He hails from South Carolina and he hits fastballs into the stratosphere for the Texas Rangers.  But in less than one hour, Josh Hamilton, Baseball's prodigal son, accomplished something that Home Run Derby no-show/coward Alex Rodriquez can and never will do - he won over the hearts of both New York City and TV America... unanimously.

In the great Ruthian tradition, this newly annointed Sultan of Swat put on the Show of Shows in the House that Ruth built, at 'The Stadium' where Gehrig and Dimaggio clouted their share, inside The Big Ballpark in the Bronx where Mantle's prodigious blasts thrilled millions, and now in the refurbished version where Reggie and his three mighty swings renovated a once proud dynasty.   Hamilton's continuous, consecutive bombardment of batting practice baseballs into the right field upper deck and the far reaches of the right centerfield bleachers put the incredulous grin of awe (better even than a Fourth of July Fireworks Finale) on 55,000 excited, lucky to be alive, ticket paying spectators. 

Was A-Rod watching? 

Or was he primping himself in front of the mirror readying for his late night proclivities? 

And then there was Josh Hamilton's sidekick, the 71 year old Babe Ruth League batting practice pitcher complete with the southern drawl and right out of central casting.  Didn't we see this guy on the big screen at the beginning of Roy Hobbs' career?  'Together, the mentor-student tandem seemed to be fresh off the set of a remake of the Bernard Malamud classic and living proof that life immitates art or maybe it has always been the other way around.

ESPN's conglommerate of commentators regurgitated the rags to riches - to sleeping under the bridge - to recovery/redemption story line ad nauseum.  But booze and street drugs will do all that to you and more and also screw up your family too.  It took Josh Hamilton 8 trips to the rehabs, the miracle of divine intervention, and the total surrender to a power greater than himself to release him, a day at a time, from the ills of egocentricity and chemical bondage.  Put simply, to save his life.  That's the way it works. 

A-Rod?  Still afflicted with PMS, addicted to the lust for Power, Money, and Sex. And throw in Image or Fake Image too which is the real reason last season's MLB Home Run King refused to participate in the longball exhibition hosted by his 27 million dollar per year providing employer.  How happy is 'Big' Hank Steinbrenner now? 

About as happy as A-Fraud  is acting 'cool' at his posh, trendy Manhattan-ite pre-All-Star Game party, playing the casual, laid back host, offering up in his mechanical-robotical style, the obligatory-PC accolades for Hamilton, all the while doing his own regurgitating  because he knows down deep that this night in the Big Apple belonged in a way he will never know, to the big kid from Texas, A-Real Deal.  

p.s.  In front of virtually no one, Justin Morneau accepted the winner's trophy.

Young, dumb, and full of horse dung is the A-Rod we all know and love to boo.  Sure, Mr. A-ROID can hit a baseball as far and as high and as deep and as often as anyone in the Game.  Sure, Mr. Choke-Rod of the Post Season has been the recipient of the now miscalculated and misjudged MVP Award 3 times in the last 5 years.  Even the indicted LIAR Barry Bonds accomplished something near or even better than that.  So what?  And no baseball fan in his right mind would even attempt to argue that A-Rod is not one of the great individual talents of all time.  But he has been, is, and will most likely continue to be one of the great egotistical A-Holes of all time. 

For a moment, if that's possible, let's forget his current matrimonial troubles and his corresponding late night sexcapades with none other than the lip sync-ing Material Girl/wannabe Kabala "Esther"/Children's "morality" book author, and all-around Bi-sexual Hypocrite Tramp who sacrilegiously calls herself Madonna (shame on the Media who have joyously let her get away with this all these years!).  For a moment, let's take a look into his latest stand on the All-Star game Home Run Derby and why, in the final All-Star game ever to be played in the House that colossal home run inventor Ruth Built, (A-Rod's tour de force), on his home field, wearing the famed pinstripes, in the final year of Ruth's House known these days as the Old Yankee Stadium, on center stage, hometown fans,prime time, in the Media Center of the Universe, the Big Apple itself, and why he is opting out of the long ball contest.

One would or should ask:  is he kidding?

'Fraid not, home run fans.

"But why?' asks the incredulous and the ignorant.  "Is he injured?"

Healthy as a hunk, just ask his 49 year old "girl."  The line Stray-Rod has been regurgitating has all to do with the potential of a home run derby ruining his long looping swing which will need to be perfectly tuned if his team is to somehow begin winning and squeak into this year's post season.  He cites a similar dilemma a number of years ago when he was employed as a mercenary by the Rangers.

