Via CBS -

There’s yet another headache surrounding Yankees star Alex Rodriguez — and this one has nothing do to with allegations of doping.

Rodriguez and rapper Jay-Z raised $403,862 in a 2006 celebrity poker tournament to benefit the A-Rod Family Foundation and the Shawn Carter Scholarship Fund, but only $5,090 made its way to various charities, according to the Boston Globe.

Citing Internal Revenue Service records, the Globe reported that Rodriguez’s foundation “gave only 1 percent of proceeds to charity during its first year of operation in 2006, then stopped submitting mandatory financial reports to the IRS and was stripped of its tax-exempt status.”

The foundation still has a website hosted on MLB.com, touting itself as “a non-profit organization dedicated to positively impacting families in distress.” The news section hasn’t been updated since Sept. 5, 2007.

A-Rod’s reportedly mismanaged and not-so-charitable charity was exposed in the Globe’s sweeping review of 50 non-profits run by professional athletes. The Globe also questioned the efficiency of foundations set up by Boston Red Sox starter Josh Beckett, Baltimore Ravens receiver Anquan Boldin, and others.

Non-profit experts say at least 65 to 75 percent of proceeds should directly benefit the organization’s stated mission, according to the Globe.

“Athletes’ charities are subject to many pitfalls because most of them are not trained in how to raise and distribute money, and it’s difficult,” Sports Philanthropy Project executive director Greg Johnson told the Globe. “A lot of them get into expensive golf tournaments and that kind of crap. They can be self-serving as hell.”

It’s all Yuri Sucart’s fault. It’s always his fault…

A non-all-inclusive summary from Pete Caldera yesterday.

(more…)

Via John Harper -

If anything, it showed a rather startling team-wide lack of mental toughness. You can blame some of that on the loss of Derek Jeter to a broken ankle in Game 1, but that’s no excuse for the complete lack of fight with the season on the line.

And while A-Rod blamed two weeks of postseason futility at the plate, saying it “sucked the energy out of us,” another player privately made a far more indicting observation: that the ballclub was affected by the hostility from the fans at Yankee Stadium last weekend.

“I really think the booing spooked a lot of guys,” the player said. “A lot of guys hadn’t been booed before, and they couldn’t believe how nasty it got in the stands.”

Obviously Nick Swisher admitted to being sensitive to such treatment after Game 2, but the player said Swisher was far from alone in his reaction.

“A lot of guys were talking about it in the clubhouse,” he said. “I was surprised by how much it bothered them. I really don’t think they ever recovered.”

If that’s true, well, so much for the big, bad Yankees.

And, in any case, it’s time that GM Brian Cashman considers how poorly this team has played in October, other than 2009, when he starts making decisions about next season and beyond.

Something has to explain how the Yankees seemed a half-step slower than the Tigers in everything they did on Thursday. For that matter, when Mark Teixeira was doing a Jason Giambi impression with his glove at first base, you had to think that neither their hearts nor heads were really in this game.

Afterward Rodriguez basically said not to blame him.

“You can take one guy,’’ A-Rod said, referring to himself, “and say, ‘Let’s blame him, let’s get him, put the coffin on him, knock his ass out.’ But at the end of the way I felt the wind was sucked out of us the last two weeks.”

Rodriguez is probably right about how heavily the overall offensive struggles weighed on this team. Yet there’s no avoiding the obvious here: the last few days made it look and feel as if a divorce with A-Rod should be imminent.

Booing at home  the problem this post-season? Oh, Em, Gee.  Grow a pair, will ya?

Blaming the fans…that is soooo weak.  Ugh.

Via the Post –

Shameless Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez was playing so poorly against the Detroit Tigers Saturday night that he was yanked from the lineup — but that didn’t stop him from trying to score.

After being replaced in the bottom of the eighth inning in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, the highest-paid Yankee openly flirted with a pair of pretty women two rows behind the dugout — even sending them a ball bearing a note asking for their phone numbers, a witness told The Post.

“I watched him flirt with two admittedly very cute young women nearby,’’ the witness said.

Instead of rooting on his teammates as they struggled to stay alive during the tense game at Yankee Stadium, A-Rod, 37, had a ball boy toss the young women a baseball inscribed with a message asking for their numbers.

“Alex was holding a pen and wrote a note on a ball which was thrown at the women by a ball boy,’’ the witness explained.

“The girls, who had already caught two balls, seemed bemused at first and tried to hand the ball to another fan, but other fans noticed the note on it and yelled at them to read it.

“The note asked them to write their phone numbers on the ball and throw it back,’’ the witness said.

“One of the girls, with darker blond hair, wrote . . . on the ball and threw it back at A-Rod, who gave her a big smile.”

“They exchanged a few glances after that,’’ as A-Rod took a powder while a pinch-hitter took his place at the plate.

Raul Ibanez performed under pressure, tying the score in the bottom of the ninth.

In the 12th, team captain Derek Jeter broke his ankle — and A-Rod finally wised up, the witness said.

“The flirtation stopped once Derek Jeter got hurt,” the source said.

The Yanks wound up losing 6-4.

They also lost again to the Tigers 3-0 on Sunday.

Fans sitting behind the dugout at Saturday’s game said they were disgusted after witnessing A-Rod’s shenanigans, which were more befitting a sixth-grader than a serious ballplayer.

