On a completely silly note that I just can't resist passing along to the crowd, I heard two bits of salacious gossip this weekend.

First on goes like this: the real reason Andy Pettite didn't resign with the Yanks had nothing to do with money and everything to do with his behavior on the road. Wifey thought the big apple was starting to affect the wholesome lefty and demanded a move back down south.

Two, all that hubbub about Manny leaving Boston because of a girlfriend and a pregnant one at that seems to have died down. That's because the girlfriend left town instead. She was packaged with Edgar Renteria in a trade to Florida because, well, she's his wife.

Cindy Adams and Liz Smith eat your heart out.

We will now return to our normally scheduled program of serious baseball talk...

Time for baseball. Let's play ball, folks.

Anyway, I just want to second Mike Plugh's email about the Japanese' passion for baseball. My wife also teaches at a school known for academic performance, and the kids are just baseball nuts year-round. Snow no obstacle. I also see kids playing in the snow at a park near our apartment.

I caught a segment on a TV show some days ago with your LF. The show was given over to different celebrities showing up at everyday events to interact with regular folks. Matsui showed up at a kids' practice to participate in BP. The guy is GOD here, so that was pretty cool.

Thanks again for the great site.

Mike Plugh, what are Japanese fans saying about Hideki Matsui not representing in the WBC?

As for the rest of you Banterers, did you see Mel Stottlemyre will be working with the pitchers at training camp for all of spring training? (NY Post has the story today) Hardly seems like a vote of confidence for Guidry and Kerrigan.

I have no idea why the Stones would play something as lame as the Superbowl Halftime. Maybe it was in the contract they signed with Satan.

My Japanese is, um, a work in progress, so there may be a lot that I just don't know about. Most of the English comments I've seen have been about worries that it will cut into the NPB's spring training, whether Japan's manager Sadaharu Oh is picking rival players over his own to try to tire them out for the NPB's season, and riffs on Bobby Valentine's criticism of the WBC.

Sorry, but there aren't enough Yakov Smirnoff jokes in baseball.

Still, better than anything else I've ever seen during super bowl halftime, but that's not saying much. I don't imagine the situation will ever get any better.

The "we could have played this during Super Bowl I" crack was pretty funny.

I tried everything, running the volume thru the TV, thru the Dolby surround, changing sound modes, etc. But it never got better.

So, having said that, the Stones were underwhelming. Yes, better than Janet'n'Justin, but that's not that high a bar to vault.

Woulda loved to see someone a little more contemporary- how about the Arctic Monkeys, Jurassic 5, or in a nod to New Orleans, the Soul Rebels? Course, the 500 teenyboppers the NFL imported to bounce around for 15 minutes have never heard of any of those groups...

(Where do those kids come from anyway? There's no seats for them in the stadium, so they must have to watch in a tent outside, and miss the end of the first half and start of the 3rd quarter.)

Have they heard of the Rolling Stones?

I'm going back next month to see my all time favorite British rocker perform. Ray Davies is crossing the pond and I'll see him up there. The good news for you guys is that he'll also be in NYC for three shows at Irving Plaza, March 24-26. Tickets go on sale at Ticketmaster Wednesday at noon.

If you want to see a master at his craft, Ray Davies is just such a master and he doesn't frequent North America often. Oh, and for the uninitiated Ray was the lead singer and primary songwriter for The Kinks.

What I can't believe is that they dropped those "my honey can't get it up without taking his pill" ads. I thought the NFL was the national spokesman for and home of erectile dysfunction. Maybe they have cleaned up that steroid problem after all.

Up With People!

Here's an even more radical idea. How about a normal-length halftime, like they have during the regular season?

Does that make me a bad person?

If Tagliabue's game didn't have gambling and tailgating, where would it be?

Stones, ugh. The five second censor cut into their songs twice. Could the cock (rooster) line been more offensive than the Tatum interview?

Thought Stevie was a bust, too. Bad officiating. Conservative game plans. Borrrrrrrrring. Liked the Fed Ex commercial and the Bud horses.

another glimpse in the world "An A-BOMB BY A-ROD"
http://www.deadspin.com/sports/college-basketball/when-one-force-of-evil-meets-another-force-of-evil-152921.php

Ever catch The Simpsons parody, "Hooray For Everything!" ?:

Announcer: And now, get set for our fabulous halftime show, featuring the well-groomed young go-getters of `Hooray for Everything!'

Homer: Oh, I love those kids. They've got such a great attitude!

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, `Hooray for Everything' invites you to join them in a salute to the greatest hemisphere on earth,
the Western Hemisphere! The dancingest hemisphere of all!"

I feel your pain, Dimelo. Schilling may be a right-wing asshole, but he's our asshole.

1) the Giants are in it.

2) I'm in my 20s again and heading to a bar to watch the game.

Man, what a snooze fest. Boring game, too much build up, lousy refs, lame halftime. Too much build up (all day). Bring on the Yanks !

http://sonicpollutions.blogspot.com/2006/01/stones-on-ed-sullivan-show-1966.html

Evident watching both performances side by side that they've been going downhill since Brian Jones croaked. The Zab has also posted some great Kinks performances. Never understood "Autumn Almanac" until I saw them perform it dressed like clowns and wearing big doofy grins. Not to be missed.

I think you've got to break out "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out" again, Rags.

