In Defense of Ian O'Connor's Derek Jeter Book

Yes, I'm going there. After many months of criticizing ESPN New York columnist Ian O'Connor for his writing a half-dozen fawning articles about Derek Jeter this winter without disclosing that he was writing a book that promised "unique access" to the Yankee captain, I actually feel compelled to defend O'Connor on a couple of things that I think he's being unfairly criticized for.

First off, there's the curious case of Jeter going up to New York Post writer George King the morning after the Post published a front-page story about the book. That article discussed how The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter revealed how Jeter's dislike of teammate Alex Rodriguez put A-Rod in the Yankee "snubhouse" (The Post's term, not O'Connor's!)

In a followup piece by King entitled "Jeter: It's not my book," Jeter didn't confirm or deny any of the tidbits. But he told King:

"Make sure everyone knows it's not mine," Jeter said. "I had nothing to do with that book."

Well, nobody had suggested that Jeter had actually authored the tome himself. But if he really had "nothing to do with that book," a book that has been promoted of giving "unique access" to Jeter, then why is he quoted talking to O'Connor in the book, according to an ESPN New York article about the tome? And why would Newsday columnist Ken Davidoff, who witnessed the King-Jeter conversation, write that "Jeter was aware [the book] was being written and agreed to be interviewed for it"?

Not to mention the fact that O'Connor did over 200 interviews for the book, many of whom were people in the Jeter camp. Did Jeter have control over everything written in O'Connor's book? Doubtful. But he did agree to be interviewed for it, and many of the people close to him were also interviewed for it. To say that he had "nothing to do with" the book is pretty disingenuous.

The second thing I will defend O'Connor on, albeit in a backhanded way, is the notion that he was somehow out to get Jeter. I've even heard him compared to Selena Roberts. Really? Roberts wrote nasty column after nasty column about A-Rod before writing an entire bile-filled book on him. O'Connor is just the opposite. In a town where burnishing the Jeter legend is par for the course with New York columnists, O'Connor is in a class by himself. Remember these moments, all written without any mention of the upcoming book?

* October 24, 2010:  In an article entitled, "Expect Yankees to splash cash on Jeter," O' Connor said, "I believe a fair deal would be for four years at $23 million per."

* October 28, 2010:  O'Connor writes a bizarre column tying in Joe Girardi's job fortune to Jeter's, saying that Girardi should get a warning with his next contract saying, "Change, or we'll hire someone else to bench The Captain."

*November 21, 2010: O'Connor interviews Jeter's personal trainer Jason Riley for a column. Ian managed to keep a straight face when Riley said "I think it's very realistic" for Jeter to play through 2017, and when Riley said, "The desire to be the greatest can never be turned down by Father Time."

O'Connor also uncritically ran this other Riley comment (basically, most of the article is an infomercial for Jeter and his trainer): "You can't put an age on the heart of an athlete, and Derek's got one of the purest hearts in sports," Riley said. "He's not going to allow himself to have another down year, if he even considers 2010 a down year. His internal drive separates him from others. I've worked with very few people who go after the game like he does." The piece ends with O'Connor saying, "If the trainer is right, this next contract Jeter signs won't be his last." Oy.

* December 5, 2010: Regarding the Yankees coming to terms with Jeter on a new contract, O'Connor wrote, "The Yankees could have offered Jeter minimum wage, free parking and cab fare to and from the ballpark, and he would have found a way to accept it."

* March 26, 2011:  "For now, Jeter is still Jeter, a future Hall of Famer who just needed some extra face time with the hitting coach, Kevin Long. With the contract done and the footwork adjusted, the smart money says the captain will make something of a comeback this year."


There's also O'Connor writing for the Bergen Record in spring 2009 that the Yankees would be a better team without A-Rod, and that the team should just release him. So it's not like O'Connor is a Team A-Rod writer.


