Get some great baseball reading material with the Baseball Reads promotion

Quick note: If you are interested in picking up some great baseball books, including Robert W. Creamer's "Babe" or classics by David Halberstam and Roger Angell, visit the "Baseball Reads" site. All these books are available right now for just $2.99 as ebooks. But act fast -- the promotion ends soon.

ESPN's "The Deal" looks back at the A-Rod trade, 10 years later

Recently, ESPN ran a "30 for 30" short about the ten-year anniversary of Alex Rodiguez's trade to the New York Yankees. Nick and Colin Barnicle were the filmmakers behind "The Deal," and Colin, the director of the film, graciously agreed to answer a few questions I had on the documentary. (You can watch the movie for yourself by clicking here.) Without further ado, here is the interview:

* First off, I remember that time very well (full disclosure: I am a Yankee fan!) and where I was when I heard that A-Rod was going to be a Yankee (I was at a New Jersey Devils game.) And you captured the details of those weeks, even mentioning the "We got him" announcement about Saddam Hussein (I remember a Red Sox fan friend joking that they thought the announcement was about A-Rod!) What in particular gave you the idea to do "The Deal"?

My brother and I are big Red Sox fans and, as such, we were well aware of the fact that A-Rod had been - for a brief moment in time - a Red Sox. Back then, it was so devastating for Red Sox nation to lose out on the best and most marketable player in the league that it almost felt like the second coming of the Babe Ruth trade. It really did feel like fate. We wanted to capture that and let the irony of the situation speak for itself.

* What do you think would have happened if the A-Rod trade to the Boston Red Sox had gone through? Would the Red Sox have still won their rings? Would A-Rod have become a Manny Ramirez-esque weird but not despised character in Boston? 

Both Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer said that if hindsight wasn't 20/20 they would have done the deal again. Alex Rodriguez was the face of baseball and by far the best player in a keystone position to boot. I think they certainly would have won a World Championship with him. Three championships? I don't know. But, they would have been a really, really good if not better team with Alex in his prime and he would have been the face of the Red Sox revival. As for Manny, I'm not sure anyone can or will approach the strange place he holds in Boston fans' hearts.

* Ten years later, I still don't understand why the Red Sox just didn't ask for the Rangers to pay a portion of A-Rod's salary, something that the Yankees got from them. Was that ever discussed in their negotiations? 

Yes. But, Manny Ramirez and his gigantic contract were headed to the Rangers so they didn't want to eat any of Alex's contract if they had to take on Manny's deal. Soriano wasn't being paid a tenth of what Manny was at the time so the Rangers had to take on some of the remaining money from Rodriguez's contract in order to facilitate the trade with the Yankees. In essence, taking Manny Ramirez's contract was the financial relief given to the Red Sox by the Rangers much in the same way paying down Alex's deal was to the Yankees.

* I have already heard why you didn't want to interview A-Rod for the show, but what about Scott Boras? It seemed to me that having some voice from the A-Rod camp would have added more to the documentary. Or even Joe Torre or somebody else from the Yankee camp besides Brian Cashman. Any reason that didn't happen?

They didn't truly have any insight into it. Scott Boras wasn't involved at any level with Alex going to the Red Sox. It's important to note that Alex did it all himself. He set up all the meetings and did the negotiating himself. Boras just wasn't in the loop. When it came to the Yankees, the whole deal was done really secretively. Not even Steinbrenner knew about it until a week before it went down. It was entirely Cashman and Hart. Boras and Torre, like Steinbrenner, weren't key players.  

* I wish "The Deal" had been longer, to explore questions like what Manny Ramirez and Nomar Garciaparra were thinking when all of the trade talk was swirling around. For example, did they forgive Kevin Millar for saying he'd rather have A-Rod as a teammate? Another thing I wish you had had the time to explore more was the relationship with Derek Jeter. I remember him mumbling in a monotone when introducing A-Rod at the press conference, with a look on his face then like he would rather be anywhere else! Anyhow, did you try to interview any of these people, or just not have the running space to talk to them?

