No Argument for A-Rod

I just need to put this one to rest right now.

Courtesy of www.gannett-cdn.com

Alex Rodriguez should never be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Not now. Not ever. Why? You know it. I know it. The world of baseball knows it.

This will be one of my shortest blogs because there is no argument here.

How are you going to differentiate what he accomplished during his career while he was clean verses when he was drugged up?

You can't. 

The guy did drugs. That will never be Hall of Fame-worthy.

End of story.

How much more heartbreak can a Yankees fan endure?

If you are a Yankees fan, it has been a pretty rough week if you ask me. First, we had all the commotion down to the final minutes of the trade deadline last Monday. Then to end the week, Mark Teixeira broke all our hearts by announcing his retirement from the game of baseball. And then, sitting at the Sunday morning breakfast table, Alex Rodriguez goes and announces his retirement. I am out of breath just typing all of that.

So where do I begin? Teixeria, you will be missed. There is no doubt about that. However, do I blame you? You've been having a subpar season, riddled many injuries (especially now, close to what we hope will be a post-season), and well, you are 36-years-old. Unfortunately, in baseball years, that is almost extinct, almost.

Courtesy of www.bronxbaseballdaily.com

Your poise, your adorable face, and of course that perfect final out in 2009, will be hard to say goodbye to. I'm just happy that we don't have to do that until the end of the Yankees 2016 season (whenever that may be). Unlike your other teammate...

Can we talk about this for a second?

As you all probably know by now, and you better unless you live under a rock, Alex Rodriguez will play his final game of his career this Friday. That's right, this Friday night in the Bronx, A-Rod will step up to bat one final time, will make an out one final time (hopefully), and will call himself a Yankee one final time.

And as for the rest of the games this week? Yeah, still to be determined how many times we will see A-Rod on the field...a little weird, right? I mean he even said it himself when asked about being benched: "painful and embarrassing." YA THINK?

After Friday, Alex Rodriguez will automatically take on a new role: Yankees Advisor. So he may not be taking the field for the rest of the season, but he will still be with the team...could this be because we agreed to pay him, oh I don't know, a couple million or twenty? *cue eye roll*

Enough about that, even though there is still so much to be said.

Courtesy of www.outsidepitchmlb.com

What I would like to wrap it up with today is not just the fact that I am going to be making name tags for the new team next year, because face it, we aren't going to know anyone. But I would like to end with the phone interview Mark Teixeria had with Mike & Mike this morning. After talking about his mark on baseball and the 2009 World Series final out, he, of course, was asked about his teammate's news bomb.

And what he said was something I will never forget:

"I told my boys [his sons] this morning: 'Listen, guys, just because your friends make mistakes doesn't mean you turn your backs from them...' You know when people talk about Alex Rodriguez and me, Alex has been my friend for a long time and he's made mistakes but I am not going to turn my back on him and I am going to continue to support him. Because he is a great teammate and he loves the game of baseball and deep down in there he cares about people, he really does. And I know this is a tough time for him so we are going to be there for him."

*wipes tears*

Procrastination 101: Taught by the New York Yankees themselves

Courtesy of Alexa Paige:
All that I could manage to write on my headline board over the weekend

Let's take a quick trip down memory lane, shall we? Remember back when you were in college and you knew you had tons of work to do. Meanwhile, you still chose to hit the bar with your buddies on a Thursday night because you were the King of Procrastination. Then when you came stumbling home at 2 A.M. it suddenly became the perfect time to start your 10+ page research paper that was due the next day. You send it off to the professor with a smile on your face, proud of your "finest" work.

Well, I am pretty sure this is exactly what the Yankees' front office did this weekend. Went out drinking, blew off some steam, and then suddenly remembered the trade deadline was two short days away. So what did they do? Naturally, they decided it was the perfect time to start making trades...trades that would make jaws drop as the ESPN ringtone resounded from cell phones nonstop on Sunday morning.

"I'm still trying to get over the fact that we traded the best of the best," Betances said (ESPN). 

Me too, man...me too.

It first started with the Aroldis Chapman trade last week, but we know this. I'm over it...really. But now Betances, myself, and the rest of the Yankee community are shaking our heads over the Andrew Miller trade. When you have a relief pitcher with a 1.39 ERA and nine saves for your team thus far in the 2016 season, you can't help but beg the question: what did he do wrong?

Now, of course, there is all this talk about the four, yes four, prospects that the Yankees picked up in the trade: Clint Frazier, Justus Sheffield, Ben Heller, and J.P. Feyereisen. Everyone is all excited and on their high horses because they are young, fresh, and ready to turn this struggling team around. But they are coming from the minor leagues, IN AUGUST.

Don't get me wrong. I know the Yankees are struggling and are acting on behalf of a desperate plea right now. I know we need this. I just don't agree that we needed to do this IN AUGUST, just to try and salvage the hopes of our post-season.

The Yankees are already knee-deep in the mud. You can call on a miracle, but don't think you received it in the form of four men from the minor leagues. This also brings up the point that I don't fully agree with this whole mid-season trade nonsense anyway. You're trading a player to suddenly be sent off to a different team with three, maybe three and a half months to play if he's lucky? Sure, the first baseman will still be playing first base like he knows how. He will still catch the ball, throw the ball, and tag the base like he has been doing all season.

Call me crazy, but there is something to say about team dynamic. And when you do a mid-season trade like this, you can kiss any such thing goodbye. The game is more than just talent; it's about how well everyone works together, on and off the field. That is what is going to take a team from good to great.

So I guess what I am saying is good luck, Yanks. I hope these newly acquired "angels" of yours just meld perfectly into the mold you have created over the past four months. And I know McCann, Beltran, and Nova are all on your radar as well...don't even think about it.

Oh and back to that term paper you handed in. How did that grade turn out? Exactly.