Via the Daily News:

Alex Rodriguez wants to get back in the Yankees lineup ahead of the May 15 schedule laid out for him. If Friday was anything to judge by, that’s going to be a tall order.

Rodriguez continued on his road back from March 9 hip surgery by playing in an extended spring training game between Yankees and Pirates farmhands here at Pittsburgh’s minor league complex. He took seven at-bats, did not play the field and barely ran the bases. That meant no full-speed running, no hard turns and no sliding – all things A-Rod says he must do before he returns.

“I felt good,” he said after hitting a single in his final at-bat to finish 1-for-6 with a walk. “I’m looking forward to playing on the field.”

He did not take questions, perhaps in an effort to duck the uncomfortable ones stemming from allegations in a forthcoming book that he used steroids as a high school player and as a Yankee, and that he tipped opposing hitters on pitches during lopsided games.

To make it back for the Baltimore series that begins Friday, he has only a few days to do a lot. Joe Girardi said that Rodriguez could play a few innings in the field today “if he feels up to it” during an extended spring training game.

The next series begins May 12 in Toronto and the club would have to weigh the pros and cons of playing him on an artificial surface.

“I’m not going to give a date because I don’t want to put any pressure on him,” Girardi said. “I’ve stuck to that, but I’ve also said recently it’s possible we’re going to get him sooner than May 15.”

Girardi agrees that A-Rod is going to have to prove himself running the bases, but added, “Let’s not rush him. He’ll let us know when he’s ready.” On Thursday, Rodriguez sounded apprehensive about sliding.

Back on March 8th, I felt that May 15th was the reasonable expected date of return for Alex. And, that’s looking more and more like it’s still the reasonable date. Perhaps, now, the bigger question is: Will Rodriguez not be near 100% when he returns? And, if he’s at 85%, what does that mean for him and the team? Does it mean he’ll only be able to play a few times a week? Does it mean he’ll need a caddy to run the bases and/or cover third late in a game? If the latter two questions are true, this could be good news for Ramiro Pena (if he’s looking to stick around in the Bronx this summer).

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Sum’ ballgame, huh?

Yanks blow a four run lead with two outs in the sixth to allow the Halos to go up by two when Andy Pettitte just ran out of gas. And, then, in the seventh, Jose Veras – have we seen enough of him? – sets it up for the Angels to tack on three more, putting New York five down with just nine outs left to burn.

When Hideki Matsui grounded out to lead off the eighth inning, with the score 9-4 in favor of L.A., the Angels had a win probability darn near 100%. But, Robinson Cano got the Yankees started after that. And, before you knew it, it was a one-run contest heading into the final frame. That, alone, was an incredible comeback.

And, that brings us to the ninth inning. Mark Teixeira’s walk and Matsui’s hit set it up. Cano, again, got a huge hit. Finally…Hip, Hip Jorge! Posada ends it with the game winner.

This is four games in a row for this Yankees roll. I hope there’s more left in the tank. Of course, because I’ll be at the game on Saturday, there’s always the chance that the air will leak out of the balloon. Just my luck…or so it often seems…law of averages and all.

Back to Robbie Cano…well…is he the Yankees M.V.P., so far, this season, or what? Back on March 7th, I took my daughter to the Lakewood BlueClaws Fanfest. (My son had a birthday party to attend that afternoon.) While we were there, I bought her a Robinson Cano Bobblehead in the gift shop. (Our choices were A-Rod, Joba or Cano. She thought the Chamberlain one looked scary and I advised her that she didn’t want Alex. So, we took Robbie by default.) So, maybe bringing that bobble into WasWatching.com HQ has been a good luck charm? Hey, if it works like this…maybe I should get the kids some more Bobbleheads while we’re in the Bronx tomorrow?

Side note, semi-related to having kids: I laughed out loud during the top of the sixth inning, just before the heavy damage, when Paul O’Neill in the YES booth suggested that John Flaherty’s TV – it was Flash’s TV that they were talking about, right? – was just like “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.” You have to be a parent to appreciate that one. Almost Scooter-like of Paulie to pull that rabbit out of his hat. Nice.

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Gotta give credit where credit is due. There was so much in this one that I never saw coming. Really good stuff. Makes you wonder if the rumor about the movie is true?

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Click here for more information about this entry.

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To watch SNY.tv’s New York Baseball Today, which features a rotating panel of experts, click play below:

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Pete Abe posted this in his blog today -

I stand corrected. A-Rod’s supporters apparently have no trouble whatsoever defending anything he does based on the comments to this post. It’s amazing how everything he did is either somebody else’s fault or simply shouldn’t have been reported in the first place.