"I think that's wonderful...I mean, what other superstar would sacrifice personal accolades for the good of his team.  How humble of him."

What a guy!  Maybe they should give him an award for such sacrifice, or even a medal.  Call it the Most Vain Primadonna award.  He could be featured on the cover of the Sunday Parade Magazine along with his new woman, old Esther, that other humble humanitarian.  Entitle it: "IMMATERIAL GUY & GIRLTOGETHER AT LAST.

"I like them on the cover together but don't like your title."

You being stupid, that's understandable.  Excuse me, I apologize for being crass but not for being accurate.  Now, let's get back to A-Rod.  I want you to use that walnut of a brain that God gave you.  Think of his post season chokes, his anemic batting average in the most important games of the season, his errors in the field, and his slap-happy antics running down the first base line against the Red Sox a few years ago.  Think of his post game interviews when his inability to perform in the clutch so often was instrumental in his Yankee team's loss, when he was incapable of ownership to his flaws and could only muster up the overly general and non-personal phrase, "It's unfortunate" to categorize his lackluster performance.

Fortunately, many of us are not stupid.  Fortunately, we are able to peer through the facade to the playing field of life, even on an overcast, foggy day.  We see A-Rod for what he really is - King Baby engorged with self-centered fear.  To fail to win the Home Run Derby on his home field in his hometown on so momentous an occasion and in front of his new "girl" seated in his personal Stadium seat would be scrumptious fodder for the tabloids and incredibly distasteful to his own personna.  And with the overly deep Yakee Stadium left centerfield as his target opposed to the inviting short right field porch just waiting for Chad Utley's line drive stroke (not unlike Madonna in her bed counting the minutes until A-Rod's late night arrival) as a legitimate excuse to finish in second or third place easily rationalized by all concerned, Choke-Rod still opts out.  He does so because he knows that his self-centered fear will, once again, get the best of him and that he could easily go out in an early round.  King Baby could not stand that.

A final word to Alex:  You're in the Sports Entertainment  business, stupid!  It's the most important date of the year for your employer.  Give back to the "Game" and the fans who have given you so much.  If you don't compete in the Derby, you are nothing more than an obscenely overpaid, synthetically engorged WUSS.

We hear that's how the Material Girl likes her boys.     

I haven't posted anything in quite a while. Life can do that to a blogger. Death can too - of friends and family and GI's and children and pets and all of that depressing #### can get a man down.  It happened to me.  Nothing seems worthwhile, not even the blog.  In fact, writing about multi-millionaire union members (incredibly, that's what baseball players are) and the child's game they are paid those mega bucks to play, seems a little stupid like, say, talking to yourself in the mirror.  So who's listening?

So it's the therapy of trying to put some sense to the nonsensical, some logic to the illogical, and some soul to the superficial that propels me at this very second to hunt and peck the keyboard with my two middle fingers.  Do you think there's a little symbolism there?

In case anyone in the black hole of the baseball Blogosphere is interested, here's a few random items which have been on my mind lately.

(1) How does Joe Torre continue to get a pass from the once serious scrutiny of the New York baseball writers?  He knows as much about preserving team chemistry as Bud Selig knows about preserving the integrity of the game.  Latest example:  Yanks have recently (before being rocked in Colorado) jelled as a team with Miguel Cairo playing stellar defense at first, hitting sac flies, laying down sac bunts, stealing bases, etc., etc.  You know - baseball.  So what does Torre and the Cash-man do?  They bring up the feeble hitting (in majors...once whiffed 5 consecutive times in one game, the Platinum Sombrero) Andy Phillips and then start him over the contact-hitting Cairo.  Hey Joe, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  The man has got to go, hopefully by the All-Star break.  Let Donnie Baseball take the reigns for the rest of the season.