“I was absolutely stunned that even . . . A-Rod would not be focusing on such a critical game, supporting his teammates, and was instead more interested in adding another couple of phone numbers to what must be a very, very large collection,’’ one said.

A-Rod’s rep referred questions to a team spokesman, who didn’t get back to The Post last night.

Rodriguez is currently dating wrestler Torrie Wilson.

The joke is on Alex. One of the girls was Louise Meanwell.

And, yes, I am killing.

Here are the Yankees batting stats, this post-season, for the ALDS and ALCS, combined:

.
It is truly amazing how much Cano, A-Rod, Swisher, Granderson and Martin have been terrible this post-season.  And, now that Jeter is out, it only leaves Teixeira, Ichiro and Ibanez as the sole guys who have provided some support this October in the line-up.

Could you imagine what would be happening now if George Steinbrenner were still alive and in his prime?  Kevin Long would have been reassigned to the instructional league during the playoffs.

I suppose that Martin is not a total shock.  For most of the season, he was a joke at the plate.  But, it’s almost impossible to be as bad as Cano, A-Rod, Swisher and Granderson have been this post-season.  Look at their numbers.  Give CC Sabathia a stick and send him to the plate and he could probably do better than the numbers those four have produced so far.

Then again, maybe we should not be shocked with the others as well?

Seriously, A-Rod’s been in a decline for a while now and it has really accelerated this year.  Plus, outside of 2009 – where he had help from the Canadian Dr. Feel Good and the benefit of facing the Twins and Angels who never get him out – he’s always been a bust for the Yankees in the post-season.  So, this should not be a surprise.

And, Granderson, this season, like he was doing in Detroit before he came to New York, turned into Dave Kingman at the plate.  Sure, he can crush a mistake fastball.  But, his swing has more holes to exploit than the Bunny Ranch and these post-season pitchers are having an orgy facing him.

Swisher?  Check the career post-season stats on ‘Lish, The Red Light Clown:

.
Swisher just may be the worst hitter (with a minimum of 100 PA) in post-season history. Therefore, what he’s doing now is what he always does in October: Choke.

And, that leaves Cano.  How a guy can hit six-fifteen in his last 9 games of the season, and then set a major league post-season record for going hitless in 26 straight at-bats, the next minute is beyond reason.  Unless, of course, Cano is the new A-Rod for the Yankees.  And, then, naturally, it makes sense.

For Yankees fans, the good news is that Swisher should soon be gone and Granderson will not be far behind him.  And, for all we know, Cano may leave New York once he becomes a Free Agent.  But, Brian Cashman is the G.M. who brought in Swisher and Granderson.  So, as long as he’s still in charge, their replacements may be more of the same.  And, A-Rod’s not going anywhere, most likely, because of his contract.  (Unless, like he did in Texas, Rodriguez brokers his own deal out of town.)

Then again, maybe  the Yankees will turn this all around this post-season and make all this lamenting seem silly? Just don’t bet the house on it.  Because, if that happens, then that will be truly shocking.

In his last 118 PA, Alex Rodriguez has a BA/OBA/SLG line of .243/.314/.350 (with 31 K’s).

And, worse, overall, on the season, to date, his Slugging Percentage is .426 (in 518 PA).

The Yankees have batted him 3rd or 4th most of this season, when A-Rod was not disabled.

Can they really afford to carry his no-power bat in that spot anymore?

Via the Post -

Injured Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda was busted for DUI in Tampa, Fla., on a busy road early this morning after a cop spotted his speeding, “weaving” Nissan SUV driving without its headlights on, cops said.

The burly Pineda, 23, “had a fixed gaze and his eyes were bloodshot, watery and glassy,” a Tampa police officer wrote after pulling the 23-year-old hurler over at 2:35 a.m. on North Dale Mabry Highway.

“I could smell a distinct odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from his breath, and his speech was slurred,” the cop wrote about Pineda, who was an All-Star in his rookie season last year with the Seattle Mariners.

The Domnican Republic native’s blood-alcohol level was found to be .128 and .125 in two separate readings, according to police records. He was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, and released on a $500 bond from jail shortly before noon today.

Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman told The Post “no comment” when asked about Pineda’s arrest.

Poor Brian Cashman has such terrible luck with pitching acquisitions, doesn’t he?

Some more on the mess Brian Cashman has created, from the Post today -

Manhattan prosecutors have subpoenaed Yankee general manger Brian Cashman’s bank records—which sources say include evidence that he coughed up as much as $20,000 to accused extortionist and purported mistress Louise Meanwell as far back as April, The Post has learned.

Those alleged payments raise the question of whether Meanwell was shaking Cashman down for nearly 10 months — or whether the big bucks were legitimate gifts as part of an affair, as she claims.

Cashman made “several” cash deposits in the range of $4,000 each into the British-born woman’s bank accounts over the last 10 months, a source close to the case told The Post.

Meanwell herself claims she received between $18,000 and $20,000 in the same time frame.

The records sought include handwritten deposit slips Cashman used to personally funnel money into Meanwell’s account.

“His handwriting is on those deposit slips, so there’s no way he can claim he wasn’t giving her this money,” said the source.

Meanwell’s bank records have also been subpoenaed.

