Shocker: Red Sox fan defends the Yankees' spending

Writer Russ Smith of SpliceToday.com is a lifelong Red Sox fan, who says that his "Yankee-hating bona fides are second to no one."

Which is why it was shocking to read Smith defending the Yankees' $423.5 million spending spree. Smith writes:

The recent commotion from baseball media commentators—in print, on the tube, online and at parties—after the Yankees signed free agent Mark Teixeira for $180 million has been the most knee-jerk, naive and plain dumb hyperbole that’s occurred in the past year. The Yankees are ruining Major League Baseball! The Steinbrenners Hal and Hank (and GM Brian Cashman) don’t play fair! Locking up three players—aside from Teixeira, they nabbed C.C. Cheeseburger and A.J. Burnett—for a total of $423.5 million is unseemly during a crippling recession and the world’s most famous sports franchise is once again spitting at people with prudence and manners!

What a load of hooey.

He's not kidding about the hyperbole. Smith found an outrageous quote from would-be Red Sox Nation President Peter Gammons:

Gammons rebutted the whining about Boras with this zinger: “Boras doesn’t want to be the good guy, and doesn’t care who gets burned as long as his clients get the best deal; didn’t [legendary lawyer] Edward Bennett Williams do the best he could for Joe McCarthy and Sirhan Sirhan?”

Sounds like Peter is taking that whole Teixeira thing a little too hard. Sheesh.

* * *

Reminder: I will be squawking on Sound-Off With Sinkoff this Friday at 4:10 p.m. The show airs on Albany's ESPN 104.5 The Team. Click here to listen live to the show online.

What do you think about the state of the Yankees? Leave us a comment!

What are your favorite - and least favorite - 2008 baseball moments?

Happy New Year. Hope everybody is enjoying 2009. Since the baseball hot stove is not exactly simmering right now, I thought now would be a good time to ask readers about their favorite and least favorite baseball moments of 2008.

Wondering what Squawker Jon will pick for his favorite Met moments. I know what mine is - them blowing the last game of the year, for the second year in a row, and missing the playoffs, for the second game in a row. And then having their farewell to Shea ceremonies after that game. Nice!

And how about this - the Mets' Mike Pelfrey, who played Santa Claus for the team this year, showed he was woefully unqualified for the position. In an interview with MLB.com, Pelfrey could only name three of Santa's reindeer. Three! It's not like there was a song or anything about them - oh, wait.

Forget about Anna Benson as Mrs. Claus - Pelfrey's stunning lack of knowledge of the holiday classic "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," when he was set to play Kris Kringle for the kids, is the real Santa sacrilege.

I don't really have any on-the field fave Yankee picks from last year - that's what happens when the Yanks have a third-place finish - but my favorite Yankee moments of 2008 are Derek Jeter's speech at the final Stadium game, and the Yanks snatching Mark Teixeira from the Red Sox. (Update: I'm smacking myself upside the head for not writing about Mike Mussina getting 20 wins. Not exactly a good start to the year!)

My two least favorite Yankee moments for last year are the Yanks missing the playoffs, of course, and them re-signing Brian Cashman However, I do have to give him tons of credit for the Mark Teixeira deal, and for wooing CC Cabathia. And if Cash can re-sign Andy Pettitte, I will be even more pleased.

As for the Red Sox, my least favorite 2008 moment was Dustin Pedroia winning the AL MVP. My favorite moment would be any part of the delicious Manny Ramirez drama.

And on a football-related but Squawker-centric note, I did have to say that I am really enjoying seeing Brett Favre finally get his comeuppance a little this week. Guess he's not "Broadway Brett" any more. Jon, I told you this summer he was bad news for your Jets, and I was right. Favre shows up when he wants, thinks he's bigger than the team, and he makes his retirement decision into a drawn-out drama. He's your very own Roger Clemens!

Tell us your 2008 favorite and least favorite MLB moments! Leave us a comment.

From The Fens: To Gehenna With You

Happy New Year to our readers. While Yankee fans exult over this free agent season, Boston fans aren't exactly breaking out the champagne.

As promised, from the shadows of Fenway Park, here's Red Sox fan Bob Ekstrom's take on the Mark Teixeira signing:

After a Christmas week crushed under the carbon footprint of my visiting daughter and the gold thumbs of Hal & Hank Steinbrenner, yesterday was a good day. I got my daughter to the airport and the Red Sox finally signed a couple of free agents, so I've survived the holidays, albeit a little worse for the wear.