To make room for Alex Gonzalez, the Sox just designated Petagine. My worst fear is that the Yanks will fill their DH hole with him. He clubbed the ball in Japan for years; he clubbed the ball at Pawtucket last year. My sense is that he's light years better than any option the Yanks currently have on their roster.

Full credit all around to YES for showing the Caribbean Series. This is the time of year when I need baseball more than any other.

First concert I ever saw: the Moscow Chamber Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall, October 1977.

Full credit all around to YES for showing the Caribbean Series. This is the time of year when I need baseball more than any other.

First concert I ever saw: the Moscow Chamber Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall, October 1977.

General manager Brian Cashman polled 20 Yankees scouts on whether to sign Mike Piazza. The vote was 17-3 against. It was Gene Michael who spearheaded the anti-Piazza vote. Michael believes Andy Phillips could produce 20 homers and 80 RBIs. Joe Torre wasn't necessarily against Piazza. But he raised a concern about dedicating the DH spot to one person when he envisions rotating the older Yankees, notably Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi. -- Newsday

That is great news, the Phillips part of it. Now the trick is convincing Torre...

I agree Schteeve, this A-Rod bashing is just trivial and, frankly, beneath this board...

It's such a Torre move.

Are we really excited to see Torre back? I was really disappointed with his inflexibility with the starting rotation last year (pitching Leiter, Wright too many times) and wearing out the bullpen generally.

Sadaharu Oh, who is managing the Japanese team, said that players who refused to be on the WBC team don't understand what it means to the sport. But that is about as severe a reaction as I've seen by a Japanese.

Petagine is probably headed back to Japan, but not at anywhere close to the kind of money he once made. The Pacific League would be a good fit for him, maybe for Rakuten or Nippon Ham, where he could DH. That would mean, though, that Fernando Seguignol would definitely have to play first base everyday, which could put Kuniyuki Kimoto on the bench.
Lotte, which lost Seung-yeop Lee, is an outside shot, but Valentine has said that he wants to press on with his current crop of players, so Petagine ending up in Chiba is dubious from a probability standpoint.

At what point does this pavlovian hatred for a successful and rich athlete give way to some sanity?

The response to Matsui and Iguchi not playing has certainly been muted here. I think the Lasorda "traitor" thing has been the most outwardly critical comment on the subject. It's probably largely due to the fact that Japanese don't openly criticize each other, at least in an overt way.

People may be disappointed, but to be perfectly honest, Japan seems very lukewarm on the whole World Baseball Classic concept. Over here people want the Japanese champs to play the American Champs. That's the real draw. If the Yankees played the Japan League Champs in a series where a title was on the line....you'd see excitement.

Another factor is that Iguchi isn't that big to begin with here. He's known as a good player, but he's not marquee. Matsui is marquee, but Ichiro will always be top dog. Ichiro is Japan's most loved athlete, period. He's playing so the fans are going to get what they want to a large degree.

The marquee Japanese players aren't always the most Major League ready. Those guys are on the team and the fans will be excited to see them. Also, High School baseball's Spring Tournament is around the corner and it's like the Final Four. The WBC can't compete with the "Final Four of Japan".

Rags - the Stones did not sink after Brian died. Their best work, especially live, was during the Mick Taylor era (1969-1974). Not that the 60s records don't rule, but give a listen to a good bootleg of them live in '69 or '72 - white hot.

Question for mikeplugh et al...
If "Ichiro is Japan's most loved athlete, period", why does Matsui have such a tremendous press following? We dont hear much about Ichiro in this respect.

I figured most Japanese fans would respect Matsui's decision. I hadn't heard about Lasorda's "traitor" comment. He's a sumo sized blowhard.

The press is about all of those things, plus Ichiro is a shit interview....at least he used to be. He gave the Japanese press a cold shoulder when he came over. Nomo was similarly cranky before Ichiro, and rightly so.

The Japanese press makes the American press look like a bunch of Walter Cronkites. They want to know what you ate and when you digested it, and you can be sure that it will be in every tabloid and on every morning show. They hound you until you kill them or give in. He wouldn't play the game so they crucified him initially....that is, until he won Rookie of the Year and MVP.

Matsui, on the other hand, is so mild-mannered and kind that he took the entire contingent of Japanese Press to dinner when he arrived and sat patiently answering every question they asked. He worked out a friendly deal that he would make himself available at certain times, but not at others, and that he promised to stay until they had what they wanted. It worked and now he's a media darling.

Ichiro caught onto all that and has changed his act. Actually it was 2004 that saw him change and he collected 262 hits.

The kids in Japan don't care about all that. They love the ballplayers for what they do on the field. There are more young Ichiro fans than Matsui fans, by my amateur count, but it's not hard to see why. Most kids are taught to play the slash and run style game that is favored by Ichiro. It's much easier to be successful as mini-Ichiro on the sandlot than it is to be the unusually large and bullish power hitter that is Matsui.

Plus, Ichiro was the pioneer and he still has the ROY and MVP to back him up...plus a 262 hit season. No to mention that he has twice turned down the People's Honor Award, given to the Japanese who has most distinguished himself in the eyes of the world, bringing glory to Japan. He says that he has much more he wants to accomplish before he accepts anything so momentous.

It's a close contest, but Ichiro and soccer star Nakata are at the top with Matsui and a 20 year old female golfer named Ai Miyazato.