Sometimes You Win and You Still Lose

Bobby Murcer is dead.

I knew him as a voice, first and foremost. As a player, he occupied a strange ground in Yankee history. He was the best player on the team in the early seventies--a dubious distinction--then was traded for Bobby Bonds in '74 and missed the championship seasons of 1977 and '78. He returned in 1979, just weeks before the death of his best friend on the team, Thurman Munson. Munson's death provided the one game performance for which he's best remembered by Yankee fans, as the day of Munson's funeral the Yankees came back from Ohio to play the Orioles at Yankee Stadium, and Murcer led a comeback, knocking in all five of the Yankees' runs in a 5-4 victory.

Murcer made it to the playoffs with the Yankees in 1980 and '81, but by then he was more of a role player, and he only got 14 plate appearances in the two playoff series, with one hit, two walks, and no rings. When he retired in 1983, the organization quickly moved him to the Yankee broadcast booth, where he stayed for the most part until his health made it impossible to return. Murcer was diagnosed with brain cancer in late 2006, but was successfully treated and was back in the broadcast booth by the following Opening Day. We cheered Murcer's victory over cancer that day, but all triumphs over death are temporary. Sixteen months later, he's gone.

My condolences go out to his family, and to Yankee fans everywhere. We'll miss him very much.

Odds and Ends

Apparently, Don Mattingly won't be an on-the-field coach for the Dodgers, after all:

Mattingly Steps Down as Hitting Coach (MLB.com)

The Daily News is reporting that the reason Mattingly's stepping away from the job is because Mattingly and his wife of 28 years, Kim, have separated:

Mattingly Leaves Joe Torre's Side Because of Family Matters (McCarron, NY Daily News)

This is horrible news, and our thoughts and prayers go out to Don and his family. My most prominent memory of Kim Mattingly was courtesy of the really drunk guy behind me at Don Mattingly Day, who spent the entire ceremony yelling "Kiiiiim! Show us your legs! Kiiiiim!" This also happened to be the fellow for whom the expression "Say it, don't spray it," was coined.

****

Ex-Yank Chuck Knoblauch is being subpoenaed to testify before the House of Representatives in the Clemens-McNamee-Pettitte inquiry:

Feds Issue Subpoena for Knoblauch (Thompson & Red, NY Daily News)

The interesting point here is that Knoblauch blew off a deposition that'd been scheduled, which is why a subpoena was issued. Knoblauch has indicated that he no longer wants to be involved with baseball, but as Al Pacino once said, "I try to get out...but they keep pulling me back in!"

****

Given the choice of the Yankees giving up the farm for Johan Santana, the Red Sox lording Santana over the Yanks after acquiring him for a much weaker package, or the Demon Lefty of Minnesota nestling safely in the NL...um, let's go Mets?

Mets' Santana Offer Remains the Same (Cothran--Star Ledger)

Yeah, they're rivals too. But it would still be waaaaay less annoying.

****

Everybody has dreams, mine just happen to involve Tim Raines and Mediterranean sidewalk cafes:

Prospectus Toolbox: How to Write a Letter of Complaint (BP.com)

Quick quote from that column about the burgeoning Jim Rice crowd out there:

Be political: Like any election, that to the Hall of Fame election is a political process, so you might do well by co-opting some of the language and tactics of political discourse. Many of Jim Rice's Hall of Fame proponents have adopted a rhetorical stance that seems torn from the land of "job-killing taxes" and "Washington-insider special-interest lobbyists." Their campaign is no longer to get Rice inducted to Cooperstown, it's to keep his detractors from "excluding" him from the Hall of Fame. This "exclusion" language takes Rice's qualifications for induction as a foregone conclusion, and places the burden on his opponents to say why he doesn't belong. It also invites accusations that Rice's detractors are doing something wrong or harmful when they criticize his Hall-worthiness—they're accused of "attacking" Rice or "denigrating" his achievements. Regardless of whether you agree with the sentiment, the tactic seems to be working—Rice has gained votes each of the past five years—so a similar rhetorical stance could help you make the case for your favorite Hall-worthy candidate.