(2) Speaking of the Yankees and also the YES network, how does the recently departed Clete (short for Cletus) Boyer not get a Yankee-ography?  The man played one of the greatest hot corners in MLB history.  In the day, he was known, aptly, as The Magnet and was overshadowed by Brooks Robinson (The Vaccuum Cleaner) mainly because of the Oriole's superior bat.  But lest we forget that Boyer played half his games in the unfriendly (to righties) Yankee Stadium with the real Death Valley of 402' to straight away left, 457' to leftcenter, 461' to center and 407' to right center.  Like Elston Howard, Joe D., and The Mick batting from the right side (among others), Clete hit countless 420 foot outs, balls that would have easily cleared Wrigley Field's left field bleachers and crashed into the street below.  Something for the Sammy Sosa and Ernie Banks fans to think about.  If you doubt Boyer's superb defensive ability, go get yourself a copy of the 1961 World Series film and see for yourself the incredible diving plays he made and then throwing runners out from his knees.  There was none  finer at coming in on the bunt, scooping the ball up into the bare hand and throwing across his body on the run to nab the batter by a half a step.  Boyer was so skilled defensively, that he was often used at shortstop when Tony Kubek was injured.  The man was instrumental in the Yankees' pennants of 1960 thru 1964.  Gil McDougald and Hank Bauer are others who don't get their due and deserve Yankee-ographies.  Their consistent play and World Series' clutch performances are legendary among those of us old enough to remember.  Certainly, the producers of YES could do a real tribute to Clete instead of the stupid show with the diehard weirdo Yankee fans participating in the ridiculous antics of the season long road trip.  Certainly.

(3) Sosa on # 600.  A joke, a farce, and another black mark on MLB.  Bud Selig should be instantly retired to that great used car salesmen's lot in the sky.  An utter mockery to the likes of Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Jimmy Foxx, etc. But not, of course, Barry Bonds, his brother in sin.  Someone ought to check Bud's head for cork.

(4)  It is time for Tim McCarver to pack up his millions, his pathetic attempts at being witty, his whiny voice, and his hatred of the American League and especially the Yankees, and ,as Thurman Munson would tell complaining teammates, "RETIRE!"  Maybe Joe Buck too.

(5) John Miller on this past Sunday Night's Yankees-Mets game referred to Derek Jeter's slick fielding of a slow roller to short as "Reyes-like!"  Who comes in on a slow groundball better than Jeter?!  Hey John, listen up:  that would be like saying an A-Rod home run was David Wright-like.  ####.

(6) If Yanks come back to make it to the post season, based upon YTD, Jorge Posada has to be their MVP.  Don't challenge me on this.  Just look to history and consider MVP's Berra, Campanella, Elston Howard, Bench, etc. and the role of this position. 

(7) George Steinbrenner and the Yankee organization should publicly apologize to every baseball fan for the scheduled razing of Yankee Stadium, the Grand Cathedral of Baseball.  If he was the King of England, would he raze the old and then build The New Westminster Abbey?  The Stadium is hallowed ground. Steinbrenner destroyed its beauty by his 1973 rennovation which eliminated the Big Ballpark's signature decorative facade/frieze and in succeeding years moved the fences in 3 times, at least.  Yeah, yeah, I've heard all the great things about The Boss and how he restored the winning tradition to the CBS owned failing venture.  And it is no great secret that he has an entreprenurial gift and developed the Yankees into the most profitable professional sports franchise.  I get it.  But does the guy have to destroy the one common link of generation to generation of pinstripe fan - The Stadium?  This would not happen in Boston with Fenway or in Chicago with Wrigley.  They understand what they are selling.  George does not.  Yankee fans, you have a season and a half to say goodbye to an old friend you will never see again.  And just think of this:  The Boston Celtics have won absolutely nothing since moving from Boston Garden.  Nothing.

(8)  Tomorrow afternoon's theme song is the Mighty Mouse tune: Here he comes to save the day, The Rocket-Man is on his way...prediction:  Clemens gets Rocked in Colorado.  With a pro rata 28 mil in the Rocket's pocket, the price of a beer and a dog at The Stadium must be hitting double figures by now. 

That's it for tonight.  As you can tell, I'm not very good with CHANGE unless, of course, change is logical and for the common good and not the elitist few.  But I will not change my mind on one thing Yankee fans - that for the good of the team, the Godfather of the Bronx by way of Brooklyn, your Slow Joe Torre...must definitely go.  (see old post of mine entitled, "Torre can't win the close ones.")

p.s.  Q:  Does anyone know what two different numbers Clete Boyer wore?

Last night in the Big Apple, the New York Theatre goers missed out on the best one night  performance of the new drama season.  Difficult to categorize, it might best be called a Comedy of Pitching Errors meets the Theatre of the Absurd.  Staged up at the Big Ballpark in the Bronx, the Old Guard of those Damn Yankees miraculously came back 3 times from a 9-zip 2nd inning bad joke to beat the Rangers from Texas, 14-13 on a 2 strike-2 out- bottom of the ninth-Jorge Posada-climatic, walk-off home run.  Poetic justice was served.