Waiting for 30-minute showers and $180-million contract talk to end can try even the most patient of father and fan, but the days when I was either are over. That bubble popped three years ago when I stood knee-deep in the wrapping paper remnants of my daughter's Christmas list, numbed to this paternal joy by the recent defection of Johnny Damon.

So there I was again this Christmas, seated in a hard wooden pew at morning service befuddled as to how Yawkey Way got jujitsued out of Mark Teixeira. The sermon was reveling in the purity of this day and urged us all to fight its exploitation by the forces of greed. Suddenly, its words shone brighter than my downstairs after my daughter got up for a snack in the middle of the night: the Yankees are killing Christmas and should be cast into Gehenna where there will be much wailing and grinding of teeth.

I'm sorry, Lisa, but if you prefer we drop the 'Evil' when referencing The Empire, you must first stop sabotaging our traditional New England Christmases. It's not enough for you to sign the winter's top three free agents. No, you have to grab the last just two days before Christmas. You've taken Whoville's toys, our ornaments, and now, with the Teixeira signing, our rare Who roast beast under the cloak of night.

Everyone knows Johnny Damon wasn't worth $52 million; signing the iconic idiot was just for the mantelpiece. Teixeira is another matter. He offers considerable worth to both teams, and Theo Epstein's inertia here is inexcusable. Theo fell in line with all those pundits lulled into complacency by Yankee smokescreens, and the whole band of them were sent wandering around December like Spinal Tap looking for the stage in Cleveland.

Maybe The Empire has had the better this offseason, but as long as there are Whos gathered round the tree on a barren Christmas morning, so too can Red Sox Nation rebound. And we have with the inking of Brad Penny and Josh Bard.

That's right . . . Penny and Bard.

Although he doesn't have the potential of an A.J. Burnett, it's even money that a healthy Penny will perform as well as Burnett for one year, making him a low cost countermeasure to the Yankee signing. Besides, as ERA goes, 6.27 is the new 3.75. He's also hit .231 over the last two seasons, making it easier to bring back Jason Varitek. Every fifth day, Francona can DH in the catcher's slot to avail himself of Penny's more potent bat.

Speaking of which, we now know how Theo could non-tender back-up catcher Kevin Cash, where those hairy green Empire fingers dropped from the fireplace to snatch him like some crumb too small for a mouse. Good friend Josh Bard - who was run out of town in 2006 after allowing ten passed balls in seven appearances with Tim Wakefield - is back again. It's not every day a catcher is pursued for his ability to play balls off the wall.

So pause, Evil Empire. Put your hand to your ear and hear the sound rising over the snow. The sound sounds merry, though it couldn't be so.

It's the song of Red Sox Nation, happy with the bare tree we stand around, hand in hand, celebrating our coupon-clipping GM.

Fah who for-aze! Dah who dor-aze!

To read Ekstrom's previous Subway Squawkers Hot Stove dispatch, click here.

What do you think? Leave us a comment! And have a happy - and safe - new year!

Squawker media alert: I will be on the radio Friday

Hope everybody had a cool holiday season. I'm back in action, just in time to kick 2008 to the curb. And I will be squawking on Sound-Off With Sinkoff this Friday at 4:10 p.m. The show airs on Albany's ESPN 104.5 The Team. Click here to listen live to the show online.

Free agent season aside, 2008 was a lousy year for the Yankees, the Jets (sorry, Squawker Jon), the economy, and for Roger Clemens. The magazine Texas Monthly named the Rocket their Bum Steer - make that Bum Steeroid - of the year. Given that Clemens is all about Texas pride, that's gotta hurt. Fortunately for Yankee fans, the article emphasizes him being an Astro instead of a Bomber.

I still can't quite believe that the Yanks got Mark Teixeira. And Squawker reader/Red Sox fan Bob Ekstrom is still coming to grips with the signing as well. Come back later today to read his take on the signing.

What do you think of the state of the Yankees? Leave us a comment!

Andruw Jones? Say it ain't so!

At first, I wasn't worried that ESPN's Buster Olney was reporting that the Mets were interested in Dodger disaster Andruw Jones, still owed something like $15M in salary and $7.1M in bonuses for one more year of his dubious services. After all, if you're going to get someone to take Luis Castillo, you have to take back someone the other team can't wait to get rid of.