I haven't gotten to read O'Connor's book yet, but I just find it hard to believe that O'Connor did a hatchet job on the captain. Go to Houghton Mifflin's web site and read the book description, and an excerpt from Chapter One, and see what I mean. Heck, the book starts with this line, "Like all good stories about a prince, this one starts in a castle." Does that sound like an author with an agenda to get Jeter? I don't think so. Just because O'Connor has written that Jeter isn't always perfect doesn't make this a smear.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Post Publishes Juicy Tidbits From Ian O'Connor's New Book About Jeter/A-Rod Feud

Sorry I haven't squawked for a while -- I have been working on two real-life projects that have consumed almost all of my time. I knew I had better get back to squawking soon when I got this email the other day, with the subject line "Do You Know there are 2 teams in NYC?"  Here's the email:

Hey…do you guys know that there is another team in town. They are called “the Yankees.”

Would think that there is only one team in NYC, to read your blog lately.

What’s the story???

Harsh, dude! Ouch!

Anyhow, on a brighter note, Happy Easter! When I got online this morning and saw that the New York Post had information from Ian O'Connor's upcoming book, "The Captain" (you know, the one that he's been working on at the same time he's been carrying Jeter's water in his columns), I knew I'd better squawk, or some might think I was comatose!

This "exclusive" article has inside details on the feud (although, for some odd reason, the Post calls it an "unauthorized" bio), and has pretty much vindicated a lot of what I've said over the years. Some tidbits:

* Jeter, the modern day Joe DiMaggio in a lot of ways -- including holding grudges -- so intimidated one Yankee front office person who admitted to being afraid to talk to Jeter about burying the hatchet with Alex. "It would've been the last conversation I ever had with Derek," he said. "I would've been dead to him. It would've been like approaching Joe DiMaggio to talk to him about Marilyn Monroe."

* At the 2001 All-Star Game, according to the Post's account of the book, "a smitten Rodriguez introduced him to Latin songstress Joy Enriquez. Jeter wasted no time -- the singer and the shortstop began dating."

* Don Mattingly tried to get Jeter to make up with A-Rod. "I faked it with Boggs," he said. "And you have to fake it with Alex." Heh!

* Brian Cashman also asked Jeter to "fake it" with Rodriguez, after noticing Jeter's lack of defense when it came to other players and fans criticizing the third baseman. "You've got to lead them all, the ones you like and the ones you don't," he told Jeter. He asked Jeter to defend A-Rod to the fans. "I can't tell the fans what to do," Jeter countered. (Of course, Jeter did just that when it came to Jason Giambi and Chuck Knoblauch, although the article doesn't mention that.) I don't know how many times I wrote over the years that the captain's job was to stand up for all of his teammates, not just his buddies. So good for Cashman that he told him the same thing!

Then there's this tidbit:

It all came to a head during a Yankee loss in August 2006 to Baltimore.

An easy pop-up hung in the air between A-Rod and Jeter. Both players closed in and Jeter bumped into A-Rod, knocking the ball out of his glove. Jeter shot A-Rod a withering look.

The gesture did not go unnoticed. Cashman pulled Jeter aside and ordered him to knock it off.

"Listen, this has to stop," Cashman said. "Everybody in the press box, every team official, everyone watching, they saw you look at the ball on the ground and look at him with disgust like you were saying, 'That's your mess, you clean it up.' "

A-Rod also felt betrayed by manager Joe Torre, who players said added fuel to the fiery feud.

"He would never call Jeter on anything, but he'd have no problem doing it to Alex," one player told the author.

I remember that well. And I remember how much grief I got from fans for pointed out that obvious dis. Believe it or not, readers used to argue me all the time when I said it was pretty obvious Jeter couldn't stand A-Rod. But It was pretty clear to me starting with the way Jeter mumbled and grimaced through A-Rod's introductory press conference in 2004 that the Captain didn't want him on the team.

It's funny -- people would tell me over and over how Jeter would do anything to win. Yes, except for making the peace with Rodriguez!

Even though most of the New York media mostly ignored the issue as it was happening, it was pretty clear that there was a huge issue here. And since I was one of the few people anywhere writing about it, I got a lot of "How do you know, you're not in the clubhouse" in response, and people insisting that Jeter would never be so petty. Oh, really?