And, then there is this also from the Post on the woman Brian Cashman choose to bring into his life -

Former targets of alleged serial stalker Louise Meanwell, men who all lived in the Albany area, said she won’t move on from her obsession with Yankee general manager Brian Cashman anytime soon.

“She’s not done with Cashman. She’s never done,” Meanwell’s former live-in boyfriend, David Sano, told The Post.

“You learn that about Louise. She’s ruthless.’’

The ominous prediction came as Sano recounted a wild, two-year ride with Meanwell that began as a 2001 one-night stand and spiraled into a nightmare that included claims of a pregnancy and abortion, a leaked sex tape, shredded clothing, slashed tires — and a prison stint for Sano after he pulled a knife on her in exasperation.

“She is the most conniving person I have ever met,” Sano said.

Two others — a successful Albany businessman who says Meanwell stalked him “for months” in 1999 and Jason Walker, once an aide to former Gov. George Pataki — echoed Sano.

“She is relentless,’’ said the businessman, whose name is being withheld.

“She was really intimidating and ingrained herself into my life.”

Meanwell, he said, cozied up to his pals at an Albany country club, staked out his home, bombarded him with e-mails and filled his answering-machine tape with messages before he hired a lawyer to stop her.

He described Meanwell as “a multiple personality, where one minute she was a nice, relatively normal person who [could] turn vindictive and evil at any point in time.”

“She was very, very persistent,” said Walker, who was working for Pataki when he dated Meanwell for two months in 2002. He said he bailed out because he couldn’t deal with her constant calls and demands for attention.

How many days until Pitchers & Catchers report?

First, this via the AP -

YES Network television host Bob Lorenz has been charged with drunken driving in Connecticut where police say he was found passed out in his car in his hometown of Westport.

The 48-year-old Lorenz was arrested early Wednesday morning. Police say they found him slumped over the wheel of his car and when they woke him up he drove away slowly and nearly hit a utility pole. Officers say his speech was slurred and he smelled of alcohol.

Lorenz hosts pregame and postgame shows for the New York Yankees and New Jersey Nets. He was arraigned Wednesday at Norwalk Superior Court and his case was continued to Feb. 29.

There’s no phone listing for Lorenz and it’s not clear if he has a lawyer. A Yes Network spokesman declined to comment.

And, then there’s this from the Daily News -

The woman accused of stalking and blackmailing Yankees GM Brian Cashman has injected steroids into the sordid mix.

From Rikers Island, Louise Meanwell claimed Wednesday that Cashman told her he misled federal investigators over what the Bombers’ brass knew of steroid use by players.

Meanwell, who claims she had an affair with Cashman, told the Daily News that Cashman confided to her that he was grilled in June or July by “the feds.”

She said Cashman told her he made it seem like the Yankees had no knowledge of players’ steroid use when, in fact, they did.

Cashman’s spokesman Chris Giglio vehemently denied the accusations.

“These claims are complete and utter fiction, the latest installment of a carefully concocted campaign of harassment now spewing from a jail cell by a person who is being held on serious criminal felony charges of harassment and extortion,” Giglio said.

A friend of Meanwell’s told The News he sent an email to federal investigators advising them of her claims.

The friend said he sent the email to Ron Gardella, chief investigator for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, and FBI agent Brian Jacob.

The email, obtained by The News, went on to say that Meanwell had “specific details” on dates and times that Cashman was aware of steroid use by players.

Both the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office refused to confirm or deny that Meanwell had informed them of her claims.

Cashman was on prosecutors’ witness list for Roger Clemens’ trial on perjury charges last July before Judge Reggie Walton declared a mistrial on the first day of the proceedings in Washington. Walton has scheduled a new trial for April.

I’m sure the Mets don’t mind the Yankees making the headlines with all this “stuff” and taking the spot-light off them and all their problems…

Deadspin shares more details on the story from the other day -

The Yankees general manager’s relationship with the woman in these photos has been known or suspected among New York reporters for years, but has been just too darn shady, complicated, and expensive to pursue, especially at the risk of antagonizing the Yankees.

But now the pictures are out. When these photos were snapped by a private investigator, the woman in them was named Kimberley Brennan, and she was married to a man named Brian Brennan, who had hired the private investigator. The couple, who lived in Westchester, have since divorced, in no small part because of the photos.

How did the story get out, then? We first caught wind of it in 2009, when we were contacted by a source who claimed that word of the Cashman affair was about to break, pending finalization of a deal for a book about famous people and the private investigators who trailed them. We spoke with the private investigator, Tony De Lorenzo, and he confirmed the story was being circulated. But the book deal fell apart, the PI clammed up, and the Cashman affair story never reached the mainstream press, though we’re told a number of reporters around the Yankees knew of it. (When we contacted De Lorenzo two days ago, he had no comment, either.) A number of Brennan’s friends had apparently taken it upon themselves to shop Brian’s story to the New York Post and at least one other New York newspaper, a source tells us. They didn’t find any takers. In August, we received the photos from a friend of Deadspin contributor Pete Nash, free of charge.

Usually, I would not pay much attention to the personal lives of front office personnel – unless they do something unlawful. And, if Cashman wants to do the tube snake boogie with some chick and totally trash his marriage and make things uncomfortable for his children, that’s a call which he has a right to make, on his own, and deal with the consequences.

