Back in action

Well folks, as was previously threatened, I'm back! Having seen the extent to which the blog is completely falling apart without me, I've decided to ignore my doctor's strict instructions of "No running, work, or ESPECIALLY blogging" and write, write, write! I think he put in that last one because writing a blog is fast becoming known as "The Online Widow-Maker", but what people who call it that are forgetting is that people who write blogs were almost certainly never married in the first place.

Big thanks to the bloggers who wrote me an e-mail wishing me a speedy recovery, and to answer your exceptionally witty questions, Yankees fans, no A-Rod didn't put me in the hospital, and yes I stole a large vial of sodium pentathol for use just in case the Yankees go 8 or more games ahead of us in the standings. Satisfied?

Thank goodness there's been some actual news whilst I was out. First and foremost, big ups to Johnny Boy Henry for doing his best to turn the Sox-Yanks rivalry into some kind of weird holy war. His first comments after A-Rod went to Texas:

"One thing is certain the status quo will not be preserved," Henry wrote.

"There must be a way to cap what a team can spend without hurting player compensation ... without taking away from the players what they have rightfully earned in the past through negotiation and in creating tremendous value. There is a simple mechanism that could right a system woefully out of whack."

"Baseball doesn't have an answer for the Yankees," Henry said. "Revenue sharing can only accomplish so much. At some point it becomes confiscation. It has not and it will not solve what is a very obvious problem."

Translation: "Hey I don't want to piss off the Player's Association, so I'll throw in some garbage about how they really earn that 10 million a year to be a backup catcher, but has anyone else noticed that the Yankees spend more than any other two clubs in the AL East combined? Can that really be fair? Sure they haven't won the World Series in awhile, but they sure as hell give themselves a better chance to every year than any other team can, it's not my fault that they're not able to capitalize. And seriously, don't you think I'm wealthy enough that I shouldn't have to cut my own hair?"

Georige Porgie's response:

"We understand that John Henry must be embarrassed, frustrated and disappointed by his failure in this transaction," Steinbrenner said in a statement Wednesday. "It is time to get on with life and forget the sour grapes."

"Unlike the Yankees, he chose not to go the extra distance for his fans in Boston.

"It is understandable, but wrong that he would try to deflect the accountability for his mistakes on to others and to a system for which he voted in favor," Steinbrenner said.

Translation: "Hey, sure, we spend 65 million a year more than our next closest competitor, but that's the way the system works, right? I mean, just because the system is flawed in a way that allows us to blatantly abuse it, and we choose to gleefully do so, does that make us bad people? It does? Damn. Well then, I'll just bash on Henry personally and claim that his anger isn't from some logical or justified problem he has with my hideous outspending of the rest of baseball, but rather him bitching and moaning. Hey, kind of like what I'm doing!"

At this point Bud himself stepped in and told the two of them to knock it off, which of course neither did. Steiney appeared on Letterman and read the Top 10 Reasons It's Great to be the Yankees, with reason number one being the incredibly humorous and not-at-all retarded comment that "If you think the A-Rod trade is good, we're going to sign Ty Cobb next ROTFL!!!!!1". Henry, on the other hand, went on in a recent interview to shatter any illusions I had about him being an even vaguely sane individual with quotes like

"I don't want to equate him with Don Rickles," the Red Sox owner said Saturday, "but if Don Rickles insults you, it's funny. But I don't mean that in a negative way."

Also, in a contract year, it's good to see Pedro is already up to his regular antics, deciding to report 3 days late for spring training camp. Surely this family emergency is indeed a serious one and totally neccesitates Pedro chilling out in his hometown for another 3 days. I'd be prepared to see lots of thinly veiled Pedro ranting on this site, folks. Or on Weblogs.com possibly, apparently we're moving there one of these days. I don't know anymore, I just do whatever Mike tells me, and as long as the checks don't bounce I'll keep doing so. Oh yeah, that's right, I get paid for this stuff. Why else would I waste hours of my life every day updating it? Ugh, I feel sick again....

It would seem that the Sox's NL sister team, the Cubs, are suddenly becoming the favorites in the NL Central again. This is because they've signed Greg Maddux, aka "That Really Old Guy who kept his streak of 15 wins alive because his team won him about 12 8-6 games he started" I wholly agree with this move, it's certainly not like the Cubs desperately needed an upgrade somewhere else (LF, 2B, bullpen). 7.5 million a year for arguably your #5 starter? Not too much money at all! I mean, hey, the Sox are paying theirs 5.5 million, and it's not like I swore and broke a chair when I heard about them paying him that much.

All right, so I've avoided it long enough, let's check in on A-Rod and Soriano. First, it would appear that rather than move Soriano into LF to try to address his hideous defensive shortcomings, the Rangers may very well have inhaled enough glue to kill their last remaining brain cell because apparently Hank Aaron Junior (Junior) is possibly moving to SS. Soriano's not really too keen on the idea, saying he's "more comfortable" (18 errors, same Range Factor {4.75} as Todd Walker comfortable) at second. Congrats Texas, if I wasn't actively rooting for every single one of you to burn in hell before this all happened, be assured that I am now.

Oh, and those wacky, loveable Yanks. A-Rod's first on the field practice was a smashing success. (Get it? Smashing? It's comedy, folks!) One of these days the Yankees front office is going to admit that Steve Karsay's shoulder is hamburger meat. I say they should start admitting their bullpen is going to resemble a M.A.S.H. tent by the time it's all over with someone easy like Karsay. Work up to saying stuff like "Carbon Dating has confirmed Jose Contreras is slightly older than we were led to believe" and "Tom Gordon's recent snappin in half at the waist has completely taken us by surprise!!" And finally, if you think Mike's A-Rod story titles are awful (I know I sure did), has anyone seen the ones they're using for Jon Leiber's ill-conceived attempt at pitching for the Yankees? "Leiber arms self for return" is bad, but at least I saw that one coming. "Leave it to Leiber" (On ESPN's Yankees team page, ESPN seems to be the worst offender for these hideous titles), on the other hand, made my tear ducts begin to bleed profusely.