That kind of talk bugs me, as does political-speak in general. And to think, we're only in January of an election year! Aside from Hall of Fame commentary and useful advice, this week's column also features a contest, where the winner will get a free copy of the 2008 Baseball Prospectus annual--so feel free to enter!

I've also been paying attention to developments in the Dominican League Finals:

The Trials of Tejada (BP Unfiltered)

Colon-o-Scopy (BP Unfiltered)

Thanks to ESPN Deportes, I think I might have seen more baseball in January this year than I saw in May of last. I'll admit, I thought my team, Licey, was dead in the water when they lost the first three games. Luckily, the Dominican finals are a best-of-nine, so there's still time for them to recover after winning games 4 and 5.

Small World

My parents aren't really baseball fans, except for by relation to me and my brothers. Still, having one casual fan and two stark-raving insane Yankee fans for offspring, they absorbed a lot of baseball by osmosis. The ballgames were always on the tube, or the radio. So when it comes to the national pastime, my parents know more than they think they know.

So it wasn't that weird when my dad brought up Bernie Williams last night, out of the blue. We were at dinner, and we'd been talking about my writing, and the whole Roger Clemens mess, and just at random Dad asks me about Bernie, as if he was one of my high school friends I still keep in touch with. So I filled my parents in as well as I could about the last year-plus: the un-vite (as Seinfeld would say) to Tampa for Spring Training, his kinda-sorta retirement, the speculation that he might be invited to camp with the Dodgers, his Jazz guitar work.

So that wasn't weird, but what happened today was. My parents were flying to Puerto Rico, and since they practically live on planes these days, they get upgraded to first class. Since these are the seats left over when first class isn't booked full, they often don't get to sit together, but you don't complain when you get bumped up. Anyway, my dad goes to take his seat, and who's he sitting next to? You guessed it, Bernie Williams.

Sometimes small doesn't even begin to describe the world.

****

Saw Michael Clayton last weekend, and it was phenomenal. It's a legal thriller that meanders a little bit on the way to where it's going, but the performances are so compelling you're unlikely to mind a few digressions. George Clooney plays the title character, a big-firm lawyer who doesn't fit the profile: he's a Fordham Law grad in a sea of Ivy League suits, a guy who's been with this giant legal machine for 15 years without making partner. He's the kind of guy who can't ever be a partner--you could say he's the lawyer in charge of non-legal solutions. When the law firm's top litigator goes crazy in a deposition, Clayton's the guy you send to smooth things over with the cops and the client. The litigator, Arthur (Tom Wilkinson) is off his meds and out of his mind, and his timing is lousy because the firm's representing a big corporate client in a billion-dollar class action suit.

How things play out with the suit is a bit predictable (what, you thought the big corporate client was going to be innocent?) but that's kind of beside the point. The point is how Wilkinson, clearly out of his mind, suddenly snaps back into clarity to explain why no one's going to successfully have him committed. It's how Tilda Swinton, as the big corporation's head lawyer, seems constantly on the edge of jumping out of her skin, even when she's in control of the situation. It's the honesty and seriousness with which Michael tells his son that he won't grow up to be a screwup like him.

Clooney's performance straddles the line between the deglamorized character he played in Syriana, and the typical, smooth, Clooney persona--streetsmart and cynical, but without the smug smile when he pulls one over on the powers-that-be. Wilkinson, a Brit whose American accent usually annoys and distracts me, is dead perfect in this role. The nasal drone of his accent works well with a character whose manic rants rarely give him a chance to breathe. If I were doing my Top Ten list now, Michael Clayton would make the top five--maybe the top three--and Wilkinson is neck-in-neck with Javier Bardem for the best supporting performance of the year. Very highly recommended.

Fame & Infamy, Part II

A Goose Flies into Cooperstown...

...with 86% of the vote. That's a huge increase (130 votes more than he got two years ago) and it brings us to the point: what changed? The BBWAA didn't get fifty new voters, I don't think--some of these guys had to have changed their minds after years of not voting for Gossage. Same thing applies to Jim Rice--he's reached the 72% mark, just 16 votes shy of entry this year, and virtually a lock to make it next season on his 15th(!) try. Down the ballot, Bert Blyleven picked up 76 votes(!) a year after taking a step back. This is why Hall of Fame voting doesn't make much sense. Blyleven's been on the ballot for 11 years, and his vote total has quadrupled in that time, almost quintupled from its low point in 1999 (70 votes, 14%). He lost support last year, slipping under 50% after he'd broken into the majority in 2006, which made it look like his candidacy was stalled. Now that he's reached the point Gossage was at in the 2006 election, who knows? I swear, it feels like some of these guys are just throwing darts at the ballot.

