Spaceman Spiff Posted October 14, 2005 Share Posted October 14, 2005 pretty cool stuff i found off this website.... Apparently fatass pitchers with a 6.00+ ERA need love.... Trot Nixon Hey Mussina! Shouldn't you be worried about game 5? OOOOPS! too late! Bronson Arroyo is a lucky dude.... http://itsasecretsohush.blogspot.com/2005/09/not-so-blind-items.html A-Rod Takes His Swings So far, we’ve revealed that Cubs 2B Todd Walker is a strip club hound and that Braves closer Kyle Farnsworth likes him some booze. For the final of the three On the DL items revealed this week, we unveil the biggest name yet. First, the item: This MLB superstar, in order to preserve his squeaky-clean rep, gives his honey of the night his hotel room key so that the lucky gal can separately meet him later. But, if he wants to keep that spotless image up, perhaps he and his wife should consider not going to those swingers’ parties anymore… The swingers rumors have been around for a while, so perhaps it’s no surprise than this blind item is about non other than everybody’s favorite whipping boy Alex Rodriguez. We wonder if there’s even been any slapping involved there. Anyway, there’s your three names. Enjoy. It’s been fun! http://www.deadspin.com/sports/baseball/arod-takes-his-swings-126773.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iheartskins Posted October 14, 2005 Share Posted October 14, 2005 I hope that's Mussina's wife! :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walking Deadman Posted October 14, 2005 Share Posted October 14, 2005 It pays to be famous....even if your Ponson apparently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chomerics Posted October 14, 2005 Share Posted October 14, 2005 Man, followed some of th links. . . Check out this article on A-rod, totally ripps him apart. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1208/is_15_229/ai_n13651324 lex Rodriguez scores on Hideki Matsui's bases-loaded double, and Gary Sheffield follows him down the third base line, ready to give the Yankees a 5-0 lead in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series."Run him over! Run him over!" Rodriguez yells at Sheffield, imploring him to barrel through Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek. Sheffield scores, and Varitek turns to Rodriguez. "You would never do it," Varitek replies sneeringly. The incident reveals two Rodriguez traits that infuriate oppolents--his irritating rah-rah act and his perceived pretty-boy approach. Then there's the biggest reason Rodriguez is openly disparaged by his peers: Many view him as a phony whose polished media act is anything but sincere. The focus on Rodriguez is as intense as ever as he enters his second season with the Yankees, one year after The Trade. His adjustment period over, he needs to reclaim his status as the best player in the game to satisfy the rising expectations of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Denigrated by several Red Sox players early in spring training, Rodriguez has become the central figure in the biggest rivalry in U.S. sports. And with the Yankees playing the Red Sox in six of their first nine games, he's facing another opportunity to solidify his reputation in pinstripes. Continue article Advertisement save up to 70% At a time when some of the game's biggest stars are under scrutiny for their possible use of performance-enhancing drugs, criticism of Rodriguez's personality seems almost trivial. Yet even though Rodriguez maintains a squeaky-clean image, the attention he is drawing for peripheral issues threatens the appreciation of his Hall of Fame talent. Rodriguez, who will turn 30 on July 27, dismisses such talk. He says he has received ample praise throughout his career, adding that disapproval from the Red Sox and others "doesn't matter." But his agent, Scott Boras, acknowledges that Rodriguez was eager to please during his first season with the Yankees, giving credence to the impression that Rodriguez, at times, was less than genuine. "When you come to New York and you're there with an established team, playing with people you respect, it's like walking into someone else's home," Boras says. "You're going to be on your best behavior. You're not there to put your feet up on a chair and be yourself. You're there to learn the landscape of the home. Then, when the mortgage comes and the house is yours, you know more about who the person is." The question is whether that day ever will come. Yankee Stadium, The House that Ruth Built, now is The House of Derek Jeter. Rodriguez is a superior defensive shortstop, but he moved to third base upon joining the Yankees to allow Jeter to remain at short. Jeter, the Yankees' captain, is a four-time World Series champion. Rodriguez, playing for his third team, hasn't been in a World Series. The difference in how they are perceived is illustrated by the plays that defined them in 2004--Jeter's startling dive into the stands to catch a foul ball in a July 1 game against the