This is a really complex story, but we always knew we wanted to end it with Alex signing with the Yankees and keep it within the confines of the off-season. We felt it was more ironic that way and we didn't have to flesh out any of the later controversy since Alex has done a good job of keeping that in the papers all his own. 

That said, there were definitely stories we wish we could've included in the piece. One such story was that when Brian Cashman learned about the Boone injury he was on vacation on the island of Anguilla at this very small resort and coincidentally, staying at the same exact place, at the same exact time, was the New York Times baseball reporter, Tyler Kepner. So, the whole time Cashman is trying to keep a poker face and not let Kepner know that they have a serious problem at third base. 

You can watch "The Deal" for yourself here.

Contest: Win an entry to the Spartan Race of your choice!

I mentioned recently that I was going to be competing in the Spartan Sprint obstacle race at Citi Field on Saturday, April 12, and I am very excited over it. Here is a 15% discount code for the race, if you would like to also participate. In addition, thanks to the folks who run the Spartan Races, I  am going to run a contest offering free entry to the Spartan Race event of your choice.

Here's how you can enter: please send me an email with the subject line "Spartan Race" to subwaysquawkers@gmail.com. Please include your name, address, and phone number.  We will only use that information to inform you if you win. Please send in your entry by Monday, March 31 at 5 p.m. One entry per person, please.

In addition, there is also an upcoming book by Spartan Race founder Joseph De Sena, called
Spartan Up!: A Take-No-Prisoners Guide to Overcoming Obstacles and Achieving Peak Performance in Life. You can pre-order the book at that link -- it comes out in May.

Yankees-Red Sox feud: Randy Levine issues lame rejoinder to Larry Lucchino

So there was a bit of a kerfuffle this weekend, after Boston Red Sox president Larry Lucchino dissed the New York Yankees' freee-spending approach to building a team. Unfortunately for Yankee fans, team president Randy Levine was the humorless prig issuing a response. If you are going to get into a war of the words with the guy who coined the Evil Empire remark, you had better have something resembling a quick wit, not a knucklehead still muttering about ghosts a decade after 2004.

Here's what happened. Lucchino said the following about the Yankees (emphasis added):

"We're very different animals. I'm proud of that difference. I always cringe when people lump us together. Other baseball teams sometime do that. They are still, this year at least, relying heavily on their inimitable old-fashioned Yankee style of high-priced, long-term free agents. I can't say I wish them well. But I think we've taken a different approach.

"If you compare what we did last year in the offseason to what they've done this year, there's quite a contrast there. I'll quickly say we do keep open the prospect of signing a long-term deal with a free agent, paying a sizable amount of money to attract a star in his prime. We haven't ruled that out. There's just a rebuttable presumption against doing that. But you can rebut it. The circumstances can allow for you to go ahead and do it. The Yankees do it more often it seems to me as a matter of course."

  Lucchino got a little rambly towards the end of that, and he kind of ignores the big money the Sox spent on Carl Crawford et al, but he is stating some true facts -- the Yankees are totally dependent upon spending for free agents to restock their team. When you spend $500+ million on your free agents, you can't really complain about others noticing that, can you?

Well, if you are Randy Levine, you can! Instead, Levine gave the following cringeworthy response:

“I feel bad for Larry; he constantly sees ghosts and is spooked by the Yankees. But I can understand why, because under his and Bobby Valentine’s plan two years ago, the Red Sox were in last place. Ben Cherington and the Red Sox did a great job last year winning the World Series, but I’m confident Cash and Joe and our players will compete with a great Red Sox team to win a world championship this year.”

Here are my thoughts on this:

1. Everybody in Yankeeland needs to stop with talk of "ghosts" forever. This should have stopped forever in 2004, when the Red Sox beat the Yankees in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS on Mickey Mantle's birthday, after the Yanks decided that they would bring out Bucky Dent to throw out the first pitch and somehow spook Boston. How'd that work for the Yankees again?

2. Love how Lucchino is responsible for Bobby V, but Cherington is responsible for Boston winning the World Series last year. Sounds like the way Brian Cashman brags about his "five" rings, like he did in the Roger Clemens trial, but every bad decision made in Yankeeland is blamed on Tampa.

