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…

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Via the AP -

Along with a new uniform, Jose Reyes is getting a new look.

The All-Star shortstop, who has let his dreadlocks grow since 2007, planned a nationally televised haircut Friday on the MLB Network.

Reyes left the New York Mets in December for a $106 million, six-year contract with the Miami Marlins. His new team has a rule prohibiting hair below the helmet line.

Reyes planned to have a barber from the Bronx perform the haircut at the MLB Network studios. Network spokeswoman Lorraine Fisher said the trim will benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Southern Florida, which planned to auction the hair on eBay.

Other players who have had to cut their hair to comply with team rules include Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon when they joined the New York Yankees.

I cannot imagine who would want to own any of these locks.

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$6,000? That’s nothing compared to what Kei Igawa got from Cashman. The story via the AP -

A woman stalked and shook down New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, getting him to pay her $6,000 and demanding more by threatening to harm his reputation, prosecutors said Thursday.

The case represents “a long-term effort to control and manipulate the victim,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eric Iverson told a judge as Louise Neathway, 36, was arraigned on grand larceny, stalking and harassment charges.

Her lawyers said Cashman had had “an inappropriate relationship” with Neathway, a medical sales worker and single mother of a 14-year-old daughter, and he turned on her when it ended badly.

“The Manhattan district attorney’s office bought his account of how this happened, hook, line and sinker,” lawyer Stephen G. McCarthy said. He and fellow Neathway lawyer Alan M. Abramson said Neathway denied the allegations.

Cashman said through spokesman Chris Giglio that he is “very grateful that this matter is in the hands of law enforcement.”

The Yankees declined to comment.

Neathway — who has a history of arrests on similar charges, prosecutors said — sometimes called and texted Cashman more than 10 times a night and threatened to harm someone he knew, prosecutors said.

After he told her last April that he didn’t want to talk to her anymore and even changed his contact information to avoid her, she asked him to pay for a $15,000-plus medical procedure and threatened to contact the press and his family with claims that would hurt his personal relationships and professional standing, according to a court complaint.

In response, he put $6,000 into two of her bank accounts Jan. 18 and tried again to extricate himself, but she instead demanded more money for operations, the complaint said.

A British native who also goes by Louise Meanwell, Neathway has a record that goes back to a 1998 trespassing arrest in North Carolina, Iverson told a judge. She’s still on probation stemming from a 2008 trespassing conviction in a New Jersey case that involved allegations of stalking and sending someone as many as 200 text messages in a weekend, and she has an open 2010 Manhattan harassment case, Iverson said.

McCarthy noted in court that the Manhattan case had been put on track to be dismissed, and he suggested prosecutors were making too much of the New Jersey case.

As for the current case, “it would be unfair to all of the parties involved to speculate about what occurred,” he and Abramson said in a written statement.

Neathway was being held on $300,000 bond. Her next court date is Tuesday.

And, Deadspin offers another angle here.

Does all this make Brian Cashman “Steve Phillips minus the hair”?

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No, it’s not the name of my rotisserie baseball team for 2012…

It’s just a story that the New York Yankees will have to deal with…or ignore…

At the least, it suggests that the buzz last summer was not someone blowing smoke.

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Via Newsday -

The Mets expect to sell 10 minority shares of the team by the end of February, a person familiar with the process said Monday. The units, priced at $20 million each, would raise $200 million for the cash-strapped franchise and be used to pay existing loans and operating expenses for 2012.

It previously was believed that the Mets would close on a minimum of four units by the end of January. No reason was given for the new timetable or whether the closings would take place at the same time. None of the potential investors has been revealed. Major League Baseball has been involved in vetting the partial owners.

Earlier this month, principal owner Fred Wilpon expressed optimism about the process, but the Mets Monday had no comment on when the new investors will be in place.

Initial proceeds of the sales, those involved in the transaction have said, are earmarked to pay a $25-million loan the Mets obtained from MLB in November 2010 and a $40-million bridge loan from the Bank of America in the last quarter of 2011. The concept of selling up to 40 percent in smaller shares came after negotiations with hedge fund manager David Einhorn broke down last September over control issues.

General manager Sandy Alderson said the team lost $70 million in the 2011 season. It recently hired CRG Partners, a bankruptcy and financial turnaround consulting firm, to assist in fiscal matters. The team has said it will not seek bankruptcy proceedings.

At this point, the Mets should just have a Lotto thing…sell 400,000 chances at $500 each and then pull a winning ticket from the bunch. If your ticket comes up, then you own 40% of the team. It may be the best way for them to get the $200 million that they need…

…and, yes, I am joking…sorta/kinda.

