Yanks win as A-Rod-finds trouble on and off the field.  Normally I’m not an A-Rod apologist.  I don’t hate the guy, but I figure he’s the highest paid player in baseball, he comes off as something of a dandy, and he disappears every October.  Some heat comes with that territory.

Lately though, things have gotten a little out of hand.  First Rodriguez was photographed entering a Toronto strip club with a busty, platinum blonde companion named Not Mrs. Rodriguez.  I’m certainly not defending his infidelity.  I’m just wondering where the stories are on the literally hundreds of other pro athletes who do the same thing whenever their team hits the road.

Heck sometimes it even happens at home.  I went to school in Green Bay, which is a football town.  Not a city, a TOWN in middle America.  In that setting a 6’6″, 280 lb football player and everything that player does sticks out like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie flipping burgers in Dumbstump, Iowa.  Sadly, marital unfaithfulness seems to be part of the game.

Back at the ballpark, things got worse.  While running the bases it seems A-Rod uttered, depending on whose story you believe, something between a primal yawlp and a perfect rendition of Toronto’s second baseman calling off Toronto’s shortstop in playing a fly ball.

Now the Blue Jays have their flapjacks in a bunch.  That’s bush.

For sure.  I mean, I haven’t seen something like that since … well, since I was a kid playing ball every sunny day of every summer.  Yeah, we sure don’t want these guys running around acting like kids playing a game.  These are pampered, spoiled, millionaires … er … professionals playing a game.  If you’ve got zest and zeal to do whatever crazy thing you can think of to win the game, just check it at the door mister.

Report: New start-up league could rival NFL - You almost have to laugh.  No really, it’s a great idea.  Or at least that’s what the WFL and the USFL and the XFL and the CFL think.  Yes, I know that at least the Canadian Football League is still kicking, but it’s not like it is keeping Roger Goodell up at night.

This new league seems to have some major juice backing it.  Mark Cuban is in the mix and there is some Google money in there.  With such savvy business minds behind it, the league’s approach is baffling.

The barrier to entry for a new football league always has been the fact that the NFL has all the money and gets all the talent.  The USFL attempted to lure top players such as Hershel Walker from the NFL’s clutches.  Today that is an even bigger financial impossibility.  The XFL relied on being WWE’s twisted offspring.  And the CFL?  Well, they really only need to compete with hockey, hey, so their bar is set a lot lower to begin with.

So, the brilliant minds of the new league have come up with the idea of not trying to compete with the NFL.  They’ll settle for the scraps.

“(Former NFL coach) Bill Walsh used to tell me that the last 20 players cut from every team were almost interchangeable with the last 20 players to make the team,”

Very true.  There is little difference between the two groups and the football fan isn’t interested in seeing either one.  They are paying with their time and dollars to see the FIRST 20 guys that made the team.

And, while Mark Cuban’s money will always be a boost, it is doubtful he can ”goose” football the same way he does the NBA.  His antics work in the cozy confines of a basketball arena.  At a football game he’ll be lost on anyone more than 20 rows back from the field … taking the blind leap of faith and assuming that those 20 rows are filled of course. 

… or greatly rushed at the very least.  It seems folks can’t wait to put the pinstripes in their grave.

It’s not without cause at this point.  They’ve accumulated nearly a double-digit deficit to rival Boston in their division and a host of teams by 7 games if you want to start looking at the wild card.

However, things could not have gone much worse for the Yanks in this campaign so far.  Their starting pitching has been miserable which in turn is stressing the bullpen.  For any team, this kind of fortune isn’t likely to hold for an entire season, but especially not with George Steinbrenner’s pocketbook fueling things.  At the bat New York has looked every bit the offensive juggernaut they should be, even with a number of key pieces under-performing.

But the biggest thing to remember is that the baseball season is loooooong.  Labor Day will come and go before the season ends yet we aren’t even to Memorial Day yet.  Kids who are graduating high school will have already enjoyed their first college fall break before the season ends.  To think that anything has been decided in May for a season that ends in September is folly.

Let’s not forget George Steinbrenner’s habit of going shopping in July, or the Red Sox habit of folding down the stretch.