But, what bothers me with this whole thing – if it’s all true – is that Cashman was messing with a married woman. By doing that, he’s not just messing with his own family, but, he’s wrecking another family in the process. That’s just not cool.

There’s enough loose trim in the world that there’s no need to tap on someone else’s squeeze. That should be a given in the man code. And, if Cashman can’t respect that, then it speaks volumes as to what kind of dude he is…shifty.

I warned you that this stuff was coming. Here’s some stuff from Luis Castillo’s new book, via the Post -

A-Rod irritated the other players because he was so high-maintenance. He required his personal assistant to position his toothbrush on a certain part of the sink, specifically the edge near the right-hand cold water tap, leaning with bristles up over the basin. The first time he ordered me to do this, I couldn’t believe my ears when he said, “And put some toothpaste on it.”

Probably the strangest thing we had to do for A-Rod was lay his clothes out on the table so he could get dressed. You had to lay out these items in a predetermined order: socks at the head of the table, followed by undershorts, undershirt, shirt, pants, and then shoes. I had to carry his clothes from his locker to the trainer’s room, where he liked to get dressed away from the prying eyes of the media.

A-Rod was different in another, childish way that made players laugh behind his back. When you watch games at home you sometimes see players come into the dugout after they hit a home run. If you’ve ever wondered what they’re saying, it’s usually things like “Way to go!” or “Good job!” Not A-Rod. After he hits a home run, he comes into the dugout and brags about it. Usually he’s speaking Spanish to one of the other Latino players, and if he hit a home run he wouldn’t shut up. “Wow, did you see I hit a home run?” he’d say. “That pitcher threw me a ball right over the plate and I smashed it over the fence. Did you ever see anything like that before?”

Even during the rockiest and most difficult years of his being manager, Joe Torre was usually focused and kept his nose to the grindstone. There was only one thing that distracted him from work, however, and it wasn’t women — it was horses.

I found out about this quirk of his during a late-season game. Torre called me over in the dugout, and from the dark look on his face I thought it was something serious. He waited until I was close and then lowered his voice. “Go down to my office,” he said. “I want you to check the score on the Off-Track Betting channel and see who won.” I was stunned. It was during a game! I had never before been asked to leave my post.

“Make sure you find out the exact track and horse,” he added.

I ran down into the clubhouse and found the attendant, Joe Lee.

“Joe, Mr. T just asked me to find out something about which horses won,” I said. “What’s he talking about?”

Lee was chewing gum and looked unimpressed about the whole thing. “Yeah,” he said. “Don’t you know why he’s got that TV in his office? It’s usually just tuned to one channel.”

“What’s that, the YES Network?”

“No, the OTB station.”

Lee led me into Torre’s office and showed me how to decipher the race results. I jogged up to the dugout and gave them to Torre, who grabbed the paper and studied it like his life depended on it. When he had discovered the information he wanted, he turned to Don Zimmer and showed it to him. The older man’s eyes lit up, and before I left they were talking excitedly not about the next batter but the OTB results!

If that’s the worst stuff in the book, it’s pretty mild. However, it will be interesting to see if Bud has any comment on the Torre part.

Via ESPN.com -

Major League Baseball is taking “very seriously” the allegations that Alex Rodriguez took part in some illegal, underground poker games, one of which reportedly turned violent, and he could face suspension if his participation in the games is confirmed.

“We’re talking to people involved in the investigation and we’re taking this very seriously,” said an MLB executive who spoke to ESPNNewYork.com on condition of anonymity. “Because he had been warned about this before, I would say a possible suspension would be very much in play.”

The allegations, first published by RadarOnline.com, are that the New York Yankees third baseman played in at least two of the games, one of which took place at the Beverly Hills mansion of a record executive at which “cocaine was openly used and a fight nearly broke out when one of the players refused to pay after losing “more than a half-million dollars.”

According to the story, details of which were reportedly provided by another player at the games, Rodriguez “tried to distance himself from the game,” once the violence broke out.

“He just shook his head, not knowing what the hell happened,” the whistle-blower revealed. “He didn’t want to deal with it at all. He was like, ‘OK, whatever. It’s your game.’ I would estimate A-Rod lost, like, a few thousand dollars that night. After everything that happened, he paid up and left.”

In 2005, Rodriguez had been warned about gambling in underground poker clubs by the Yankees and by baseball commissioner Bud Selig, both of whom were concerned that possible involvement with gamblers who might be betting on baseball games could result in a Pete Rose-type lifetime ban from baseball.

Various reports have the games under investigation taking place as far back as 2007.

Although baseball’s investigation centers upon Rodriguez’s card-playing and he is not thought to have gambled on the outcome of any baseball games, the fact that he may have disregarded Selig’s warning is said to have angered the commissioner.

MLB is also concerned that Rodriguez’s name will resurface in the ongoing federal investigation of Dr. Anthony Galea, the Toronto physician charged with smuggling human growth hormone and other illegal substances into the United States. Galea has treated numerous professional athletes, including Rodriguez and Tiger Woods.

“It’s like there’s something new with him every day and it’s impossible to keep up with it,” a baseball insider said.

Yup.

