Bellhorn04

And to make matters worse, I'm guessing the average time for a Red Sox-Yankees Sunday night game is about 3:45.

Gotta love the cojones of A-Rod's new lawyer saying Bosch 'has no credibility' when all the other players accepted their suspensions without appeal.

A-Rod lawyer blasts Yankees; team prez wants Galea medical records released By KEN DAVIDOFF Last Updated: 6:33 AM, August 18, 2013 Posted: 12:56 AM, August 18, 2013 Yankees Blog BOSTON — Alex Rodriguez promised Friday “a very, very bumpy road” ahead. The Yankees’ beleaguered third baseman has delivered quickly and explosively. Joseph Tacopina, the latest addition to A-Rod’s ever-changing legal team, publicly lashed out at the Yankees and Major League Baseball in an interview with The New York Times published online yesterday, accusing both of improprieties in an effort to run Rodriguez and his bulky contract out of baseball. “We have basically had enough,” Tacopina told the newspaper. “The process is being perverted when they act the way they do to make their case. They are pushing Alex to his limit.” Tacopina unleashed a stream of allegations against Rodriguez’s employer and league, putting a name to thoughts that had been privately circulating around A-Rod’s circle for months. The primary charges involved the Yankees’ treatment of Rodriguez’s left hip injury that required surgical repair in January and MLB investigators’ conduct in compiling the information for the 211-game suspension he is appealing. “The legacy of George Steinbrenner would be horrified,” Tacopina added. “This is the New York Yankees. This isn’t some thug-culture club.” Yankees president Randy Levine, the primary recipient of Tacopina’s blasts, responded with a noteworthy challenge for A-Rod to disclose the truth about his performance-enhancing drug use and connection to Anthony Galea. The Canadian sports doctor treated Rodriguez in 2009, which became known to the Yankees only after Galea got into trouble with law-enforcement officials. Galea pleaded guilty last year to bringing unapproved drugs, including illegal performance enhancers, into the United States. Following the Yankees’ 6-1 loss to the Red Sox at Fenway Park, Rodriguez worked hard to dance around questions about Tacopina’s comments. “I’m going to defer to my lawyer to go about these matters,” Rodriguez said. Asked if he had anything to hide, he said, “No.” In a telephone interview yesterday, Levine said, “Alex is trying to distract from the only relevant question in this matter: Did he or did he not use PEDs?” Tacopina claimed that, after the Yankees’ purposely didn’t tell A-Rod about the severity of his injury last October — “They rolled him out there like an invalid and made him look like he was finished as a ballplayer” — Levine told Bryan Kelly, who performed Rodriguez’s surgery, “I don’t ever want to see him on the field again.” Through an attorney, Kelly didn’t confirm that Levine made such a remark. Levine said many other people, representing both the Yankees and Rodriguez, were on the calls with Kelly, and that the Yankees would gladly release their transcripts and notes with Rodriguez’s permission. “Alex had the finest standard of care,” Levine said. “All of the choices were left to him. He directs his own medical care. All he has to do is tell us we are free to release his medical records, and everyone can take a look and see.’’ Then Levine leveled his challenge, continuing: “The one disturbing hole we have is, we don’t have the information on his treatments by Dr. Galea. It’s now incumbent that he tell everybody what went on with Dr. Galea.” E-mails between Levine and Rodriguez would reflect poorly on Levine, Tacopina said, calling the communications “very damaging.” Levine countered the e-mails would show his support of A-Rod throughout the years. Asked to describe his current relationship with Levine, Rodriguez said, “It’s business as usual for me. I have a job to do, and that’s to go out and play third base and do the best I can, and I’m doing that right now.” Rodriguez did seemingly clarify that he didn’t fault manager Joe Girardi for anything that has gone down. “I love Joe,” Rodriguez said. “Joe and I have an amazing relationship. I have the utmost respect for Joe. That’s unwavered.” Moments earlier, Girardi said, “I don’t ever want to ruin a player’s career. … That would break my heart.” Tacopina also questioned the legitimacy of MLB’s investigation, which led to the suspension of 13 other players, including Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun (65 games) and Yankees teammate Cervelli (50 games), all of whom accepted without appeal. The attorney said that Anthony Bosch, the founder of Biogenesis (the now-shuttered anti-aging clinic in South Florida) who has become MLB’s star witness, “has no credibility.” “We are confident in the credibility of our witnesses, and we will show this at the hearing,” MLB vice president of economics and league affairs Rob Manfred said, referring to the upcoming appeal hearing in front of independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz. “We don’t feel the need to discuss this in the newspaper.” The conduct of MLB’s Department of Investigations has come into question, and Tacopina opened that wound, as well, describing the investigators’ tactics as “rife with misconduct.” In particular, Tacopina said, investigators threatened witnesses and flashed what looked like police badges to enter gated communities. “We are completely comfortable with the tactics used to investigate the illegal activities by Alex Rodriguez and others,” Manfred said. “It’s ironic that Mr. Rodriguez’s people are complaining about the conduct of others.”