3. Unlike the Red Sox, the Yankees do not have a viable farm system, and do have to spend a gazillion dollars on free agents. in order to be competitive. And even with that, they still didn't re-sign Robinson Cano, and still don't have a viable infield this year. To complain about Lucchino pointing out the Yankees' spending is like Miley Cyrus complaining about people noticing that she sticks out her tongue all the time.

4. The Red Sox have won three rings in the past decade to the Yankees' one, and they are the defending World Champions. As insufferable as Lucchino is, he has unfortunately earned the right to trash-talk. If Levine couldn't come up with something funny or clever, he should have kept his mouth shut.

5. Yeah, hiring Bobby Valentine was a disastrous move. But Boston realized quickly that he was a disaster, and got rid of him after one year. Then they won the World Series the following year. If Valentine had been signed by the Yankees, they would keep him forever, just because Hal Steinbrenner doesn't want to look like his father and ever fire anybody. You know, kind of like how Randy Levine still gets to keep his job as team president, long after he has done anything worthwhile!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

So I am going to get to compete in the Spartan Sprint at Citi Field

Big Squawker news -- I am in training to compete in the Spartan Sprint at Citi Field on April 12. It should be a great challenge, and I am looking forward to the event! The Spartan races combine running and obstacles. No word yet on whether Mr. Met is competing, though!

If you are interested in participating in this or any other Spartan race, here is a 15% discount code that you can use.

Spartan Race 2014 -- Are you in?

Reminder -- if you are interested in the Spartan Race, here is a 15% discount code for you. There is going to be a Spartan Sprint at Citi Field on April 12 (MLB-related tie-in here!) I am hoping to compete in it myself! Please check out the video below to get pumped up over it.

"Bronx Bombers" is a solid line drive double on Broadway

Recently, Squawker Jon and I were invited to check out “Bronx Bombers” on Broadway. We did just that, and enjoyed the play (although I did more than Jon; he is still waiting for a Broadway show to celebrate the Mets, though I did point out to him that a revival of "Les Miserables" opens next month.) Here are my thoughts on "Bronx Bombers." Spoiler alert if you want to be totally surprised before seeing the show.

This was a unique experience for me, to see a play in two different iterations. That’s because last fall, Squawker Jon and I got the opportunity to check out the play “Bronx Bombers” in its off-Broadway tryout. We attended the very first night of that show.The first act was intriguing -- it features Yogi Berra trying to make peace between Reggie Jackson and Billy Martin, on the morning after their infamous 1977 dugout argument, with Thurman Munson along as a bemused observer (more on that in a bit.)

That’s even though I thought that the play should have done more to explore Jackson’s side of the story when it came to Martin, given that race had a lot to do with Martin’s animosity towards him.  I wrote in notes then that “the show is too kind to Martin, and too rough to Jackson.”  Despite that, the writing was mostly pretty good in this part, and the acting, particularly by Bill Dawes as Thurman Munson, was very good. We were a little confused at the beginning of the previous play, though, as the actor playing Yogi looked more like Martin than Berra, and for the first 10 minutes, we thought we were watching Martin!

But when we saw the show’s dreamlike dinner party in the off-Broadway production, we thought it was “bizarre,” as I wrote in notes I took after the first show, made no sense, and took away from the show’s fairly strong first act.

That dinner party is still in the play, with Yankee legends old and new, but fortunately, it makes a bit more sense in the retooled show, with better writing and better acting – Peter Scolari is a standout as Yogi Berra, and Tracy Shayne, his real-life wife, is excellent as his wife Carmen. There are lots of Yogi-isms throughout the play – more than I remember in the original version – and most of them draw knowing laughter from the audience.

The first act is tighter now and makes you understand and empathize with each character. Reggie, played by Francois Battiste, (who also plays Elston Howard at the dinner party), now points out the racial issues he was facing as an outspoken black man in the 1970s in the way that is illuminating without being pedantic.  Billy, played by Keith Nobbs, is a well-acted mess in western wear, although Nobbs doesn’t quite look old enough to play Martin. The main four players in this Bronx Zoo drama are very entertaining to watch.