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Really.  Here’s the story.

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Well, he knows the town…since his father played there.

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Here is the story.

From a baseball fan perspective, I totally get it. Why not go for the total reboot when they switch leagues? However, if I were a fan of the team, I think I would be upset over this possible change. They’ve been called the Astros for the last 47 years. That’s a lifetime for some fans. Granted, it’s not the greatest name ever for a baseball team. But, it’s been their name for almost a half-century. It’s hard to sweep that under the rug.

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Now, this is a great idea.  Every major league team should do something like it.

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Sean Forman will be on Clubhouse Confidential on the MLB Network. He is taping this afternoon and is pretty sure it will be broadcast tonight. The show typically airs 5:30pm and 7:30pm ET. Check it out!

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The vote:

Barry Larkin 495 (86.4%)
Jack Morris 382 (66.7%)
Jeff Bagwell 321 (56.0%)
Lee Smith 290 (50.6%)
Tim Raines 279 (48.7%)
Edgar Martinez 209 (36.5%)
Alan Trammell 211 (36.8%)
Fred McGriff 137 (23.9%)
Larry Walker 131 (22.9%)
Mark McGwire 112 (19.5%)
Don Mattingly 102 (17.8%)
Dale Murphy 83 (14.5%)
Rafael Palmeiro 72 (12.6%)
Bernie Williams 55 (9.6%)
Juan Gonzalez 23 (4.0%)
Vinny Castilla 6 (1.0%)
Tim Salmon 5 (0.9%)
Bill Mueller 4 (0.7%)
Brad Radke 2 (0.3%)
Javy Lopez 1 (0.2%)
Eric Young 1 (0.2%)
Jeromy Burnitz 0
Brian Jordan 0
Terry Mulholland 0
Phil Nevin 0
Ruben Sierra 0
Tony Womack 0

Brad Radke got two votes?

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Here is the story.

No word if we can expect a Torre/Verducci book entitled “The MLB Years” now that Joe has moved on to his next quest.

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This is very sad news.

I didn’t really know Greg.  But, from what others are saying, seems like he was a really nice guy and a great baseball fan.  And, whenever we lose someone with those qualities, too soon, it’s very, very, sad news…indeed.

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Via the Post –

Kobe Bryant can be credited with an assist to Alex Rodriguez.

According to multiple sources, the Yankees third baseman recently followed a recommendation from Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers star, and traveled to Germany for an experimental therapy called Orthokine on his bothersome right knee.

The innovative procedure was performed on Rodriguez — with the Yankees’ blessing — within the last month, according to one source. The Yankees first cleared the procedure with the commissioner’s office to avoid the appearance that Rodriguez might be receiving impermissible treatment.

Rodriguez, the source said, would not have had the procedure without the Yankees’ permission. Last season, the team was blindsided by a report that pitcher Bartolo Colon had undergone controversial stem-cell treatment.

Orthokine involves taking blood from the patient’s arm and spinning it in a centrifuge, a machine used in laboratories to spin objects around a fixed axis. The serum is then injected into the affected area — in this case, Rodriguez’s knee.

Bryant underwent the same treatment last summer to try to strengthen his right knee. He also reportedly had the procedure done in October to treat a chronic left ankle ailment.

It remains unclear if the procedure actually works long-term.

“A lot of athletes I’ve talked to really think this stuff works, but we really don’t have a lot of scientific knowledge behind it of exactly what’s happening,” said Dr. Jonathan Glashow, the co-chief of sports medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital.

“It’s a great way to reduce inflammation and therefore pain, and that’s the essence of it. I think a lot of the athletes who have wear-and-tear on their knees benefit from this. You do it for a while and if it doesn’t stay good you do it again in a few years.”

Rodriguez underwent surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee in July, but returned to the Yankees’ lineup for the stretch run.

Now playing third base for the Yankees, number twenty-six, Eduardo Nunez, number twenty-six…

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Via Deadspin -

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s top investigative reporter, Nancy Phillips, has written a story containing what we’re told are allegations of child molestation against sportswriter Bill Conlin, a longtime columnist at the rival Daily News. Conlin resigned just moments ago, according to a source at the Daily News.

Conlin, who turns 78 this May, won the J.G. Taylor Spink Award last May. The story supposedly will drop soon (the newspapers are published by the same company, sharing some resources and a website but otherwise competing for a number of the same readers). Conlin has hired an attorney to defend himself against the piece. We’ll have more details on this. For now, we can tell you that Conlin is at his condo in Largo, Fla.

