Did smoking, profanity cause a rift between Mark Teixeira and Ron Washington?

There's a story in today's Daily News about Mark Teixeira and Ron Washington not exactly being BFFs when Tex was on the Texas Rangers. But what are the reasons behind it? Among other things, according to the article, "former teammates and a club executive said Teixeira complained of Washington's penchant for profanity and smoking in the dugout."

While I don't doubt that the two of them had a conflict - Washington acknowledges as much in the article - I wonder if those two things are really some of the reasons the two of them reportedly didn't get along.

First of all, unless Mark is challenging Tony Dungy these days, he has to be used to hearing profanity, even from the manager. But if this is the case, guess Teixeira won't be palling around with Jets coach Rex Ryan, eh?

Second is the "smoking in the dugout" accusation. Did Washington do it? It's possible. However, as Squawker Jon noted, even famous Mets smoker Keith Hernandez went to the clubhouse to get his tobacco fix. Joe DiMaggio would smoke in the Yankee tunnel. Even Jim Leyland, the famous smoker/manager in the game, doesn't get away with smoking in the dugout anymore. There are laws at almost every stadium these days banning smoking.

At any rate, as a former smoker, I wouldn't blame Teixeira for complaining about this if it happened. I don't really like breathing tobacco smoke now (I always said I wouldn't become one of those hectoring, judgemental ex-smokers when I quit, but it does bother my lungs.) And if I were a professional athlete, I'd be peeved to be around smoking in such an enclosed space during the game.

Anyhow, in an interview with the News, Washington didn't directly address what caused friction between them, but said something happened:

"It was a one-night thing where something happened in a ballgame and I called him on it. From that point on, I guess he disliked me," Washington told the Daily News. "Other than that I always felt I gave him the respect that he deserved.

"More than anything else we didn't get a chance to get to know each other," Washington continued. "If he'd have stayed around long enough, he'd have understood better what I meant by questioning him on some things. But the next thing you know, it was out of hand.

"I never had animosity toward him, but when I had something to say to him I said it."

Saying that you gave somebody "the respect that he deserved" isn't always a compliment, though!


According to the paper, Washington said he never heard the smoking/profanity complaints. But he does say:

"One time I had something to say and he was the guy I said it to," Washington said. "He said something back. And I went right back at him. It was just about the game of baseball, his ideas versus my ideas. But I am the manager."

 When asked about the issue, Teixeira responded:

"I really don't know what he's talking about. That was a long time ago," Teixeira said. "I was here for four months with him and I was on the DL for a month."

Wonder what the real story is here.

What do you think? Tell us about it.

What's wrong with Mark Teixeira?

Why do MLB managers insist on walking Mark Teixeira to face Alex Rodriguez with the bases loaded, like Blue Jays skipper Cito Gaston did Sunday? Don't these managers ever look at stat sheets these days?

Besides the obvious - that A-Rod has hit three grand slams and driven in 18 runs when put in this situation - the fact is that Teixeria is still slumping. He got the platinum sombrero just the day before. He's off to another bad month. And he's only hitting .211 on the year. Heck, even Ramiro Pena, at .227, is hitting better than Tex is!

I'm officially concerned about Teixeira. The brief time in May where he was hitting again seems to be the aberration, rather than portending him turning it all around.

And I like Tex, but him characterizing Saturday as just "one bad day" is a lot, um, off the mark!

If he doesn't pick up soon, I think he needs to be moved down the batting order, until he turns it around.

But what do you think? Leave us a comment!

Good times! The Bronx is up, while Flushing's down

The Yanks are looking very good - they've been winning series after series, with new heroes stepping up each day. The Mets - not so much.

Yesterday's Yankee win featured a very good Chien-Ming Wang - for two innings, that is. Then it started to fall apart for him. But I'm going to be hopeful, and figure that he'll be better once his arm strength improves.

However, if it's a mental issue affecting Wang, the Yankee "fans" booing him aren't helping. Just stop it already.

Fortunately, Mark Teixeria's hit, which looked like something out of a pinball machine, and Melky Cabrera's home run bailed out the Bombers. It was another nice victory. The Yanks are on quite a run, aren't they?

