She Loves My Smile, No Matter How Chipped My Tooth Is

We finally found Aaron Judge's Achilles heel. And it's not his achilles heel, it's his tooth.
Judge, who is about a foot taller than Brett Gardner, took Gardner's helmet right in the kisser during the celebration after Gardner homered in the bottom of the 11th to give the Yankees a 6-5 walkoff win against the Rays.



Judge is all right and will resume his duties as the face of baseball just as soon as he gets back from the dentist.

Good Thing I Didn't Die While Mike Piazza Was on the Mets

85-year-old Helen Fowler of Cranford, NJ passed away recently and in her obituary she (and/or her surviving family members) wanted the world to know how much Helen loved the New York Yankees.

Except for that miserable bum, Alex Rodriguez.
God bless you Helen.

Mrs. Poop's New Favorite Yankee

Now that Derek Jeter is moving on to make banging Swimsuit models his full time job, this leaves a void in Mrs. Poop's heart.
Who will be her favorite Yankee next season?
Answer: Masahiro Tanaka.

What did Tanaka do to endear himself to Mrs. Poop?
This is what he said when asked about the biggest cultural difference between Japan and the U.S.:

"The washlet is a system in Japan where you press a button and water comes out and washes your ass. Not having that is a big difference."

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Mariano Rivera's Farewell Tour

The Good:
A very nice moment at Yankee Stadium during Rivera's last home game. Joe Girardi brought him with 2 on and 1 out in the 8th inning and the Yankees losing 4-0. Rivera stayed in for the 9th and retired the first two batters before being pulled from the game, with Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte being the ones to come out and get him. A long emotional scene unfolded on the mound, including a 4-minute standing ovation.

Eventually a tearful Rivera scooped up some dirt from the mound as a memento.

The Bad:
In his last appearance at Fenway Park the Red Sox gave Rivera a picture of himself on the day in 2005 when Red Sox fans gave him a derisive cheer for blowing Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS which started the amazing comeback which led to the Red Sox first World Series title in 86 years.

The Ugly:
Mariano Rivera bobblehead night was marred by a bunch of angry Yankees fans, moreso than the average Yankee game is marred by them. The bobbleheads were shipped from Washington State (evidently at the last minute) and the truck brokedown in New Jersey causing the bobbleheads to be late.
Yankee fans were given vouchers as they entered the Stadium, causing long lines and delays.

When the bobbleheads finally arrived moments before game time, Yankee fans crammed the concourses, trying to redeem their vouchers.

Bonus:
Mrs. Poop will no longer be able to hear "Enter Sandman" (she often warns me to "sleep with one eye open") at the Hard Rock Cafe. The restaurant chain has "retired" the song at all its locations except the one in Yankee Stadium. I retired "Superthug" and haven't heard more than a few seconds of it since 1999.

Eating Your Own Cooking

Beofre the 2008 season, the Yankees signed Alex Rodriguez to a 10-year, $275M contract. After this season the Yankees will still owe A-Rod $86M over 4 years, with the (increasingly unlikely) potential for another $30M in performance bonuses for hitting certain historical Home Run milestones. But the Yankees may be thrown a lifeline by Major League Baseball which wanted to ban A-Rod for life for his involvement in the BioGenesis scandal. But now MLB wants him to accept a ban for the rest of this season and all of next. We don't know exactly what evidence MLB has against A-Rod, but no matter what it is, a lifetime ban would be so far above the punishment for other recidivists (Braun, Colon, Manny Ramirez) there seems to be more at play here than just wanting to punish a cheater. If the Yankees are freed from the liability of paying A-Rod, not only would it clear up $86M on their books it would get them under a certain luxury tax threshold which would prevent them from paying an extra 40% on the overage. That would be a huge advantage for the Yankees and the worst bailout since the financial crisis. If the league does decide to take this extraordinary step of banning A-Rod, and the Yankees don't have to pay his contract, his salary should still count against their luxury tax number. I can't believe the clubs' revenue sharing agreement doesn't include a stipulation to this regard. It seems like the mostly likely outcome here is for A-Rod to miss the rest of this year and all of 2014, which would still keep the final four years of his contract on the Yankees books, which I'm ok with, though I still thing salaries of suspended players should count against their teams for revenue sharing purposes. If not, it's almost an incentive to sign cheaters, because if they get caught you don't have to suffer any consequences. With these new suspensions and new enforcement methods, I think this is something MLB definitely needs to consider.

