Newsday (N.Y.): Braden says feud with A-Rod is "a done deal, a dead topic"

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

OAKLAND, Calif. -- In the clubhouse Saturday before the Athletics hosted the Tampa Bay Rays, Oakland pitcher Dallas Braden signed a couple of dozen photo cards as requested by the team public relations department. A couple of hours later, he figuratively signed off over his verbal battle with the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez.

"It's a done deal,'' Braden insisted, "a dead topic.''

A few days earlier, Braden again took some verbal pokes at A-Rod and - responding to an interviewer's question - implied that he might want to take a few actual ones the next time they meet.

It all stemmed from the April 22 game at Oakland. Almost all the way to third after a foul ball by Robinson Cano, Rodriguez returned to first by cutting directly across the diamond, stepping on the mound and breaking one of baseball's unwritten rules -- at least in Braden's mind.

Braden -- who grew up in Stockton, maybe 80 miles east of the Bay Area, where he ran with a tough crowd -- yelled at A-Rod and later told the media, "That's my pitcher's mound. If he wants to run across the mound, tell him to do laps in the bullpen.''

Rodriguez said he wasn't aware of the unwritten rule and was surprised that someone with so few career victories (17-23 in his fourth major-league season) would challenge him.

Braden, 26, received a supportive text message from the Blue Jays' Dana Eveland, a former A's teammate, and when Braden walked onto the field a week ago in St. Petersburg, Fla., several Rays pitchers applauded the lefthander.

When asked Wednesday about Rodriguez's put-down, Braden said, "I was always told if you give a fool enough rope, he'll hang himself, and with those comments, he had all the rope that was needed. No. 2, I didn't know there was a criteria in order to compete against A-Rod.''

"It was nothing I didn't say the first day," Braden said Saturday. "It just happened to come out two weeks later, so it just sort of rekindled everything."

On Wednesday, when asked if he would throw punches next time, Braden said: "There are things that are going to have to happen. Out of respect to my teammates. Out of respect to the game. We don't do much talking in the 209 [Stockton's area code].''

- - - - - -

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yankees/braden-says-feud-with-a-rod-is-a-done-deal-a-dead-topic-1.1902330
Copyright © 2010 Newsday. All rights reserved.

RealClearSports: Even Yankees Can't Draw in Oakland

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

OAKLAND -- Even the Yankees can't bring the fans to Oakland. Even the sainted Yankees, with their royalty, with their record, couldn't wake any echoes or any interest.

Derek Jeter here. A-Rod there. History and tradition everywhere, but attendance virtually nowhere.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

RealClearSports: Yogi, Wisest Fool of the Past 50 Years

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

LA QUINTA, Calif. -- Steroids? "I don't even know what steroids look like,'' said Yogi Berra. But he knows what baseball looks like. And life looks like. And success looks like.

Lawrence Peter Berra, 84, master of the malaprop, genuine good guy, genuinely great ballplayer, full of stories but not of himself, was talking about everyone from Bob Hope to Mark McGwire.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

RealClearSports: Baseball Defies Predictions of Doom

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

The game died years ago. Isn't that what we were told? Baseball was the echo of another time, men in baggy flannel standing around while the world sped past.

It didn't work on television, trying to cram that huge expanse onto a small screen. And kids who weren't playing video games supposedly were playing soccer, on baseball fields.

But here are the Yankees and Phillies going at it in this World Series in October 2009 as they did in the World Series in October 1950, and Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Howard are being given space in the sports pages equal to that of Brett Favre journeying back to Green Bay.

Sure, it's because of the Yankees, the most famous sporting franchise in North America, a team of wealth, pinstripes and history. The Yanks cannot be ignored. Nor, with this World Series, can baseball.

They had a 13.8 overnight Nielsen rating for Game 1, NFL type numbers, and presumably the figures will be about the same for Game 2, when the Yankees, hailed and hated, tied things up.

Baseball. "You win with pitching,'' said New York's Derek Jeter after the Yankees beat Philly, 3-1, Thursday in Game 2. Always will win with pitching.

The Phils took the first game, 6-1. Always have won with pitching.

Baseball. "Ninety feet between bases,'' wrote the late Red Smith, "is the closest man has ever come to perfection.''

Baseball, a game of axioms and survival. Despite the Black Sox scandal, despite the shutdowns and strikes, despite the despair over steroids, the sport keeps staggering on.

Gene Mauch, known infamously as the manager of the 1964 Phillies, who leading by 6½ games in September lost 10 in a row, told us, "Cockroaches and baseball keep coming back.'' And so baseball has returned in all its glory, old and new.

"Hypnotic tedium" was a description of baseball by Philip Roth, whose canon of work includes "The Great American Novel,'' dealing with the fortunes of a homeless baseball team. But Roth said not until he got to Harvard did he "find anything with a comparable emotional atmosphere and aesthetic appeal.'' Baseball was "the literature of my boyhood.''

The essence of baseball is cumulative tension. Each pitch adds to the question, the doubt. Does Cliff Lee go inside or outside to Jorge Posada? Does A.J. Burnett throw curves or fastballs to Chase Utley?

It's cold in the east. The games start too late -- although not as late as in past years -- and go on forever. But New York and Philly are enthralled. So is much of America.

Baseball is the only team sport not played against a clock. It's the only team sport where a manager hikes to the mound to stall for time, where an argument with an official is not only accepted it's expected -- even if never without positive results --where fans, like Jeffrey Mayer and Steve Bartman, may affect the outcome.