What's funny is that O'Connor's book, written with the cooperation of the Jeter camp, has such tidbits which reflect so negatively on Jeter (although, to be sure, the information also reflects negatively on Rodriguez, saying that Jeter didn't like A-Rod acting as a diva as a Yankee, and that A-Rod obsessed over Jeter. IMHO, I think A-Rod could have been Mother Teresa as a Yankee, and it wouldn't have made any difference!)

After all, so much of Jeter's mystique has been on his vaunted leadership skills. But instead of embracing getting the best player in baseball at the time for the team, this article makes it clear that Jeter was "less than thrilled" when A-Rod became a Yankee. And that one of the reasons the Yankees gave CC Sabathia $161 million was to mend the clubhouse, From the article:

"CC's main concern was our clubhouse, and how people got along," Cashman told the author. "I told him the truth. 'Yeah, we are broken. One reason we're committing [$161 million] to you is you're a team builder. We need somebody to bring us together.' "

I guess it would have been too much to expect the team's captain to bring the Yankees together, eh?

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Derek Jeter Biographer Ian O'Connor Defends His Subject -- Again

ESPN New York's Ian O'Connor has written yet another column lauding the merits of Derek Jeter, without bothering to mention that he has written an upcoming book on the Yankee captain with the cooperation of Jeter and his friends and family. That makes at least a half-dozen times since the fall that O'Connor has written such a pro-Jeter column without even a cursory disclaimer about the book.

And that's problematic, especially given that the book is billed as being written with inside access to the captain. O'Connor's publisher's blurb says that in the upcoming book "The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter" O’Connor" draws on extensive reporting and unique access to Jeter that has spanned some fifteen years." BN.com's promotion for the book says O'Connor "draws on unique access to Jeter and more than 200 new interviews."

I first wrote about this conflict of interest back in October, and then again in November (twice) and in December. And here we are in March, and O'Connor is still writing fawning articles about Jeter, without the simplest of disclaimers. Given that he has a financial stake in the subject, he should tell his readers about the book, and how he got inside access from Jeter for it.

O'Connor doesn't just write slobbering columns on the captain, but he has positioned those columns as being the inside view of Jeter. In one of them, he said Jeter wanted to play until 2017 (!) and that Jeter's trainer, Jason Riley claimed that "the desire to be the greatest can never be turned down by Father Time."

In another one last fall, O'Connor pushed for the Yankees to give Jeter a four-year, $23 million deal, saying those dollar figures would be "fair," and writing:

"There's no need to diminish him by demanding that he take a pay cut. If one athlete of this generation deserves to be overpaid, it's Jeter. A token, thanks-for-the-memories bump to $23 million would suffice.

There are a lot of pro-Jeter writers in this town, but nobody else in New York suggested such a ridiculous new contract for the captain.

O'Connor's most recent Jeter article says that he "desperately wants a dignified endgame to his career, and he knows that being a New York Yankees icon never guarantees you one." O'Connor also writes that "Jeter wasn't hurt so much by the tens of millions of dollars that the Yankees wouldn't give him. He was hurt by the public nature of the quarrel with his employer, and by the fact he was sucked into a swirling A-Rodian drama he couldn't control."  Well, is O'Connor speculating on the emotions here, or did Jeter tell him that's the way he felt? And if it's the latter, why did he share that with O'Connor? Is it because of the book?

Not to mention that O'Connor completely neglected to note that Jeter's agent Casey Close helped make this situation public, when he whined about being "baffled" by the Yankees stance, and compared his client to Babe Ruth. For some strange reason, that didn't make it into this article.

O'Connor also writes in the most recent piece that:

If he needs to be taken out of the leadoff spot and, ultimately, deposited near the bottom of the order, that will be a huge, franchise-rattling story. If he needs to be moved from shortstop to who knows where, the coverage of that demotion will be defined by an apocalyptic tone.

For now, Jeter is still Jeter, a future Hall of Famer who just needed some extra face time with the hitting coach, Kevin Long. With the contract done and the footwork adjusted, the smart money says the captain will make something of a comeback this year.