Red Sox and Rodriguez's desperate attempt to slap the ball out of Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo's glove in Game 6 of the ALCS. "People in the media and fans don't get the look that we get on the field," says Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, perhaps Rodriguez's most outspoken critic. "There are things he's done and said that I've heard--I've seen--that I have a huge problem with, and I think other guys do, too." Judging from the views of former teammates, opposing players and rival executives interviewed for this story, Schilling appears to be right. When asked about Rodriguez, players often roll their eyes in silent disapproval. During Rodriguez's tenure with the Rangers, he occasionally would make like a Little League coach, shouting basic instructions at his younger teammates. "Get a secondary lead!" he would yell to a runner on first. "Get a secondary lead!" After Rodriguez left the team, one prominent American League veteran asked a younger Ranger with a chuckle, "How are you even able to play without A-Rod telling you what to do?" That same veteran speaks disdainfully about the way Rodriguez and Jeter race each other to the top step of the dugout to congratulate teammates and celebrate important plays. He makes Rodriguez sound like a know-it-all valedictorian, observing sarcastically, "He's trying to be the perfect player." And yet, like every other player, he holds Rodriguez's game in the highest esteem. In comparing Rodriguez and Jeter, the veteran says A-Rod is "10 times better." Rodriguez grew up idolizing Cal Ripken, hanging a poster of the Orioles great on his bedroom wall. Ripken, 6-4 and 225 pounds, proved to Rodriguez and other tall, strapping youngsters that they could play shortstop. Rodriguez still patterns himself after Ripken, mimicking several of his on-field mannerisms, not to mention his off-field diplomacy. But Rodriguez hasn't yet engendered the universal admiration Ripken received throughout his career. Jealousy almost certainly fuels part of the distaste for Rodriguez. Few thought of him as disingenuous until he bolted the Mariners in December 2000 for a record 10-year, $252 million contract with the Rangers. After three last-place finishes, Rodriguez politicked his way to the East Coast, landing with the Yankees, baseball's most storied franchise, after a trade to the Red Sox fell through. Ripken spent his entire career with the Orioles, often taking below-market contracts to remain with his hometown team. Though he was certainly image-conscious, hardly anyone thought he took himself too seriously or accused him of being artificial and overcoached. Such are the criticisms that dog Rodriguez. At times, he gives the impression he is Boras' Frankenstein creation, a superstar hatched in a laboratory and programmed by computer. Ripken, by contrast, seemed more grounded. He began staying in separate hotels from the rest of his team for security reasons during his pursuit of Lou Gehrig's consecutive-games record, an idea that grew out of hand when other Orioles followed suit. Certain teammates resented him over the years, but most revered him. Though Ripken exerted far more influence on the Orioles than he would admit, he carefully avoided the appearance of putting himself above the team. He never pursued direct access with his team's owner, the way Rodriguez did with the Rangers. If Rodriguez wants to be like Ripken, he's losing that battle to Jeter, too. Jeter is as bland as Ripken in his public remarks, rarely offering the media anything of substance. Rodriguez, on the other hand, infuriated his peers in the off-season when he boasted about beginning his workouts at 6 a.m. He disparaged his former Rangers teammates before last season by referring to them as "24 kids." He also spoke dismissively of Jeter in a 2001 article in Esquire. In a sense, Rodriguez is in the same no-win situation as many players who make themselves accessible to the media; Schilling, for example, routinely gets himself in trouble for being glib. "If you say the truth, you're a jerk. If you're political, you're a phony," Rodriguez says. "You tell me--what's the right thing to do? All I really care about is guys who have been around me for a long time, guys who go to war with me--my teammates, my manager. Anything else is a nonissue." That includes criticism from the Red Sox, who took turns teeing off on Rodriguez earlier this spring. "You can't take three or four guys and say, 'Well, that's the notion of what this guy is all about,'" Rodriguez says. "You've got to go deep into former teammates, former managers and do your homework if you want to come up with what someone is all about. Former trainers. Former clubhouse kids. It just can't be whoever you choose to talk to and create a story." Jerry Narron, Rodriguez's first manager with the Rangers, would talk baseball with Rodriguez for long periods after games. He recalls feeling sheepish when the two would emerge from the clubhouse at 1 