On the other hand, Squawker Jon's Mets are, well, crashing and burning and all that jazz. Too bad, so sad.

At least Jon's blog entry on how the Mets should just say no to Tom Glavine got noticed by both MetsBlog and Big League Stew. Very cool!

I also read on MetsBlog that the minor-league Binghamton Mets are wearing Star Trek-inspired jerseys at tonight's game. Jon's all excited about this. As for myself, if I had to sit through anything Star Trek-related, I'd be asking to get beamed up!

* * *

Last night, I dragged Squawker Jon to a sneak preview of "The Proposal," the upcoming Sandra Bullock/Ryan Reynolds romantic comedy. (Don't judge; the event was free!) The screening also showcased some of the shows on WE TV's Sunday night lineup, like "Bridezillas," "My Fair Wedding," and "Amazing Wedding Cakes." You can imagine Jon's reaction to all this.

After sitting through the screening, Squawker Jon let me have it. "I feel embarrassed," Jon squawked. "I don't think it's fun." My writing partner griped we have to "focus more on what we need to accomplish," and opined that "we have to take this personal, because this can't happen."

Oh, wait. That wasn't Jon; that was Carlos Beltran after the Mets got swept by the Pirates. Oops!


What do you think? Leave us a comment!

Just call him Anti-Yankee Bob! Watson imposes outrageous suspension on A.J. Burnett

I'm spitting mad over A.J. Burnett getting suspended for six games, while the real headhunter of Tuesday's game, Vincente Padilla, gets off with only a fine.

Let me get this straight. Padilla has hit 98 batters since 2000, putting him at a faster HBP pace than even Randy Johnson. The Rangers pitcher has repeatedly targeted Mark Teixeira, ever since Tex hit a homer off him. And he hit Teixeira not once but twice Tuesday night. Padilla's actions apparently so disturbed the Rangers front office that there are reports that the Texas team is planning on putting him on waivers.

Yet the newly-mustachioed Burnett, who didn't hit anybody with his up-and-in pitch to Nelson Cruz in defense of his teammate, is the one getting suspended for six games? Gimme a break.

Why should Burnett be suspended for standing up for Teixeira? It's an outrage. It's not like he had violated any sort of umpire's warning - the umps didn't say anything until after his pitch. And he wasn't thrown out of the game, either. His suspension is completely unjustified. What the heck is Bob Watson thinking?

Red Sox fans derisivelly call MLB's Watson "Yankee Bob," for what they perceive as a bias in favor of his old team. I think Watson's real nickname ought to be Anti-Yankee Bob, or maybe Ranger Rob, for this ridiculous decision. But it's typical of Watson - time after time, he's let other teams like the Red Sox do target practice on Yankee players, but the moment a Yankee retaliates, the way Joba Chamberlain did in 2007, it seems to be an automatic suspension.

Speaking of which, I don't want to hear Sox fans gripe about how Josh Beckett got suspended this year even though he didn't hit anybody, and wasn't thrown out of the game either. It was a very different situation. Beckett threw at Bobby Abreu's head because the Angel called time. When Abreu squawked, Beckett stormed off the mound and walked towards him. Much more aggressive than anything Burnett did.

Burnett is appealing this dopey decision. I hope he wins.

What do you think of MLB suspending A.J. Burnett for six games? Leave us a comment!

You're on the Mark! Teixeira gets revenge against Texas

That was an exciting game last night, yes? The two best teams in the American League facing off, and the Yanks are now on top with the best record in the AL, after winning 16 of their last 20 games.

Who would have thought that Yankees-Rangers would have a new version of the infamous Jose Mesa-Omar Vizquel feud? Former teammates Mark Teixeira and Vicente Padilla have some bad blood between them, as evidenced by last night's game.

Padilla hit Tex - twice - and Teixeira was openly irate after the second time. He got his revenge sliding hard into Rangers' shortstop Elvis Andrus to break up a double play, an event Jorge Posada said in the postgame was the turning point of the game.

Dallas Morning News sportswriter Jeff Wilson called that 7-run fourth inning "the biggest of the year against the Rangers." And it was a pivotal inning for the Yanks, too, and not just because of the score. It showed that this team is showing a lot more fire and aggressiveness than we've seen from them in a long time.

