-Rod's situation was different from Jeter's, and that the captain is out of line with what he wants here.

One thing Madden didn't mention that I would add, is that economic times were much better in 2007. But for the past two years, we've had a terrible economy and double-digit unemployment. For Jeter and his team to act insulted over an offer that is still twice more than any other team would give him was ridiculous enough. But for him to want over three times more that generous $45 million amount is the most out-of-touch contract demand I've seen since Latrell Sprewell turned down a 3-year, $21 million contract extension from the Minnesota Timberwolves, saying "I got my family to feed."

What do you think? Tell us about it.