Squawker Jon and I took advantage of Monday’s beautiful weather to head down to Asbury Park for the day. So I missed watching the Yankee game, of course, although we heard the highlights later. (About fifty times, really, given that it took us three and a half hours to get back to Staten Island – everybody in my borough seemed to be coming back from the beach at the very same time!)
Anyhow, bad things happen to other teams when they walk Mark Teixeira to face A-Rod. He’s hit three grand slams that way, most recently that monster shot he hit yesterday. Fellow blogger Greg Cohen of Sliding Into Home compiled a list of all the times this has happened, and the results. And guess what? It never really works out well for the opposition – Alex is “5-for-6 with 3 HR and 18 RBI,” Cohen notes, in those situations. The blog did a good job noting all the numbers, like the one time when A-Rod should have ended the game by making an out ended up with the infamous Castillo dropped popup play!
Speaking of A-Rod, we heard Lori Rubenson interview Ken Davidoff on WFAN on that long, long drive home. She started by praising Andy Pettitte for being so great this year, then mentioned Alex’s grand slam, and criticized A-Rod on the steroid issue. Of course, she never mentioned that Pettitte admitted to using HGH.
This is a real disconnect that I hear a lot, now that A-Rod is heading towards 600 homers, and Pettitte is about to surpass Whitey Ford for most Yankee wins. While I think a lot of the criticism A-Rod gets is silly, I can understand why people might question the validity of his home runs because of steroids. But geez, at least be consistent. As much as I admire Andy Pettitte – he was my favorite player of the late 90s dynasty years – he is just as guilty of PED usage as Rodriguez is. If you’re going to knock A-Rod for it, then you have to give Andy the same sort of treatment. Fair is fair.
But too many people don’t think that way. It’s easier to just pretend that the only juicers in the game were villains like A-Rod, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Manny Ramirez, instead of noting that somebody like Pettitte – one of the classiest, nicest players to ever put on the uniform – also used PEDs. To me, an upstanding citizen like Pettitte being involved makes me think that this problem was even more widespread than has been acknowledged.
Look, I’m not saying Andy should have have to wear scarlet HGH letters on his uniform or anything like that. Just that if you’re having a conversation about the Yankees, and you decry No. 13’s steroid use, you ought to remember what No. 46 did, too.
What do you think? Tell us about it!
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