EIBIT: The Big Unit Arrives in the Big Apple

This Extra Innings column was originally published on January 6, 2005, the day the Yankees completed the trade bringing Randy Johnson to New York.*

Let the healing begin.

Now that Randy Johnson has made it to New York, we can finally put that whole 2001 World Series loss to the Diamondbacks thing behind us. Yeah, the Red Sox might have Curt Schilling, but the Yankees now have Randy Johnson. The Big Unit. This is the one who throws perfect games and wins Cy Young awards. Yeah, he's had some injury problems over the past few years, but the guy threw a perfect game this season.

Forty years old?

Pah!

Things are finally going to come together this season. The Great World Series Drought will end in 2005. With Johnson, the Yanks finally have the starter they've needed. A proven ace. A proven post season ace.

I'm excited.

I hope Arizona enjoys Javier Vazquez. Couldn't hack in it New York or in the post season. You can't expect him to handle the bright lights of a place like New York or even a smaller city like Chicago. He came up in Montreal so Vazquez really doesn't have the pedigree to perform in the post season. I'd be very, very surprised if he's ever able to win a World Series. Unlike the new Yankee: Randy Johnson.

Complete opposites.

Everyone mark your calendars for the World Series parade in New York City this October. 2005: the year of the Yankees.


*Extra Innings Back In Time may or may not actually be real columns. In this case, this wasn't a real column.

Called it?

The current sports news is saying that the Yanks are beginning talks to trade former star pitcher Randy Johnson, possibly back to the Diamondbacks or to the Padres or Giants. This is just another step in GM Brian Cashman's purge of past-prime talent that the Yankees had collected over the past few years (Gary Sheffield, Jaret Wright).

If New York does manage to move Johnson, it's even more possible that they'd make a move for Barry Zito, says SI.com's Jon Heyman. Makes perfect sense. I'd love to see an aged pitcher moved out of New York, have young talent brought in in return for him and then top it all off with the addition of who's probably the best pitcher on the free agent market this season (Daisuke Matsuzaka not included since he's still a mystery.)

It would also be another way to counter the Red Sox's addition of Matsuzaka, something I brought up a few weeks ago. If the Yankees can swap out Randy Johnson for Barry Zito, here's what their rotation will look like: Mike Mussina, Chen-Ming Wang, Andy Pettitte, Barry Zito and Kei Igawa. I'm not including Carl Pavano since I'm just going to assume he'll be struck down by another phantom injury. That's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. On top of that, just imagine if the Yanks win the Roger Clemens sweepstakes, I'm not even sure what'll happen. Igawa will most likely go to the pen. And I consider the Yanks to be the odds-on favorite to land Clemens too.

Zito in NY?

Well, now that appears that the Red Sox have somehow wrapped up the Daisuke Matsuzaka deal, how do the Yanks counter? Yes, I love Pettitte and am thrilled that he's returned to New York, but in the world of Yankees-Red Sox, you have to match ace for ace.

So, I guess that means that Barry Zito will soon be coming to Yankee Stadium. Yes, I'm calling it here, on this blog, on Extra Innings. Yeah, you can read about Texas all you want but Zito will be pitching in pinstripes for 2007.

Let's start at the beginning. The New York Yankees bid something like $32 million for Matsuzaka. The Red Sox bid an insane $51.1 million. Okay, check. You won that one, Boston. But now, there are still are still chips on the table.

Scott Boras isn't stupid. Not by any means. He surely has to realize that he'll be able to play this Matsuzaka-envy onto the Bronx Bombers and create a need in New York for Zito.

And I'm completely fine with that. So far this offseason, the Yanks have shown great restrait. They've traded away Sheffield. They've traded away Jaret Wright. They've talked about moving Pavano. Things are looking good. Prospects are coming into the Bronx. Go ahead, Cashman, spluge a little. You've earned it. Let's bring Zito into New York.

In six years, we'll add Matsuzaka too.

The Matsu-clock-a is a tickin'

Leave it to the Red Sox to mess this one up.

With a bid of $51.1 million, you'd think Boston and Theo Epstein would've realized that they'd win the bidding for Daisuke Matsuzaka. I understand that this was probably all a power play to make sure the Yanks didn't get the Japanese phenom but this reflects pretty badly on baseball as a whole now.

I understand that the Red Sox already paid over 50 million just to have the rights to talk to Matsuzaka but that shouldn't be something held against him. In dealing with agent Scott Boras, a team has to know that the price of a player is going to be high. If Barry Zito is expected to get a $100 million deal, then why shouldn't his Japanese counterpart?