When Mark Teixeira (!) is doing a hard slide into second, and screaming his head off in the dugout after Hideki Matsui's homer, that's a different kind of team. And when a Yankee pitcher - A.J. Burnett - is throwing up and in to Nelson Cruz in the next inning (Cruz was a good target because he hit a three-run homer off Burnett earlier in the game), that's a different kind of team as well.

Not to mention Teixeira's postgame comments. Instead of some vanilla denial, the first baseman was very pointed on his thoughts about Padilla:

“I hit home runs in my first two at-bats against him, the third time I got hit. Every time I’ve faced him since there’ve been balls near my head or my body,” Teixeira said. “He’s been doing this his whole career; it’s not the right way to play the game. If you can’t get a guy out, don’t pitch to him. Put down the four fingers and walk him.”

Oh, snap!

Heck, even Padilla's own catcher seemed to approve of what Tex did. Newsday's Ken Davidoff wrote about Jarrod Saltalamacchia's postgame comments:

"I can't speak for Teixeira," Saltalamacchia said. "But if he did it on purpose, then Teixeira had every right to be mad. Burnett had every right to do what he did."

I would love to know what current Texas Ranger Omar Vizquel thinks, given that he was in Teixeira's shoes in his own feud with Jose Mesa.

Incidentally, Padilla has hit 98 batsmen in his career. Very interesting.

A few other thoughts on the game:

* Other than that Nelson Cruz homer, Burnett didn't pitch badly. He also got eight strikeouts in the game. And, most importantly, he's stayed healthy. (Of course, now that I said that, I've probably jinxed him!)

* While it would have been intriguing to see how Josh Hamilton would hit in the new Yankee Stadium, after he put on a show last season in the Home Run Derby at the old ballpark, it's probably good for the Yanks' chances this series that Hamilton just went on the DL with an abdominal strain.

* Two other items of note - Derek Jeter scored his 1500th run, and the Yanks' errorless streak is over at 18 games, due to an error by Posada.

* Still wondering why all the Yankees pronounce Teixeira's name as TEX-sharea - Posada did it in the postgame. What's the story on that?

What did you think of last night's game? Leave us a comment!

Are the Yankees trying out Felix Lopez as their new spokesman?

How quickly did the Yankees score last night? I went from the car to the store in the middle of the first inning to buy an AM/FM radio. And when I got back to the car five minutes later, the Yanks had already scored four runs and were about to score a fifth!

I listened to some of the game on the radio at the gym, so I missed "seeing" the Yankee bats get completely shut down by R.A. Dickey after that first inning. But I did hear something interesting on the Sterling-Waldman broadcast: an interview with Felix Lopez!

Lopez, you may remember, is a senior vice president of the Yankees - and the husband of George Steinbrenner's daughter, Jessica. And it sounded to me like the Yank front office was sending him out for a trial run as a family spokesman. Which brings up a whole lot of questions.

Like, where are Hank and Hal Steinbrenner these days? The two of them - and their very different personalites - remind me of feuding brothers Heat Miser and Snow Miser. (And now that you've got that song in your head, click here for the video.) Too bad Mother Nature can't mediate in real life. But I digress.

Anyhow, Lopez told John Sterling that the Yankees were going to fix everything that is wrong with the new Stadium. Sterling, of course, said he didn't think anything was wrong with the Cathedral! But Lopez was armed with zero specifics on what the front office was going to do. Nor was he the most eloquent spokesman - he kept on using words like "obviously" like some people say "you know." However, the advantage Lopez does have over Lonn Trost and Randy Levine was that listening to him didn't make your skin crawl. And when Lopez said that the team was going to listen to the fans, I kind of believed him!

So, are the Yankees 1) conceding that the new Stadium has problems, and 2) conceding that Trost and Levine aren't very good faces for the franchise? It's all very curious. Wonder what will happen next.

* * *

As for the game itself, Mark Teixeira sent two "Tex messages," as John Sterling calls them, last night. That second one was a tremendous shot. It's exciting to see what he can do when he's "on."