As for the second half of the play, the dinner party works better than when we saw it in previews. Dawes, who plays Munson in the first act, is outstanding as Mickey Mantle in the second act, looking, sounding and acting like Mantle. He spars with Joe DiMaggio, played by Chris Henry Coffey. Their characters are the must-watch part of the party.

Christopher Jackson plays Derek Jeter at the party, and while he doesn’t look all that much like Jeter, he does sound like him, and he inhabits the role more than he did when he saw him last fall.

There were two issues that I had with both versions of the play. The first is that if you are going to have Yogi as the central character, you have to talk about his 14-year estrangement from the Yankees. It is one of the more interesting things about him – he is one of the few people to stick it to George Steinbrenner. The second is that Steinbrenner should have been in the play. He is the kind of larger-than-life dramatic character you would want to have in the show.

After the play was over, Jon and I stuck around to see a post-play chat with Scolari, Shayne, and Fran Kirmser and Tony Ponturo, the producers of the play. They explained the reasoning behind both these issues, but I still think it would have been a stronger play with those elements in there. But that's quibbling.

When an audience member asked if they were concerned about having the actors look like the players, the producers and actors said they put more of a priority on finding bits of behavior to create the characters of the players.

If you want to walk down Yankee memory lane on Broadway, you should check out “Bronx Bombers.” While it's not a home run, it's a solid line drive double.

Did Robinson Cano dog it too much as a Yankee?

In today's New York Daily News, Yankee hitting coach throws Robinson Cano under the bus for a lack of hustle -- specifically not running hard enough to first on ground balls. Here are some of the choice comments from Long:

“If somebody told me I was a dog," Long said here Sunday, “I’d have to fix that. When you choose not to, you leave yourself open to taking heat, and that’s your fault. For whatever reason, Robbie chose not to."

Long also said about Cano:

“He overcame so much while he was here,’’ Long said. “As a young kid there were holes everywhere. There were holes in his swing, in his makeup, in his body composition. This kid grew and grew and grew. All the other stuff … he’d take plays off in the field, he’d give away at-bats in RBI situations. He made a lot of personal decisions to get over the hump in those areas. People don’t know how hard he worked, how many times he was the one asking me to do extra work in the cage.’’

Sure, Long was complimentary at times about Cano when talking to John Harper, but there were an awful lot of negative comments in there about the Yankees' best player last year. And Long never acknowledges a pretty good reason for Cano not to play 100% at all times -- that he has been able to stay healthy throughout his career and play nearly every single game. Cano only missed 14 games since 2006 -- that should have been mentioned in the article.

Anyhow, I had to wonder why Kevin Long was talking about Cano to such an extent anyway. What was the purpose? If Long thought this was so important for Cano to hustle, and he didn't do it, that reflects as badly on the hitting coach as it does on the second baseman. It also seems like bad form to me for him to trash Cano after he went elsewhere. If he had stayed on the Yankees, would Long be publicly flapping his gums on the flaws in Cano's game?

Maybe Long ought to pay more attention to his day job instead of being the Yankees' henchman.

My night at the Baseball Assistance Team dinner

I had the honor of getting to attend Tuesday's Baseball Assistance Team (BAT) 25th annual dinner, held at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan. Many thanks to MLB for getting me into the event. BAT helps former players and front office personnel in need.

While Tuesday's snowstorm kept some of the event's honorees, like Bud Selig and Jimmy Rollins, from being able to attend in person, there were over 75 current and retired MLB players, as well as many hundreds of other attendees, at the dinner. There was also a nice tribute to Michael Weiner, the late had of the players' union, at the event. And the Yankees, as well as the Dodgers, were honored for having the best support to the organization in 2013.

It was a cool event to go to. I showed up in the afternoon to pick up my media credentials, and then get a cup of coffee at the hotel's Starbucks, and I saw Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar getting a coffee of his own!

That is just one of many of the big names I saw at the dinner. I saw David Cone chatting with a friend at the pre-dinner reception; was going to say something but I was tongue-tied for once in my life! I also saw Tommy Lasorda, Steve Garvey, Rollie Fingers, Orlando Cepeda, Phil Linz, Dr. Bobby Brown, Dmitri Young, and many other former MLBers walking around. Adam Jones of the Baltimore Orioles was also there as one of the current MLB players at the event.