And there have also been rumors that Boston has tried to get Matsuzaka's team, the Seibu Lions, to allow them to reduce the bid or even pay for part of the World Baseball Classic MVP's MLB salary. Which is all strictly against baseball policy.

There seems to be a lack of respect on the Red Sox's part here. The Yanks have respected Hideki Matsui and paid him his due. Shouldn't Boston be able to do the same?

I think the Sox may have finally found themselves outside of their league on this one. It was funny and it was cute to bid $51,111,111.11 but how about signing the guy? You realize that this chance doesn't come around every season. If the Sox screw this one up, they're going to have a hard time wooing another Japanese star down the road. And if they don't sign Matsuzaka this season and expect to get the rights for the same price next season, they're sadly mistaken. What was $51.1 million this year will turn into $80 million next season. The Yanks bid somewhere around $30 million for Matsuzaka this season, thinking that it would be enough based on past posting bids. I'm pretty sure that if they get a second wack at the gyroballer, they'll get him. Posting fees don't count toward the luxury tax and I'm pretty sure the combo of Matsui and Matsuzaka'll sell pretty nicely - especially in that brand new Yankee Stadium.

Congratulations, Boston Red Sox. A couple years ago, you bought out entire hotels in hopes of keeping the Yanks from negotiating with Jose Contreras. But you've outdone yourselves on this one.

Pettitte returns home

Well, in what I'm considering one of the greatest Yankee signings ever, Andy Pettitte signed with New York for the 2007 season. Yeah, it was for $16 million but I really don't care. Best $16 million ever spent by the Yankees.

See, here's the thing: Andy Pettitte is a Yankee. There have been certain players that are Yankees. Scott Brosius was a Yankee. Paul O'Neill was a Yankee. Tino Martinez was a Yankee. Even Chuck Knoblauch was a Yankee. Derek Jeter is, was, and forever shall be a Yankee.

When Pettitte left the Yankees to sign with the Astros, it was probably the first time I ever felt bad about a player leaving the Yankees. Pettitte was our go-to guy, the guy who could always win in the postseason when we need it. And Steinbrenner and the rest of the Yankees brass let him go.

Well, hopefully that's been fixed now.

Welcome home, Andy Pettitte. Welcome home.

UPDATE: Oh yeah, last time Pettitte moved to another team, guess which former teammate followed him there. Yeah . . . Roger Clemens. Jackpot.

Morneau wins MVP, Jeter second

Wow. What a shocker. Twins' first baseman Justin Morneau took home the AL MVP yesterday surprising most people who had expected Yankee legend Derek Jeter to claim what was basically the one missing piece of hardware from his trophy case.

Morneau received 230 pts and 15 first place votes while Jeter received 306 pts and 12 first place votes. One voter even had Jeter at sixth place on his ballot. Now, maybe I'm horribly biased as a Yankee fan but to put Jeter down that far on a ballot is just crazy. For most of the season, he was seen as the strong favorite for MVP. I have no problem with Morneau - in fact, I rooted for him as he made his way to the majors. With my hometown Rochester Red Wings serving as the Triple-A franchise for the Minnesota Twins, we've been lucky enough to see a lot of guys play in Minnesota that made their way though Rochester.

Anyways, Morneau is nice and all but when you look at his own team, can you really even say he was better than Joe Mauer? Mauer, the first catcher to win the AL batting title, would be the guy I would give the MVP to if I was looking to award it to a Twin.

But I wasn't looking to award it to a Twin.

A Yankee should've won this year. Maybe this is retribution for A-Rod winning it last year. Maybe the voters didn't like the idea of giving it to a New York guy two years in a row. New York hasn't had consecutive MVPs since the dominant period of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. For anyone who knows my thought on A-Rod now, I'd trade his 2005 MVP for a MVP for Jeter. I hate to sound like Jeter's on the downside of his career now but at 32, he's been in the game for ten years. In that single decade, Jeter's won a Rookie of the Year, Gold Gloves, an All-Star MVP, a World Series MVP and of course, four World Series rings.

I know that the MVP isn't supposed to be a lifetime achievement award but with everything Jeter's accomplished and with the season he had, maybe it would've been appropriate to name him the MVP. Hey, the Academy gave Peter Jackson just about every award it could think of at the 2005 Oscars for Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Maybe baseball writers need to take a note from the Hollywood elite . . . or maybe that wouldn't be the best thing to happen.

This could've all been solved by just naming the right guy the MVP: Derek Jeter.

This is my final answer, Regis

Congrats, Houston Dynamo on your MLS Cup win. For those of you who don’t pay attention to American soccer, Houston took home the prize at the eleventh Major League Soccer championship, defeating the New England Revolution.

What? You don’t follow MLS? Oh. That’s okay, I guess.

