Juuuuuust a Bit Outside

I visited the South Bronx with Chugarte on Saturday. His beloved, god-awful Pirates of Pittsburgh were taking on 44-year-old Roger "There's No Team In I" Clemens, in his first start of the season, and the New York Yankees.

My overall assessment of Clemens' performance: it was adequate. He struggled through his first four innings before the Pirates let him off the hook by grounding into a double play to end the fourth. Clemens seemed to settle down after that, retiring the side in order in the fifth and sixth and amassing seven strikeouts. For their part, the Pirates looked more like a AAA club than a major league franchise, making me wonder if MLB commissioner Bud Selig didn't call Pirates manager Jim Tracy before the game and request that the Pirates "dial it down" a notch against Clemens. "It wouldn't be good for baseball if Clemens gets roughed up in his first outing," Selig might have said.

[Somewhat-related aside: Did anyone else catch the irony dripping off of Joe Torre's remarks about Bernie Williams a few weeks ago? Commenting about the possibility of bringing Williams back mid-season due to an injury-depleted roster, Torre said "He had the opportunity to play. I'm sorry to say he didn't take advantage of it in spring training. To think someone [38] years old, without any spring training or practice, could be ready to play, it's just not realistic. You can't do it." Call the Yankees back in six years, Bernie.]

As I guzzled a beer and watched Clemens labor away on the mound, I was struck by the similarities between this Yankee team and a previous major league team from 18 years ago. To wit, both teams:

* have a closer who can't seem to find the plate at the beginning of the season;
* are starting a speedy rookie in center field (we can still call Melky a rookie, right? He certainly plays most fly balls like he doesn't know what the hell he's doing);
* feature a 40-something, over-the-hill veteran as a focal point of the starting rotation;
* overpay a primadonna, philandering star at third base;
* have a right fielder who would probably sacrifice live chickens in order to re-discover his swing [this was more true before Abreu started hitting the cover off of the ball in the last week];
* start a veteran catcher with creaky old knees as one of the few true ballplayers, in the classical sense, on the roster; and
* are managed by a grizzled veteran whose job is to mold this bunch of misfits into a winning club.

Still haven't figured out what previous team I'm referring to? Here's a hint.

The most salient difference, of course, is that the owner of THAT team purposefully assembled the worst talent that she could, in order to move the team, whereas Steinbrenner at least THINKS he's assembling the best talent that money can buy in order to deliver a 28th championship for the Yankee franchise. Still, I think I'm on to something here. We need to get Bill Simmons on this, post haste.