Indiana Cashman And The Search For Fossils

When asked about the Yankees putting out a feeler for Chipper Jones, Derek Jeter wondered, in his typical dark deadpan sense of humor, if they’d also contacted Mike Schmidt.

That got me to thinking of other options for the Yankees in their archaeological dig for dinosaur fossils hoping to unearth a corner infielder. Here are some of the names I came up with and they’re almost as ludicrous as Jones.

Mike Francesa

For a week he’s been pushing for the Yankees to get Justin Morneau from the Twins. Not “pursue,” but “get,” period. Naturally ignorant of the fact that the Twins are in a similar position to the Yankees in that they have to at least put forth the pretense of placing a competent product on the field at the start of the season to sell a few tickets that they’re not going to sell when they’re heading towards another 90+ loss season and that Morneau, if healthy, will have significant value at mid-season, Francesa expects the Twins to just give him up for whatever scraps the Yankees deign to provide simply because they want him.

It’s not going to happen, but during his vetting, perhaps Francesa should pull a Dick Cheney who, while running George W. Bush’s vice presidential search looked into the mirror, saw the epitome of what Bush needed in his vice president and selected himself. Sure, they’d have to get a muumuu for him to wear and he’d have to stand on first base to prevent every runner from beating him to the bag on a groundball, but with the court striking down New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ban on extra-large sodas, Francesa’s Diet Coke predilection will move forward unabated. When returning to the dugout after a long half-inning, he can scream at the clubhouse kids like a real-life Les Grossman, “DIET COKE!!!!!”

Mo Vaughn

In the tradition of players who didn’t work out for the Mets, Vaughn would fit perfectly into what the Yankees are trying to create. It adds to the intrigue that he’s also a former Red Sock and he hates Bobby Valentine. That he’s probably far past 320 pounds and could barely move when he was still playing is irrelevant. Pinstripes are slimming and maybe no one would notice his girth, plus all the balls hitting him in the stomach because it’s extended so far beyond the plate would send his on-base percentage into the stratosphere.

Keith Law

No, he’s never picked up a baseball and he’s far too thin-skinned to last one day in Yankeeland without crawling into a fetal position and sobbing uncontrollably, but he scammed his way into a front office position with the Blue Jays on the heels of the Moneyball revolution; he parlayed that into a job at ESPN as an “insider expert” by regurgitating terms he’s heard from scouts; and he has an inexplicable following based on his stat savviness and that people think his resume denotes credibility in some sort of circular and wrong “if this, then that” manner.

Maybe he can imitate an athlete just as effectively as he’s aped actual scouts.

Bear in mind that his throwing style will replicate what we see below.

Michael Lewis

I have deep psychological concerns about someone who places a ginormous picture of his own face on the back cover of every one of his books, but that can also be a positive. A level of arrogance that geometric leads a person to believe he’s capable of things he’s universally acknowledged as being incapable of. Look at it this way: people think that because he wrote Moneyball, he knows something about baseball when he doesn’t.

Worst case scenario, he can write a book about his adventures, present it in a twisted (and skillful) fashion so the masses believe it and they’ll make a movie about it. He can be played by Aaron Eckhardt—a man with some athletic skills—and it’ll sell, man!! It’ll sell!!!

If it doesn’t work, the epitome of evil lurks in the shadows of the world as a fugitive and is ready to be blamed for the experiment (disguised as evolution) failing: Art Howe.

Lou Gehrig

Dead for 72 years? Try resting and waiting for his opportunity!!!

Truth be told, how much more absurd is it than thinking Jones will come out of retirement for the “privilege” of playing for the Yankees?

Billy Beane/Brad Pitt

True, Beane was an awful player and Pitt is an actor who played an awful player on film, but if people bought into the “genius” aspect when Beane was simply exploiting analytics that no one else was at the time and has been alternatingly lucky and unlucky in his maneuverings since, maybe putting him in uniform would hypnotize the fans long enough not to realize the Yankees are in deep, deep trouble.

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Here’s the reality: Jones is not coming out of retirement and if he was, it would be for the Braves and not the Yankees. He’s injury-prone and he’s old. He’s also fat. Considering the Yankees decisions over the past few months, he actually fits. But why, in a normal and logical world, would anyone believe that Jones would tarnish his legacy with the Braves to play for the Yankees? Not only did he win his championship in 1995, rendering meaningless the long-used desire on the part of certain players like Roger Clemens to gain that elusive title, but he was with the Braves his entire professional life and the 2013 Braves are far better than the 2013 Yankees. This concept that everyone “wants” to be a Yankee is one of the biggest farcical examples of “world revolves around us” egomania in sports today and was disproven by Cliff Lee and even such journeymen as Nate Schierholtz who decided to go elsewhere.

The Yankees looked into Derrek Lee, who’s a good guy and a good idea if he’s healthy and wants to play, but if he does, he has to get into camp immediately. They signed Ben Francisco, which is a case study of the bargain-basement strategies of the 2013-2014 Yankees with self-evident on field results. They’re desperate and they’re short-handed. As a result, you get nonsense and panic. This is just getting started. It’s only March and there’s a long, long, looooong way to go. It’s getting longer by the day.

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The Diabolical Schemes of Melky Cabrera

When flipping through the annals of world-conquering genius, we see the luminaries.

Stewie Griffin

Dr. Evil

Scott Boras

Emperor Palpatine

Dick Cheney

Billy Beane

Now we can add a new name and image to the list:

Melky Cabrera

Lazy. Complacent. Mediocre. Overrated.

All are words that have, in the past, described the now-suspended Giants’ outfielder Cabrera. After the revelations of an elaborate plan for reasonable doubt as to his guilt in having used PEDs to achieve career-heights never thought possible, we have a new word to describe him: diabolical.