Oh No, No More Mo

Even as a Mets fan I am saddened by the injury to Mariano Rivera. He tore his ACL while shagging flies in the outfield during batting practice. At 42 years old and in the midst of what was likely his last season anyway, Rivera will likely never pitch in a Major League game again. In a crumpled heap on the warning track is how the career of the greatest relief pitcher ever ends.

There isn’t even a debate as to whether Rivera is the best reliever ever. He has the most saves (608), the best ERA (2.21), the best FIP (min. 500 innings) and the best WAR (39) by far. He’s worth nearly 10 more wins over the course of his career than the second best guy, Goose Gossage. Only 9 relievers contributed even half as many wins over their careers as Rivera did. But like I said that is a foregone conclusion. It’s more fun to compare him to starting pitchers. His WHIP is unbelievable, second only to Addie Joss. And that doesn’t include any kind of adjustment for era. His ERA stacks up well, but many dead-ball era pitchers like Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson and Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown are better. Until you adjust ERA for era. The career leaders for ERA+ (which basically compares ERA to league average and adjust for park effects) is 206. Meaning his ERA was less than half of league average for his career. Pedro Martinez is second, with 154. That’s a pretty big gap between 1st and 2nd all time. When you look at his individual seasons on ERA+ the numbers are sick. 308 in 2005, 316 in 2008 and a bunch of other years in the mid and high 200s. To put this in perspective, 150 is really good, 200 is amazing. He is routinely above 200.

And I haven’t even mentioned his postseason performance yet. He is arguably the great postseason performer of any player ever. 8-1 with 42 saves and 0.70 ERA in 141 innings. Against only the best teams. That is amazing. And all those great regular season numbers I just listed pale in comparison to his October greatness. Greatness we will likely never see again. Not from anyone else, and unfortunately not from Rivera himself either.

That Would Be a Record

A major cable news network screws up the announcement of Derek Jeter's 3000th hit. It came via home run which must have confused the idiots who work there, who are such humorless tightasses not one of them knew enough about baseball to know this was incorrect. Or maybe it was just your average Yankees fan.

Chan-Ho Park Explains a Bad Outing

"I had a lot of diarrhea."

I love Mariano Rivera chuckling in the background.

The Two Things I Hate About the Yankees and Their Fans

1) Right after the game YES Network fonted Derek Jeter as "5-time World Champion."
2) Everything else

Note: Every comment posted by TallSkott, the fakest Yankees fan ever will be deleted as soon as possible.

Congrats to Michael, for correctly guessing the winner of 6 of the 7 playoff series in our playoff predictions game.

Pizza Parlor Derek got 5 out of 6 but lost because the World Series was not canceled due to an H1N1 outbreak. Though I appreciate his plucky optimism.

The Secret to A-Rod's Sudden Post-Season Success

For years A-Rod has been an enigma, one of the best players in baseball history, but every year of his Yankee career he failed and failed miserably in the playoffs.
But this year something changed. Through 8 post-season games this year A-Rod is batting .400, with a ridiculous 1.453 OPS. He has 5 homers several of which came in clutch situations late in games.
So what's changed?
Some are saying A-Rod is playing free and easy this year because he split with his wife, his marital infidelities are out in the open. So too is his steroid use. Those revelations may have freed A-Rod to just play -- without the pressure that may have been holding him back.

But I have a different suggestion. I think A-Rod is following a decades old baseball slump-busting ritual. He's enlisted the help of a "slump-buster" an ugly girl you fuck to break your streak of bad luck.




Nick Swisher on the other hand is batting .118 in the playoffs.
His girlfriend is Joanna Garcia of "Gossip Girl" and "Reba" fame:

I Hate Sports Cliches

One of the worst parts of being a sports fan in this day and age is having to listen to and read hundreds of writers and formers players spouting the same hackneyed cliches.

After that classic 1-game playoff between the Twins and the Tigers, everyone and their mother is saying the real winner of this game is the Yankees.

It's true the Twins are facing a difficult travel schedule and they won't be able to set their pitching rotation. And it's also true they will probably lose to the Yankees.

But if they do it will be because the Yankees are a better team.

