May 10 - Van Gundy Pulls Hammy Backpeddling

Would someone put out an All Points Bulletin on Jeff Van Gundy right now and notify the highway patrol in Fantasyland to keep an eye out for a punkish bald guy with grocery bags hanging under his eyes. I would add that our suspect is also hobbling as the result of a hamstring injury he incurred while back-peddling from some recent statements that recently made the news. In case you missed it, JVG crapped the bed yesterday with some comments that were intended to clarify some recent criticisms he lobbed at the NBA and its referees. JVG had claimed that he was told by a NBA “official” who was not working the playoffs that the league’s referees were targeting Yao Ming in the Houston-Dallas series. Most interpreted this comment to mean JVG had been tipped off by a referee. After al, what other kind of official doesn't have to work during the playoffs? NBA Commish David Stern clearly felt as much and he responded by fining JVG a hundred large for implying that a playoff series was fixed. So what did JVG do in response? Well, he claimed yesterday that his original comment was misconstrued since the “official” in question was not a referee, but was instead a league official who presumably works in the same offices as Stern. You don’t need to bring in the sniffing dogs to know that dump on JVG’s lap is freshly minted bullshit. The country hasn’t seen back-peddling as tortured as this since Kerry tried staking out a position on the war. Does JVG honestly believe the public will be persuaded by this clarification? And what purpose does the clarification serve? Will the public’s trust in the league be improved because JVG heard the fix was in from a front office type rather then a referee? What difference does that make? And why should Stern feel better about this issue post-clarification? Is there really any difference between one of his referees ratting him out or the guy down the hall doing the same? If I had to guess, I would say one of two things is happening here. First of all, it is possible JVG made this whole thing up and this latest incident is just a poor attempt to clean up the mess. Secondly, he was telling the truth in the first place and this latest incident is merely a transparent attempt to repair his relationship with Stern. I would guess the truth is probably somewhere in the middle and I now have my dogs working the case.

I can’t believe I forgot to include my thoughts on John Rocker in yesterday’s column but his comments are so deserving of ridicule that I will use one of my “better late then never” exemptions on this occasion. I am actually surprised this news didn’t attract more media attention, but Rocker was at it again this weekend. For those of you who missed it, Rocker basically compared his plight to that of Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron. I will paraphrase here since I can’t find the original quote: “I am tired of taking so much shit. I realize guys like Jackie and Hank took a lot of crap early in their careers, but no one has ever had to take as much shit for as I long as I have. This has been going on for six or seven years and I am tired of it.” Wow. This is simply off the charts. Rocker has never had trouble convincing the world he was an idiot, but he gets the lifetime achievement award with this one. The funny thing about this comment is Rocker actually demonstrated some understanding of history by alluding to the trouble Jack and Hank went through while integrating the game. But what he lacks is any perspective of what their effort truly entailed and for that he deserves ridicule, embarrassment and condemnation. This comment is so asinine it barely deserves any analysis. I think it goes without saying that Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron had to put up with extraordinary amounts of bullshit during their careers. Those guys are legitimate American heroes and it has nothing to do with what they did on the baseball field. John Rocker, on the other hand, is a national disgrace and it too has nothing to do with anything he did on the playing field. This most recent outburst is clearly the highlight on Rocker’s resume. I, for one, didn’t have too much problem with what he said a few years back about the seven train and the folks you might find on that mobile cesspool. Was Rocker stupid for saying what he said? Probably. Did it demonstrate that Rocker is nothing more then a dumb Cracker? Of course it did. But in the grand scheme of stupidity, those comments barely moved the needle in my book. This most recent comment not only moved the needle - it broke the machine.

Notes from the NL: Roger Clemens now has more wins then any pitcher alive after he notched his 330th last night with a 2-1 victory at Florida. I still can’t believe this is the same guy who went 40-39 for Boston from 1993-1996. Last night, he threw seven scoreless and his ERA is now just a touch above one. A.J. Burnett drew the short straw for Florida last night and took the hard luck loss after he gave up two runs over seven. It took 13 innings, but San Diego stayed hot with a win over the horrendously bad Reds. Jake Peavy was pretty ordinary for Los Madres last night, but they did get shortstop Khalil Greene back and that should help Mama’s mediocre offense. Meanwhile, Ken Griffey is on a tear right now as he is 18 for his last 53 with three bombs and 12 RBI. His numbers are still punk, but he is making a run at respectability. Word now has it Grif is going to pair up with Venus and host a drive time show over at WKRP. The Phils won 4-2 at Milwaukee last night as Chase Utley launched two solo bombs. Jim Thome was having a horrible season for the Phillies but his replacement – Ryan Howard – is just one for his last eighteen. The Phils can’t win with either the white guy or the black guy so maybe its time to go Asian. The Mets Mike Cameron his been on fire since coming off the DL, as he is hitting over .500 over his first five games. If the Mets want to move him, the time is obviously ripe; but if he is going to hit like this, why trade him? Don’t look now, but with Mike Piazza hot, the Mets suddenly have the most potent offense in New York and that includes both the Jets and the Giants. The same cannot be said of the Cubs who are really struggling. If Derrick Lee reverts to the mean, this team is going to starve for runs. Mark Mulder has obviously fixed those problems that plagued him last year as four of his last five starts have been terrific. He struck out a dozen over seven last night and for the season, he has only given up two bombs over 50 innings. Albert Pujoles supplied all the juice St. Louis needed last night as he jacked two and drove in four. He is on the verge of passing Derrick Lee for the lead in the NL MVP race. Look out for Marlin Angel Cabrerra who is in the lead pack and running smoothly. Agent Mulder pitched a lot better last night then his old teammate Tim Hudson who got lit up at Coors. Brad Hawpe is quietly having a nice year in right for the Rockies. Could Hawpe, Clint Barmes and Garret Atkins be a budding nucleus? I doubt it but I thought I would say something nice about the Rockies today. You can’t say Livian Hernandez doesn’t earn his paycheck every start for the Nationals. He went out last night and threw 123 pitches over seven innings while picking up his fifth win. How many teams would die for this innings-eater. Guys, you missed your chance because the Nationals are no longer a routine seller at the trade deadline. D.C. leadoff man Brad Wilkerson strikes out way too much, but he is slugging .500, hitting .300 and has scored eighteen runs. Those are pretty heady numbers for a guy nobody has heard of outside of the Washington Beltway.