If Jeter needs to be moved down in the lineup, or switch positions, he will only have to do what every single superstar eventually faces. Is O'Connor suggesting that Jeter be held to a different standard?

I personally think Jeter will have a very good 2011 -- the anger over the contract talks this winter will motivate him, I think -- but this article is so filled with spin, it's like a washing machine or something. And you have to wonder if some of that spin is due to O'Connor's new book on Jeter.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Derek Jeter re-signs with Yankees: Who won?

It figures. After writing on pretty much every aspect of the Derek Jeter contract saga, I was busy all day yesterday with my brother visiting from Portland, Oregon, so I didn't get to write about the contract deal finally being done. (One of the things we did yesterday was take the Yankee Stadium tour -- more on that in a future post.)

Anyhow, I think that the Yankees won the negotiations. Yes, they gave Jeter a player option for a fourth season, but they're not paying much more per year, and Jeter didn't even come close to getting the A-Rod type contract he wanted.

I wrote a piece for The Faster Times about my thoughts. Jeter did some real damage to his reputation, although that his cronies in the media will put this down the old memory hole and act like the Yankees, not him, were at fault. Mike Lupica already did as much today.

And Jeter biographer Ian O'Connor suggests that this all showed how "smart" Jeter is. O'Connor even had the nerve to write this: "The Yankees could have offered Jeter minimum wage, free parking and cab fare to and from the ballpark, and he would have found a way to accept it." Oh, please. Looks like O'Connor needs some of that reality potion. It took a month of negotiations for Jeter to accept making less than his $22.6 million 2010 salary. The idea that he would play for minimum wage is just ridiculous. But hey, O'Connor's got that Jeter biography book coming out -- you know, the one that he never discloses in his columns -- and he's got to keep on polishing that ol' Jeter image. Oy vey.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Pay no attention to the captain behind the curtain

As anybody who has read this blog for more than five minutes knows, I'm fairly cynical about the way the media builds up their favorite athletes as saints, and others as sinners. A lot of what we know about professional athletes comes from what the press chooses to tell us -- or not to tell us -- about a star. And frequently, even though they knew plenty of negative stuff on their favorites, we don't hear about those things until years or even decades later, like when the elegant, classy Joe DiMaggio was revealed to be a grudge-holding cheapskate.

Over the last fifteen years, there is nobody in professional sports who has been the beneficiary of such positive press treatment as Derek Jeter. So even when Jeter is asking for a ridiculous amount of money in his next deal, looking like the worst of the me-first players, and the opposite of his carefully crafted persona, some members of the press are blaming the Yankees, not Jeter, for the mess. Shocker, I know.

The New York Daily News' Bob Raissman writes:

Whether by design, or the fact this story is totally out of control, Jeter is being more and more perceived as spoiled and greedy. This a far different portrait of a man who has been deified throughout his distinguished career.

In the long run this ain't good for Jeter or the Yankees. If the Captain's storybook tale is even slightly soiled the Bombers' brand is harmed. In what has turned into a petty and mean spirited negotiation, the Yankees are eating away at Jeter's iconic image.

The "damage" is being done through columns that stop short of calling Jeter a shot ballplayer, but contend his only leverage for a megabucks contract are past accomplishments and status. Stories reporting he is demanding $25 million per over six years lead to a perception that Jeter is money grubbing and delusional. That characterization doesn't play well, especially in this economy.

Well, if Jeter doesn't want to be perceived as "money grubbing and delusional," then he shouldn't be asking for money and years way above his market value. Problem solved!

But to blame the Yankees for this is silly. They haven't said boo about Mariano Rivera or Andy Pettitte in the press. They brought up that the Jeter contract negotiations as a pre-emptive strike, because they had an inkling on how ridiculous his demands would be. That's not the Yankees' fault -- that's Jeter's fault. And the only "brand" that is being damaged here is Jeter's, not the team.

ESPN New York columnist Ian O'Connor has written yet another valiant defense of Derek Jeter, the subject of his upcoming book. And, guess what? There is still no mention in this article about said biography, a book that Jeter and his people are cooperating with. Shocker, I know.