How about that Chicago Rush, huh? For awhile there, I thought the Predators were going to come back in the fourth quarter. A score of 69-61 is kind of close for a championship game. But hey, Matt D’Orazio really bounced back from being the former quarterback of the Rochester Brigade to lead the Rush to capture the ArenaBowl XX.

No? No ArenaBowl? Arena football is just like regular football but indoors. C’mon. No? Well, what else is there?

Hey, that was quite a season for the Rochester Razorsharks? What’s a razorshark? Not really sure, but they play a pretty basketball game. Only four losses last season paired with a dominant post season game brought a championship home to the Flour City. Not bad, not bad at all.

Really? What do you mean you haven’t TiVo’d the ABA games? It’s just like regular basketball but without the weird new ball.

Okay, so most people probably don’t pay any attention to these leagues. American soccer, indoor football, and minor league basketball don’t really register on the sports-o-meter of the American public but for a sports junky, these are further layer of sports to learn and bring up in conversation.

Is it sad that I can tell you that before playing in Milwaukee, the Brewers were once the Seattle Pilots? Is it pathetic that I know that the Kings made a cross country trip, going from Rochester and Cincinnati (as the Royals) and then becoming the Kings in Kansas City before finally reaching Sacramento? How about the fact that I know that the Tampa Bay Storm (AFL here, people, AFL) were once the Pittsburgh Gladiators?

I know that I’m not the only like this out there. There has to be numerous people lurking in the shadows who know that the Rochester Jeffersons got kicked around in the early days of the NFL and that the New York Yankees started the twentieth century off as the Baltimore Orioles.

Seriously here, folks, this is the life of someone who has nothing better to do than study the logos of the New York Islanders – 1996 fisherman, anyone? – and knows that MLS once had a central division.

Maybe sports facts were created just for the sole purpose of allowing me to win Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? one day. I’m pretty sure that’s not why we have math. Um . . . the circumference is 8.2, Regis? I don’t think so. Sports, like history, is a field full of random facts and knowledge, all ripe for the picking of those who don’t see the need in memorizing the formula to find how two triangles are congruent. That’s what my calculator is for.

I can tell you the name of every president back to Herbert Hoover and in which year they took office and I can tell you every World Series champion to before I was born. For the life of me though, I couldn’t explain to you how to factor trinomials. Honestly, I don’t even remember what a trinomial is anymore.

It’s kind of like natural selection, a survival of the fittest for the mind. I can remember history since it plays a part in everyday life and I can remember sports since it gives me something to talk about at Thanksgiving and makes my extended family like me.

One day, Millionaire will call. And on that, I will be ready. Former Mets’ manager Bobby Valentine coaches the Chiba Lotte Marines. Final answer, Regis, final answer.

- Originally published in the Cardinal Courier (Volume 6-Issue 5; November 15, 2006)

The A-Rod Disaster

Sometimes in a relationship, things start to go sour, the magic seems to be gone and it might just be time to move on.

Well, I guess it would be time for Alex Rodriguez to gather up his CDs and leave New York. This relationship has more than run its course and is becoming unhealthy.

In the most recent post-season collapse of the Yankees, A-Rod had one hit. One lousy hit. This from the 2005 AL MVP, the man who many say could be the greatest player of his generation. One hit.

It’s now more obvious than it ever was (and it was pretty obvious after last season’s A-Rod break down) that Rodriguez can’t hack it in the Big Apple. Yeah, he’ll post a pretty batting average and hit home runs but most of them aren’t clutch. Alex Rodriguez and clutch go together as well as Kevin Federline and Mensa.

The concept of being a Yankee is one that Rodriguez still fails to grasp. It’s not about personal stats and awards – only the end result matters in the Bronx. Win or World Series or else it was all for notion. And so far, A-Rod has been all for nothing.

Maybe the deck is stacked against A-Rod. Derek Jeter, the captain, has been there his entire career and is the cornerstone of the Yankees. Or the keystone – whichever one makes more sense. Needless to say, you don’t go against Jeter. And most Yankees know that. Even Steinbrenner knows that. Despite being friends almost a decade ago, things changed between Rodriguez and Jeter and by the time the former Texas Ranger arrived, things were pretty cool between the two. A-Rod even had to surrender his lifelong spot at shortstop to Jeter just to be a Yankee.

Manager Joe Torre, another key to the success of the Yankees over the past ten years, doesn’t seem to be a big fan of A-Rod either. During the series against Detroit, he batted the future Hall of Famer in the lower positions of the line-up. Now that everyone knows that Torre will return for another season at the helm of the Yankees, it appears that Rodriguez lost this battle.