And if that's the case, Tim Raines's name must have been at the bullseye, 'cause most of the voters couldn't hit it. Only 132 voters (24.3%, less than a third of what's required for election) checked his name on his first turn on the ballot. Fortunately for him, as we've seen, the voters are incredibly inconsistent from year to year, so this is far from the last word. Next year, a whole bunch of guys might just "discover" Raines, or offer some lame excuse about him not being a first ballot guy, blah, blah, blah. Or we might be in for a decade-long saga, like Rice and Blyleven. Mark McGwire's fans might also be in for a fifteen-year campaign, maybe hoping that by 2020, people will be so up in arms about gene doping and the use of bionic limbs that they'll get a massive surge of nostalgia for guys who "just" used steroids.

By the way, speaking of 'roids (and not at all to rain on Goose's well-deserved day) here's a question. Goose was a big guy, threw hard, had a long career, and appears to have been an endless reservoir of rage both on and off the field. Anyone else think that if he played today, he'd be one of the guys suspected of juicing?

Rocket Defense

A dozen years after Goose's career ended, other big, hard-throwing righties with on-the-mound anger issues don't seem to be getting the benefit of the doubt. Roger Clemens came out on 60 minutes and denied Brian McNamee's accusations against him as definitively as possible. The same day that interview aired, he sued McNamee, and on Monday he faced the press. Still, no one seems convinced, and it's unlikely they'll be swayed even if/when Clemens goes before Congress next week, and tells them the same thing. If Clemens tells the same story before next week's hearing of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he'll have passed the point of no return. That means that if there's anyone out there that can corroborate McNamee's story, or link Clemens to steroids in any way, he'll likely face perjury charges--that's the risk he's taking by initiating this litigation and keeping this issue in the public eye.

I broke down the Clemens litigation over at Baseball Prospectus, and I think the final paragraph is instructive:

However, let me offer a final cautionary note for Clemens. When I was in practice, and someone threatened one of my clients with a defamation claim, the warning to the would-be litigant was often, "Remember Oscar Wilde." In 1895 Wilde brought a criminal defamation suit against the Marquis of Queensberry (the same one who promulgated the rules of boxing) because of an insult the Marquis made about Wilde's sexuality. At trial, the defense was able to produce witnesses to Wilde's lifestyle, who proved that the insult was actually truthful and not defamatory. As a result of the inquiry he initiated, Wilde wound up being convicted of "gross indecency" and sentenced to two years' hard labor. The lesson? If you sue for defamation, you better have the truth on your side—otherwise, it might be more than your reputation that gets hurt.

Unless he's clean, Roger's opening up a huge can of worms. I hope for his sake the risk is worth it.

Fame & Infamy, Part I

We're just a few hours away from Roger Clemens and Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes, a couple of days away from the Baseball Hall of Fame's announcement of the BWAA class of 2008, a couple of weeks away from the Mitchell Report clown show going to Washington, and just over a month away from pitchers and catchers. So now looks like a decent time to take on a few topics of interest, starting with the Hall of Fame.

It's been a bad few years with me and the Hall of Fame, ranging from them accepting the Mark Ecko Asterisk Ball, to the failure to induct Buck O'Neill while he was alive to enjoy it (a mistake everyone seems willing to repeat with someone who's even more obviously qualified for induction, Marvin Miller), down to petty crap like the fiasco when the Hall's president canceled a 15th Anniversary presentation of Bull Durham in an attempt to muzzle Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins's views about the war in Iraq.

Don't get me wrong. The Hall of Fame is still a great institution. When you say "Hall of Fame", without any modifiers, people assume you're talking about the one in Cooperstown, New York (unlike other sports where you have to be very specific in your identifications, like the "Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio," which, I suppose, distinguishes it from the Flag Football Hall of Fame, in Mentor, Ohio). Unlike other sports, which sometimes induct ten people at a shot, the baseball Hall of Fame is pretty exclusive.