In this latest column, O'Connor acknowledges having a little bit of egg on his face for not foreseeing this contract battle:

Last month, I guessed that the Yankees and Jeter would find a fair compromise at four years and about $23 million a pop. At the time I overestimated the team's eagerness to compensate Jeter for being Jeter, for succeeding where DiMaggio and Mantle failed -- namely, maintaining his iconic aura without treating others like dirt.

I'll give O'Connor a lot of props for actually admitting that his prediction was off base, and even bringing it up again, when it would have been easy for him to pretend he never said it. That being said, his suggestion to pay somebody so much above market value for not being a jerk was a dopey idea in the first place. As Chris Rock might say, you're supposed to not treat others like dirt. What do you want, a cookie?

O'Connor doesn't mention, though, that he also wrote that the captain "is the ultimate money player who doesn't play for money." So much for that. But he's got an excuse for Jeter's greed as well:

Jeter's extreme faith in himself explains why he stands among the enduring Yankees and winners of all time, and why he could go down as the game's greatest all-around shortstop. It explains why he told his trainer, Jason Riley, and longtime Yankees executive Gene Michael that he feels he can play another seven seasons, through his 43rd birthday.  also explains why Jeter is asking for superstar money.

Like an aging Jordan, Jeter can't see himself as anything but, you know, a superstar.

Please. You can't tell us that Jeter doesn't play for money, and then justify his greed and arrogance as being why he's great. His image is built on putting the team first.

(And don't get me started on the idea that Jeter is the greatest all-around shortstop in history -- I could write a Squawk just on that!)

Oh, and by the way, Michael Jordan didn't play for money when he returned to professional play with the Washington Wizards. As part owner of the team, he took the league minimum in salary as a player, and donated it all with the Washington Wizards to help 9/11 victims' families. So that analogy doesn't really work here. In fact, one could argue that Jordan was really being "the ultimate money player who doesn't play for money," to use an O'Connorism!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Is Ian O'Connor Derek Jeter's media mouthpiece?

According to ESPN New York columnist Ian O'Connor's most recent piece, not only will Derek Jeter play until 2017 (!), but he'll be doing it at the highest of levels, too, with most of those years at shortstop. At least, that's what Jason Riley, Jeter's paid personal trainer, says to the columnist.

O'Connor, the writer whose upcoming book about Jeter has the full cooperation of the captain and the people around him, devotes a full column to letting Riley have his say, with very little in the way of tough questioning or skepticism.

Oh, and by the way, O'Connor is still not disclosing that Jeter book in his ESPN writings, a potential conflict of interest that raises a whole lot of questions. Like, is Riley a source for his book? Did Jeter direct his trainer to speak for him, and let it be known that he wants to play until he's 43? And does the 2017 number have anything to do with Alex Rodriguez being signed through that season?

We don't get answers to any of those questions -- heck, we don't even get any appropriate amount of skepticism about Jeter's undeserved 2010 Gold Glove -- in O'Connor's article. But we do get tidbits like these:

Speaking from inside a Jeter camp that rarely opens a public window on its soul, especially during contract negotiations, Riley mentioned George Blanda, George Foreman, Dara Torres and Brett Favre as athletes who thrived after turning 40. The trainer believes Jeter will join those golden oldies in Mariano Rivera's bullpen.


"The desire to be the greatest," Riley said, "can never be turned down by Father Time."...

"I don't think anything can hold Derek back other than himself. If he decides to hang it up before [he turns 43], then that will be his decision. If Derek decides at 41 he's already given his best years, then that's where it will end. But if he decides to go until he's 43, he'll do everything in his power to play the game at a high level and help the team through that time. I think there's so much determination inside of Derek that he can do it."

What nonsense. Brett Favre may still think he's like a kid out there, but age has caught up to him. As it does to everybody eventually. If all it took was determination to succeed, then why would any elite athlete ever need to retire? You don't think Michael Jordan -- one of the greatest competitors of all time -- wouldn't still be out there on the basketball court at age 47 if all it took was inner drive?