On April 23, 2004, when Jose Contreras was getting pounded by the Red Sox, on the YES coverage, Paul O’Neill said something like “You can pitch great against all the other teams, but, if you play for the Yankees, sooner or later, you’re going to have to prove you can pitch against the Boston Red Sox, or you’ll be done.”

After today’s game, you can pretty much say the same thing about the 2011 Yankees.  Sooner or later, they’re going to have to prove that they can beat the Boston Red Sox – and tomorrow would be a great time to start.

Yeah, I know it’s only June.  But, I’m sorry.  Another sweep by Boston this season, at home in the Bronx, will just be too much to take.

Via Mark Feinsand -

Major League Baseball is once again investigating Alex Rodriguez’s relationship with the cousin he admitted two years ago was his steroid mule.

According to a team source, Rodriguez’s cousin, Yuri Sucart, is again traveling with Rodriguez on some road trips, despite being banned by the Yankees from any team-related function or facility. That edict followed A-Rod’s 2009 claim that Sucart provided and injected him with performance-enhancing drugs. Sucart, wearing a Yankee hooded sweatshirt, was spotted at the team’s St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco Tuesday night after the middle game of the Bombers’ series with Oakland. The source also said Sucart has accompanied A-Rod on road trips this year and even last season.

Sucart was spotted chauffeuring A-Rod around in spring training in ’09, prompting the Yankees to ban Sucart from team flights, buses and in restricted areas at stadiums and spring training sites.

“We have been in contact with the Yankees about this matter,” Rob Manfred, baseball’s executive VP of labor relations, told the Daily News Wednesday. “We are looking into it.”

Major League Baseball instituted its own ban of personal trainers and non-team employees before the 2003 season – in part as a security measure in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and in part because clubhouses were rife with personal trainers and hangers-on. The ban does not extend to team hotels nor does it prevent people such as Sucart from purchasing a ticket to a game and watching as a spectator.

Yankees GM Brian Cashman would not comment on the matter when reached at his Stadium office Wednesday.

A-Rod needs a “go-fer.” I get that – especially in today’s paparazzi times. Heck, this is nothing new, actually. Even Dracula needed Reinfeld.

And, A-Rod wants to help his primo by giving him a job – especially after Alex threw him under the bus with the Selena Roberts thing. I get that too.

But, dude, buy your cousin a frozen banana stand on the boardwalk so that he can pay his bills. And, hire someone else to be your butler. This move, of using Yuri Sucart, is just plain stupid.

And, it’s, once again, A-Rod thinking that he’s so big that the rules don’t apply to him – even when the rules were written for him. Gosh, I will celebrate the day this hiney-clown is no longer a member of the New York Yankees.

Via Chad Jennings –

From the bad to the bizarre, Rafael Soriano is going to see Dr. Ahmad tomorrow. His elbow felt tight again this afternoon and he had to cut his bullpen session short. Girardi seemed legitimately concerned about his setup man, who said he felt better today than last week, and who said he felt “a lot different” from his injury plagued 2008 season.

Of all the things he said, though, tonight’s Soriano interview will be remembered for three things, all of them suggesting he skipped the media training session this spring.

At one point Soriano said he had been advised to take a week or two off, but when asked who gave him the advice, he said it was team vice president Felix Lopez, who Soriano had been talking to pregame. The Yankees later clarified that Lopez had been acting as a sort of intermediary for the training staff. Maybe that’s explainable, but two other comments suggest Soriano will need to apologize more than Jorge Posada.

Asked whether it bothers him to not be able to pitch, Soriano threw his lineup under the bus: “I don’t think the bullpen be the problem right now. I think it be the hitters. That thing happens sometimes. Whatever we have to do, make a good game and see what happens. One of these days, everything be better.”

Given a second chance to answer essentially the same question, Soriano was asked how much it’s bothered him to miss games against Boston and Tampa Bay: “Not at all, to me,” he said. “Because in the situation, how the team looks be the situation when I’m supposed to be in the game, the eighth. Everybody see, (the team is) losing two, three runs. I don’t think it be that situation that I would be in the bullpen, that I would be in the game.”

Thank you Hal Steinbrenner and Randy Levine.

In the big picture, in terms of Sunday’s game, this play really didn’t mean anything – most likely. But, when you consider how bad the Yankees have played over their last 12 games, how the heck do you miss a ground ball like that one? To me, it says your heads not in the game. A seven year old could have stopped that grounder – if he was paying attention and applying himself.

The details, via Bryan Hoch -

Alex Rodriguez winced as he paced near third base, staring into his glove with an expression of disbelief, as though he might suddenly find a huge hole about the size of a baseball.

In a week filled with team lowlights, an easy ground ball shooting between Rodriguez’s legs was the capper. The Yankees wrapped up an awful homestand with a 7-5 loss to the Red Sox, their season-high fifth straight.

“Not good,” Rodriguez said. “We can talk about it over and over again; the bottom line is, we’ve got to play better. We’ve got to play winning baseball.”

Rodriguez evoked memories of Bill Buckner’s iconic miscue in the 1986 World Series with his misplay of a Kevin Youkilis grounder that gave the Red Sox an all-important seventh-inning insurance run.

“It seems like when things are going bad, they’re going bad,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “It’s going to turn around.”