a.m. and Rodriguez's future wife, Cynthia, would be waiting. "I didn't see anything phony about him," says Narron, now the Reds' bench coach. "Not one thing." Buck Showalter, the Rangers' current manager, says be would take back Rodriguez in a minute, but given the friction that developed between the two--and the team's success after Rodriguez departed--Showalter probably is being kind. The Rangers do not view Rodriguez fondly. Third baseman Hank Blalock imitated Rodriguez's glove slap in mocking fashion in an early spring training baserunning drill. First baseman Mark Teixeira, without naming Rodriguez directly, joined the chorus condemning him for his comments about his 6 a.m. workouts, telling a Dallas-Fort Worth reporter, "Everybody works hard in this game." Rangers players nicknamed Rodriguez "The Cooler" last season, a wry observation on how he cools off every team he joins. Even shortstop Michael Young, perhaps the Rangers player with whom Rodriguez was closest, admits the team chemistry improved dramatically after Rodriguez was gone. "The pieces just didn't fit. I don't know why," Young says. "Once we kind of got the new wave in here, it played to our strengths--being a super-aggressive team, going out every night trying to win a ballgame." The presence of a superstar on a young team can be suffocating, even if the superstar sets as positive of an example as Rodriguez by always playing hard. As one Ranger says, "It was always Alex Rodriguez and the Texas Rangers"--a source of discontent for a team that had several players approaching stardom. The Rangers benefited last season from the more earthy leadership of veterans such as Brian Jordan and Eric Young, who scolded their younger teammates after the club was swept in June in Cincinnati. Jordan and Young were more a part of the mix. The Yankees are a different type of team, a collection of player-corporations who largely go their own ways. Yet, there is a certain ethic about the club, one forged by the mainstays of the championship years--Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Joe Torre. "Do the job day to day, don't make excuses, be a blue-collar player," pitcher Mike Mussina says. "If you come in with the opposite style, it can backfire on you." Rodriguez did not offend Yankee sensibilities, Mussina says, but the expectations for him last season were so high, "everyone already was breathing down his neck." The past tension with Jeter immediately became a point of interest, even as Rodriguez accommodated him by moving to third. The two coexist but hardly appear to be close friends. Though the Yankees declined to respond when the Red Sox criticized Rodriguez--in contrast to their public support of Jason Giambi, who testified to a grand jury that he used performance-enhancing drugs--it would be mistaken to suggest that Rodriguez is isolated in the Yankees' clubhouse. Some players, in fact, find him easier to talk to than Jeter. Yet the Yankees, by most accounts, remain Jeter's team. "I don't view it that way," Boras says. "When you play on a team, there are additions to the house, but they're all under one roof. Certainly, Alex's wing is under construction. No question, these two great players understand that their success or failure is linked to one another. Anyone who knows baseball and looks on these next six years with the Yankees will understand that these guys are linked at the hip." If that's the case, then perhaps Rodriguez simply should concentrate on doing what he does best, which is playing baseball. His 2004 performance--.286 batting average, 36 home runs and 106 RBIs--fell below his standards. He also went 2-for-15 in the final four games of the ALCS as the Yankees blew a 3-0 series lead. Rodriguez says he is much more comfortable this season. Steinbrenner has encouraged him to be less deferential in the Yankees' clubhouse, even to Jeter. But perhaps the last thing Rodriguez needs is to become more outspoken, especially with so many questioning his sincerity. "He should let his game do the talking," one A.L. general manager says flatly. No one could criticize him then. RELATED ARTICLE: At the start, the Yankees have better starters. A Red Sox official, citing his biggest concerns entering the season, listed complacency and relief pitching. He failed to mention the rotation, but in that area perhaps more than any other, the Red Sox are weaker relative to their biggest rivals, the Yankees. During the offseason, the Yankees became the first team since the 1903 New York Highlanders to acquire three pitchers who each had won at least 15 games the previous season: lefthander Randy Johnson and dghthanders Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright. The Red Sox countered the free-agent defections of righthanded starters Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe by adding lefthander David Wells and dghties Matt Clement and Wade Miller. Wells started opening night in place of Curt Schilling, who's injured, and lasted 4 1/3 innings