The Yankees have to move him. Unfortunately, the very fact that they are the Yankees will hurt the chances of getting fair trade value from other teams. No one is going to willingly help the Yanks solve their biggest problem. In a perfect world, the Yankees would get young pitching in return for a player still in his prime. Probably not going to happen. It doesn’t matter though. Almost any price will be worth it just to fix the chemistry problem that has brought the New York Yankees post-season success rate down to the level of the Atlanta Braves.

The Yanks won championships in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000, with a collection of players who understood what mattered. The Scott Brosiuses, the Tino Martinezes – they knew what it meant to be a Yankee. I would take them any day over Alex Rodriguez.

A-Rod, your time is New York is over. Your welcome is worn out. Pack your bags, gather up your sunbathing lotion, and box up your collection of whine – it’s time to go.

- Originally published in the Cardinal Courier (Volume 6-Issue 3; October 18, 2006)

Itha-can't

As this is the last edition of the Courier for this school year, I’d like to play against the theme of the issue and instead look forward to next year. Yes, we’ll strive to do things like play our hardest and be show good sportsmanship but I want to set out one overall goal for the 2006-2007 sports calendar:

Beat Ithaca.

Now, now, I realize that we’ve all been born and bred here at Fisher on the notion that the boys and girls of Naz are our rivals but I propose that we change our focus. Let’s bring down the biggest threat in the area, not the closest one – if we actually count Naz as a threat, that is.

Since 2001, 89 championships have been held for 22 different sports under the Empire 8 banner. Ithaca College has captured 45 of them outright and shared the title for another five. That gives Ithaca a whopping 56.2 percent claim to all Empire 8 titles. To put that into perspective, the New York Yankees have only won 26 out of 101 World Series – a measly 25.7 percent. The Cards of Fisher have won eight championships and shared one (football in 2004 with Ithaca), giving us claim to 10.1 percent of Empire 8 titles.

The question is how do we better compete with a powerhouse like Ithaca? How do we make the Bombers bomb?

Some of it will be taken care of over time, as our athletic programs have become stronger over the past few years. Success breeds more success. The more people see Fisher in the news for winning, the more interest they will have in coming here.

We should also consider expanding the number of sports that we compete in. We’re all familiar with the Empire 8’s football and basketball but field hockey, swimming, and track are also out there. The more we offer, the more diverse student population we’ll draw, the more success we’ll have on the field … or in the pool.

I don’t know – maybe we should start raiding Ithacan teams and steal their players. Promise them parking spots on campus or something.

We have a great and growing athletic program here at Fisher. It’s time though, that we become the Yankees of the Empire 8. Yeah, we have a couple championships, but so far, we’ve played the role of the Red Sox to the Bronx/Ithaca Bombers. And for those of you naïve enough not to understand – we don’t want to be the Red Sox.

- Originally published in the Cardinal Courier (Volume 5-Issue 12; April 19, 2006)

Baseball Reigns

October has rolled around again and everyone knows that this football season. Or hockey season, I guess. But mainly football season. So why hasn’t that been the subject of conversation lately? One word:

Baseball.

Yes, baseball – the sport that everyone says is dead, that nobody watches, that’s boring, that’s slow, and that’s any other complaint people have come up with. For the past couple years now, come October, baseball rules. Classes are let out early to watch the games, professors check scores during class, strangers stand around the TVs in the Cyber Café discussing the games. For a sport that no one cares about, people seem pretty interested.

These dorms are a hotbed for baseball during the postseason. Last year, there would be a dozen people in my room, glued to the TV, screaming and cringing at every play. Up and down the hallway, the anguished cries of fans could be heard, as their teams went blow for blow.

I will concede though, that this boost in popularity may be due to the apocalyptic series that the Yankees and Red Sox have fought in the past few seasons. If it was the Royals and Devil Rays, I’m guessing most people would be checking out that great Outdoor Life Network programming instead. I guess we’ll find out if that’s the case since this year both the Red Sox and the Yankees have already been eliminated (well, look at it this way, Boston – only another 85 years until the next championship now).

Without the Yanks and the Red Sox, fans of the other teams, of the Cardinals and of the Angels, will have a chance to see postseason glory. This could prove to be a good thing for baseball. Different teams will mean that more fans can be drawn in. I know that there are White Six fans on this campus who love the fact that they get to play this October. The new, young stars of the small market teams’ll finally get some exposure.

Maybe a postseason battle without the Yanks will be a good thing for the game. The Yankees have won their fair share of World Series and it’s someone else’s turn. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make a sacrifice to the Baseball Gods to assure them that I don’t actually mean that.

- Originally published in the Cardinal Courier (Volume 5-Issue 3; October 19, 2005)