Pop singers, sports coaches, and now sports writers…the world is a scary place.

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I guess you don’t have to keep your eye on the sparrow after all?

Via the Times –

Barry Bonds, baseball’s home run champion, avoided a prison term Friday when Judge Susan Illston sentenced him to 30 days of house arrest, 2 years of probation, 250 hours of community service with youth groups and a $4,000 fine for providing evasive testimony to a federal grand jury eight years ago.

Bonds’s lawyers stated their intention to appeal, and Illston agreed to stay the sentence through the appeal process.

The sentence is in line with those Illston, who presided over Bonds’s perjury trial in April, has handed down to other similarly convicted athletes. Bonds, wearing a dark suit, a white shirt and a silver tie, did not react to the sentence, which was substantially more lenient than the 15 months of incarceration recommended by the prosecution. His mother, Patricia, sat in the front row of the packed courtroom.

Afterward, Bonds hugged several people in the hallway outside the courtroom, then departed the courthouse without commenting. He had likewise declined to speak when Illston asked him if he wanted to address the court before she issued her sentence.

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Via Folio -

In a move to expand its traditional sports portfolio, GrindMedia (a division of enthusiast publisher Source Interlink Media) acquires Baseball America magazine and accompanying properties. Baseball America’s original staff will remain in the magazine’s Durham, North Carolina-based offices.

Norb Garrett, SVP group publisher with GrindMedia, says Baseball America is a strategic fit for its “sticks-and-balls” portfolio. SLAM, a basketball-focused title, is under this umbrella as well. “Our target audience is 18- to 45-year-old males. The opportunity presented itself for us to add a brand with great capability,” says Garrett.

Baseball America produces 26 issues yearly (in print and digital), and has an average circulation of 32,300. The acquisition includes Baseball America’s book series, with titles like Prospect Handbook (which serves young amateur ball players looking to turn pro). “These properties in the printed form, and the opportunities in the digital form, will not only continue; we hope to expand them. We are also looking to deepen and expand their digital footprint, through video and other offerings,” says Garrett.

Baseball America’s revenue and terms of the deal were not made available.

“It’s our intent to carry on the business and not simply add depth from a strategic standpoint, but also a capability standpoint,” says Garrett. “We want to help expand what Baseball America means to the baseball audience, and to build their media properties by layering our capabilities on their team.”

I’ve been reading Baseball America for over 20 years. (I have all their Almanacs going back to 1992.) I love their paper and I hope this news doesn’t lead to any undesirable changes in their product. That would be a shame…

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And, he’s giving them out, too.

Personally, I’d rather pay a fortune to Steiner Sports to get one rather than playing hide the Jeterian Salami with the Captain. But, to each their own…

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Via ESPN -

National League MVP Ryan Braun, who last season led the Milwaukee Brewers to their first division title in nearly three decades, has tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug and faces a 50-game suspension if the initial finding is upheld, two sources familiar with the case told “Outside the Lines.”

Major League Baseball has not announced the positive test because Braun is disputing the result through arbitration.

A spokesman for Braun confirmed the positive test Saturday and issued a statement: “There are highly unusual circumstances surrounding this case which will support Ryan’s complete innocence and demonstrate there was absolutely no intentional violation of the program. While Ryan has impeccable character and no previous history, unfortunately, because of the process we have to maintain confidentiality and are not able to discuss it any further, but we are confident he will ultimately be exonerated.”

USA TODAY reported Saturday night that Braun said of the test result: “It’s B.S.”

The 28-year-old Braun had to provide a urine sample for testing during the playoffs, and he was notified of the positive test sometime in late October — about a month before he was named the National League’s most valuable player.

The positive result was triggered by elevated levels of testosterone in Braun’s system, the sources also told “Outside the Lines.” A subsequent, more comprehensive test revealed the testosterone was synthetic — not produced by Braun’s body.

Every individual naturally produces testosterone and a substance called epitestosterone, typically at a ratio of 1-to-1. In Major League Baseball, if the ratio comes in at 4-to-1 or higher during testing, a player is deemed to have tested positive. The sources did not indicate how high above the threshold Braun’s sample tested.

To affirm the results and strengthen its case, MLB asked the World Anti-Doping Agency lab in Montreal, which conducts its testing, to perform a secondary test to determine whether the testosterone spike resulted from natural variations within Braun’s body or from an artificial source. The test indicated the testosterone was exogenous, meaning it came from outside his body.