Reported by the NY Daily News, this website plot is bordering on ludicrous and was the combined attempts at a desperate post-crime cleanup and planting the seeds of ignorant innocence. It was done in a hurry prior to inevitable charges being made public and has a Tonya Harding aura of ineptitude as the plotters run into each other like a scene from a slapstick, tragicomic farce.

In this case, Cabrera is being portrayed as having “created” a website to imply that he unknowingly used a supplement that had ingredients he was unaware were in the product or weren’t allowed under MLB’s rules. A “paid consultant” but not an “employee,” Juan Nunez of Cabrera’s agents Sam and Seth Levinson is cast as the person who paid $10,000 to build the site without the knowledge or approval of the agency.

It’s all ambiguity; opaqueness of pretense; and furtive, clumsy altering of perception. If Cabrera’s people had managed to pull this off, the player would’ve been seen as “innocent” but still guilty in a justifiable crime sort of way. By admitting that he was kindasorta guilty and presenting evidence from an expert witness (paid for his services) that the substance he purchased was technically illegal under baseball’s guidelines and unwittingly ingested by the player, it certainly wasn’t prevalent enough in the supplement to account for Cabrera’s amazing production and performance in his first 4 ½ months with the Giants. He still would’ve been suspended, but might’ve gotten paid based on his production in 2012. Therefore, Cabrera’s numbers are “real”; therefore, there’s no reason not to think that this is the real Melky Cabrera; therefore a team interested in an outfielder who can play all three positions reasonably well, can run, hit, hit for power, perform in the clutch, and is just entering his prime at age 28 is worth the amount of money that he would’ve gotten from someone as a free agent if he didn’t fail a drug test at all. Figure Cabrera would’ve gotten a $50-60 million deal from some misguided baseball soul who wanted to make a splash by signing the All-Star Game MVP and a top-5 finisher in the NL MVP race.

The undertones in the linked piece on the NY Daily News is that Cabrera was the one who formulated this ridiculous cover-up.

Cabrera “created” the website.

Cabrera’s “scheme.”

It’s nonsense. If anything, there was a wink-and-nod with Cabrera taking stuff given to him without knowing what it was so he could say he didn’t know what he was taking and he could pass any lie-detector tests administered by those who allege the opposite.

The intent is to lay the foundation for plausible deniability. Like the idea of Cabrera being the mastermind behind anything, it’s neither plausible nor deniable. Now Cabrera has greater fallout to deal with and he’s going to be dealing with it alone because the same people who hatched this ruse are going to abandon him as toxic and no website, real or not, is going to wash away the residue of this burgeoning case of poorly executed sleight of hand.

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The Mets, Rush Limbaugh and Non-Communicable Disease

You’ll notice that the advertisers that are running from Rush Limbaugh like he has a communicable disease have mostly “suspended” their advertising on his show. As of right now the only one that I’ve found to use the word “terminate” has been Legalzoom.

Why do people advertise on Limbaugh’s show to begin with?

Because he has ratings and his listeners are people who will purchase the products being sold by the advertisers.

It’s about demographics, sales and business.

Limbaugh’s comments about Sandra Fluke were idiotic, but he apologized. Now, the apology isn’t good enough to stop the firestorm; the inundation on his advertisers has gotten worse because rather than quell the outpouring, it’s been seen as a sign of weakness for a wounded animal that he even apologized to begin with. So they’re going for more.

Proflowers.com also ceased advertising yesterday.

Because Limbaugh has never been one to apologize and the wording was sort of a non-apology apology in the vein of, “I’m sorry if I offended anyone who can’t take a joke and isn’t smart enough to know that it’s satire,” it’s not good enough and has exponentially increased the pressure being placed on his advertisters.

It leads to the question of why he even bothered to apologize to begin with.

Similar to the Dick Cheney decision to support gay rights, it doesn’t matter what someone like Cheney or Limbaugh says, their opponents are going to seize on it and use it to their advantage anyway.

Cheney supports gay rights…but it’s only because his daughter is a lesbian.

He’s not a supporter for the “correct” reasons; the organic reasons; for reasons of support because it’s the way things “ought” to be, therefore it doesn’t count toward the advancing of the cause.

I think we all know that if Cheney’s daughter wasn’t a lesbian that there’s no possible way he’d be in support of gay rights, but what’s the difference? Just accept the help from Cheney; accept the apology from Limbaugh and move on.

Or don’t.

But don’t act like there’s some underlying cause to support your position.

What does this have to do with the Mets and the revelation that Ike Davis has Valley Fever?

The Mets found an abnormality during Davis’s pre-spring training physical and sent him back to New York for tests; they discovered that he probably has Valley Fever and are taking steps to keep him healthy and on the field.

If you read this Mayo Clinic description of the disease, it doesn’t sound all that serious and isn’t expected to affect Davis’s play. The one thing that’s said is that Davis needs to avoid extreme fatigue.

Baseball position players don’t exactly exert themselves to the degree that they’ll be “extremely fatigued”. None other than John Kruk once uttered the famous line (and wrote a book of the same name), “I ain’t an athlete, I’m a baseball player.”

The disease is contracted in Arizona where Davis makes his off-season home; the Mets performed their due diligence and are following the advice of the medical community…and are still the subject of ridicule for something they had nothing to do with and are dealing with in the proper manner.

It gets to the point where the Mets might as well say, “Screw everyone, this is what we’re doing and if you don’t like it, too bad.”

But it won’t stop.

Because it’s a convenient and simple story to attack the Mets for anything and everything they do whether it’s considered “right” or “wrong”.

In the end, they might as well just go about their business and ignore the critics. It’s all based on agenda and there’s no possible way to win when there’s no exit from the maze.

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