Nobody Impugns My Dirt-Kicking Skills

Lou Piniella, in this week's NYTimes Magazine:

On the other hand, it might be nice if baseball moved into the future by including more women in its ranks. Do you think a woman could be a good manager? If she had a good bench coach, why not? I would think she would need a good hardened professional baseball guy that would help her with the x’s and o’s during the ballgame. Someone who knew the intricacies in and out of the game.

Plenty of women already know the intricacies of the game. I’m not sure of that. I think some of the sportswriter women probably think they do.

Yes... unlike Lou Piniellla, I can only dream of one day managing a $100 million team to a 31-36 record without help from a grizzled bench coach.

I generally get a kick out of Sweet Lou -- baseball tends to get too stuffy and self-serious without loons like him and Ozzie Guillen to break up the monotony, though I wouldn't want either of them managing my team. And he's not an idiot, so I can only assume he knows this will touch off a bit of a firestorm, and is looking for controversy. Okay then. I'm game.

See, here's the thing: it would be incredibly difficult for a woman to manage successfully in the major leagues right now. Just not at all for Piniella's reasons. The intricacies of baseball? If there are female neurosurgeons, I'm pretty sure a few chicks out there can figure out how to misuse a bullpen as ably as the average male skipper. The real problems are all on the social side: baseball's such a massive boys' club that getting the coaches and players to properly respect you, as Piniella just demonstrated, would be very much an uphill battle.

There's actually a semi-legitimate argument to be made that the best managers are likely to be the ones who've been there themselves, played the game, and know exactly what their players are going through; though I don't know that that's vital, you can certainly see how it would help. In any case, these days it's still nearly impossible for men who never played professional ball to get their foot in the managerial door. Bench coaches or no bench coaches, it'll be a long, long time before a woman gets the job.

But just out of curiosity, is repeatedly shifting blame to your players after one of your team's many losses an "x" or an "o"?

I'll have to ask a good hardened professional baseball guy about that one. Incidentally, I'm not suggesting here that I would make a good manager; I would make a terrible manager. I'd probably chose my relief pitchers based on how much I liked their entrance music. But that doesn't mean Lou Piniella's not an ass.

Brace Yourselves For KEI IGAWA: 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS

Okay, so briefly, before I go off on Lou Piniella, there was a long but entertaining game today.

The highlights: Tyler Clippard pitched his way right back to Scranton, and Tom Glavine was -- here's a phrase you won't see too often -- not as good as Luis Vizcaino. Here's a phrase you'll see even less often: Mariano Rivera was not as good as Luis Vizcaino. Those words look ugly on the screen, but the Yanks hung on for an 11-8 win.

In other news, Jose Reyes tricked Clippard into balking him home, because he is, as has been noted here before, awesome; Alex Rodriguez is on pace for 736 home runs (guesstimate); and Carlos Beltran, following long gritty at-bats from Carlos Gomez and Reyes, with the tying runs on base, popped out on the first pitch he saw, and is going to take a lot of flak if he doesn't un-slump himself pronto. I really do think the Mets will be fine... but that's predicated on the belief that at least one Carlos will get back on track relatively soon.

I feel for Clippard, who was by my count literally the Yankees' seventh choice for fifth starter this year (after Igawa, Karstens, Rasner, Hughes, Wright, DeSalvo - am I forgetting anyone?), and given that, did about as well as anyone could expect. Until today, when he walked Jose Reyes to lead off an inning, on five pitches, twice. Tyler! Do not poke the bear!

I also feel for Glavine, who's stuck on win 295. He's made five starts since then, but only the last two were actually bad; this will not stop people from speculating that he's "lost it."

You know who I don't feel for? Derek Jeter. Dude's doing fine.

Good To Know He Likes Bull Durham, Though

You know it's been a bad week for the Yankees when the New York Times commends them for having "regained some self-respect" -- excellent! -- by avoiding a sweep. Still, things are looking up for the Yanks, kinda, a bit, after last night's win. Tyler Clippard, an awkward, thin, all-angles kind of pitcher, had an excellent major league debut, giving up one run on three hits in six innings. Whether he's really good, or whether the Mets were simply unfamiliar with him and his odd, distracting delivery, I don't know, nor do I care just now, because they actually won. Yes, a whole game! Much rejoicing. Clippard even had a double.

Also, via WasWatching, someone needs to explain to the guy how to make his MySpace page private. I started writing a paragraph about his profile, but felt too much like a mean little voyeur -- buy some curtains, kid!

Meanwhile, John Maine is coming back down to Earth a bit, which I guess was inevitable. I do genuinely believe he's a very legit starter, and will have a strong season overall, but 5-0 with a sub-2 ERA was a bit extreme. The Mets will now face the Braves, and they're in pretty good shape -- two and half games up in the standings -- but since they got a bit beaten up by Atlanta earlier in the season, I suppose still have a little something to prove.

As for the Yanks, they need a sweep against the Red Sox now. I'd be shocked if they got one, so I'm going to pretend that instead, they just need to take two of three. Even if they did sweep, they would still be 7 1/2 games out of first, and one win shy of .500. However. As Mike Francesa just put it on the fan, lecturing the Mad Dog and using my kind of metaphor: "How do you not learn through the years -- you have sat here for 18 going on 19 years... How do you not learn, that in the baseball season, you do not cash the chips in May? You do not cash the chips in July. You can't even take them to the window in August." He went on a while longer, but I got distracted by how much I miss Vegas. Mmmmm, blackjack...