Earlier in the game with the Rangers leading by 5, Columbus call-up Melky Cabrera misplayed a double in the tricky left field corner causing the 6 foot 4 inch, broad shouldered  Mark Texiera to be waved home all the way from first.  Yankee Captain and Fearless Leader, Derek Jeter (4 for 5, single, double to the base of the centerfield wall,  3 run HR to the right field porch, beautiful bunt hit toward third, 4 rbi's, stolen base) took the relay and fired home on 2 bounces to Posada who a moment later was hit by a battering ram impersonating a misguided Ranger first baseman. Ouch!

 Actually, it was more than ouch.  It was flashback city.  Shades of Pete Rose running over and through Ray Fosse.  "Georgie" went flying, illogically held onto the ball, and sat stunned in the dust with a "what happened" look and then when he got it somewhat together, possibly thought of better ways to earn his lucrative living. 

Good  for the Yankees that  "Georgie" loves what he does.  Last night, with the trio (Giambi, Sheff, Matsui) of big bats battered and unable to make the call, understudy clean-up hitter Posada earned his keep to the tune of 5 runs batted in, including the game winner into the right field bleachers (take that Texiera!) along with 2 sacrifice flies.  Maybe the casting manager, Mr. Torre should consider a more permanent change to this role?  Didn't Yogi bat fourth?

For those who are in lust with lists and records and stats, Mr. Posada passed the former  late and great Yankee Captain, Thurman Munson on the Pinstripes' lifetime RBI list, 702 to 701.  There's another guy who took his lumps for the team. 

A word for the desperately frustrated Barry Bonds:  take a lesson from Bernie Williams.  Tonight  he tied The Babe on the lifetime Yankee doubles list.  Has "Bern-baby-Bern" been around that long?  No matter.  Along with Jeter and Posada, Bernie showed the young'ins what being a true Yankee is all about. 

And that's something, apparently, that Mariano Rivera is currently unable to demonstrate.  "Mo's" failure once again in the 9th does not surprise us.  Not only does he no longer have the ability to blow away a hitter on demand, but as we have pointed out before, except for the early years, he has rarely been successful coming into the game with the Yanks behind, tied, or with someone else's runners on base.  I know there's a stats-guy out there who could research this for us.  Mariano Rivera's specialty is to jog in from the pen being serenaded for the start of the ninth with the Yanks in the lead.  Sparky Lyle or Gosse Gossage he is not.  And by this time, Torre should know this, don't you think?  We wondered why Farnsworth did not come out for the 9th after easily retiring the Rangers in the 8th on 8 or 9 pitches?  What would have happened if this see-saw match went into serious extras?  Scott Ericson?

A few more words about the Comedy of Pitching Errors.  Last year,  Aaron Small was one of the saviors of the starting rotation, producing in a half season plus, an incredible 10-0 mark.  Whenever he came in as the long- man, he got bombed, like now.  Obviously he has a starting pitcher's mentality.  The record speaks for itself.  Am I blind or do the Yankees have some serious starting pitching problems?  They also have long relief problems.  Except for tonight, who is one of the cooler heads to get out of jam after jam?  Would that be Shawn Chacon?  Now you're catching on.  Flip them and if the Big Unit continues to do the Big Self Destruct, shock him with a dose of forced humility as he tries to become the new 2006 version of the late 1960's  Steve Hamilton (long-man, short relief for lefties, occasional emergency starts).  "Ya gotta get somethin' for yer money, George."  Hey, maybe we can get Steve to come back and teach Randy the Folly Floater?

The physically compromised Johnny Damon and the clutch, utility man Miguel Cairo also came through.  Once we noticed A-Rod breathing deeply and pursing his lips at bat in the ninth, we knew he would not produce in the clutch.  They are his pre-choke facial signs.  And why wasn't he guarding the 3rd base line for the extra base hit in the 9th inning?  Might have made Mariano's post game interview a little less embarrassing.  Got to give him credit though.  He was right out front cheering his teammates who came through.

After Jorge's climatic blast and then the mob scene that greeted him at home plate, the Yankees quickly retreated from the dugout to the clubhouse.  It had been a 4 hour uphill struggle with a couple of brief, temporary tumbles along the way.  As the final curtain fell, Jorge Posada, the evening's shining star, bent down and picked up the tools of ignorance from the dugout floor, and as the last Yankee there, departed for the night. 

During the televised denoument of the post game interviews, both Jeter and Posada made conservative though generous remarks.   Neither one of the Old Guard mentioned anything about themselves having  "so much talent..."   True Yankees, real people.  Did ya hear that Alex?