But I'm dreading the announcement of the Hall of Famers come Tuesday. I have the distinct feeling that it's going to be upsetting--there are four people on the ballot who are amply qualified to be in the Hall of Fame, and three of them are unlikely to get in for bad reasons. Saying that Bert Blyleven's a Hall of Famer is a trope by now, an argument that's been had over and over, and there's not much more to say. Mark McGwire's case hinged on a single bad day in his life, where the negotiated terms for his testifying before Congress were that he was "not there to talk about the past," an unfortunate lawyer-scripted phrase that's come to signify pathetic chumpitude nation-wide. Onetime Yankee Goose Gossage is the best reliever not currently in the Hall, and arguably better than the relievers who've already been inducted. And then there's the new guy, former Yankee Tim Raines, who's probably the third best left fielder I've seen play, behind Rickey Henderson and Barry Bonds.

All these men had long, distinguished careers. Each helped teams to championships, and were respected by their peers. But I don't think Raines, McGwire, or Blyleven have any chance of making the required 75% of BWAA votes to get inducted. For McGwire, the flames of indignation over the use of PEDs were fanned during the voters' prime time by the Mitchell Report. Even though Mitchell had nothing new to say about McGwire (indeed, precious little new information about anything) the Report politicizes Big Mac's induction possibilities beyond "we'll punish him by not making him a first-year inductee." The longer McGwire waits, the more alternate rationales--beyond the suspected-but-never-proven steroid use--for denying him the vote his detractors will conjure. It's a downward cycle. Blyleven's case was made by my fellow stat-heads; it's a compelling argument, but the movement already peaked without Blyleven getting in--there's no reason to think that he'll suddenly start to pick up support again. And Raines? He suffers by direct comparison to Rickey, since Henderson was the one with the MVP and stolen base records, while Raines fell short on both counts. When you get labeled the "poor man's version" of anything, it diminishes you--not enough people pay attention to the fact that Raines is the poor man's version of an inner circle Hall of Famer--what I like to call a member of the Broom Closet of the Immortals. The fact is, you can fall short of Immortal and still be Hall-worthy...but it's not expected that the BWAA will get that idea, either.

If I were a betting man, I'd think that the writers will elect a slate in honor of the 30th anniversary of the 1978 pennant race, inducting Gossage and fellow AL East antagonist, Jim Rice. At this point, Rice has been on the ballot almost as long (14 years) as he played in the major leagues (16 seasons). I can't fathom why it's a good idea to consider someone's candidacy for anything that long--sure, maybe it's not all love at first sight, but what, exactly, could have changed in the last 10 years that Rice has been eligible that wasn't so for the first four? The new thing that seems to be driving the Rice lobby is revisionism--a repackaging of Rice as the last "natural" slugger (a claim which is far more presumptive than anything else), and using the steroid controversy to retroactively boost his bona-fides. Sadly, nothing about current or recent steroid use changes the fact that those bona-fides, were simply not good for long enough to merit induction.

I could be wrong, but the election of a Goose/Rice slate would be bittersweet--a happy recognition of one of the most dominant pitchers of the last 40 years, but a decision that would leave a bad taste in the mouth both because of the many worthies who were excluded.

Bronx in Mourning

Got sidetracked on my way to writing the story of the week yesterday, first by my day job and then by my Prospectus column, which continues my epic series on strikeouts. I was actually in the act of submitting my Prospectus column when I heard the news, that Phil Rizzuto, the Scooter, the 1950 AL MVP, the voice of the Yankees during my youth, the guy on Paradise by the Dashboard Light, was gone.

It wasn't really unexpected. Rizzuto'd been sick for quite a while, and wasn't well enough to appear in public for some time now. Last fall, when he auctioned off a lot of his memorabilia collection, it felt like an admission of mortality. And while all of us at Old Timer's day this year hoped he'd be well enough to do a quick stand-and-wave along with Yogi, none of us were surprised when the emcees read a prepared statement instead.

