The Yankees Are October ( aka the luppy opus}

As predictable as the sun coming up today Luppy dusted off his 2009 version of "the Yankees are October". The same usual sappy "in this city , in the bronx ,on 161st bs" that makes you want to vomit up your breakfast.

The rest of year Luppy hates the Yankees but loves the show for a week. Also predictable-- yesterday Luppy wrote one of his 20 per year "Yankees are the best team Steinbrenner money can buy" columns.

You can't have it both ways Mikey. You are a fraud.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/columnists/lupica/index.html

 

I was rereading You've Gotta Play Hurt the other day... I know Richie Pace is Loopy, but who was Dub Fricker based on?

 

Whenever Steve Phillips is back in the news this Luppy column always warms the cockles:

NOW HAVE 2 FAMERS, 3 IF YOU COUNT PHILLIPS

BY MIKE LUPICA

Wednesday, December 12th 2001, 2:24AM

It is all Yankees all the time around here, only yesterday it was different, because the Mets made a trade for one of the best baseball players of his time, and the most complete second baseman of all time. He is Roberto Alomar, who once became more famous for losing his head and spitting at an umpire than for all his grace on a ballfield. He has been making up for it ever since, on the field and off. Now he hits in front of Mike Piazza at Shea. This is one of the great baseball steals.

We thought Latrell Sprewell was even worse than Alomar because of what Sprewell did to his coach at Golden State. Now Sprewell plays as hard as any athlete in town, and gets cheered for that. It will be the same way with Alomar at Shea. This is a bigger for the Mets than getting Jason Giambi is for the Yankees.

"This is exactly the type of ballplayer I've always wanted," Bobby Valentine said yesterday, in a Christmas voice.

The Yankees can still make one more headline with Giambi, after the endless series of Giambi headlines. Good for them; it is always exciting watching them spend more money. The Mets still came to life again yesterday, for the first time since they made that run at the Braves in September.

Around here the object of the game is always another Subway Series, whatever is happening to the rest of baseball. In the middle of December we got thinking that way again yesterday, for the first time since the Mets fell apart last spring. Steve Phillips, who is on the line this winter, who better put together a team good enough to go back to the World Series if he wants to keep his job, made the best deal he has made for the Mets since he got Mike Hampton.

Maybe a steal like this, the steal of Phillips' career, is the start of the Mets being best in the National League again.

Alomar is still only 33. He has moved around more than a player of his immense talents should, but that is modern baseball. Joe McIlvaine traded him away from the Padres, and all that deal did was help the Blue Jays win two World Series and field one of the best starting nines in the last 30 years. Alomar went from there to Baltimore and then to Cleveland. Now he finally plays in New York. Big talent, big stage. It will be worth the price on your ticket just to see him work with Rey Ordoñez in the middle of the infield, the way Alomar worked with the great Omar Vizquel in Cleveland. The Mets went for Vizquel first. They walk away with a much bigger prize now, and did not have to spend $100 million to do it.

Or $252 million, just to pick a number out of the air.

The Mets gave up nothing important to get Alomar, who will go to the Hall of Fame someday. Jerrod Riggan may turn out to be a star reliever. Alex Escobar may turn out to be a star outfielder. The Mets couldn't wait. They never needed Matt Lawton in the first place. Cleveland will say it got big prospects. The Mets needed a big player as much as they ever have, and sure got one yesterday.

So many good things happen to the Mets because of Alomar. The best thing is Mike Piazza's RBI total goes back to 120 with Alomar hitting in front of him, Alomar and his .336 batting average and his on-base percentage of .415, all that going with 20 homers and 100 RBI and 30 steals.

"This is the business," Alomar said yesterday. "I'm a Met now and I'm happy."

You can talk about all the other gloves at second base. Alomar's is the best. And he is always the most fun to watch, doing the same thing Ordoñez does at short, which means making plays you have to see to believe. From that day when he spit at John Hirschbeck behind home plate in SkyDome he has picked himself up and slowly rebuilt his reputation.

It doesn't clear the books, of course. It is the same with Sprewell. What he did to P.J. Carlesimo is on his permanent record. So is the spitting incident with Alomar. But you get a chance to come back in sports, and show people you are better than they thought. Sprewell is now the most popular Knick, on merit. What happened with Alomar and Hirschbeck - for whom Alomar has done so much charity work since - happened years ago. It is not as if Alomar is still on probation. The second baseman got his second chance from us a long time ago, and has made the most of it.

Now, every day, the Mets will put two players on the field who are on their way to Cooperstown. Alomar is first-ballot for Cooperstown the way Piazza is, unless baseball writers make him wait because of Hirschbeck.

Steve Phillips didn't wait at the winter meetings. He delivered yesterday, without spending the money the Yankees are about to spend on Giambi. You can still do that in baseball. Phillips comes off a bad year, like his baseball team. He isn't coming up on the last year of his contract, but he is smart enough to know he has no job security beyond the 2002 season if the Mets don't show better than they did in 2001.

Now Phillips has to find a way to put some home runs in the Mets outfield. And he has to get more pitching. This was a good day for the Mets, maybe just the first of the winter meetings. A Met day in a Yankee town. The best steal outside of "Ocean's 11" now wears No. 12 for the Mets.

 

Lupica needs a triple dose of STFU.

 

Pass the barf bag:

"It is the best possible World Series, the defending champs against the Yankees. It is the two best teams in baseball and the two most entertaining teams and the two toughest outs and what would be every bit as good as the Yankees vs. the Red Sox if we did it more often.

It is two great sports cities and the first Series at the new Stadium and CC Sabathia against Cliff Lee, a couple of star lefthanders who used to be teammates in Cleveland, in Game 1. The last two Super Bowls have been the best of all time. Maybe we are due for a World Series like that, one that we'll talk about forever, a Fall Classic that really is one. One that only Mets fans don't want to see."

 

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Column was # 2