The Baseball Thought Police are after your mind

When it gets to be August, September at the latest, the baseball mafia dust off their "Mariano is being rested, Joe Torre is really resting Rivera" jingle. No exception this year, & they think you're too stupid to know Rivera leads the majors in IP by late inning relievers, has pitched for 11 consecutive years AND post seasons--you often hear that White Sox pitchers are probably tired from all that post season pitching from 2005. But I've never in 11 years heard anyone allow Rivera that leeway. Last September Rivera saved or won 6 1-run games, pitched 3 days in a row twice in a 2 week period, 6 out of 8 days. Yet Dibs and Dan Graziano from the Star Ledger told you the Yankees used Rivera so lightly that Tom Gordon was getting comparable closing duties. A LIE, but you people never complain, so they keep lying.

• This year's rash of "Rivera is resting" articles is coming out of the xerox machine at breakneck speed. As I detailed on this blog this week, Mel Antonen on Charley's show was going to blow a gasket if he didn't get the point across that Rivera was RESTED. Why did he care so much?
• Then we have 2 days in a row from Newsday, 2 different writers, today from Bob Herzog saying The Sandman Takes a Break. Yesterday from Jim Baumbach, in Newsday saying the Yankees are sneakily and craftily giving the guy a vacation. "That's why the Yankees sat him down for six consecutive days last week.," he says. A LIE.

• "Sat him down for 6 days?" Pal, he's logged more IP than any other closer, plus has pitched for 11 consecutive post seasons, while his current would-be imitators were either sitting on a couch at home or running around a grammar school playground. But, like I said, allowing Mo credit is not on your list of talking points.

• If you recall, he pitched 2 innings very late on Sunday night in Boston, and actually got the Win for that game. But you wanted him to come in 12 hours later and save the Monday afternoon game, too. You were really pissed off. Unfortunately, until the next time he pitched, the Yankees were either losing the game or had a 7 run lead--but you wanted him out there anyway.

• So, finally after being "sat down" as you say, which I just explained was a lie, he came back and pitched 2 innings again. Was that enough? I mean, even a supposedly Yankee friendly website ripped Mo to shreds with innuendo about him "resting" and not being on the freaking mound every day. You see, beating this man into the ground SELLS. It's cheap and easy--beats actually coming up with an interesting story that required some work on your part.

• Even after it became known he was injured, he went out and had to save the game for Randy Johnson BECAUSE THERE WAS NOBODY ELSE TO DO IT. Did that make you happy?

This "rest" Herzog writes about today has consisted of exactly 1 day--Friday. In case you're still hoping the guy will crumble, don't worry about Joe Torre saying he won't overuse him for awhile--he's said that before and changed his mind the next day.

Tweet Stumbleupon StumbleUpon