Is the reason that the first baseman is "on the Mark" because Alex Rodriguez is back in the lineup? Sure looks like it. According to the YES broadcast, in 25 games without A-Rod, Teixeira hit .198, with 5 homers and 15 RBIs. In the 10 games since, he's hit .342, with 5 homers and 13 RBI. And the Yanks went from a 13-15 record without Alex, to a 8-2 record with him. Hmmm, who would think putting a three-time MVP back in the lineup would actually make it better?

And Phil Coke got his first save, after a few fits and starts. I thought it was cute that it was fellow rookies Ramiro Pena and Francisco Cervelli who went to the mound to calm him down when he had a case of the jitters!

What do you think? Leave us a comment!

Whipped cream, wrestling belts, and tattoos: How this is a new Yankee crew

Have the Yankees turned a corner? Unlike a few weeks ago, when Mark Teixeira observed that the Yanks found a new way to lose each night, they seem to be finding a new hero to win each game. Sunday's star was Johnny Damon. But honorable mention should go to Mark Teixeira's terrific play earlier in the game to keep the Twins from scoring. Not to mention A.J. Burnett keeping them in the game - and supplying the whipped cream pies.

It was a funny game - the crowd seemed so pumped up in the ninth, then Joe Mauer nailing Brett Gardner on that terrific play at home plate seemed to take the air out of the Stadium. (Speaking of which, Squawker Jon and I were talking on the phone during the play. He noticed that Mauer faked out Gardner before the Yankee announcers did!)

Normally, you would think that this would be the end of the Yankees chances. And it still seemed eerily quiet the next inning, when the Yanks were at-bat. Until Damon hit his homer, that is. Liked how he threw his helmet in the air, and Melky Cabrera caught it!

It's an interesting dynamic this season, especially now that the team is winning. I like the new guys an awful lot, especially A.J. Burnett. What a change of pace he is. He's not only got his own personality as noticeable as all his tattoos, but he's not afraid to show his style - or the ink! Any guy who talks about once wearing nipple rings, as he did in Sunday's New York Post, is not your typical Yankee!

Ken Davidoff of Newsday noticed the clubhouse having a different tone this season, and wrote this:

...in a clubhouse that has been so stuffy in recent years, with Derek Jeter's dislike of Alex Rodriguez serving as a defining characteristic, it's refreshing to see non-judgmental, accomplished veterans Burnett and CC Sabathia come here and join Damon as guys who are their own men. Who act respectful of Captain Jeter but are not beholden to him.

Mariano Rivera, of all people, was the one to tell Burnett to get the whipped cream ready for the walkoff win. That's a good sign. I think this team could use some fun for a change. I like the pies, and the WWE championship belt going to the star of the game.

Every year, I think it's going to be the year that this clubhouse loosens up a little. But this year, I think it might actually be the one, because of two things - the quirky characters are starting to outnumber the buttoned-down types, and two of the quirky characters are also pitchers the Yanks are paying $240+ million to.

On the other hand, Jeter still is, shall we say, not quirky in postgame interviews. Three walkoff wins in a row, and he still spoke in his Charlie Brown's teacher monotone after Sunday's game. Good grief. And Squawker Jon thinks that the whipped cream pie fun will end for good if the captain ever gets pied!

But still, it was a really great weekend. But which was the best game of the three? After initially thinking Saturday was better than Friday, because who would expect two walkoff wins in a row, let alone a walkoff homer hit by Prodigal Yankee A-Rod, I have to say Friday's was the top.

And it wins not just for the dramatic ninth inning, capped by Melky Cabrera's two-run single, or Brett Gardner's inside-the-park homer, or even for Squawker Jon and I being at the game, but for this story: Gardner went to visit children with life-threatening illnesses in the hospital on Friday, as part of an event for Project Sunshine, a charity that helps kids with medical issues. A little girl in the hospital gave him a Project Sunshine bracelet to wear, saying that if he did, he'd hit a homer. And not only did Gardner get a homer, but the child got the heart transplant she was waiting for the next day. Is that heartwarming or what?

What was your favorite game this weekend? Leave us a comment!