Welcome to the world of Yankee Blinders Pete. To quote Elvis:

..Oh, I know it don’t thrill you, I hope it don’t kill you…

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…but, I’m sure he’ll learn to love them, quickly, if he ever hits the free agent market and needs to have it appear that New York is interested in him in order to help his contract offers…

Via the Detroit News yesterday:

With two scoreless innings of relief in the Tigers’ 8-6 loss Wednesday night, Joel Zumaya was back at his best against the team he likes the least.

The Yankees.

When it comes to his opinion of them, there’s just no holding back.

“I can’t stand the Yankees, man, and I’m going to go right after them,” he said after an outing in which he hit 100 mph on the radar gun. “But that’s just part of this game. I’m going to go right after guys.”

When asked by John Keating of Fox Sports Detroit what he doesn’t like about the Yankees, Zumaya said, “there are little things about them I can’t stand. They’re just the Yankees.”

Of throwing 100 mph again, Zumaya said “to me that’s old news. If I pound the strike zone, it doesn’t matter how hard it is.

“I was throwing strikes and if (100 miles an hour) popped up, that’s a real good thing. But I’m just going to try and pound the zone, as I said earlier. That’s going to be my key to success.”

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Andy Kamholz, over at SOTD, gives Yankees fans a little music for their ears today…

…six years and out for the Red Sox big man? Hey, if true, I won’t shed a tear for him…

Click here to read what Andy has to say.

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And, in other news, cigarettes are bad for you, the sun will come up tomorrow, and Morganna Roberts will never fall through an open manhole…

Via the Daily News -

Alex Rodriguez was an insecure prima donna who made a clubhouse attendant load his toothbrush with toothpaste after every game in his three seasons with the Texas Rangers, a new book charges.

The Rangers were also required to send a basket of food to the controversial All-Star’s hotel suite during road trips, Sports Illustrated columnist Selena Roberts reports in “A-Rod.”

Many Texas teammates kept their distance from A-Rod, who they saw as a spoiled superstar. His relationship with other players didn’t improve when Rodriguez joined the Yankees in 2004.

His Bomber teammates regarded A-Rod as a phony and a hypocrite because he tried to project an All-American public image while pursuing a swinger’s lifestyle.

During a series in Texas, Roberts writes, A-Rod went to a sex club while his wife, Cynthia, pregnant with their first child, was at home in New York.

Rodriguez also turned off teammates by bragging about wild nights with strippers – and by making clumsy passes at other players’ wives and girlfriends.

“He would use these corny pickup lines on a guy’s wife,” one former teammate told Roberts. “He just wanted to know that he could, not that he would act on it. Seemed like an ego thing.”

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I’ve been thinking about this since Opening Day at the new Yankee Stadium. So, now, I’m going to pass it along to you…

Last homerun at the “first” Yankee Stadium: Duke Sims, September 30, 1973
First Yankees homerun at the “remodeled” Yankee Stadium: Thurman Munson, April 17, 1976
Last homerun at the “last” Yankee Stadium: Jose Molina, September 21, 2008
First homerun at the “new” Yankee Stadium: Jorge Posada, April 16, 2009

Just what is it about catchers and famous first and last homers at Yankee Stadium?

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Via Phil Mushnick -

Good thing for the Yankees that the economy stinks or they’d have been stuck to blame those rows of vacant expensive seats on something more creative. It’s not as if they were going to admit they made a colossal, greedy-headed blunder in pricing thousands of their better-to-best tickets obscenely high.

So the Yanks this week cut their highest prices, blaming the downturn in America’s financial health for flipping the first month of the new Yankee Stadium from can’t-miss sellouts to look-at-all-those-empty-seats!

But that’s a con, a lie.

The Yanks’ preposterously priced tickets were rejected by longtime subscribers, including corporations, the moment the prices were issued, and that was 13 months ago, before the economy hit the skids. Even those who could afford $850 or $1,250 or $2,500 tickets could not reconcile such spending. When’s a smart time to spend $200,000 on two season tickets?

Those who last season bought $250 premium seats, up from $125 the year before, hit a price wall; neither friends nor ticket brokers wanted them at face value. Thus, 13 months ago, when the Dow was over 12,000 and when the absurd ticket pricing to new Yankee Stadium was issued, the Yanks were self-sentenced by their greed, and no one else’s.

And if I knew it — I daily heard from scores of “That’s it/we’re done” subscribers — the Yankees certainly knew it. So next, the Yanks were forced to hustle up fresh fools at such pricing. But such suckers didn’t exist last year or last month.

The Yanks didn’t get hurt by the economy; they went XXX-L Pig and got slaughtered. They insulted their most giving customers, challenged them to become the big, bigger, biggest suckers. And, like the optician who backed into the lens grinder and made a spectacle of himself, the Yanks became the victim of their own device. And greed, sooner or later, kills.