If they don't, expect the same idiot analysts to say the Twins were the "hot" team and came in with all the "momentum" and having to wait two days actually hurt the Yankees.

Trashy Yankees Fans

Actress Kate Hudson has been spending a lot of time at Yankee Stadium recently watching her new boyfriend, Alex Rodriguez.
She seems to have made some new friends as she was photographed enjoying the game with Karen Burnett, Amber Sabathia and Michelle Damon.
Is it just me or is she the least attractive one here?
She looks like she needs a shower, a bra and some makeup.






And now it turns out Hudson doesn't get along with the smokingest Yankee WAG ever, Minka Kelly. According to the NY Post Minka likes to keep a low profile, sitting in a private box, while Kate Hudson sits in the front row so she can be seen. A Post insider (probably totally made-up), says there is a visible coldness between them and the other wives are choosing sides.

Is Melky Cabrera Fucking Mary Carey?

Melky Cabrera has to be fucking Mary Carey, right? I mean, how many times in the history of the world has a man been naked in a hotel room with a porn star and not nailed her?



So Melky Cabrera, in a hotel room, no clothes, porn star on his bed asking him questions and he's eating peanuts. That must have been post-coital right? At least we know there was a camera present so maybe we'll get the sex tape to prove it eventually.

Paulo's Book Club: "Living On The Black"

"Living on the Black" by John Feinstein is the finest book I have ever read about the art of pitching.



"Living on the Black" chronicles the 2007 season through the eyes of veteran pitchers Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina. While the two separate storylines sometimes make it confusing to remember who you're reading about, Feinstein enlisted two pitchers for his work because in case one got injured, or had an uninteresting season he had the other as insurance.

And that decision worked out fine as Mussina struggled with injury and ineffectiveness, Tom Glavine had a remarkable year, and his chase of his 300th win (the Number that Must Not Be Named) is the book's central theme.

I absolutely love this book and don't want to ruin it (although the ending ruins it for most Mets fans -- an entire chapter on that disastrous final start of the season for Glavine), but here's what you learn about Tom Glavine: every hit he ever gave up was the umpire's fault. He knew that he had to get outside pitches called as strikes so if the umpire didn't give it to him on one pitch, he'd go right back there, and if they umpire didn't see the first call as a mistake, he'd be down in the count 2-0.

Glavine and Mussina proved to be great choices for a book of this nature because they were both honest (they kind of come off as whiners) and intelligent, really giving the reader a feel for what a pitcher goes through as he pitches well, and especially when he pitches poorly.

It's that insight that makes "Living on the Black" a must-read.

Paulo's Book Club: "The Yankee Years"

"The Yankee Years" by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci is a must-read for any Yankees fan. Unfortunately Yankees fans can't read.

For the rest of us who love baseball (even if we hate the Yankees) this is a great book covering two eras in Yankees history, their dominant run of four World Series in five years and their subsequent decline (such as it was with 2 World Series).

Before I talk about the content I think I should first explain that Joe Torre didn't write this book. Tom Verducci wrote this book, and Joe Torre was a major contributor, especially at the end.

In fact, it sort of seems as if Verducci wrote the entire thing, then all of the sudden Torre left the Yankees, and Torre jumped in and co-wrote the final few chapters, so he could give his side of the story on his departure.

The controversy surrounding the book upon its release revealed as much, you know Torre would never compare A-Rod's obsession with Jeter to "Single White Female." That was Verducci's voice, and quite possibly even his own observation.

In fact, the first part of the book is told with as much input from David Cone and bullpen catcher Mike Borzello, as it is with Torre.

That's the part of the book that describes the Yankees dynasty and it's a fascinating case study because of all the great tidbits about the individuals who breezed through that clubhouse.

For instance, I feel vindicated because for years I have been saying Paul O'Neill was a selfish player and no one believed me. This book says it explicitly, going so far as to say Yankees coaches couldn't position O'Neill in the outfield because he was too busy practicing his swing in right field.

Torre's handling of O'Neill, David Wells, then Roger Clemens and Gary Sheffield is what makes this book a great look into the mind and methods of this great manager.

But then it all turns south. Verducci explores the trends in baseball (steroids, "Moneyball") that turned the tables in the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. And then we come to the beginning of the end for Torre and the Yankees.