So quick!  Another specimen in my “subjective definition of crime” collection.  If you haven’t been following, Atlanta Falcons franchise QB, Michael Vick, is under investigation after it was found that a dog-fighting ring was being operated on one of his properties.  And lets not lose sight of the fact that this was all discovered by police who were serving a drug warrant.  Yes the character found in the Vick family continues to amaze.

Well, now another athlete has come to Vick’s defense:  Portis defends Vick, dog fighting.

“It’s his property,” Portis told WAVY TV 10 in Virginia. “It’s his dog. If that’s what he wants to do, do it.”

When reminded that dog fighting is a felony in Virginia, Portis was not deterred.

“It can’t be too bad of a crime,” Portis said. “There’s lots of stuff that’s (a crime). There’s killers on the loose…You want to hunt down Michael Vick over fighting some dogs, you know, I think people should mind their business.”

Of course just to make it abundantly clear that this isn’t something stupid a person said, but rather something a stupid person said:

“It’s prevalent in life…I know a lot of back roads that got some dog fighting, if you want to go see it,” he said. But they’re not bothering (anybody)…I’m sure some police got dogs and fight them, some judges got dogs and everything else.”

You know, this just speaks for itself.  But hey, at least Vick didn’t kill anyone.

Headline at Fox News this morning:  Report: John Edwards Charges $55,000 for Speech on Poverty .

I guess the left doesn’t have a monopoly on this kind of gratuitous suggestion.  He was speaking ABOUT poverty, not TO the poverty-stricken.  If you’d like to enjoy a small taste of irony here, knock yourself out, but politicians commanding large sums for speaking engagements on a wide range of subjects is nothing new.  And, if you were a Democrat, poverty could well be one of the subjects on which you would be interested in hearing Edwards’ views.

The facts by themselves are surprising to the average person because, yeah, $55K is a lot of money.  But again, put in context this is run of the mill stuff for a politician on either side of the spectrum.  To throw this story out there as if it were somehow different and noteworthy is cheap sensationalism.  Shame on you, Fox.  This is something I’d expect of CNN.

Hats off to David Stern on the recent suspensions of Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw after the Suns players reacted to Robert Horry’s flagrant hip check on Steve Nash.  Hats off for not giving in to the situational ethics whiners.

You knew it was coming.  Losing Horry, a bit player, for two games didn’t hurt the Spurs nearly as much as Phoenix losing Stoudemire, one of their stars for one.  ESPN’s Dan Patrick fell for it during his interview with David Stern:  “Commissioner, the point is, this series is going to be decided on Robert Horry’s hip check with Steve Nash.”

Stern was having none of it:  ”… It’s not being decided by that. It’s being decided because two Phoenix Suns who knew about the rule forgot about it, couldn’t control themselves, didn’t have coaches that could control them and don’t you forget it.”

And then another trick by those who think rules should be changed for the situations of their choosing is to bring past inconsistent rulings and unfair decisions.  If there have been inconsistencies these should certainly be addressed.  But “you made a bad decision in the past so now I get to run onto the court to join in the fracas” doesn’t work.

And if you think the rule is a bad one there are mechanisms in place to go about changing it.

For now, there is a rule in place and there are prescribed consequences.  Hats off to David Stern for not losing sight of this.

Big news in Chapel Hill:  Coach Roy Williams signed a contract extension that will have him wearing powder-blue vests through 2015 … like this means anything at all.

Don’t get me wrong.  As a big fan of Carolina and Coach Williams I’m glad to see them do anything they can to show their favorite son the love.  But that’s all it amounts to.  A nod of affirmation.

If an NBA team came calling tomorrow and Williams was interested, that contract would disappear faster than Michael Vick’s integrity.  If, in 2011 Williams were to log his fourth disastrous season and McDonald’s All-Americans began to flee Chapel Hill like a burning building, have no doubt that UNC and its network would order the moving van themselves.

This is one of those “in case it isn’t obvious that I love you, I’ll say it once in a while” things.  By the time he retires Williams will probably be extended roughly through the spring of 3012.