This story was available a year ago to all who chose to stop, look, listen and multiply. Yet, most media blithely reported the claims of Yankee execs Randy Levine and Lonn Trost: Our big-ticket tickets are selling like hotcakes! Hurry, hurry! Don’t get shut out!

Only after the Yanks’ first few games in their new “cathedral” played to empty suites and thousands of empty seats did the media catch on to a story that was a lock 13 months ago.

Isn’t there a fine line between greed and stupidity? If so, someone in the Yankees front office (Trost? Levine?) derserves a failing mark on their report card for this whole mess, no?

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From the gang at the New York Times -

“A-Rod, The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez” (HarperCollins), by Selena Roberts, asserts that Rodriguez used steroids in high school, took them as a major leaguer under the supervision of the now-banned trainer Angel Presinal, had human growth hormone in his possession in 2004 and was suspected by Yankee teammates of using steroids in 2005, according to a copy of the book obtained by The New York Times. The book is to be released Monday.

The problem for Selig is that the assertions in the book and an account that Rodriguez previously provided to officials for Major League Baseball about his use of performance enhancers may not be consistent. Under Selig’s broad powers as commissioner, he can discipline a player if he believes the player was not truthful or forthcoming in an interview with baseball investigators.

Rodriguez met with investigators in February after Roberts, a columnist for Sports Illustrated and a former reporter and columnist for The Times, reported on the magazine’s Web site that he tested positive for steroids in 2003, when baseball was conducting anonymous testing.

In the interview with investigators, Rodriguez reiterated what he had said publicly after his positive test was revealed. He told them that he used a performance-enhancing substance from 2001 to 2003 and that his cousin had obtained it in the Dominican Republic. Specifically, Rodriguez said that he never received substances from Presinal.

While the book does not state that Presinal either gave Rodriguez drugs or injected him with them, it says that Presinal had direct involvement in Rodriguez’s drug use. The anecdotes about 2004 and 2005, meanwhile, suggest Rodriguez was using drugs in a wider time frame than he described to investigators.

What Selig will do in response to the book remains to be seen. Some of the accusations in the book are based on anonymous sources, and others are simply presented as knowledge the author has without an explanation of how the information was obtained. If Selig decides to pursue the matter, and possibly discipline Rodriguez, he would presumably need to have baseball’s investigators verify the accusations on their own.

…If Selig decides to pursue the matter, and possibly discipline Rodriguez, he would presumably need to have baseball’s investigators verify the accusations on their own…

That last line says it all. An investigation could be done in an amount of time as quickly as three months or it could take nearly two years to be completed. Betcha if Bud decides to take action on this one, he’ll want to make it a quick investigation…at least he should, if he’s smart…

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Ted Keith, over at S.I., has a great feature up where he talks to R.A. Dickey, Doug Glanville and Shane Spencer – who were with the Rangers when Alex Rodriguez was there – about the claim that A-Rod tipped pitches for friends. Here’s a snip:

Shane Spencer, though, was not surprised. Spencer came to the Rangers from the Indians in a July 2003 trade and it wasn’t long after his arrival that he began hearing whispers in his new, divided clubhouse about Rodriguez. “It was brought up. I overheard it but not from specific people,” said Spencer, now a coach with the high Class-A Lake Elsinore (Calif.) Storm. “I think I overheard it in our clubhouse, but that team was really split up — a bunch of groups of threes and fours. It wasn’t a real close clubhouse and guys start talking especially when you’re getting your butt kicked everyday. I remember hearing that.”

The journeyman outfielder said that while he never saw or heard of other players doing that, he wouldn’t have been surprised if Rodriguez wasn’t the only one doing so. “I’m sure it does happen. There are friends of friends. I’m sure there are catchers out there that have told guys what’s coming. Hopefully it didn’t happen [in Texas] and hopefully it didn’t happen that often.”

In a phone interview with SI.com, [Selena] Roberts said that over the course of a couple years, some people with the Rangers began to detect a pattern whereby Rodriguez would appear to be giving away pitch type and location to hitters, always middle infielders who would then be able to repay him in kind when he was at the plate, with his body movement. According to Roberts’ sources, “If it was a changeup, he would twist his glove hand. To indicate a slider, he would sweep the dirt in front of him and he would bend in the direction of where the pitch was going to be, inside or outside.” Roberts’ sources stressed that this only occurred in games that had long since been decided and was done for “slump insurance. You can count on your buddy to help break you out of your slump. There was no intent to throw a game or change the outcome.”