We have the Posada thing.  And, we have the team losing 8 of their last 11.  And, they’re set up to be swept by Boston at home.  And, we have so many players on the team not playing up to their reps and/or salary – albeit that not all are sucking and are playing semi-decent.  (See: Teixeira, Mark – who should be hitting more like Votto or Adrian Gonzalez than he is now.)  There’s a lot of things that are just flat-out messed up in Yankeeland right now.  You could say that they seem less organized than a dung fight at the monkey cage in the zoo.

When was the last time, during the regular season, that we saw this much out of control with the Yankees?  Yes, the 2006 ALDS was a low-point.  But, that was October.  When was the last time we saw this outside of the post-season spot-light?  1989 or 1990?  It does seem like a long time…unless I’m just forgetting something more recent.

Who is to blame for all this?  Cashman?  Girardi?  Both?  Neither?  What do you think?

I really hope the MSM picks up this story and the Yankees get nailed to a cross for it.

At this rate, Joe Girardi could sub Charlie Wonsowicz in for Hughes and get the same results.

Reportedly, Rafael Soriano’s new contract with the Yankees represents the fifth highest average salary ever paid to a relief pitcher.  Only Mo Rivera, Brad Lidge, K-Rod and Joe Nathan made more on an annual basis than what New York will pay Soriano.

And, the press conference to officially announce his deal is today at 10 am ET. And, what’s on the YES Network right now at ten AM?   Not the press conference.  Instead, it’s a Yankees Classics game from 2009. Why? Is this not big enough news for YES to carry live? Or, are they trying to hide something here?

At least the Baseball Channel at MLB.com is broadcasting this one.

Update: 10:20 am ET. The press conference finally starts. Levine, Cashman, Girardi, Trost, and Afterman are there from the Yankees front office. Cashman talks first. Basically says nothing for ten seconds and then hands the podium to Girardi.

Girardi gives Soriano uniform #29 and Cashman places a Yankees cap on Soriano’s head. It’s photo-op time.

Update: 10:25 am ET. Soriano speaks. It’s all in Spanish. Yankees have a translator there to help him with the media Q&A. Soriano says he’s happy to set up Mo now but he hopes to be the Yankees closer in the future.

Update: 10:34 am ET. Soriano still doing Q&A. And, I think I figured out why YES is not carrying this one. The presser is about as exciting as being stuck in traffic on Geroge Washington Bridge. Soriano is 31-years old and has been playing baseball in America since 1999. But, evidently, he’s got no ability to speak any English.

Update: 10:35 am ET. Soriano is done. That’s it – Jason Zillo says they will break into groups now in the back of the room for media members to ask questions informally. MLB.com drops the feed. Wow. A whopping 15 minutes. I guess we’ll have to read the papers to get the Cashman reaction to any questions.

Update: 11:13 am. Via Peter Botte – Cashman: “Its not my team. I don’t own it. They do…In any job you better be prepared for every decision to not go your way. I think 29 other GMs would love to have their owner shove Rafael Soriano down their throat.”

Down their throat, or, up their poop chute, Cash?

Bob Klapisch shares the following today –

Javier Vazquez spoke in long, seamless sentences, sticking to his what-me-panic script after a horrific outing against the Mariners on Saturday. But the longer he spent at his locker, the more obvious it became that neither Vazquez nor the Yankees have any idea what’s happened to what was once an elite right-hander.

Vazquez was lifted after three innings, having given up four runs on eight hits. Vazquez faced 18 batters in three innings, 12 of whom hit the ball hard — including three home runs. He continues to live in a pitcher’s purgatory, stripped of his fastball, unable to locate his secondary stuff, glancing over his shoulder after every hit, as if Joe Girardi was on his way from the dugout.

“Man, I wish I knew. We’ve been talking about this for a long time,” Vazquez said wearily when asked for an explanation.

“I’m not locating; I’m not getting ahead; I’m behind in every count,” Vazquez said. He’s right, of course, but there’s more. Vazquez’s bad counts are attributable to his fear of throwing strikes, which stems from fear of contact. That’s what happens to pitchers who’ve lost their confidence.

While no one has suggested Vazquez is hurt, his trendclearly is disturbing club officials. It’s not just the fastball that’s shrunk from its peak 92 mph to 88 mph a month ago to its current lower 80s. It’s the way hitters are loading up against him.

Reading this, all I can think about is all those who wrote, before the start of this season, about how this is not the “Javier Vazquez of 2004″ we were going to see this season; and, about how many, during this season, have opined about Vazquez being a “representative 4th starter” and exactly filling the expectations of what the Yankees had for him this season.

Well, to me, if sure looks like Javy Vazquez, this season, is the same turkey who was pitching for the Yankees in ’04. And, if this is what you expect from your 4th starter in a big league rotation, then I have a used “Brian Moehler” that I would like to sell you…

Via Kevin Kernan -

A-Rod misses team photo, Girardi said he didn’t read the memo

No worries. I’m sure they can CGI him into the picture – as a centaur, of course.  (No word on whether or not it will be possible to CGI his 600th career homer into today’s boxscore ‘tho…)

Now, why everyone else on the team got the memo and Alex missed it…is anyone’s guess.

Via Tim Bontemps -

Left-hander, Jeremy Bleich, one of the Yankees’ top pitching prospects, appears headed for a lengthy stint away from the pitcher’s mound after Double-A Trenton placed him on the disabled list Wednesday with a shoulder injury.