Matt Kemp wants a recount.

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Via Jerry Crasnick –

The Tampa Bay Rays have reached agreement with rookie pitcher Matt Moore on a guaranteed five-year, $14 million contract, according to a baseball source.

The deal includes multiple club options and could extend to eight years for $37.5 million and buy out two years of Moore’s free agency, the source said. It includes escalator clauses based on innings pitched and games started that could raise the overall value to $40 million.

The Rays plan to announce the contract at a news conference Friday afternoon, sources said.

Moore, a 23-year-old left-hander, has emerged as one of the elite young prospects in baseball. He went 12-3 with a 1.92 ERA in 27 starts for Double-A Montgomery and Triple-A Durham this season, striking out 210 batters and walking only 46 in 155 innings. Late in the minor league season, ESPN Baseball Insider Keith Law ranked Moore as the No. 2 prospect in the game, behind Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper.

Moore was dazzling in a September call-up to Tampa. He struck out 11 New York Yankees in a five-inning start, and allowed only one run in 10 innings in two appearances against Texas in the American League Division Series.

Moore’s deal continues a long-term pattern for the Tampa Bay organization, which has long taken an aggressive posture in trying to lock up players with little or no service time. The Rays have worked similar contracts with outfielders Rocco Baldelli and Carl Crawford, pitchers James Shields and Wade Davis and third baseman Evan Longoria since 2005.

Interesting move. The guaranteed money over five years is not that much. So, there’s not a ton of risk for the Rays. And, if it all works out, they get to keep him off the Free Agent market for a couple of years.

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Report: Albert Pujols to sign with Angels for 10 years, $250 million

Sort of like when Jimmie Foxx went from Philly to Beantown?

From 1901 to 2011, Younger than 31, Bats RH, sorted by greatest Adj. Batting Wins:

.

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Mark Buehrle, Marlins agree to deal.

In terms of age, throwing hand, and accomplishments, Buehrle is a special pitcher.

See: From 1901 to 2011, Younger than 32, Throws Left, Requiring ERA+=115 and IP>=2400, below:

.

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The Yankees have won the negotiating rights for Japan’s Hiroyuki Nakajima. Other notable Japanese infielders to play major league baseball:

.

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Here’s the story. 

Guys to throw 4,000+ innings in the bigs since 1901:

.
Red Ruffing is in the Hall. So, Kitty has a case to be there too.

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Joel Sherman on the Red Sox hiring Bobby Valentine -

Bobby Valentine, who makes lifelong friends and enduring enemies in near-equal numbers, has reached an agreement to become the Red Sox manager, completing a process that for most of its duration did not include him. That, in itself, speaks to the current condition of the most neurotic team in the majors.

The Red Sox have become the George Steinbrenner Yankees, and now they have their Billy Martin, a combustible manager as likely to throw the organization into further chaos as he is to bring championship glory. Valentine is ingenious and inflammatory, and his greatest detractors would add insincere.

But his supporters — and I fall much more into this subset — recognize Valentine is a brilliant tactician, as good an evaluator of talent as there is in the game, a maestro at deploying the strengths of a full 25-man roster, a tireless worker, an independent thinker and a competition junkie. He also is a riveting personality, a human carnival who doesn’t do boring.

The Red Sox, who are pretty darn interesting, just went off the scale by employing the most polarizing figure in the game. And this hire turns the division into the new Big East.

Me? Valentine has not managed in the majors since 2002. He’s never managed a team that has finished first in the major leagues – ever. And, in 15 years of managing in the big leagues, his teams won 90+ games only twice.

Hey, maybe he will do well in Boston? But, let’s not make him out to be Billy Martin…because he’s not.

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Interesting words from Ken Rosenthal on the new baseball CBA -

The deal got done, and that fact overrides every other. As the NBA will learn, labor peace alone carries great value, helps a sport achieve continued growth.

Unfortunately for baseball, low-revenue teams got trampled in its new collective-bargaining agreement, trampled in a way that raises genuine concerns for their future.

“We are headed for massive problems in the next CBA,” one general manager said Tuesday night. “Competitive balance is going to get progressively worse.”

We’ve heard it all before, but the GM isn’t crying wolf, even though the addition of a wild-card team in each league will create greater opportunity for all.

The new restrictions on spending in both the amateur draft and international market are daggers to low-revenue clubs, robbing them of two of the few advantages they had.

Of course, if GMs are upset – and many of them are – they have only their owners to blame. The owners and commissioner Bud Selig wanted meaningful cost controls. Their goal of “hard slotting” for the draft – predetermined signing bonuses – would have been even more restrictive.