When Jeter's trainer is asked about the shortstop's disappointing 2010 season, Riley responds:

"I won't speak on whether it was worse, the same or better," Riley said, "but I've definitely had conversations with Derek about what our thoughts are on this past season. We're looking into it and we're really going to evaluate it. I've got a lot of people, my staff around me, who are evaluating this.

Better? Come on now. Was Riley one of the Gold Glove voters or something?

Riley continues:

"It's a long season, and your body gets beaten up, and we have to find a way to keep Derek fresh over 162 games. It's a work in progress."

As for finding "a way to keep Derek fresh over 162 games," how about the captain agreeing to a day off once in a while? Mind-blowing, I know!

More from the trainer:

"You can't put an age on the heart of an athlete, and Derek's got one of the purest hearts in sports," Riley said. "He's not going to allow himself to have another down year, if he even considers 2010 a down year. His internal drive separates him from others. I've worked with very few people who go after the game like he does."

If Jeter doesn't consider 2010 a down year, he is delusional, not determined. Many players going for a new contract have a great year, like A-Rod and Jorge Posada's terrific 2007 seasons. Jeter has the worst season of his career in a walk year, but I guess there's nothing to worry about because of his pure heart and internal drive or something? C'mon now.

In an odd way, this piece kind of fits in with a Keith Olbermann blog entry this week about Jeter, about how he was apparently in such denial over his slump this year that he wouldn't begin to start to change his approach at the plate until September:

The question various Yankee non-players had been asking Jeter since the spring, as the ground balls multiplied and the extra-base hits vanished, was a simple one: Do you realize you are about to be 36 years old? Do you understand that what's happening to you isn't some failure of strength? Are you getting the hint that you have to change your approach at the plate? It was asked in any of a dozen different forms by possibly as many would-be helpers, and only when the well ran dry as the dog days approached did Jeter finally accept the possibility.

At any rate, between this piece, and the Casey Close whinefest in today's Mike Lupica column, which seems to consist of "Waaaaah, waaaaah, the Yankees said Jeter was the modern-day Babe Ruth, but they won't give him a gazillion dollars," Jeter's strategy this year is terrible. Doesn't he realize that the longer this goes on, the worse he -- and not the Yankees -- look?

As Ken Davidoff writes today in Newsday:

If these last few weeks of the "Jeter vs. the Yankees" saga have taught us anything, it's that the Yankees' captain is human.

Which, you know, runs contrary to much of the mythologizing we've absorbed in the last 15 or so years....

If Jeter were to live up to his own myth, he'd shrug, say "I've been far more lucky than unlucky in my professional life" and sign what the Yankees offer him, which stands as much more than any other club appears prepared to give him.

But the pride and competitiveness that help make him such a great player? They don't take the winter off. After all, if Jeter really cared about absolutely nothing besides winning, he wouldn't have contributed to the tension with A-Rod that didn't dissipate until A-Rod's 2009 comeuppance.

And he wouldn't bristle about any questions concerning his future spot in the lineup or position. He may give you the "nothing matters besides winning" line, but good luck getting the "whatever is best for the team" line.

Jeter's not doing anything that any other star in his position wouldn't do. The difference is, we've been told for so many years that he is above such things.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

Should Ian O'Connor disclose in his columns that he's writing a book on Derek Jeter?

I wrote something for The Faster Times about how ESPN NY columnist Ian O'Connor is writing a book that promises "unique access" to Derek Jeter and his camp. Nothing wrong with that. But my issue is that O'Connor has also written several recent columns defending Jeter, without disclosing in those articles that he's writing a book about him.

One of O'Connor's columns suggested that Jeter needed a pay raise in his new contract, bumping him up to $23 million (!) a year for four years. Another tied Joe Girardi's fortunes with the team to Jeter, saying that if Girardi didn't shape up, "he is not going to be the manager of the New York Yankees long enough to do to a declining Derek Jeter what Casey Stengel did to a declining Joe DiMaggio." It's a very harsh take on Girardi, even for the New York media. What does Jeter think on this? Did he have something to do with the article?