Bleich has been meeting with doctors this week, and surgery seems like the most likely outcome.

Mark Newman, the Yankees’ senior vice president of baseball operations, was downcast when asked about the issues with Bleich’s shoulder yesterday.

“I don’t know,” he said when asked about Bleich’s return. “We’re (still) getting some information back from the doctors … he had more tests (yesterday).”

Bleich, the Yankees supplemental first-round pick in the 2008 First-Year Player Draft, entered the season as the ninth-best prospect in the Yankees organization, according to Baseball America. He was 3-2 with a 4.79 ERA in eight starts this season with Trenton, striking out 26 and walking 28 in 41.1 innings.

The Yankees first three picks in the 2008 draft were Gerrit Cole, Jeremy Bleich and Scott Bittle. Back at the time of these picks, I called it The Great Disaster Draft Of ‘08. And, I still stand by that statement. Here are just some of the prospects that the Yankees passed on to select Cole, Bleich and Bittle: Lonnie Chisenhall, Casey Kelly, Jaff Decker, Anthony Gose and Tanner Scheppers. There’s still hope for David Adams, David Phelps and maybe Pat Venditte turning out to be something from the Yankees 2008 picks. But, man, did they ever whiff on the first three…

Via Tyler Kepner –

The decision not to use Vazquez in Boston, then, is a stinging indictment of a pitcher the Yankees privately believed would perform like a No. 2 starter. Instead, Vazquez will pitch Monday at Comerica Park in Detroit, against a Tigers team that has hit much better than the Red Sox. It reinforces the notion that he cannot handle a big stage.

“When you’re struggling like this in a market like this, it’s louder and it’s harder,” General Manager Brian Cashman said. “It just is. No one’s going to run from it. It bothers him. It hurts. He wants to do right by everybody, and he’s fighting himself to keep doing it.”

Vazquez did not make himself available to reporters Monday, but Girardi said Vazquez told him he wanted to start at Fenway. Girardi said that he understood but that he told Vazquez he believed he would benefit from extra days off.

By starting his second New York stint with a 9.78 earned run average, highest in the league among pitchers with five starts, Vazquez has called into question his stomach for pitching here. It is safe to say the Yankees believed they were past that.

Vazquez is a genial person, but staying hidden from reporters before Monday’s game was not a good sign.

But the Yankees are convinced that Vazquez is so lost that he could not win on the road against a Red Sox team that looks strikingly ordinary. A victory at Fenway could boost Vazquez’s shattered confidence. By not giving him the chance, the Yankees revealed just how worried they are.

“Unfortunately, there’s a clear recognition that there’s some major struggling going on here,” Cashman said. “It’s an opportunity for us to show we’re going to do everything we can, in our power, to fix this on the run.”

You know, at the end of last season, Big League Stew said that “Vazquez’s worst ERA+ years — with the exception of his first two seasons — all came with contenders: the ’04 Yankees, the ’05 D’Backs and the ’06 and ’08 White Sox.”

Maybe the Yankees should have considered that?

Me? Well, when the Yankees made the trade for Vazquez, I wrote:

But, the big thing with Vazquez is: Can he pitch in the American League? If you look at his career, in terms of his component skills, Vazquez is pretty consistent. Yet, for some reason, his bubble-gum card stats, outside of 2007, are much better when he’s in the N.L. than when he’s in the A.L. (where the Yankees play). In the Senior Cicuit, he’s a Cy Young contender. In the Junior Circuit, he’s a league average pitcher. Perhaps it’s the A.L. ballparks that do him in? (By the way, his lifetime ERA while pitching in the Bronx is 7.09 over 6 games.) But, even at his worst, Javy should be good for close to 200 innings pitched and somewhere around 12-14 wins.

And, I really meant that – in that I thought it was fair to expect 200 innings pitched and somewhere around 12-14 wins from this guy in 2010.

Of course, that could still happen…but the clock on that hope is ticking fast…because it sure sounds like Javy Vazquez is one messed up little dude.

Right about now, I’m not even sure that Vazquez could beat a baseball team made out of the Emma Willard School (for girls) May Pole Dancers…and, no, I don’t mean the exciting pole dancers…

Via Michael S. Schmidt –

Federal agents have reached out to several people who have worked for Alex Rodriguez in an effort to learn more about his relationship with Anthony Galea, the Canadian-based doctor under investigation by various federal authorities.

According to two people briefed on the investigation, which is seeking to determine if Galea distributed performance-enhancing drugs, agents want to question people associated with the Yankees’ Rodriguez — particularly the assistants who have handled his scheduling and finances — to determine the number of times he met with Galea, where they met and how much money Galea was paid for his services.

The effort to talk to people connected to Rodriguez comes as he and his lawyers have put off several meetings with federal agents, who have yet to question him about Galea. Those delays have aroused the curiosity of the agents, the two people said, and helped prompt them to contact others in Rodriguez’s circle.

The two people said that the agents looking into Rodriguez have had communications with Angel Presinal, a well-known trainer who was banned from major league clubhouses nearly a decade ago because baseball officials suspected he was providing players with performance-enhancing drugs.

