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So, you want to be an offseason sportswriter

Edgy DC Oct 10 2007 08:42 AM

Accorrding to www.firejoemorgan.com, Mike Lupica dripped this bomb on Mike and the Mad Dog: ]If they [Boras and A-Rod] come in and ask for $300 million, I think Cashman has the right to use the old Branch Rickey line to Ralph Kiner - "Son, I finished last with you, I can finish last without you." The Yankees finished last in 2007. You heard it from Lupica first.

Benjamin Grimm Oct 10 2007 08:51 AM

Well, to the Yankee mindset, not winning the World Series is a tragedy; the way most other teams would regard a last place finish.

metirish Oct 10 2007 08:52 AM

Lupica today in the News is talking about $400M over 11 years.

Benjamin Grimm Oct 10 2007 08:55 AM

He's 32 years old. An 11-year contract would take him to the age of 43. If anyone commits to a contract that will pay Rodriguez $25 million (or $30 million) when he's 43 is beyond insane. It's risky enough to go seven or eight years with him. Eleven is nuts. (Doesn't mean he won't get it, though.)

soupcan Oct 10 2007 08:59 AM

11 years from now $25-$30 mil might be today's $13 mil. Given that if healthy, ARod would be smashing hallowed career records to bits every time he steps on a field - and thereby filling seats - that might actually be a good deal. I'm just sayin'.

metirish Oct 10 2007 09:00 AM

Here's the article. [url=http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2007/10/10/2007-10-10_boras_hints_free_agency_is_best_bet_for_.html]Lupica[/url]

Edgy DC Oct 10 2007 09:41 AM

Seriously, Fire Joe is on fire. Scan down to Vladimir Guerrero Is A No Good, Choking, Gutless Wonder.

metirish Oct 10 2007 10:15 AM

Some funny reading on that site.

Nymr83 Oct 10 2007 10:16 AM

fire joe morgan is a GREAT site and heres another gem comment: ]Unbelievable. The guy [Arod] comes out for early BP and he gets attacked for working too hard. There is absolutely nothing this man can do that will not lead to a dummy writing negative things about him

metirish Oct 10 2007 10:18 AM

Scroll down past Vlad(funny) and catch up with Joe in a Q&A and McCarver dials up Stats Inc...

Frayed Knot Oct 10 2007 12:54 PM

"11 years from now $25-$30 mil might be today's $13 mil. " Of course that was part of the logic Texas used when they signed him 7 years ago. At the time ARod signed for $25mil/yr the other top contracts of the day were in the $18/$20 range (Jeter, Manny, Thome, Giambi). Now, 7 years later, as he's going for a new deal, the top contracts are around ... well they're around $18mil or so (Beltran, Soriano, Zito). For top players, the ceiling really hasn't moved much in recent years which is one of the reasons why I'm not sold on this notion that clubs are going to line up to hand ARod a contract with the numeral '3' as the first digit in the annual salary. Granted he's the best player these days but that's 50% more than what the next highest guys are getting! I know that all Boras needs is for the "one stupid owner" theory to come through, but simply because HE is throwing those numbers around (and the press lapping them up) doesn't mean it's destined to happen.

Benjamin Grimm Oct 10 2007 12:59 PM

If he was asking $25 million per over 6 or 7 years, I'd be all in favor of signing him. It's the eighth through eleventh year that would give me pause. Moreso than the difference between $25 million and $30 million.

MFS62 Oct 10 2007 10:08 PM

metirish wrote: Lupica today in the News is talking about $400M over 11 years. This just in. I heard on ESPN radio (one of their baseball mavens) that Boras was quoted as saying that A-Rod would be worth $ 1 BILLION to a regional/ team specific cable (sports) network. So, that raises the ante, or gives us a clue as to what may be looking for when negotiating an A-Rod contract. If that's true, let's say that a company wants to earn 150% on its investment (straight line) over 10 years. That would mean a 10 year, $400 million contract. Of course, there must be teams of accountants checking out that angle at SNY, YES, NESN and WGN, et. al. Of course, that doesn't include yearly profits that could be reinvested to accelerate the return. Does a contract of that magnitude now make sense to you? Later

Valadius Oct 11 2007 06:04 AM

That's just insane. No one is worth that much. Besides, teams ought to take into consideration the diva-like quality that A-Rod would bring to the clubhouse. It would be a total disruption.