I think we need to know the evidence MLB has against A-Rod before we can judge whether it's a vendetta by Selig or not.

A-Rod's lawyers are publicly accusing the Yankees of malpractice and are accusing Bud Selig and the Yankees of conspiring to get A-Rod out of the game and the Yankees out of the contract. This has now gone into another dimension.

Come on Blue Jays!

Nobody will ever be able to properly explain what happened. Obviously a combination of things and a giant snowball of negativity thundering downhill. The Rays getting so hot unfortunately had a lot to do with winning just about every goddam time they played us.

s*** man, players drink beer like it's water regardless of rules. Just a question of whether they can wait till the game's over.

Twice this year the Sox have had back-to-back sac flies. I thought that was pretty cool.

Here's the most ridiculous thing about the save stat. It's when the TV announcers feel it necessary to point out to us that 'it's not a save situation'. Who f***ing cares? Uehara came in today to get 3 speedy outs and send everybody home. Who f***ing cares if it's not a 'save'?

I disagree. The sacrifice fly is a positive event and deserves credit. Blame the rules of baseball if you don't like runs scoring on outs.

I have to make two separate picks. Ortiz will go down as one of my favorite players in history. On the current team the guy I'm always cheering for to do well is Nava. The guy is having a tremendous year against all odds. There were people who figured he'd be out of baseball by now, and I mean people who actually understand baseball.

I'd like to buy it but I can't. In September/11 they averaged 5.4 runs per game. The problem was that they gave up a mind-blowing 6.4 runs per game.

And you gotta admit, 165 was a pretty cool number.

Daniel Nava is back in business.

Can't blame the 2011 collapse on injuries. It was a pitching meltdown of inexplicable proportions.

RBIs I might argue about a bit. Because the actual event of batting in a run is important. What was so frustrating about the last loss against Toronto? Well, it was the LOBsters, the lack of hitting with RISP, the fact that lots of guys were getting on, but no one was knocking them in. Of course over the season total RBIs are often a product of opportunities. To me it's one of those stats that shouldn't be tossed out, but which has to be looked at in context. Which is true for a lot of stats.

I think Bill James is on the right track with the Game Score for pitchers. I think we'll eventually see this used instead of Quality Starts.

Yes, any definition would be subjective, as with stats like Win, Save and Hold. But it seems to me the main problem fans have with Quality Start is the 6 IP 3 ER minimum. They don't like a 4.50 ERA performance being credited as a QS. If you tighten it up a bit I think it would be more widely accepted.

It'd be a simple matter to refine it. Something like: 6 IP, 2 ER 7 IP, 3 ER 9 IP, 4 ER

Maybe so. But the basic idea of tracking how many good starts a starter has had vs. bad starts is not without merit.

I understand where you're coming from. I'm certainly not saying he should be thrown in jail. If the world sees him as a douchebag for the ages from here on out, that should be sufficient.

I'm not ignoring the Spankees at all. As I've said a number of times, the f***ers are harder to get rid of than cockroaches. Soriano and Reynolds - Jesus Christ, how do they pull off this s***. The ironic thing about Soriano is that Cashman promptly came out and denounced the move, saying he was against it. f***ing Spanks.

100% true, OJ. Both of these stats really need refinement. Not elimination, but refinement. Bill James's 'Game Score' for pitchers is, I think, a worthy innovation that should get more attention as time goes on.

Assigning percentages to your chances is actually kind of silly when you think about it. It's just another way of shielding yourself from cold reality. Which is that it's only a binary proposition. It's like the old joke that a woman can't be a little pregnant. We either make it or we don't. As of today I vote yes, we'll make the playoffs. But I'll revisit after the West Coast trip.