in the 9-2 loss to the Yankees. His rocky performance was partly attributable to cold weather. But with Wells, who will turn 42 in May and is lax in his conditioning, you never know when the end might be near. The Sox's three new starters could improve on the combined 4.59 ERA that Martinez and Lowe posted last season. But if they can't match the 399 2/3 innings logged by those two pitchers, managerTerry Francona might be forced to overwork his bullpen--leading to the same scenario that doomed the Yankees last season. The Boston rotation finished with the third-highest innings total in the American League in 2004, working 65 1/3 more innings than the Yankees' starters, who ranked eighth. Johnson, 41, alone might correct that imbalance--he worked six strong innings on opening night and has thrown at least 244 innings in all but one season from 1998 through 2004. Both rotations face age and injury concerns--Schilling, 38, and Yankees righthander Kevin Brown, 40, opened the season on the disabled list. But given the inconsistencies of relievers from season to season, the Sox also are concerned that their bullpen could go backward. Righty Mike Timlin is 39, lefty Alan Embree 35. Two additions, righties Blaine Neal and Matt Mantei, did not distinguish themselves on opening night. The beauty of this rivalry is That the teams are practically mirror images, and for every question about the Red Sox a similar one exists for the Yankees. But everything starts with the rotations. The Yankees passed on Wells mostly because they did not trust him. And it was Wells who started for Boston--and flopped--on the first night of the season.--K.R. The Outsider OPENING DAY These days, who knows where hockey editor Paul Grant will show up next? Ah, yes, Opening Day (note: reverential capital letters). It's the time of year when buds blossom, grass grows and, for baseball fans everywhere, hope springs eternal. Eternity--wait, doesn't that describe the baseball season? They say the hockey season is long, but the people who say that don't like hockey to begin with and are just crabby. C'mon. What pro season, other than the NFL's, isn't too long? Yet everyone rhapsodizes about baseball's magic, about how the glorious national pastime epitomizes sports in their purest sense and should last forever and ever, Kevin Costner and Ray Liotta shagging flies in an eternal dusk-orange day. Sure, there's nothing like being a lifelong Brewers fan and seeing your playoff hopes dashed by this Friday. "Hey, can't wait to see who won that key Royals-Devil Rays matchup. What are they, a combined 97 games back? Now that's drama!" Yes, I know about the wild-card berths. Ooh, hold me back; that means eight teams in the playoffs instead of six! My team now has about a one-fifteenth better chance of playing a significant game after July. Be still, my heart. Summer is supposed to be about fun, right? Vacations from the routine? When it comes to baseball, call me in September. Best read in a while :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skinned Posted October 14, 2005 Share Posted October 14, 2005 Arroyo is with a smokin hottie, but is he dating college chicks?? Ratty apartment with bunk beds??? C'mon sugar daddy, get your woman some new digs! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissU28 Posted October 14, 2005 Share Posted October 14, 2005 I knew there was a reason i wanted to marry mike mussina when I was 10. He's STILL hot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
semiskin Posted October 14, 2005 Share Posted October 14, 2005 A-rod is a total media whore. And there is no better example than when everybody thought he was going to the Red Sox, and he was talking all that crap about how great the Sox were and then when he went to the Yankees he was he was praising the Yankees and talking crap about the Red Sox. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofluid Posted October 14, 2005 Share Posted October 14, 2005 So that's what a 6 year, $88 million contract gets you in the groupie department? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boss_Hogg Posted October 14, 2005 Share Posted October 14, 2005 It pays to be famous....even if your Ponson apparently. you can even look like Jabba the hutt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhostofAlvinWalton Posted October 14, 2005 Share Posted October 14, 2005 A-rod is a total media whore. And there is no better example than when everybody thought he was going to the Red Sox, and he was talking all that crap about how great the Sox were and then when he went to the Yankees he was he was praising the Yankees and talking crap about the Red Sox. I think you menat to say that the Sox were talking about how great A-rod was and then he went to the Yankees and all of the sudden A-rod wasn't so great. Revisonist history. :doh: When I think media whore, I think Curt Schilling! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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