Congratulations to Veruca Salt, uh, I mean the Yankees...

Well it finally happened. Congratulations. Welcome to the 21st century.

After an offseason of spending an unprecedented $500 million dollars, obtaining the 3 biggest free agents available, all while compromising an entire neighborhood and taxpayers, they did it.

Yankee fans are again beaming. But how does it feel to beat a hollow chest?

After not making the playoffs for the first time in a long time, the new Steinbrenner’s were embarrassed enough into spending a fortune in the offseason. This gluttony reared its ugly head at the same time many Americans were struggling and out of work. Great timing boys. If you didn’t think it was possible for more people to loathe the Yanks, well, keep telling yourself that.

All that aside, winning a championship is very difficult. Just ask the Phillies who had to twice trot out a Pedro Martinez we let go five years ago. But quite frankly, it would have been a monumental blunder if the Yanks didn’t win it all this season. Girardi would have been tarred, feathered, and probably banned from the state of NY forever. Cashman would have been handed his walking papers, and George probably would have stroked out.

Now you can say that there are many teams - including the Sox - that are considered “the have’s”. However, the Yanks still outspend this “group” by $70-$80M every season. If you haven’t figured it out yet, the Yankees are the “rich kid” of the class that everyone loathes. They get what they want simply because they have money.

“I want an Oompa-Loompa NOW Daddy!”

Oh, but you ask why is this year different if the payroll is the same? Well smarty pants they were able to grab the top 3 free agents on the market which included a #1 starter, a #2 starter, and one of the best hitters in the league. Who can’t win a championship by doing that?

The Yanks have screwed the pooch in prior years by overpaying all stars on the back 9 of their careers, and typically grabbing one big free agent per year. Those contracts are crippling especially in those players last couple of unproductive seasons. This trend isn’t going away. But the Yanks have enough money to survive these bad deals on the back end. If any other team had these resources, the additional $70-$80M per season would be spent on 4-5 all star and/or impact players. Who couldn’t win with that much talent?


No, but really, enjoy it. Who knew it was the most expensive trophy on the planet?

It's a Steroid Spring Training...

Is apologizing for steroid use now a right at Yanks spring training? For three years running it’s been Giambi’s puzzling speech, a contrite Pettite, and now a less than believable A-Rod. Made you forget all about Jaba’s DUI huh?

It can’t get much lower can it? After spending $430M in the offseason you would think things would be looking up. There won’t be any business as usual in Tampa. Cashman was quoted as saying "If you want to use the analogy that this is Humpty Dumpty, we've got to put it back together again." Girardi is the one with this daunting task, and don’t be shocked to see him go if things aren’t going well. The questions will keep coming especially when they travel to a new city. Think there will be any tension in the clubhouse? Yikes.

Some may argue that the support shown by some of the players will help galvanize this squad. I would normally agree, but that only works if they like the guy they are supporting. If the questions keep coming, distraction and resentment will build.

Through all of this, the bottom line is that A-Rod is not believable. He’s a transparent phony. The more he speaks, the less credible he is. He does not deserve credit for admitting and apologizing. There was no other choice. Just ask Clemens, Bonds, and Marion Jones. While he wouldn’t have their legal issues, he would be just as vilified.

There are many parts of his news conference that just don’t make sense. The “young, naïve, and stupid” thing just doesn’t fly as he was 26, 27, and 28 in those seasons. He heard that “Boli” was an energy boost you could get over the counter. But “captain contradiction” first stated he didn’t think he did anything wrong for all these years. But shortly after said he knew he wasn’t taking tic tacs and that it could potentially be wrong. So which is it?

Boli supposedly accounts for the Primobolan (steroids) but you also tested positive for testosterone. So what else did you take?

You told Gammons last week you didn’t know what drugs you took, so what made you remember Boli & Ripped Fuel all of a sudden?

If you didn’t think it was banned or wrong, why were you so terrified to ask or consult anyone?

If you weren’t sure it was working or being administered properly, why did you continue to inject twice a month for six months over 3 seasons?

How often did you take the drug that tested positive for testosterone?

Are the things available “over the counter” in Mexico or the Dominican available in the US?

Does this cousin really exist?

Even Yanks announcer Suzyn Waldman was a skeptic. She said A-Rod won’t even eat a snickers or a cookie. But not investigating a substance he’ll inject himself with is something that just isn’t believable. Cashman was blunt about the young and naïve comment, stating his actions were simply stupid. Johnny Damon’s best attempt was that he didn’t commit murder. Not exactly dazzling support on the home front. Just ask the NY papers what they think...

For those of you clamoring about the remaining 103 players, they will all come out in time. Just doing the simple math, there would be between 3-4 players from each team in the majors. So if you think your favorite team is in the clear you are kidding yourself. Remember too that the Mitchell Report listed almost 90 players associated with HGH, steroids, testosterone and other banned substances. Don’t be surprised if a fair number of them are included in the 103. So the number of new names might not be as dramatic as first thought.

There are many reasons why everyone is picking on A-Rod. The Katie Couric interview probably did the most damage. Torre’s book painted him as a version of Single White Female in his pursuit of Jeter. His journey through the tabloids has been ugly, and he’s widely thought of as a phony. He tries to hard to fit in and doesn’t. It’s truly a sad commentary for a guy that had the world at his feet.

So if you are asking will we be as harsh to “one of our own” if the names come out, the simple response is “no”. It will also depend on how the player responds to it. But A-Rod has provided a blueprint of how not to do it. You have to think that anyone following him will learn from his mistakes.

A lot of you just want to move forward which is understandable. But the problem remains that players are still cheating. There currently is no test for HGH and probably for other designer drugs. The league needs to implement blood testing. It should be stored and when tests become available via technology, the samples should be retested. Until then, people will still be cheating and A-Rod is the figurehead.