Edgy DC Oct 11 2007 06:15 AM

What damage has he done to the Yankee clubhouse?

Iubitul Oct 11 2007 07:10 AM

Jeter acting like a prissy little &$!@# more likely poisoned the clubhouse

metirish Oct 11 2007 07:27 PM

] Mets, not Yankees, clowns of the town Wallace Matthews 8:57 PM EDT, October 11, 2007 The failure of the Yankees is the best thing that could have happened to the Mets. Now they've got to hope all the peripheral issues involving Joe Torre's job, Alex Rodriguez's contract and Suzyn Waldman's tear ducts continue to consume the media and the public from now until Opening Day 2008. Who says you can't get a free pass in this town? Ever since the Yankees were eliminated from the ALDS Monday night, the Mets certainly have. Davidoff MLB Blog In the past three days, the Yankees have been characterized as bullies. They have been called cowards, gutless, unable to take a punch. I would have to agree with every one of those sentiments. If you apply them to the Mets, that is. On May 29, the Yankees sat at 21-29, 14 1/2 games behind the Red Sox. They were headed for the most spectacular failure in the history of sports. On the same date, the Mets were 33-17, five games ahead in first place, headed for another Secretariat's Belmont of a divisional race. But in the rest of the season, the Yankees went 73-39. The Mets went 55-57, crumbling like a sand castle in the final week of the season, at home, against three teams with a combined record of 222-264, with payrolls of $30 million, $37 million and $90 million. And you want to say the Yankees were a bust? What exactly does that make the Mets? Granted, the Yankees had a miserable October. But at least they had an October. The truth is, the Yankees have nothing to be ashamed of. They played a gutsy two-thirds of a season followed by a bad four-game stretch in October, and minus The Invasion of the Midges, might have won Game 2 in Cleveland and gone on to the ALCS. The Mets, on the other hand, have everything to be ashamed of. Operating, like the Yankees, with their league's highest payroll, they crumpled up and slunk home when faced with their first bit of resistance. Now, which team was it that can't take a punch? All the uproar over what happened this week in the Bronx and what is likely to happen in the next few days in Tampa has obscured the fact that the Mets are even more of a mess than the Yankees. They've got a manager who is a lonely man in his own clubhouse, being undermined by an assistant general manager who is way too close to many of the players and a son-of-an-owner who is way too involved in personnel decisions, both of whom are looking for the first available reason to fire him. They've got a GM who has abandoned his eye for evaluating young talent in favor of the easy way out, rebuilding-by-checkbook. Worst of all, they seem to have a roomful of players who not only don't know how to win but don't care to learn. When the pressure was on late in the season, it was the Mets, not the Yankees, who were loafing on the basepaths, forgetting how many outs there were, unraveling on the mound and arguing over stupid things. Remember the night Paul Lo Duca, a "team leader," got himself ejected for beefing over a strike two, a move that led directly to a Mets defeat? Derek Jeter may not have hit much in the postseason, but at least he didn't do anything as dumb as that, or as dumb as Jose Reyes -- remember when you thought you would take him over Jeter -- risking suspension by getting into an argument with a backup catcher that eventually led into a fist fight. Down the stretch, the Mets did everything to escape their first real fight but bite off an ear. Talk about bullies. Talk about cowards. But then you'd have to know something about bravery and guts to be able to recognize its flip side. Too many people in this town like to throw those words around despite not having the faintest understanding of what they really mean. And you want to talk about money? At least the Yankees' hired gun, Roger Clemens, gave them seven outs in his final appearance. Tom Glavine -- a cut-rate mercenary compared to Clemens but a mercenary just the same -- got what he wanted out of the Mets, his 300th win, but when it came time to give something back, he couldn't get out of the first inning. Didn't seem to be too broken up about it afterward, either. Throw the paychecks out and it is obvious that the "rich" kids showed character. The poor souls in Flushing, those $115-million working-class heroes, did not. To say the Yankees should have done better because of their payroll but absolve the Mets despite theirs is not only lazy but fraudulent, not to mention hypocritical. For years, we have listened to the Mets and their fans whine about always being overshadowed by the Yankees. We're not hearing too much of that right now, are we? Hiding behind the Yankees is working out quite nicely for the Mets these days. , Newsda