We've had a lot of that lately. I didn't comment on the Conde Nast story by Franz Lidz--mainly because I was worried about slipping on Lidz's slime trail--about the Boss's deteriorating health, as well as the many armchair diagnoses it prompted of Alzheimers or senile dementia. (Who knew the field of geriatrics was so simple you could master it without taking so much as a correspondence course!) I, for one, don't fault Steinbrenner for doing his public communications through a PR guy and through written statements if he doesn't feel up to interacting with the press personally.

Old age comes for us all, eventually, and how hard it hits seems directly proportional to our vanity. I don't know if what Lidz did was a violation of journalistic ethics (or if that term has any meaning, at all); but I find it hard to stomach any argument that says that Steinbrenner isn't entitled to whatever privacy he needs to maintain his dignity.

Alex Belth was dead on before this season when he said that 2007 was all about a sense of impending loss in Yankeeland. Joe Torre's lame-duck contract, the Stadium's impending demise...the Bombers Faithful have good reason to wonder if, by the time the new ballpark opens in 2009, there will be anything left to recognize this franchise by, other than the pennants. So Rizzuto's death, while not really a shock, is a huge step away from the Yankees we know, and toward an uncertain future.

I'll remember Phil Rizzuto mainly for his voice, and his laugh. There was a wonderful excitement he brought to the broadcast booth, almost always sounding delighted to be watching baseball, even when he got so caught up in one of his stories that he'd forget the teams were still going at it on the field. Scooter had a wonderful air of naivete about him that kept him oblivious to the fact that he should aspire to some professional neutrality--unlike some of today's schemers (I'm lookin' at you, Sterling!), he was a homer because it simply didn't occur to him to go about his job any other way. In the end, the homerism didn't really matter--he made people like baseball, and that was what mattered.

That's part of why I don't mind his place in the Hall of Fame, which I feel was secured as much by his broadcast career as by his accomplishments on the field. Even if his performance record doesn't quite stack up, that wasn't the limit of his contribution to the game.

If God has a sense of humor, I have to think that a cow was stationed at the gates of Heaven today, to meet Phil Rizzuto. Rest in peace, Scooter, our love and condolences go out to your wife Cora and the rest of your family.

Old Timers' Rock 'n' Roll

Old Timers' Day is always big with me and mine. It's probably the memories from darker days at the Stadium, when Old Timers' was the highlight of some ugly seasons. I mean, the Bombers were dead in seventh place from mid-May 'til the end of the 1990 season, but it was pretty hard to hang your head on Old Timers' Day, when Joe Dimaggio was walking on the Yankee Stadium grass--even if he 75 years old and not even picking up a bat on a bet. Once a year the baseball heroes of yesterday would take over the field for an afternoon--just a small bit of the afternoon, actually--and remind us that there had been better times in this ballpark, maybe make us dream of better days to come.

Those years Old Timers' Day issues seemed almost as vital as real ballclub issues--when the big question is whether or not to bring Jim Walewander up from Columbus, you're more likely to get wrapped up in the mini-drama of when (or if) Yogi Berra would ever return to the Stadium for Old Timers' Day. Berra boycotted Yankee Stadium between 1988 and and 1999, because of bad blood with George Steinbrenner stemming from Steinbrenner firing Yogi just 16 games into the 1985 season, and during that decade, Old Timers Day never passed without Berra's absence being noted.

By the time Berra and the Boss kissed and made up, Old Timers' had lost a little bit of its appeal. It was 1999, and the Yankees were in the middle of three straight championship seasons. The day Berra returned to Yankee Stadium, David Cone threw a perfect game against the Montreal Expos. In part it seemed like a moving tribute, specially since one of the other two Yankees to ever throw a perfect game, Don Larsen, was honored along with Berra. But there was another message in Cone's effort--that what was happening on the field those days consistently trumped the nostalgia. Seeing great players in the lineup every day somewhat blunted the need to see the giants of yesteryear. Old Timers' was still fun, and still well-attended, it just wasn't as important as it had been.

