Claps and Slaps

My version of Mighty's wildly popular Cheers and Jeers...

Claps to: Paul Byrd and the Angels. Way to fight off the jetlag and get a big Game 1 victory. Real gutty performance by the team. Game 2 will be just as big with Buehrle opposing either the strep-throated Jarrod Washburn or the crap-basket Kevin Gregg. Here's hoping that the Angels board a plane back to Cali with 2 games in their carry-on luggage.

Slaps to: Ron Artest. After missing most of last year and ruining his team's championship aspirations, he says last night that he won't play any different, that he'll be out of control, that he'll let the refs handle the wake of his storm. 'Atta boy, Artest. You've shown that the study of psychology, psychiatry and other behavioral sciences don't work on IQ-challenged animals. If I hear one more pop-psych analyst tell me that Artest is just a product of the ghetto and is only expressing his inner rage, I'll vomit. This is a legitimate sociopath who has no impulse control. If I were an opponent, I'd call his momma a dirty whore and take the 10 stitches. It'd be worth it to ruin this guy's putrid career.

Claps to: Andy Pettitte. In a pre-emptive clap, here's hoping that one of baseball's underrated stars gets to shine again in October. The Astros have never been to the World Series. It'd be nice to send Biggio into retirement with a ring.

Slaps to: The New York Times and Bill Simmons. Both have a crazy way of seeing things. The New York Times Company, owners of a 17% stake in the Boston Red Sox, have a vested interest in publishing columns that are unflattering to the Yankees. They have a vested interest in taking a position that is antithetical to the Yankees' long-term interests and they are, as evidenced by their columnists missives this morning, preaching from the position of trying to influence Yankee policy towards firing Torre and Cashman and getting the Yankees to engage in all sorts of ridiculous trades. If that isn't a complete lack of journalistic ethics, I don't know what is.

Bill Simmons, on the other hand, is doing something comical that still requires a firm slap. He's spinning. Spinning is what scared people do. Now that the Red Sox are out of the playoffs, he's spinning the loss by saying that the Red Sox overachieved the whole year, that they never should've made the playoffs and that any success they had was a testament to how gutty and wonderful the team is. He then spun the Yanks' loss to the Angels as a true failure. Really? The Yankees were not picked by ANYONE to win the AL East. They weren't picked to win the World Series this year (the Red Sox were favored). They even snatched the division title from Boston by coming back from a five game deficit with a little over two weeks to play. The Red Sox lost their playoff series in three straight games and yet they aren't failures? That spin puts Simmons up there with Karl Rove and David Gergen as some of the greatest spinners in the world. Simmons, if you ever get tired of being a smarmy prick, go into politics.

Final Claps to: Football. Baseball's in the rearview mirror now.