And then Olney writes:

But it's unlikely that the Dodgers would have interest in Castillo, because they have a young second baseman in Blake DeWitt, and Castillo does not play a lot of different positions.

First of all, DeWitt was primarily a third baseman last year. According to baseball-reference.com, DeWitt played 95 games at third and 27 at second. So even if the Dodgers are planning to use him at second after acquiring Casey Blake, he does have another position if the Dodgers got Castillo.

No, the real reason the Dodgers are unlikely to have interest in Castillo is that it is unlikely that ANY major league team would have interest in Castillo at his salary.

But for the Dodgers to even mention trading Jones without taking back Castillo is just plain insulting.

In fact, the Mets might actually be better off with Castillo than Jones.

Andruw Jones hit .158 last year in 209 at bats. .158! A full 42 points below the Mendoza Line.

Pedro Martinez isn't exactly the Sultan of Swat, and he hit .154 in 2008. Johan Santana spent his whole career before 2008 in a league with the DH, and he managed to hit .141.

But the real comparison is with Castillo, who had a bad year at the plate, only batting .245.

That's 87 points higher than Jones.

And if you're thinking that maybe Jones, who used to be a power hitter, at least had most of his base hits leave the ballpark, nope, he only had three homers and 14 RBI in those 209 AB.

Jones' slugging percentage was .249, barely higher than Castillo's batting average.

Fortunately, metsmerizedonline.com and hotfootblog.com have both noted that Marty Noble of mlb.com says that the Mets are no longer looking at Jones.

And that's just as well, because not only is he a .158 hitter, but no good can come of the Mets trading for a former Braves star named Jones.

Too bad Mets didn't move as quickly on Willie Randolph

After the Mets' 2007 collapse, there was some speculation that Willie Randolph would lose his job. The Mets did not confirm that Randolph was coming back for a couple of days.

Had the Mets started the season with a new manager, rather than letting Randolph go 34-35, they would have had a much better shot at winning the NL East.

The Jets did not even wait 24 hours before getting rid of Eric Mangini. I'm glad the Jets acted a lot more decisively than the Mets did with regards to Randolph. Two years ago, Mangini was Mangenius, the rookie coach who led his team to the playoffs. Who's to say he won't be a good coach again someday somewhere else. But he's not a good coach now, and the Jets are built to win now. In fact, their window might well have passed.

I wish I could be more optimistic about who the Jets will hire now. But 14 years ago, the Jets fired another young coach, Pete Carroll, after a late-season collapse. Owner Leon Hess, declaring he was 80 years old and wanted to win now, hired Rich Kotite.

At least the Jets-Giants rivalry isn't the same as Mets-Yankees. I don't think Jet fans will complain about "hiring a Giant" if the Jets get Steve Spagnuolo. We certainly didn't complain when Bill Parcells came in.

And as of now, the best coach the Jets have had this decade is ex-Giant Bill Belichick, who was HC of NYC for just one day.

Pitchers and catchers can't get here soon enough.

Brett Favre triggers Tom Glavine flashback

At the end of the 2007, the Mets' late-season choke culminated with future Hall of Famer Tom Glavine closing out his New York career on the lowest of notes at home against a team from Miami.

This afternoon, future Hall of Famer Brett Favre most likely closed out his New York career (and his career overall) on the lowest of notes at home against a team from Miami.

At least Glavine and the Mets weren't defeated by a pitcher the team had released to make room for Glavine.

Though, come to think of it, a year later, the Marlins did close out the Mets with New York discard Matt Lindstrom on the mound.

The real pain of the Jets' season came last week when the Jets lost to Seattle, making their playoff chances a real longshot. But today the ugliness is starting to set in. Last week, I was comparing Favre to Pedro Martinez. This week, it's the unlamented Glavine.

It's probably just as well the season is over - if the Jets were playing next week, I'd probably end up comparing Favre to another great thrower who didn't know when to stay retired - Roger Clemens.

I still think the Jets had to make the move to get Favre. But the current Jets management is too quick to devalue players that don't fit into Eric Mangini's plans. Players such as Kevin Mawae, who made the Pro Bowl this year, Pete Kendall and Jonathan Vilma. At least the Jets got a top draft choice for John Abraham.