As one player agent pointed out, it’s a borderline miracle that a sport with such vast payroll disparity – $200 million at one extreme, $35 million at the other – can pull off a functional deal at all.

That’s the larger point, and it’s important for even the most disgruntled to remember. But if competitive balance is truly the goal, then this agreement is indeed a step backward.

Maybe baseball is OK with that. Maybe the dominance of the big markets – even with revenue sharing – makes the sport healthier overall. But tell that to all the clubs that now will face even more of an uphill fight, particularly as high-revenue teams secure one mammoth local TV deal after another.

I think baseball’s logic here is: The “Amateur Market” carries great risk. So, to protect ourselves from over-spending on that risk, we’re putting these new provisions in place. And, kids who always wanted to play baseball will still sign in order to chase their dream. And, if that means we need to lose some “prospects” to other sports, then, so be it.

I can see the logic in that last part. Name one NBA, NFL or NHL player who would have been a star in baseball if MLB could have locked him up. Michael Jordan was a star in the NBA. He was not MLB level talent. Ditto Danny Ainge. See also: Deion Sanders.

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Greg Halman was killed today. He hit two homeruns for the Mariners this season. That would put him right behind Dernell Stenson, Thurman Munson and Ray Chapman for most homeruns hit by a player in the season where he passed away. Here is the list prior to today -

.

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Via Forbes –

After watching the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Dodgers crash and burn from too much debt, you’d think Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig would be clamping down on excessive leverage and keeping a closer eye on teams abusing baseball’s debt rules.

Apparently not.

According to ESPN.com, the Mets could be increasing their debt, currently well above $400 million, by as much as $140 million. It all depends on whether the new investors want to use their funds to buy equity stakes in the Mets or earn 3% annual interest and cash out in six years. If the investors decide to collect their interest than Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, who have yet to pay back MLB for money the Mets secretly borrowed a year ago to meet their revenue-sharing obligations, would have surpassed the Los Angeles Dodgers as the most indebted team in baseball history.

The Mets lost over $50 million this past season as the team won only 77 games and attendance fell 7%. The team is cutting ticket prices for 2012 in an attempt to turn the turnstile tide. But if Wilpon and Katz lose National League batting champion Jose Reyes to the Marlins there will likely even be less supporters at Citi Field in 2012.

If that happens 3% becomes more of a problem than a solution.

A half a billion in debt?

Ah, the joys of mortgaging your future.
– Bart Simpson
Sittng under a tree by a creek during school.

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Via the Times -

Major League Baseball’s owners and players are close to completing a new collective bargaining agreement that for the first time will include blood testing for human growth hormone, according to two people in baseball briefed on the matter. The testing will be a significant step for baseball, allowing it to move ahead of other professional sports leagues, including the N.F.L., in confronting the troublesome issue of a drug that has long evaded detection.

The bargaining agreement, which could be announced early next week, calls for blood testing to begin in February, when players report to spring training. Players who test positive will face a 50-game suspension, which will be the same as the first-time penalty for a positive steroid test, according to the two people.

Baseball will be the first of the major North American professional sports to do any type of blood testing for drugs among their unionized players. In 2010, baseball introduced blood testing for H.G.H. on minor league players because the step could be taken without the consent of the union.

It would have been nice to see this ten years ago. But, better late than never.

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Via USA Today -

Two wild card teams will be added to Major League Baseball’s playoffs no later than 2013, the same year the Houston Astros will begin play in the American League.

Commissioner Bud Selig announced Thursday that baseball’s owners unanimously approved Jim Crane as the Houston Astros’ owner. As part of his agreement to buy the club, Crane will shift the Astros to the AL after 2012, creating two 15-team leagues.

“It’s a historical day,” said Selig, whose new format ensures that an interleague game will be contested “from opening day on.”

Selig did not offer specifics on the schedule or playoff format, but said his committee for on-field matters favors the one-game playoff among wild-card teams in each league, saying it would be “dramatic.” The additional wild cards could be added for the 2012 season, but will be in place by 2013 for sure.

While I like the idea of having two wildcards in each league – and then having them fight it out to see who plays in the LDS, assuming that’s the plan here – I hate the idea of playing an interleague game everyday. At this point, why not just do away with the league splits and just have one big “major league” (since that’s what it’s becoming anyway)? Then again, those in favor of this will say that the NFL is working, and the Super Bowl is huge, look at that, etc. And, I see where that has a valid point.

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