That same article also claimed that the Yankee players basically quit on Girardi in the ALCS, an extremely damning allegation that I haven't read anywhere else. In that article, O'Connor talks about the players' perspective on Girardi, which makes one wonder if he heard those opinions from his book subject.

I'm not arguing that O'Connor shouldn't write about Jeter. He's a New York sportswriter, and not writing about Jeter would be like a Miami writer not being able to talk about LeBron James. But when O'Connor does, he really should put a disclosure in every column, explaining the book deal. Read my Faster Times article to see what else I had to say on this issue.


What do you think?  Tell us about it!

Columnist: Javier Vazquez's win doesn't really count because it was against Baltimore

Javier Vazquez had a terrific game in front of the hometown Yankee crowd last night, and got his first Yankee win as a starter since August 2004. But one sports columnist doesn't think he deserves much credit for the victory.

"Keep Javy's performance in perspective: Javier Vazquez looked dominant against the Orioles on Tuesday -- but it's the Orioles" is the headline of Ian O'Connor's ESPN New York's piece on Vazquez. There are lots of times I think O'Connor does a good job in both keeping things in perspective, and writing about the Yankees with passion. Can't say I'm very crazy about this piece, though.

O'Connor takes pains to denigrate Javy's seven inning, four-hit, one-run performance because it was against the lowly O's:

Javy came. Javy saw.

Javy conquered a sorry excuse for a baseball team.

That's the fly ball in the ointment, the annoying burst of rain on this latest Yankees parade.

The Orioles are so dreadful, so painful on the eyes, it was impossible to pronounce Vazquez cured of whatever ills had prevented him from pitching the way he's paid $11.5 million to pitch.

Well, given that Vazquez hasn't pitched well at home at all this year as a starter, and hasn't pitched very well - period - as a Yankee until a few weeks ago, I think it's huge progress. This isn't a AA start, after all. The Orioles might be a lousy team, but you know what? A win is a win. And if Vazquez had lost again at home against the Orioles, things would be a heck of a lot worse for him right now.

What gets me about O'Connor's approach here, repeatedly denigrating and minimizing this victory, is that he never does the flip side. What about the fact that it took a throwing error by Miguel Tejada for the Yankees to take the lead? Going into last night's game, O's pitcher Brian Matusz had a 2-5 record, with a 5.78 ERA. Yet he only allowed one earned run against the vaunted Yankee lineup. Maybe we should denigrate the Bombers' offense for doing so little. Sheesh.

O'Connor continues with the negative tone:

This isn't meant to curb anyone's enthusiasm as a nod to the famous face in the Stadium crowd, Larry David. This is only meant to add perspective to a 24/7 sports culture often starving for it.

"When he's on," Curtis Granderson said of Vazquez, "he can be one of the best pitchers in the game."

Yeah, and if Ollie Perez ever had the chance to be "on" against the Orioles, he'd be Sandy Koufax, too.

Ouch! Why so harsh, dude! Some "perspective"!

As I've written over and over, I was against Brian Cashman trading for Javy in the first place. That being said, I hate the fans booing Vazquez. And I have to give the pitcher credit for hanging in there, and for improving a lot over the past month. Javy's pitching is better, his body language is better, and his confidence is better. Do I still worry about his pitching? Or course. But the more he can have outings last night, the more he can get the fans off his back, and the more he can have some breathing space.

Yet O'Connor keeps on downplaying the win, suggesting it's only the Orioles, saying "Baltimore didn't have the stomach for a fight." But if Vazquez had faced Baltimore earlier in the year, he probably would have been destroyed by them then. This time around, he was dominant. It's not just the opposition - it's him.

O'Connor ends his piece with this straw man notion: "...the angle that anyone can be cured of anything in the presence of these Orioles? That one's for the Birds."

Who said anything about Vazquez being "cured"? All that's being said by the Yankees, most other sportswriters, and many fans, is that Vazquez has improved his game since the disastrous first month of the year. And that him winning his first home start this year was a big step. Does that mean he's out of the water yet? No, but least he can see the shoreline.

What do you think? Tell us about it!