Brushback Pitch - Daily News 3/29/06

Randy Johnson is apparently very much an Old Testament kind of Born-Again Christian.

There is no love for his out of wedlock daughter and only tit for tat with mom.

“I don’t have a relationship with him. It’s upsetting,” the girl says, in today’s article.

And it is upsetting. Upsetting that the Big Unit is suing her mother over what amounts to spare change for the millionaire. Upsetting that he, if one is to believe the papers, has little to do with his forlorn teenager, save the monthly check.

But then again, that is just Randy isn’t it. According to that Times article the other day, he is is just one oversized mystery. Well, not unlike his fastball these days, the aura is a bit duller, a bit less intimidating now.

“I don’t have to apologize to anybody,” he says in the Times article.

Yes you do Randy. Her name is Heather.

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Is it just me or does it seem like the YES Network is little more than a poorly concealed sledgehammer designed to perpetually smash the fragile psyche of Red Sox Nation?

It’s no exaggeration that you can flip on YES at 11:15 AM on Tuesday morning in the middle of January (or for that matter, almost any time of any day) and relive the most devastating and demoralizing moments (at least for Sox fans) in the history of this rivalry. And if the endless rebroadcasts of Boone and Bucky test your patience, there are always those irritating ten second clips of ‘classic moments’ that just seem to pop up now and then between commercials. You know the ones—introduced with the parting clouds and that ludicrous 3 note fanfare…

So it comes as no surprise then to see how quickly YES has put together Johnny Damon on Centerstage.

As I watched Michael Kay pour on the love (including the shameless show and tell of Boras’s silly Free Agent Presentation tome.) I couldn’t help but think of all the times Kay bashed Damon on his EPSN Radio show. Everything from his hair and beard to his wacky demeanor.

But just maybe the broadcast illuminates exactly why Damon (who incidentally still seems brokenhearted over the breakup) was brought to the Bronx in the first place. At best he is a questionable fit. They wanted to get younger. They wanted a better arm out there. And then there is that whole ‘Idiot’ persona.

Just watch the broadcast for five minutes if you can stomach it, and you’ll realize the real reason they signed him was precisely so they could parade him around on shows just like this. So they could stick it to Red Sox Nation every chance they get.

Damon may be an aging center fielder with diminishing skills but his real value to the Yanks appears to be his status as a bona fide PR goldmine. And that isn’t any way to run a team, is it?

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Backup catcher Kelly Stinnett breaks it with an errant throw and ignites potential controversy. Who is catching Randy Johnson? And I’m not just referring to opening day while said nose recovers. I am talking about the entire season. Joe Torre insists Johnson will not have a ‘personal catcher’. And supposedly the batterymates patched things up earlier in the spring. But curiously enough, Stinnett has been catching Johnson all spring long.

There’s definitely a nose pun nearby that I am choosing to ignore.

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Book: Conte urged athletes to keep quiet about ‘roids

I am not a Bonds defender. But there is something irksome about all this Bonds bashing. I can’t help but think he has been singled out only because of his superior talent. Will there be the same kind of outcry over these two Yanks? Doubtful. Sure there was some noise last year. But now, it appears they are reduced to bit players in this book, with a day or two in the headlines (probably a week in the NY dailies).

But here is my point: Bonds, along with these two Yanks, and who knows how many other hitters and pitchers, were essentially on a level playing field. Bonds excelled and outperformed, just as he did prior to the ‘roids, because he was a better ballplayer than they were. So, in spite of his proximity to those ‘hallowed records’, you simply have to get off of him.

This is a baseball problem and no one user should be singled out.

One other point of interest from the AP article is the blurb about Giambi getting advice on how to beat the drug tests.

I can’t help but wonder which Giambi will show up in ‘06.

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