Front Page
News Headlines
Features
Feature Archive
Analysis
Analysis Archive
Scores from Yahoo
Baseball Books
Baseball Video
Baseball Music
Baseball Games
Team Stores
Strikethree Gear
About Us
Contact Us
Tip Jar
RSS Feed
Recent wisdom, gossip and conjecture:
From the Strikethree.com newsroom:
Can you write or draw?
Would you rather put bamboo shoots up your fingernails than read the average sportswriter?
You might have a future! Let us be your stepping stone.
Scarlet Letters
Jason Michael Barker
To Bob Brenly, Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson, Luis Gonzalez and the rest of the Arizona Diamondbacks:
This series is far from over.
You might have the defending champs down two games to none, but they won't go this easily. You've beaten then with your best two pitchers, sure, but they've got Roger Clemens and Orlando Hernandez going in the next two games, and those guys aren't exactly slouches out there. The guys you've got going... well, they aren't The Rocket and El Duque. In the blink of an eye, this thing could be tied at two.
Just when you think you've got 'em, that's when they'll come storming back. Ask the Athletics, who had this team down 0-2 before dropping three straight. Ask the 1996 Braves, who took two from the Yankees before dropping four straight to lose the World Series. Ask the Mariners, who never had any sort of real control in the ALCS, either last year or this year.
Derek Jeter and Chuck Knoblauch won't go hitless the rest of the series. Bernie Williams, Scott Brosius and Alfonso Soriano are better than the mere one hit they've managed so far. Even Paul O'Neill and Randy Velarde can hurt you, if you let them.
It starts with a two-out walk or an infield single. Then another single, maybe an error, maybe a double to put runners on second and third. And just when it looks like you're going to get out of the inning unscathed, a role player like Luis Sojo comes through with an improbable bloop single to score two and Derek Jeter leaps over the dugout fence like he's done one hundred times before, pumping his fist at the crowd. You go to the bullpen, but by then it's too late.
When you've got the Yankees down, don't let them up. You might think they're dead, but oh no, they most certainly are not. Once they're down, keep them down with a rock, your foot, some dirt... whatever it takes. If Curt Schilling can go on three short rest, make it happen. Ditto Randy Johnson. Make it happen. Baseball fans all over the country are pulling for you -- at this point we'd take anything but another Yankees title.
Go get 'em.
* * * *
To Joe Torre, Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Roger Clemens and the rest of the New York Yankees:
Didn't you get the memo? You're done, hear? Finished. Your time has passed. Like the Boston Celtics. Like the Atlanta Braves. Like disco. Like Beanie Babies.
Apparently you didn't get the memo. There are new teams here to take your place -- those hot young Oakland Athletics, the surprising Seattle Mariners, the upstart expansion Arizona Diamondbacks. Some said the Boston Red Sox, but was just crazy talk.
These new teams are younger, smarter and faster. They have better pitching and better defenses. They score more runs, draw more walks, hit more homers and steal more bases. They don't carry washed up leadoff men like Chuck Knoblauch, overrated rookies like Alfonso Soriano, or out making "sluggers" like Tino Martinez.
Derek Jeter is not the second coming. His glove, much like his bat, is overrated. He doesn't hit for average like Nomar, he doesn't have Omar's range, he doesn't have A-Rod's arm, he doesn't have Christian Guzman's speed, he doesn't have Miguel Tejada's power. And Mariah Carey wanted nothing to do with him!
Roger Clemens? Old and injured, not to mention an arrogant head hunter. It's a miracle he hasn't been kicked out of every post-season game he's ever pitched with the Yankees, for all the crap he pulls out there with opposing hitters.
It's time to move on. Even the players know it, if the way Scott Brosius and Bernie Williams were arguing all those ball and strike calls -- you know, the ones where the pitches were right down the middle? Give it up, Bernie. Give it up, Scott. You're done, and you know it.
With the Diamondbacks already leading two games to none, you have a chance to go down gracefully. It's time to lay down, roll over and play dead, at least for two more games. Let it go. Time to move on.
Even if you win the next two games, how do you expect to compete with Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson in Games Five and Six? You couldn't hit them the first time, and you won't hit them the second time. So why even bother?
Stick a fork in you; you're done.
I'll go ahead and send you another copy of the memo.
|
about the author |