 Sean Casey looking sharp on the MLBN. (Screengrabbed by me) |
I’m all over the place today because I’m truly trying to purge my brain of the ARod crap. So you’ve been warned.
Alex Rodriguez should know that Al Leiter and Sean Casey will kick his ass if he keeps up the whole “loosey-goosey era” crap. Monday and Tuesday, both men showed their anger when it came to ARod trying to claim, basically, that he used “a banned substance” (is “steroids” so hard to say, Slappy?) because everyone else did. Harold Reynolds also indicated that he received calls from many players saying the most disturbing part of his admission to Peter Gammons was how he threw the rest of the league under the bus.
Okay, so neither Leiter nor Casey threatened to kick Slappy’s ass…but they sure looked pissed. It’s an interesting aspect to all of this that I hadn’t considered. How cheesed off will active players be with Alex (privately since it seems publicly they’re all going to support their union brother) and how will it affect his season this year and for future seasons?
Unrelated to ARod: Frank McCourt was on MLBN and he said that he thought the offer they made Manny was fair “particularly in light of this economy”.
Because $25 million for one year would be one heck of a lousy offer in last year’s economy. What a freaking insult, huh? I’m so glad Frank McCourt isn’t my boss.
Am I the only one who sees any irony in the Texas Rangers announcing that Brendan Donnelly has signed a minor-league deal with them? Something tells me he’ll feel right at home.
I still have the MLBN on and they just showed the endings of both the 2004 and 2007 World Series games. So I’m now typing while an enormous smile is developing. And now they have Larry Lucchino on the Hot Stove show (sadly the interview was taped prior to the ARod stuff coming out). Larry seems to be scoping out the MLBN studios. Maybe NESN will be getting a different look at some point? Honestly, I’m just happy that they didn’t have Hazel Mae interview him.
Ooh and here comes Larry saying that there are plenty of seats available (mind you, he points out that there are “cool standing room seats” available) for Sox games. Nice moment for Larry to pimp out tickets. Thank you MLBN…as if we didn’t have enough competition for seats.
I can’t complain about seats, really, because at last count I have tickets for three games in April, two, possibly three games in May, one game in July and one in October – as well as a game in Lowell in July. I’m appreciative of this and so looking forward to the season starting.
Oh you’ll love this…Larry is now talking about how no one “did anything with” Red Sox Nation until this ownership came along. As if this is a good thing. I like Larry Lucchino. I truly do. But the whole, official, “Red Sox Nation” stuff leaves a slightly bad taste in my mouth. (Not that I haven’t taken advantage of some of the benefits of it!) The good part of it is bringing more fans into the fold, the bad part is the stereotype getting generated that all Red Sox fans are “new” fans. The bad part annoys the crap out of me.
For the record, I’m quite certain I’ll never watch ESPN again. The MLB Network will get all of my attention. While the MLBN has gone out of their way to present both sides of the ARod story (Matt Vasgersian and Tom Verducci have been very critical while Harold Reynolds, Al Leiter, Sean Casey and others have been more understanding), ESPN has decided to take the Barry Bonds route and ballwash Slappy to the high heavens. Along with the general coverage (including saying that the Miami Police DID have a record of an “incident” without clarifying, long after Selena Roberts HAD clarified it), just this morning, Mike and Mike were gushing about what a great thing ARod did in that interview and how it’s all in the past now. Not quite, fellas, not quite.
I made a decision and after this post I’m hoping to stick with it. No more ARod talk. Unless something huge happens (like a Jeter/ARod beat down when ARod shows up at Spring Training!), I’d done until real baseball starts. Filling space writing about something that makes me want to kick someone is no way to make me happy.
We’ll see how I do.