It sure felt great to see that arrogant ass A-Rod go down swinging over and over.

I hope all the Wall Street investment bankers in their thousand dollar taxpayer-funded corporate boxes had a crappy time. I had a great time - watched "The Middle" during commercials and enjoyed Lee's spectacular behind the back catch.

Let's do it again!

I agree, and it doesn't get much better than having a future hall of fame pitcher with an antagonistic to Yanks history face them tonight. People who don't like baseball don't know what they're missing.

did you one better, went to the gym, absolutely deserted, heard the score on the way back. sweet!

within a week of moving to the NY area 10 years ago, i realized i would never root for the evil empire. I am not a fan of ANY professional sports team, having lost any "romantic" notions about the nature of the business in my teens, but the automatic dislike for any big, self-entitled, rich team remains!

Buddy, those boxes are way more than 1000 dollars!

AJ Burnett vs Pedro tonight...I predict a 14-12 ballgame.

At least the Phillies are getting their money's worth out of Pedro's 3.63 ERA (even though he pitched only 7 decisions, he's making a very reasonable $1.5 million)

If you're upset about banker bonuses, just remember that AJ is making $16.5 million per year to toss out a 4.00 ERA. He's the Ken Lewis of pitching.

Bentoniani:

Buddy, those boxes are way more than 1000 dollars!

AJ Burnett vs Pedro tonight...I predict a 14-12 ballgame.

At least the Phillies are getting their money's worth out of Pedro's 3.63 ERA (even though he pitched only 7 decisions, he's making a very reasonable $1.5 million)

If you're upset about banker bonuses, just remember that AJ is making $16.5 million per year to toss out a 4.00 ERA. He's the Ken Lewis of pitching.

Excellent observations, all of them.

ayalonValley:

did you one better, went to the gym, absolutely deserted, heard the score on the way back. sweet!

within a week of moving to the NY area 10 years ago, i realized i would never root for the evil empire. I am not a fan of ANY professional sports team, having lost any "romantic" notions about the nature of the business in my teens, but the automatic dislike for any big, self-entitled, rich team remains!

Well, at least the Yankees are not thugs like the Mets, spitting on fans and shooting firecrackers at them ( OK I am going back in time a bit here).

Back in my dad's day, a baseball hero was Ted Williams. Bat .400, go into 39 combat missions over Korea, come back and play some more.

Nowadays a sports hero means you don't shoot off firearms in a nightclub.

The weird thing about A-Rod is, every once in a while a nice story leaks out about him. Remember back when he pulled the kid out of traffic in Boston? But he just seems like a shell of a person stuffed with sadness and $1,000 dollars bills most of the time; it's so easy to root against him. I saw a clip of him on tv yesterday signing 3 autographs and running to his car. There were 10 kids there, at most. You can't take the time to sign all 10 autographs, buddy? Did you have to go cry about how no one likes you? Making 25 mil a year, he would have made over $700 if it took him 15 minutes. I think the occasional nice story leaks out to make the bad ones that much more satisfying.

Well, iwiwiwa:

I really could have used your math ability in this other discussion. Where were you?

But, now that you're here, and assuming that your screen name is Japanese, do you think Rina Akiyama is the best gravure idol?

But he just seems like a shell of a person stuffed with sadness

Curious - why do you think he is sad? Sad about what?

Well sadly, I'm not Japanese, and I don't know what gravure idol is. But happily, out of interest I googled Rina Akiyama, and now I have a hatred for A-Rod and an interest in her to help me pass the time. So this thread has been doubly productive for me!

MisterPerson, I don't know. He could cry into his big pillow made of money every night, and you'd think that would cheer him up. He just seems so thin-skinned, like he craves approval way too much. I'm a firm believer that when you have people who tense up in big situations, it's because they care too much. I would present someone on the opposite end of the spectrum as a counter-example: Manny Ramirez. I frequently suspect he can't remember what happened in his last at bat. Perhaps it's stupidity, perhaps it's apathy. Whatever it is, it makes him essentially slump-proof. A-Rod, on the other hand, is wound so tight, to quote a movie, "if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks you'd have a diamond." I believe this is pretty counterproductive for playing baseball, or really being a highly paid professional in the public eye for just about anything.

Honestly, all I know from A-Rod speaking is in cliched soundbites on the news.

He seems to me like a banal, robotic trained seal who has been coached by his handlers to never say anything with any content beyond "We're gonna play hard, and they are a tough team, and we will see what happens".

Of course the same is true of many players.

But you have a different impression- you say the guy is uptight, stressed, unhappy. Just curious where you get this from.

A-rod, I knew you could do it.

I knew you would repeat your great accomplishment of 0-4 with three strikeouts.

I love it. They can cut and paste the A-Rod parts of this article into a new one for tomorrow. Back to my impression of A-Rod -- I think he looks like Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator next to Derek Jeter's Russell Crowe. He cannot seem to fathom why, when he is the far superior player, the fans fawn over Jeter. As soon as he signed with the Yankees they emasculated him by moving him to third base and leaving Jeter at shortstop, which was both a mistake and a sign. Even in Jeter's best years, he couldn't compare as a SS in terms of range factor or arm strength with A-Rod. It was a stupid move, but the Yankees placed a premium on having their favorite son at SS. What's A-Rod supposed to think? They pay me, they need me, but they don't love me. I can't think of many athletes I find as fascinating as A-Rod. They're almost all vapid, drone-like interviews, as you mentioned. But for some reason A-Rod seems like a real mess of a person to me.

I guess A-Rod must have thought, in the manner of Barry Bonds, that people would judge him SOLELY on the basis of his on-field performance.

Of course, Bonds suffered from roid-rage much worse than A-Rod ( perhaps A-Rod had improved "sports medicine"). Bonds quickly understood the deal, and shifted to a permanent 'Fuck everybody" posture.

Still, there must be some ancient, preserved sense even among modern fans that players need to at least try to look like they belong on a Wheaties box.

Basketball is younger and thus more tolerant of assholes- but doing stuff like dumping your family for Madonna and making headlines for it - that is going to have a subconscious effect at the very least.