Most Heels fans felt it back in fall, but the departure of Brandon Wright for the NBA became irreversible when the ACC rookie of the year signed with an agent.  Roy Williams wasn’t surprised, saying that he  was “99.99 percent sure the 6-foot-9 forward wouldn’t return to campus next season.”  Not exactly going out on a limb when you could correctly argue that Wright wasn’t on campus a whole lot this past season, including several great Tar Heel games in which he was effectively absent.  What a shame.  Had he approached the season as more than an NBA waiting line we’d be talking about him in the same breath with Durant and Oden.

Conversely, we shouldn’t make too much of Tyler Hansbrough foresaking the NBA and returning to Carolina for his junior season.  Hansbrough is THE MAN in college, no doubt.  He won’t be nearly as physically imposing in the NBA.  From a school that has given us Jordan and Worthy, Hansbrough will probably be the next Rick Fox.

From today’s Bonhoeffer reading:

I’ve been traveling back and forth to Alabama for work lately, which takes me through Nashville and a lot of awesome radio.  What really caught me ear on the last trip:  one station played Cheap Trick’s “She’s Tight.”

Now this by itself may seem unremarkable.  I disagree.  To me this signalled a station that really gets classic rock and its fans.

You see, your average classic rock station will stick to classic songs.  So if they play Cheap Trick, 9 times out of 10 it’s going to be “Surrender” or “I Want you to Want Me” from Budokan.  Every once in a while they’ll grow a wild hair and put on “Dream Police.”  Ted Nugent?  “Cat Scratch Fever.”  AC/DC?  “Hells Bells,” “Back in Black,” or “Dirty Deeds.”  Basically it is mindlessly programming out of old issues of Billboard.

When I turn on a classic rock station, I want to hear the classic groups, but not necessarily the same songs all the time.  This, at least, should make sense.  So, while “She’s Tight” won’t go down in the annals of rock as a timeless classic, it is something I might have heard on the radio back in the day.

It’s classic ROCK, not classic songs.  Thanks cool station in Nashville.

Nothing super deep here.  I just happened across MTV visiting Gene Simmons’ “crib.”  Right off the bat it was refreshing to see this group of stars refuse to refer to their home as a “crib.”

Gene Simmons:  The first thing that strikes me has nothing to do with his house.  I checked some ages … Gene Simmons – 57, Ted Nugent – 58, Ozzy Osbourne – 58.  Nugent boasts of having never used alchohol or drugs.  Simmons drug of choice was sex while Osbourne definitely led the classic hard-drinking, hard drug rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.  Today Simmons and Nugent are still on their game while Osbourne is functionally incoherent.  Make of that what you will.

This was done a few years back.  More recent clips of Simmons and family reveal that his son is the spitting image of his dad.  Slap on the face paint, put him on stage spitting blood and fire and you’d swear you were watching the genuine article.

Nice home, lots of memorabilia from KISS tours and other members of the band.

Ted Nugent:  The hunter’s paradise.  With Simmons, you could see that his mate had had a chance to leave her mark on things throughout the house.  Unless Nugent’s wife is the avid outdoorsperson that he is, she has basically one room that isn’t overrun with trophy heads of deer, elk, bears, etc.  Nugent is interesting.  He’s a little out there and it would probably drive me nuts to hang out with the guy too long.  But you have to love his spirit.  The guy has truly found his niche in life and derives peace from being in his element.

Not much rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia around.

Sebastian Bach:  Interesting difference between the original hard rockers and a guy 2 generations removed.  I figure KISS and Nugent were originals, then came the first hair band wave, and I put Bach’s Skid Row in the second wave of hair metal.  Bach probably had as much KISS memorabilia as Gene Simmons did.  He also had items from Nugent, Twisted Sister, … pretty much everyone but Skid Row.

All these guys have awesome vehicle collections.  Bach has some kind of roadster with, once again, KISS star Ace Frehley’s signature on the dash.

Dee Snider:  Almost the inverse of Nugent, Snider has totally surrendered the decorating duties to his wife.  And he’s got a cockapoo with fur dyed pink and a black “mohawk.”  And, the only memorabilia to be found was in his kids’ rooms.  Neat watching Snider with his son and daughter.  He’s another guy who is unique, but seems to have found peace in his place in life.  Looks like he’s passing that along to his kids.

Best thing about Snider’s “crib” tour:  awesome collection of motorcycles!  Several custom choppers, but the crown jewel was an Indian Cruiser.  Sweet, sweet ride.