Edgy DC Oct 11 2007 07:34 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Oct 11 2007 08:11 PM

Getting strange there. I think I shouldn't read Newsday.

metirish Oct 11 2007 07:39 PM

I don't know any Mets fans giving the team a pass, Wally must not be reading us anymore.

metsmarathon Oct 11 2007 07:59 PM

he must really enjoy that odd, distant little world he lives in.

User 404 Oct 11 2007 10:20 PM

GUEST OP-ED - Once doesn’t make you a loser... By Rabbi Joseph Potasnik 10/11/2007 http://www.kingscourier.net/site/news.cfm?newsid=18909020&BRD=2384&PAG=461&dept_id=576292&rfi=6 As an avid Boston Red Sox fan, I never thought that, one day, I would defend the New York Mets, but as a rabbi, I think that I must. Each year, I have been invited to attend the Xaverian High School Joe DiMaggio Award Dinner. My presence at a Catholic school reception reflects the celebrated spiritual diversity of our society in which different faiths can see each other as members of one human family. Seated near me is Ralph Branca legendary pitcher of the Brooklyn Dodgers known for that infamous home run pitch — “The Shot Heard ‘Round The World” to Bobby Thompson of the New York Giants. Branca once said to me that he participates in several charitable causes, but he realizes that he is mainly remembered for that one costly throw in the ninth inning in 1951, with one out left, allowing the Giants to defeat the Dodgers and win the World Series. My son Harrison, a Yankees fan, presented me with a birthday gift of that painful photograph of the ball going through Bill Buckner’s legs in game six of the 1987 Mets-Red Sox Series, with the Mets ultimately defeating the Sox in game seven and winning the World Series. Buckner was noted for his great defensive skills, but because he played with an injury, he became the despised villain, and subsequently moved to Idaho to escape constant ridicule. Here was a great athlete, husband and parent who would always be remembered as the “loser” of the big game. I remember one pitcher, Donnie Moore of the California Angels, who committed suicide because he knew that he would always be recognized as the bad guy who threw a home run ball to Dave Henderson of the Boston Red Sox. The Mets this year brought so much excitement to their fans for most of the season, but will be described as failures because of their disappointing ending. Interestingly, you can be depicted as a talented team for 90 percent of a season but will be denigrated as a failure because of the final 10 percent. All of us, I am sure, know of people whom we have supported in different ways. Suddenly, when we are not able to be there, all of our past efforts are erased, and our present non-participation is highlighted. Too often we are judged by our last favor, sermon or service to humanity. One wrong move, and we suddenly become losers in the eyes of the beholders. “New York Times” columnist and author Tom Friedman, appearing with Tim Russert, made this insightful observation. He said that today we live in an age of “blogs” and cell phone cameras. One bad moment is memorialized for all to see and preserve. Thus, when someone is rude to him, he acknowledges that he is wrong and immediately apologizes. Better to be wrong this way than to be rightfully angry and see your reputation ruined on the technological highway. I now understand why the Talmud, also known as the body of Rabbinic Law, begins on page two with there never being a page one. It is telling us that the rest of the human story should be read not just what appears on one page, blog or photo. Whenever we eulogize people, we allow for human feelings and try to tell the full story written with chapters of victory, defeat, success and failure. Certainly if we do it at time of death, we can find the compassion to do it in life. As a proud Boston Red Sox fan, I ask this not only for the New York Mets, but for all of us who do not hit “home runs” each day of our lives. In the ancient Olympics, the winner of the race was not necessarily the first person who finished the race, but the one who finished first with the flame still burning brightly. May we all be recognized for not just for our place in the race, but more importantly for the principles we maintained along the way. Rabbi Joseph Potasnik is the executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis and spiritual leader of Congregation Mount Sinai in Brooklyn Heights.