Did NASA approve?

As predicted, Roger "The Rocket" Clemens is coming back to join the boys in the boogie down Bronx for the 2007 season and making somewhere around 9,000 dollars a pitch according to my C+ math abilities. (Thats for around 22 starts this year with around 100 pitches a start for 2,200 pitches divided into 19 million dollars = 8,700 bucks)

Being a Yankee fan, I could care less about what the players get paid. It's obvious that Steinbrenner has a US Mint approved printing press in his basement and can get whoever he wants to play for him. It makes me happy because if anything, it should make the players want to concentrate on winning baseball games rather than gripe about what they are getting paid. They should develop a more old school attitude with the yankee system. Who has to think about feeding their families on that team?

Thus, the dilemma with the Yankees is not player related. It's got something to do with the competitive spirit of the team and the way they approach winning and losing. There has been a subtle shift in the way business is being done in the Bronx, and its not something that you can see with the naked eye or in the box score in the morning paper.

Can the Rocket solve this issue? Maybe.... but probably not. The issue as I see it is that the team thinks too much about winning games, and not enough about making the other team lose. As much as players get paid, as extravegant as the locker rooms are, and as many coaches and health specialists as there are on the team; you still can't buy a "Fuck You" attitude.

I know we need the old school yankee meanness back in that clubhouse and Roger is probably too old to have enough of that rocket fuel left. Not in his arm, but in what used to be his crazy crazy mind. We need a Roger that guns people high and inside, throws bats shards at innocent batters, and swears at people. All the New York players used to be this way, and they need it back if they are going to win games. They need challengers, not winners. People who want to see the other team lose, as much as they want to see their own team win. People who talk trash, start fights, and call out people on the other team. People who believe they are better than other people, and aren't afraid to put their own pride on the line against other people, just like the people of the city they play for. I want people laughing at the failures of others and smirking at pitchers after getting home runs. The New York Yankees thrive on being hated and they need to start doing things to warrant that response. I'm sick of this whole "lets win games and act like professionals" mentality.

Maybe Joe Torre isn't the answer anymore, I really don't know. I'm not enough of an insider to know where this lax attitude is coming from but I like the Sports Guy theory that maybe Steinbrenner really is dead. Maybe there is no fear inside the locker rooms anymore. The media in NY is so over-powering that its almost too easy to shrug it off. If you can't shrug them off, you'll never make it in that city. I think the players don't have enough stress instead of too much stress. They are like soldiers having a laugh inside a bunker while bombs are going off all around them and dirt and blood falling all over them. They have seen too much to be stressed out by anything anymore.

I'm going to toast my water glass to the hope that Roger brings this attitude back, heres the hopefull return of the evil empire long since lost in 2003, and to the death of the Jedi "professional attitude".

This Post written while listening to: Michael Kay and Paul O'Neill