How the agents communicated with Presinal, who is based in the Dominican Republic and has worked with Rodriguez in the past, and the extent of those communications is not known.

Although Rodriguez has yet to meet with federal authorities, he will have to do so at some point, said one of the two people with knowledge of the investigation.

That person and a third individual said authorities plan to subpoena the notes from Rodriguez’s meeting last Thursday with investigators from Major League Baseball. They said the notes from the meeting — which took place in Tampa, Fla., and lasted three hours — would be used to either question Rodriguez as part of an eventual meeting with federal agents or in an appearance by Rodriguez before the federal grand jury in Buffalo that is looking into Galea’s activities.

James Sharp, who is based in Washington and is one of several lawyers representing Rodriguez, did not return a telephone request for comment.

In last week’s meeting with baseball’s investigators, Rodriguez stated that he had been treated several times by Galea after he had surgery on his hip last March, according to several people in baseball with direct knowledge of that meeting.

Rodriguez said that he had been treated by Galea in Tampa and New York after the surgery, which was performed in Vail, Colo. Rodriguez told investigators that he did not receive performance-enhancing drugs from Galea, the people said.

Galea has acknowledged treating Rodriguez, stating in a recent interview with The Associated Press that he gave him anti-inflammatories for his hip last year.

Remember all those times last month that A-Rod said “This is about someone else” when referring to the FBI wanting to talk to him about Galea? Well, now, it sure seems like this is about him too, no? When the feds start to go after your assistants who have handled your scheduling and finances, that tells you that it’s not just about “someone else.”

Anyone else notice that Kevin Russo played third for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre last night – after playing there just 18 times last season? Maybe the Yankees are thinking about a possible Bronx fill-in…in case this thing with Alex really blows up at some point during the season.

Via the AP -

A top New York Yankees executive was charged with driving under the influence in Tampa.

Hillsborough County Jail reports show that Mark Newman, the Yankees’ senior vice president of baseball operations, was arrested Monday night. He reportedly refused to take a blood-alcohol test. He was released several hours later on $500 bail.

Team spokesman Jason Zillo says the Yankees can’t comment at this time.

Newman did not respond to a message left on his cell phone by The Associated Press.

Jail records did not list an attorney.

As I have mentioned before, DUI is a terrible, terrible, crime – in my opinion. It’s inexcusable.

Keith Law said it best three years ago: Baseball needs a backbone regarding DUIs.

Everybody’s talking about Alex Rodriguez, the FBI, and a suspected HGH dealer. Check it out:

Mike Lupica warns that A-Rod better tell the truth this time and not work off a script.

Ian O’Connor writes that Alex Rodriguez’s steroid stain will last forever.

George King notes that when “Rodriguez is involved, even the smallest issue has the ability to quickly grow into a colossal one.”

And, there’s probably much more to come today.

With six, you get eggroll. With A-Rod, you get all sorts of stuff, eh?

Via Sam Borden -

[Brian Cashman] says the notion that the Yankees didn’t “engage” with Damon is just plain false and that, despite media reports that Damon might sign for $7 million a year, he fully expects Damon to get the Bobby Abreu-type money of at least $9 million a year.

“I mean, that’s what they said when they turned down our last offer,” Cashman told me. “I told them I was at the level of two years, $13 million and they said ‘no bleeping way’ and then we even floated the one year, $6 million with deferred money and they pointed to the Bobby Abreu deal. So I fully expect him to get Abreu money, unless they were playing us the entire winter. That would be like playing poker without any hand at all and, you know, maybe they did that.”

“I’m sure in the past, I have, I’ve put some things away but in this case, we did what we could,” he said. “We absolutely did what we could. The information we got from them was loud and clear. We followed Johnny’s guidelines, Johnny’s path. What’s happening now is a lot of spin doctoring by the agent. It didn’t work out. Don’t try to make us look bad or the Yankees look bad. That’s not right.”

And people laughed when Bob Raissman called Cashman thin-skinned…

Brian, it’s over. He’s not going to play for your team. Why even talk about Damon and Boras anymore?

Via John Harper –

First and foremost, it’s obvious that Johnny Damon screwed up a good thing here by allowing Scott Boras to antagonize the Yankee front office with his contract demands even after GM Brian Cashman’s warnings that he wasn’t playing games with the agent.

Damon either let his own ego get in the way of a perfect situation with the Yankees or he paid a price for trusting Boras too much, but in any case he’ll miss his old team more than it will miss him.

Still, that doesn’t mean the Yankees won this standoff. You can make a case that both sides lost, and, indeed, you have to ask whether Cashman allowed some ego to get involved here as well.

Several baseball people say they believe Cashman became furious with Boras’ negotiating tactics, with one person close to the situation saying he once heard the GM screaming at Boras via his cell phone.

In the end, Cashman had the hammer in this negotiation. Maybe by October we’ll know if he used it wisely.

This ties back to what Chad Jennings shared this weekend:

“How long it’s taking certain people to wake up and smell the coffee, that’s what surprises me,” Cashman said. “When you get on the phone with agents, they tell you one thing, and certain agents can’t honestly believe what they’re trying to convey. Do they think I’m stupid?”

Sure sounds like Cashman allowed Boras to get under his skin. Was this a wise move? Like Harper suggests, we’ll see over the course of the 2010 season.