It's been at least a decade since the Old Timers came into the House that Ruth Built to find a sub-.500 Yankees ballclub waiting for them there. The date for Old Timers' Day changes every year, but 1995 is the last time the Yanks were under .500 in the late June-early August window where the Yanks usually bring the oldsters in (the Bombers didn't break over .500 for good until September 8th of that strike-shortened season). While we're not yet in the state of despondency that overtook the franchise in the late-80s/early-90s, a question lingered over Old Timers' Day, 2007--have the scales between the past and the present re-aligned themselves again, putting nostalgia for Yankee yesterday above optimism for Yankee tomorrow?

Brother T and I weren't in such a meditative mood when we got to the Stadium this afternoon, but close to seven hours later, on the way home after watching the Yanks blow their latest chance to reach .500 by committing five errors in a 2-1, 13-inning loss, thoughts like these started churning through my mind. This year's Old Timers' festivities featured a number of players from the late 90s dynasty, making their first old-timer appearances: Paul O'Neill, Scott Brosius...and Homer Bush. Another player from that era (but not an Old Timers' Day newbie) Darryl Strawberry was also playing in the game. Although this Old Timers' Day was supposed to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the 1977 World Champs, the nostalgia wafting through the Stadium was more for Yankee baseball of the 1998 Vintage.

The reaction to O'Neill, in particular, was interesting. The biggest crowd response during the introduction of the Old-Timers usually comes when the crowd greets Don Mattingly, or one of the guys with Hall of Fame plaques. This time out, O'Neill blew everyone away. The nyuck-nyuck laugh line that Old Timers' emcees Michael Kay and John Sterling usually trot out is that a player looks so good that he could probably suit up with the current Yankees--well, O'Neill did actually look that good in his uni today. Heck, three strikeouts into a five-strikeout game, I was hoping that Torre would send O'Neill in to pinch-hit for Melky Cabrera, for real.

And there it is--nostalgia overwhelming the present. In the late-afternoon game, Roger Clemens and John Lackey locked horns in a pitcher's duel. Clemens was fine but not dominant--one walk and only three strikeouts in eight one-run innings. Aside from a rough spot in the second inning, Lackey owned the Yankees--11 strikeouts, no walks in eight innings of his own. The Yankees kept chasing Lackey--and later Scot Shields and Francisco Rodriguez--out of the zone. It's a familiar story from this season--the Yankees, despite being a very veteran team and having a couple of walk machines (Bobby Abreu and Jorge Posada) in the lineup, aren't working opposing pitchers the way they used to.

In the 13th inning, after eight innings of Clemens, two of Rivera, one of Blockhead Kyle Farnsworth, and on the second inning of Luis Vizcaino, the Angels broke through, thanks to some weak defense from Miguel Cairo (three errors on the day). The bottom of the inning may well wind up being symbolic of the first half, and maybe the whole season. With one out, Cairo singles, then takes advantage of F-Rod's mistakes: first stealing second base, then advancing to third on a wild pitch. And suddenly the Stadium's alive again. Man on third, one out, the top of the lineup up. Johnny Damon walks and we're ecstatic. The crowd--still pretty large given the pregame festivities and the extra innings--is on their feet, cheering like crazy. All it takes is a good fly ball to tie the game, and we're feeling it, we're feeling the comeback.

Then Melky Cabrera strikes out, for the fifth time in six plate appearances. Then the Captain grounds out to end the game. So much for getting over .500 before the All-Star Break...

*****
NOTES:

The pitch Cabrera struck out on in the thirteenth was a diabolical breaking ball. It seemed to fall straight down onto the middle of the plate and just stay there. The movement on that ball was so strange that everybody in my section was convinced that Melky must have fouled it off--but he just walked away toward the dugout.

This year's obscure Yankee Old-Timer: Mickey Klutts. Klutts was a (f)utility infielder who came up for cups of coffee with the Yanks in 1976, 1977 and 1978, before he was traded with Dell Alston for Gary Thomasson. From there, Klutts had a five-year run as a spare part with Oakland and Toronto. All told, Klutts had more plate appearances against the Yankees (34, plus another 7 in the 1981 ALCS) than he had for them (24) in his career.

This year's weakest bit of puffery: Kay and Sterling try to make every old-timer sound like a vital cog in Yankee history, but the best Kay could come up with for Eli Grba was "...won eight games over two seasons." He didn't mention that Grba had nine losses to go with those eight wins, or a 4.74 ERA, more than one run above the league average. In an odd bit of serendipity, the Yanks lost Grba in the 1960 expansion draft...to the franchise they played after the Old Timers' Game, the Los Angeles Angels.