Airmail from the AL: Break up the Yankees who have now won three in a row. Last night, Randy Johnson gave a game effort, although he was far from his old dominating self. Tino Martinez, the guy who is singled out in Three Nights in August as being the biggest prick in baseball, has been on fire of late. Who would have thought that cat would have seven blasts at this juncture. Giambolic went 0-3 last night and he is about three hitless nights away from being released even though he is owed more then $70 million dollars. Danny Cabrera gave the Birds eight shutout innings last night while Miggy continued on with his march to the AL MVP award. It will be interesting to see how the Birds handle Radke and Santana over the next two days. I have watched the A’s a bunch over the past few days and I actually feel sorry for these guys. They just cannot muster any offense, especially with runners on third. Wakefield didn’t pitch well last night, but he did enough to pick up his fourth win in five decisions. Johnny Damon extended his hitting streak and now has nineteen RBI from the leadoff spot. The reason for this is really quite simple – he has the highest batting average in all of baseball with runners in scoring position. Kevin Millar actually jacked one for the Sox last night but more on that clown later. Only 13,000 turned out in Toronto to watch the Jays thump the Royals, but it looked like the number was closer to 8K. The Jays are willing to do just about anything to jumpstart Vernon Wells including dropping him in the lineup. He responded with a couple of knocks last night. The Royals are now stuck at 8-24 – that plays out to a forty win season and a step closer to contraction. Detroit looked like they were ready to begin a long slide late last week, but have now won three in a row to right the ship. Last night’s shutout win over Texas. It is a good thing Detroit didn’t hit one of those bids for Urbina since it now looks like Troy Percival is going to be out for a while. John Lackey gave the Angles a decent outing last night, but as I wrote yesterday, this Angels offense is more sluggish then a Southern California freeway at rush hour. They were shutout last night by Kevin Millwood who gave up just a single hit over eight. The Angles started four guys last night who finished the game hitting under .200. What is this – girls softball? Not only does this team strikeout a lot, but they are dead last in the AL in drawing walks. You think anyone in that organization has ever even heard of Moneyball?


It was reported last night that Red Sox Kevin Millar, Billy Mueller and Mark Belhorn have agreed to throw five dollars a day into a charity pool until one of them hits a blast. Five dollars? What kind of outlay is that? If these guys went Jackless for the next 100 days, some lucky charity is going to receive a not so impressive $1500. I sure hope NESN misreported that number because that is pretty damn embarrassing for three guys who make $3.5, $2.5 and $2.75 million per year respectively. I don’t know about Mueller but as far as the other guys go, it may be smart to save their money since there is no telling whether they will ever be paid to play baseball again after this season. If these guys wanted to be charitable, Belhorn would donate $1000 per strikeout, Millar would chip in $1000 per broken bat foul and Mueller would cough up $1000 for every game he misses due to that balky knee. Such a bet would raise some serious coin. Guess what – Millar hit one out last night so some Boston Charity is in line for a $15 payday.

With the Oakland Athletics mired in the doldrums, Oakland Tribune Columnist Carl Steward asks where is Michael Lewis now? Lewis, of course, wrote the best-seller Moneyball, which chronicles how Oakland GM Billy Beane built a highly successful team on a tight budget. The morale to Moneyball is that certain evaluative methods are outdated and teams can be better assembled using new analytic metrics. For instance, Lewis writes about how Beane is consumed with guys who have high on base percentages, believing that having high on-base guys is much more important then having guys who simply slug home runs. Well, Beane now has neither. His team is entirely crippled at the plate as the stats show. This team is last in the AL in runs, slugging and extra base hits while it is tenth worst in Beane’s coveted On Base Percentage category. Double B has been baseball’s golden boy for the past five or six years, but this year, things seem to have fallen apart. It started this off-season when Beane let Jermaine Dye walk and traded two of his arms – Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder – for a bounty of spruced up journeymen. Dye was probably leaving anyways and I don’t fault Beane for making the trades since both his pitchers were bound to leave over the next two years, but it looks like he failed to get what Oakland needed in return. I am not sure the pitchers Beane got in return for his two guns won’t pay dividends in the future, but what was needed right now were a couple of bats. I am not saying he could have got Atlanta to part ways with Marcus Giles in exchange for Hudson, but he sure should have tried. Without getting any bats in return for his two big guys, Beane is now stuck with a lineup devoid of power or speed. He has big holes in the corners of his outfield and his one legitimate deep threat – Eric Chavez – is dying without proper protection. The funny thing is Oakland is still getting good pitching without Mulder and Hudson, meaning some offense would go a long way towards helping this team in the win column. So now there are calls for Beane to trade pitcher Barry Zito for a bat, preferably one that comes from the right side. Beane should have thought of that when he still had good chips to trade. You won’t see Lewis writing that story anytime soon.