Without giving too much away (you already know how it turns out though), the basic point here is that none of this would have happened if George Steinbrenner were still alive. With the Boss reduced to a drooling, shaking, crying shell of his former self, his minions took over and turned against Torre.

From Torre's perspective he was basically forced out, ending an incredibly successful 12 year run with the Yankees.

For its coverage of Torre's ups and downs as Yankees manager this book covers all the bases and I really do consider it a must read for any true baseball fan even if you hate the Yankees.

The Curious Case of Chien-Ming Wang

The first three starts of Chien-Ming Wang's 2009 season are so historically bad that I can't recall ever seeing a pitcher with similar numbers, certainly not one with his previous record of accomplishments. Here's the pitching lines:

4/8 vs. Baltimore: 3 2/3 innings 9 hits 7 runs 1 home run 3 walks 0 strikeouts
4/13 vs. Tampa Bay: 1 inning 6 hits 8 runs 0 home runs 3 walks 1 strikeout
4/18 vs. Cleveland: 1 1/3 innings 8 hits 8 runs 1 home run 0 walks 1 strikeout

On aggregate Wang has an ERA of 34.50, he's allowing nearly 5 base runners per inning and opponents are hitting .622 against him. If in his next appearance he begins baseball's longest-ever scoreless innings streak, his ERA will still be above 3.00.

There are three reasons this could be happening to Wang with this suddenness.

1) It's physical. So far he says he is fine and doctors are checking him to see if he reinjured the foot that caused him to miss much of last season.

2) It's mental. After basically blowing the 2007 playoffs, then missing half of 2008, and now this, maybe Wang's brain is getting in the way of his body.

3) His luck ran out. Sabremetricians put a premium on strikeout pitchers based on the theory that against all pitchers (good and bad) the batting average on balls put in play will be pretty even. If the hitter makes contact, the ball is equally as likely to be a hit or an out for any pitcher. Therefore the best pitchers strikeout a lot of guys and the other guys, it will catch up to eventually. Now there are guys like Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine who successfully kept their BABIPs (batting average on balls put in play) below league average for their entire careers. By the way, home run rate matters here as well, Wang has always had a great one due to this sinker. This rough start may indicate that Wang isn't the next Glavine or Maddux, and all the balls hit against him that went for outs in prior years, are finally starting to fall in -- all at once.

Dumb Yankees Fans

How many Yankees fans do you think wondered why Mariano Rivera was playing shortstop when they saw Derek Jeter (and everyone else for that matter) wearing #42 on Jackie Robinson Day?
And maybe a better question is when they found out the reason, how many of them asked "who is Jackie Robinson?"

Angry Yankees Fans

If there's one group of people you don't want to piss off, it's Yankees fans. They acted like animals (which I guess is to be expected, after all, they are Yankees fans) when a Pepsi promotion went wrong. Fans showing up at Times Square for free tickets (they thought for Opening Day) we given free Pepsi and tickets -- to a game in June.

Derek Jeter is a Thief Who Should be Thrown in Jail

While 18 vultures were arrested during the last game at Yankee Stadium for trying to make off with mementos from the soon-to-be-destroyed stadium (knowing Yankees fans they probably also had outstanding warrants), one crook made off with a precious item scott-free.
Derek Jeter now admits to stealing a sign from the clubhouse, the one that says "I want to thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee."
Jeter makes enough money, he should have just paid the ridiculous price to buy the sign at auction.
But Jeter, like the fans who root for him, is a low-life piece of trash who should be thrown in jail.

Why Joba Needed the Beer Goggles

Yankees phenom Joba Chamberlain got arrested for DUI in Lincoln, Nebraska with a blood alcohol level of .134.
Turns out he may have been drinking himself into a stupor in order to help him enjoy some of Lincoln's finest hos. He was on his way home from the "Night Before Lounge" after already having down a couple of Grey Goose drinks at another bar.
But it may have been a Red Sox fan that really sent Joba over the edge.
The NY Post reports that another fellow degenerate at the strip club said "Too bad you didn't play for the Red Sox. Otherwise, you wouldn't be sitting here in a strip club in Nebraska."
That set Joba off, literally, as he set off in his 2006 BMW 750i, despite pleas from his friends that he was not ok to drive.