Baseball requires patience and persistence. The most famous cry is not "Play ball'' but "Wait ‘til next year.''

The Yankees have been waiting for some time. The Phillies, on the contrary, are trying to win a second straight championship, and you only wish the late James Michener, who authored dozens of books, could be around.

Michener once wrote a New York Times piece about his flawed love of the Phillies, which began in 1915 when he was 8 years old and continued until his death in 1997. "Year after year,'' Michener conceded, "they wallowed in last place.''

A young literary critic confronted Michener and pointed out, "You seem to be optimistic about the human race. Don't you have a sense of tragedy?''

He answered, "Young man, when you root for the Phillies, you acquire a sense of tragedy.''

The Phillies are no longer tragic. They are involved in a World Series destined to go no fewer than five games and maybe, with luck, six or seven.

The Yankees have the prestige and the bullpen. The Phillies have a high degree of self-confidence. Baseball has an attraction involving two of the country's more passionate sporting cities, which happen to be located 100 miles apart.

Out west they wanted the Dodgers against the Angels, but truth tell this one is better, a team not many people other than baseball purists really know, the Phillies, and a team that because of its $200 million payroll and stars even the non-fan knows, those Damn Yankees.

And remember, you win with pitching.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

- - - - - -

http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/10/30/baseball_defies_predictions_of_doom_96518.html#at
© RealClearSports 2009

RealClearSports: Say Goodbye to the Freeway Series

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

Does this mean there's not going to be a Freeway World Series? Think of all the gas they'll save in Southern California. The kind that goes in the fuel tank, not the type C.C. Sabathia was throwing.

No entertainment personalities. No inside info on the breakup of Jamie and Frank's marriage. No Tommy Lasorda anecdotes. No confusion whether they're the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles or Charlie's Angels.

The Yankees are supposed to be that good, aren't they? A-Rod has the largest contract in history. Sabathia got enough to bail out Wall Street. He certainly bailed out a team that last year didn't even get to the playoffs. Mark Teixeira is earning $20 mil a season, or thereabouts. Then there are Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon, and a cast of thousands.

TV loves the Yankees. Because so much of America hates them. Or did. It was the Red Sox who stepped in for the Yanks as target of our disenchantment the last few seasons. They became the very Evil Empire that the execs in Boston called the Yankees.

The theory here is "In cars, wine and ballplayers you get what you pay for, with exceptions.'' Alex Rodriguez has hit a home run in three straight post-season games, five total. He's acting like a guy who should be getting millions.

Long ago, the Yankees of Ruth, Gehrig and their teammates were nicknamed the "Bronx Bombers,'' a label shortened in the New York tabloids to Bombers. As in Bombers crush Angels. And in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series, they certainly did.

Not a great 24 hours for the folks along the Pacific Ocean. The Phillies rally with two outs in the ninth to beat the Dodgers on Monday night, and then the Yankees do some freeway wheeling, 10-1, Tuesday evening.

A Yankees-Phils World Series isn't quite as glamorous as Yankees-Dodgers or, as the West Coast crazies would have preferred, Angels-Dodgers, but the baseball itself should be fascinating.

One team is the defending World Series champ, the other long has been the template for judging American sports. Arguably the three most famous franchises on the planet are Manchester United, FC Barcelona and the New York Yankees.

In the case of all three, they're the best teams money can buy. But in a way that's incidental. Pack together a lot of star players and it results in success on the field, or pitch, and at the gate or on the tube. Did anyone notice Friday night the Yankees-Angels had a TV rating nearly twice that of Dodgers-Phils?

You sort of wish the problems with the economy were as easily correctly as those with the Yankees. Sign C.C. Sign Teixeira. Pick up Nick Swisher and that's that.

All the agonizing in March, about A-Rod on steroids, about A-Rod undergoing hip surgery, about A-Rod struggling to find his form has quieted considerably.

He's knocking balls into the stands. He's scoring from second on singles. He's playing like a $250 million man.

Rodriguez went from Seattle to Texas to the Yankees, but he's never gone to the top, never been a World Series champion, a point emphasized on the back pages of the tabs.

They've been waiting for a new Mr. October. He's arrived.

Only a week ago, after the Angels and Dodgers swept their division championship series from two very good clubs, the Red Sox and Cardinals, euphoria was on the loose in L.A. and vicinity.

Thirty miles or so from Anaheim to Dodger Stadium. Randy Newman's song "I Love L.A.'' on the radio. Great fall weather. Eat your heart out, Manhattan, while we roll back our sun roofs and roll down Interstate 5.

It isn't going to happen. Not even half of it. No Angels. No Dodgers. Instead it's going to be the very underappreciated Phillies and the very impressive Yankees. Instead it's going to be two teams who have a beautiful blend of pitching and hitting.

Southern California was getting just a bit cocky. The Lakers won the NBA title. USC is no worse than the fifth best college football team in the land (despite what the BCS says). And then the Angels and Dodgers had made it one step from one short drive to a regional World Series.

But unlike so many Hollywood productions, this one will end without the hero getting the girl, or more specifically the two baseball teams getting what they thought they would -- an opportunity to meet for a title.

A bummer. Or should that be a Bomber?

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

- - - - - -

http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/10/21/yankees_on_road_to_series_96510.html
© RealClearSports 2009