But not only did the Jets give away Chad Pennington for nothing, they let him go to a division rival. Compare that behavior to the Packers, who made sure Favre didn't end up on the Minnesota Vikings.

And to make Favre's day - and year - even worse, the Vikings also made the playoffs today behind mediocre quarterback Tavaris Jackson, whose QB rating today of 88.5 was almost double Favre's horrific 45.1 against the Dolphins.

If you add Jackson's and Favre's ratings together, the total is only slightly higher than Chad's division-clinching 113.2.

At least the Patriots missed the playoffs.

*

Aside from that, the only bright spot from today came when I looked at the box score from Glavine's last Met game and saw that of the eight pitchers the Mets used that day: Glavine, Jorge Sosa, El Duque, Scott Schoeneweis, Joe Smith, Pedro Feliciano, Guillermo Mota and Aaron Heilman, only one of them, Feliciano, will still be with the Mets next year.

Happy Holidays!

Season's Greetings from the Squawkers. Thanks for reading us and for all of your comments and feedback. Lisa and I wish all of you a happy and safe holiday season.

*

Update: Reader Eamonn of Country Fastball, a radio show that combines country music with interviews with major league ballplayers, informs us that Saturday's show will feature Joba Chamberlain.

The show may be heard at www.countryfastball.com on Sat. Dec. 27 at 12 p.m. Eastern time.

Yanks' Teixeira signing puts coal in Red Sox fans' stockings

What an exciting day. Not only do the Yanks get Mark Teixeira, and make Red Sox Nation cry, but the trailer for "Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail" film is finally out online. (Squawker Jon says I like three kinds of movies - Mafia films, Tyler Perry movies, and talking animal flicks. To which I say, guilty as charged!)

Red from Boston fan site Surviving Grady writes this about the Teixeira deal:

The happiest guy in the world right now has gotta be A-Rod. Finally, there's someone who'll be booed more mercilessly than him at Fenway Park.

No argument there!

But did the Yankees go too far in spending, given the horrible economic conditions so many are facing? Are they out of touch with what the rest of the country is feeling? Absolutely not. After all, they're offering 1923-era prices to season ticket holders for those Yanks-Cubs exhibition games, and that's got to count for something, right?

The Yanks have not been liked around baseball since maybe the late 90s. But the hatred and the envy for the team is going to reach new levels after this signing. Heck, even one of my family members lectured me today for 15 minutes about how rooting for the Yankees now was like rooting for U.S. Steel, as the cliche goes.

But as I pointed out today to Squawker Jon, calling the Yanks the Evil Empire started after the Yanks beat the Sox in the Contreras deal, and that one didn't exactly work out to be the signing of the ages. So all this money doesn't guarantee anything.

Anyhow, I will guarantee this - I wish all of our readers Happy Holidays! I'll be away from the computer for the next few days (unless Manny becomes a Yankee, and then all bets are off!) Thanks to all of you for reading us. It's been a tumultous year for Jon and me, and we're glad to have such faithful readers.

What do you think? Leave us a comment!

New Squawker giveaway

Just in case you don't get enough baseball-related gifts this holiday season, here's your chance to win something Yankee-themed to ring in the new year.

The filmmakers at Mental Slapstick are giving away 15 DVDs of the short film "Gandhi at the Bat" to our readers. All you have to do is send an email with your name, address, and phone number to subwaysquawkers@gmail.com . Please put the word DVD in the subject line. You have until Tuesday, January 6 at noon to enter.

So what's the movie all about? The filmmakers describe it this way:

Gandhi at the Bat is an 11-minute mock newsreel about the little-known (and totally fictional) incident when Mahatma Gandhi pinch hit for the Yankees in 1933. According to the movie, which is based on a short story by Chet Williamson that originally appeared in The New Yorker magazine, Gandhi visited the United States in 1933, but for reasons of national security, President Franklin Roosevelt requested that all records of the visit be suppressed. The only account to escape the web of secrecy was this one newsreel - only recently rediscovered and restored - in which Gandhi joins Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and the rest of the Bronx Bombers in a game against against Connie Mack's Philadelphia A's. More info about the movie - including before-and-after demos that show how the filmmakers recreated Depression-era Yankee Stadium - can be found at http://www.gandhiatthebat.com/.

Anyhow, I've watched the movie myself, and it's a lot of fun. So please, check out the contest, and enter this cool giveaway.