Glanville suggested that perhaps A-Rod’s mannerisms that led to suspicion were actually a way to alert his fellow defenders what pitch was coming next, something the shortstop often does during a game. But Roberts’ sources said that the key difference is when Rodriguez would signal. “The thing Alex would do, and this is the critical difference between signaling your infield as quarterback and giving away the pitch to the hitter, is when you flash the sign. This was done to give the batter plenty of time to see it and figure what to do about it. What would usually happen would be for Alex to do something as the pitcher is in the windup; that way the batter is focused on the pitcher. These signs Alex would flash came before the windup and that made it even more noticeable.”

Interesting stuff. And, you can bet that someone (MLB?) who has access to video tape of blow-out games for the Rangers, played during the time Alex Rodriguez was there, will be checking this all out, soon, to see if there’s anything to these claims. It’s just a matter of time…

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How sweet was it watching Melky Cabrera and Ramiro Pena get those hits in the 8th inning? Pretty darn sweet…for me. Now, that’s fun to root for…

Cool conga night for the line-up. The Yankees 7-8-9-1 hitters, Swisher/Cabrera/Pena/Jeter, were on base 10 times, combined, via a hit or walk in this one. That, plus a gutty hang-in there job by A.J. Burnett for seven innings, gives New York a win in this one. Always nice to beat those Angels…

So, the Yankees end up going 12-10 in the month of April. And, they close the month sitting just two games back of the Blue Jays and Red Sox who are tied for first in the A.L. East. Not too shabby. Just imagine how much nicer this would be if not for that three game set last weekend up in Fenway…

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Via the Miami Herald -

But [A-Rod's high school coach Rich] Hofman knows him better than most, has known him since he was a 15-year-old at Westminster Christian School. He coached Rodriguez and three other future major leaguers to the national No. 1 ranking in 1992. He predicted that Rodriguez would be the No. 1 draft pick and greatest player of his day.

Steroids in high school? Hofman scoffs.

”It’s totally unsubstantiated, totally false, all innuendo, a vendetta,” said Hofman, 64, retired after winning 10 state titles at Westminster Christian and at Westminster Academy in Broward. “We had a close-knit group and in all our conversations, steroids never came up. These kids loved to play baseball. We had a rigorous program and that’s why we were good — we earned it.”

In the book, a former teammate said Rodriguez used steroids (his connection was a dog kennel owner) and Hofman knew it. Another student said Hofman’s son David, who played football with Rodriguez, saw Rodriguez use steroids.

”Totally bogus,” Hofman said.

The only things Hofman saw his players ingest were protein shakes. Those, plus weight training and a growth spurt would explain how Rodriguez gained 25 pounds between 10th and 11th grade, and improved his bench press from 100 pounds to 310.

Hofman said Rodriguez wasn’t the deceitful type.

”Other than the usual tomfoolery, they hung out at Doug Mientkiewicz’s house,” Hofman said.

How does one reconcile Hofman’s belief in Rodriguez with the A-Rod who admitted he took steroids in 2001-2003, but also made the ridiculous claim that he didn’t know what he was taking at the time except that “they weren’t Tic-Tacs”?

He said he stopped after he left the Rangers, but Yankees teammates disagree and nicknamed him for his ample pecs, a condition called gynecomastia often caused by steroids. Watch the YouTube clip of a shirtless A-Rod on the Letterman show. An unnamed player said A-Rod and Kevin Brown were seen with human growth hormone in 2004.

‘Alex called me and said, `Coach, I can swear on a stack of Bibles that there’s nothing to this,’ ” Hofman said.

And, via mlb.com -

Recent accounts from excerpts in an upcoming book that Alex Rodriguez may have turned to steroids in high school were refuted Thursday by Dodgers utilityman Doug Mientkiewicz, who was a teammate of Rodriguez’s at Westminster Christian High in Miami.

“There’s no way,” Mientkiewicz told Yahoo! Sports. “I was with him too much, I was with him for too long. Our team was together, like, 20 hours of the day. Every day.”

The Warriors won the Florida state championship and were USA Today’s top-ranked team during Rodriguez’s junior year.

But Mientkiewicz, who graduated in 1992 and was a year older than Rodriguez, said the Yankees slugger naturally got bigger.

“He also grew two or three inches,” Mientkiewicz said. “You’re talking about a 15-year-old kid who looked really skinny and scrawny. Then he hit puberty and he grew into a man. Everybody goes through it. So now every 13-to-15-year-old kid is going to be accused of this, because he hits puberty?”

It’s funny. Those who want to discredit what’s in the Roberts book often say it’s a case of “he said, she said” and therefore you cannot take what’s in the book as truth. However, could not the “he said, she said” discount logic also apply to what’s being said by people like Hoffman and Mientkiewicz?

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