Odd sight: Paul O'Neill in short left field, shadowed by a camera man during the game.



Odder sight: In-game short left field interview with Paul O'Neill, by Bobby Murcer.



All of those 1998 Yankee Old-Timers, with the exception of Strawberry, were younger than the starter for the Yankees' non-exhibition game, Clemens (Darryl's five months older than the Rocket). Worse than that, at the age of 34, old-timer Homer Bush is 18 months younger than I am!

Congrats, Willie!

The big news around town this morning, baseball-wise, is ex-Yank Willie Randolph's three year , $5.65 MM extension with the Mets. The extension, which tears up the last year of the existing three year deal Randolph struck with the Mets after the '04 season (worth $700,000) will keep Willie in blue and orange through the '09 season, with a club option for 2010.

One thing I didn't realize, until Mike Lupica brought it up in his column on Randolph's extension, is that this contract calls on Willie to make more per year than he ever made in his playing career. I actually didn't believe that at first--after all, Randolph was a star player in New York for all those years, and he never made $2 million in a season? But checking on his Baseball-Reference page, the most money Willie made as a player was $1.06 million in 1986. If that option for 2010 gets picked up, Randolph could wind up making more as a manager than he did in his entire playing career.

So, despite the fact that he'll be earning the big money as a member of the Mets organization, we're happy for Willie on a well-deserved payday.

***

In other notes, Robinson Cano has reportedly changed his number, from 22 to 24, so that #22 will be available for Roger Clemens. Thank heavens Cano doesn't appear to be too superstitious, because he's had a darn good start to his career wearing 22. As for Clemens, I'd still be surprised if he's not pitching in Houston this summer, but at least the club is doing all the small things to make him know he'd be welcome. In another purely symbolic move, earlier in the month the Yanks signed Jeff Nelson to a minor league contract, so that he could retire as a Yankee. Not really sure how that works, but if it makes him happy, I'm happy for him.

Speaking of retirement, the big question has been, what to do about Bernie Williams, now that he's the odd man out on the Yankees' roster? Jorge Posada wants Bernie Baseball to return, which isn't surprising since the two boricuas are close, but the Yanks seem determined to make a go of things with only four outfielders for 2007: Bobby Abreu, Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, and Melky Cabrera. With the team carrying three firstbase/DH types--Jason Giambi, Josh Phelps, and Doug Mientkiewicz--the best chance of Bernie remaining a Yankee would be to accept a Spring Training non-roster invite, and hope for an injury or that he outperforms one of the fellows above. It would improve Bernie's chances if he'd spend the off-season getting familiar with a first baseman's mitt, which there is no indication that he's done or plans to do.

The other option is the old "I'll be in shape in case they need me" non-retirement solution, where Bernie signs with nobody, but waits around in case the Yanks come to their senses. That latter option--raised by Posada in the Newsday link above--just about never works out. In Bernie's case, in particular, it seems far-fetched. He's never been a quick starter--historically, April is his worst month with the bat by far--and that's with a full Spring Training under his belt. Now, say the Yanks have a big injury in June, or Dougie Spellingerror isn't hitting his weight in mid-May, or Phelps once again has trouble hitting in a job-sharing situation--how quickly could Williams be ready to help the team, if he's just been at home, staying in shape? Usually, when the Yanks need help, they need it immediately--would the ballclub really wait around for Bernie to go to extended Spring Training, then get some minor league games in as prep, before making the roster?

Hope as we might, I think that you have to call this what it is, which is the end of the road for the Yanks and Bernie. Baseball breakups sometimes happen quietly, not with a big messy fight, but with the club quietly giving your job to someone else and moving on. Bernie should ask Don Mattingly, whose career ended a lot like this after the 1995 season--the Yanks picked up Tino Martinez (along with the aforementioned Jeff Nelson) in the off-season, and the Hitman was stuck between retiring in the only baseball uniform he'd ever known, or scratching out employment elsewhere. Sometimes, when Mattingly's interviewed, you get the feeling he wishes he'd taken a different path at the end of his career.