I got the chance to talk to Harold Reynolds -- he is just as engaging and charismatic as he is on TV -- at the pre-dinner social hour. At the dinner itself, there is supposed to be a former MLB player at each table. My table had Greg Colbrunn, who played for the Arizona Diamondbacks on their 2001 team. So I was asking him questions about that series, and what it was like. Also noticed his World Series ring. Interestingly enough, Colbrunn was a coach for a number of years in the Yankee farm system, and finally got his chance to coach in the big leagues last year as -- drumroll please -- the Boston Red Sox's hitting coach! So now he will have two rings!

Tike Redman, a former MLB player who received financial assistance from BAT after his daughter was diagnosed with cancer, gave a touching speech about how the help meant to him and his family. It really brought the point home as to how valuable the organization is.

Anyhow, if you ever get the chance to attend the BAT dinner, I wholeheartedly recommend it. Great night for a great cause!

Here are some unanswered questions about A-Rod, Tony Bosch, and that "60 Minutes" report

If you had Alex Rodriguez in your office pool, as I did, as getting a 50-game suspension, you lost. And of course A-Rod lost, too, in not being able to play for the entire 2014 season. But gee, the Yankees should now have some money to sign Tanaka. What a weird coincidence!

I think it is in everybody's interest (except A-Rod, of course) to make him the face of PED use. Bud Selig has A-Rod's scalp, the Yankees have freed up some money, and even the players' union benefits in a way, because Alex is taking all the flak for being a juicer, instead of there being widespread outrage about multiple players using PEDs.

Anyhow, that was one of the problems I had with last night's "60 Minutes" report -- no other names were mentioned as far as last year's  Biogenesis suspensions. You also would never know that Melky Cabrera and Bartolo Colon and Ryan Braun previously tested positive thanks to Biogenesis' products, something which flies in the face of Tony Bosch's assertion that doing these PEDs are nearly a "cakewalk," as he bragged last night.

Anyhow, here are the questions I would have like to have heard answered last night:

* Bosch asserts that A-Rod came to him in the summer of 2010 and asked him to do for him what Bosch did for Manny Ramirez in 2008 and 2009. Does that include failing a PED test, as Ramirez did in 2009? Either A-Rod really is dumb, or Bosch was telling a lie.

* Bosch claimed a Rodriguez "associate" threatened his life, something Rob Manfred of MLB also claimed. Was a police report filed? Did they ever go to the cops over this? What evidence do they have, other than some text message to Bosch's girlfriend? And if this allegation is credible, why wasn't it brought up months ago, and why was it only in the second half of the report?

As my friend Jesse Spector writes in the Sporting News:

If A-Rod was behind what Manfred called a "known associate" threatening Bosch's life, that's more than impeding a baseball investigation, that's worthy of a criminal investigation. But "60 Minutes" presented no evidence of that threat other than Bosch's and Manfred's words late in the report. If there was real evidence to tie it together, the "60 Minutes" story is leading with "Disgraced baseball player threatens to kill drug dealer," not the salacious and remarkably unverifiable claim by Bosch of going into a stall with A-Rod in a public bathroom in Miami and shooting him up.

* According to Bosch, A-Rod passed 12 drug tests in that time frame. But MLB only has players take two PED tests a year -- once in spring training, and once in the regular season. Why did A-Rod have to take 12 in 2 1/2 years?

* "60 Minutes" went into great detail to show a multiple home run game against Florida that Bosch claims to have helped A-Rod with. But 2010 through 2012 were also the worst years of A-Rod's career up until that point. Why not show, for example, how little Bosch's stuff helped Alex in the playoffs?

* What about the other players named? Why didn't MLB send dozens of their minions after Ryan Braun or any of the other people named?

* Why does Bosch need $800,000 a year in security? How do those costs compare to celebrities' security? How is this money being funneled?

* Why didn't the report ever explain why A-Rod should get a higher penalty than other players did?

Anyhow, what unanswered questions do you have about the report? Tell us about it!