I guess Rickey isn't the only Hall of Fame inductee this year who speaks the crazy talk.

I was tickled to open up the cyber-paper this morn and read that Jim Rice blames the Yankee payroll for him not winning a world series (though the Yanks didn't stand in his way in '75, '86 or '88, they did go the post-season five times during his career... hardly a great imbalance).  In the same breath, he lauds Theo Epstein for building the Red Sox "the right way".

"If you look at the Red Sox now, you see them bringing guys up in the organization.  That's why Theo has been the person he's been over the last couple of years. He'll bring young kids up and stay within the organization... The Yankees haven't won in the last eight years. What do they do? They go out and buy high-priced players in the hope to get back the winning percentage they had 10 years ago."

So, to recap, is Rice saying:

1. Staying within the organization is the key to success.  That's what Theo is doing, to positive results.
2. Spending on players outside the organization is the key to a team's success - that's why the Yanks were so successful in Rice's 1975-89 playing career. 

2a. (I guess he's also saying he'd rather lose with all home grown guys rather than acquire Reggie or Goose?  Or is he blaming his owners for not competing with the Yanks for free agents?) 

It's an old contradictory lament, and it's always funny to see how each team has their own idea of what a team's payroll should be - theirs.  Anything above that is TOO MUCH!

The Sox are a successful team, combining development with, yes, a huge payroll relative to most teams in the league.  And the players not named Manny must love that dirty water because they keep signing extensions for less than they could get on the open market. 

[As a related sidenote, I was amused to see Kevin Youkilis talk about how family (his wife's specifically) played a big role in him signing an extension in Boston.  That kind of talk is reserved for players who bail for more money elsewhere, not guys who stick around with their original team.  It seemed like he was about to segue into a rhapsody about the superior school system in Boston. ]

In other news, does Harold Reynolds pay rent at the MLB Network studios?  Maybe the studio is in his basement, because judging by his presence every time I turn on the channel, that place is clearly his residence.  I should have flicked it on early Sunday to see if he was at the desk wearing robe while nursing a cup of coffee and a bagel. 

Would this have saved the Yanks '04 season?

I like Andy Pettitte.  He seems nice.  I don't have kids, but if I did and we all hung around Pettitte, he probably wouldn't swear around them.  Actually, he wouldn't swear around me either.  Actually, he wouldn't hang around me because he'd be embarrassed by all my swearing.  So, he's probably good people.

But people seem to be a little slow to recognize him as being in the same fraternity as everyone else in the league - he's an ath-a-lete who likes to be coddled.  I keep going back to the year he bolted for the Astros, ostensibly so he could be home with his family.  The stories were that he was miffed at the Yanks, who told the free agent to look around the league, see if there is something his size, and then get back to them so they can make presumably the best offer.  Supposedly, he felt spurned because he wasn't wined and dined like Gary Sheffield was.  Well, I guess for Pettitte, it'd be apple juiced-and-dined.  Perhaps unfairly, I've always had this perception that he was waiting for the team to buy him man-furs and take him to 21.  Would the Yanks have won in 2004 if Cash took Andy on a Circle Line tour, and thus we could all have been spared the abject mediocrity that was Javier Vasquez?  Or shall we put it, would that Yanks have won if Pettitte wasn't so petty?

Either way, like any good athlete, the importance of "going home" took a serious backseat when the Yanks came crawling back.  And will they do so again?  Probably a .500 pitcher now, his reluctance to take $10M from a team that unknowingly signed him when he was about to take a bow on the Mitchell Report smacks of someone who might just want to "go home" and be with his kids again.   It'd be as disingenuous as his cock 'n' bull apology for taking HGH - a situation he found himself in which would have been much more forgivable if he said "My elbow was about to fall off.  It looked like my career was going to end prematurely, so I took it x amount of times for short period of time.  And it seems to have worked, by the way."

He's been a good #2 or 3 pitcher throughout his career.  Pitched some memorable gems in the post-season.  And a few BP sessions in the post season.  I'm glad he won the final game at the old ballyard.  But there are enough young pitchers to compete for the last spot in the rotation.  I'd take my chances with them and ignore that sentimental gentle wind.

full disclosure: I'm repeating myself about Pettitte here, but I felt compelled to photoshop the man fur on him.