Top 5 Items of the Day (Read 'Em All!)

It's a rare day when so many things seem to please Cheddar Ben at once. To the list!

1) The Mets smack around Herr Hoffman and Der Vaters

The win was big, obviously, with the Braves losing and the Phillies idle -- picking up games and half-games here and there is huge. But it was the way we came back in the ninth that really got me going. There was no bitching, there was no whining, there was no crying about what had happened the inning before (i.e., Home Plate umpire Angel Hernandez squeezing Billy Wagner like a kewpie doll).

We just didn't fool around. Blastings, who had already booted the ball once in right during an 0-fer night, turned on a fastball to lead off the inning, and DiFelice, for all the crap we usually give him, laid down a perfect shuffling bunt to move the runner over. And then Marlon Anderson, Jose Reyes and Luis Castillo all did exactly what you're supposed to do against Hoffman -- stay with the pitch, don't get out ahead, and count on the fact that your bat can beat his low '80s stuff to the contact point.

And they executed, three times in a row, with no blinking, as if the inning had been mapped out ahead of time. That takes a special type of confidence, and right now, the Mets are building up their store of that with every win. Beltran's collecting a cache of whatever quiet substance powers his mojo, Castillo now "feels like he's part of the team," which can't possibly hurt, and the young guys are contributing more and more.

Plus, we can see Endy and Pedro on the horizon. Good times.

2) The Moose gets his

I've never been a fan of Garret Anderson, the player or the person, so congrats to him on a big (10 RBI) night and let's be done with that. But man, is it sad to hear the Yankees broadcasters turn on one of their own. In this case, the victim was the Moose.

Now, Y2K has no love for this crossword-playing hack. He's a decent guy by all accounts, smarter than the average big leaguer and prone to saying the occasional sensible thing in an interview, but he's also a trend-setting free agent scumbag who left the team that developed him for the Evil Empire back when we took it nice and personal.

That said, the man's given a lot to the Yankees over the years; he has 247 career victories; he re-signed with the team over the winter on a below-market, loyalty contract. He deserves, in other words, a little credit from the team's in-house media arm. Or, conversely, he shouldn't have to deal with out and out hostility the moment he falters.

Well, he got exactly that from the comedy duo of Sterling and Waldman Tuesday night. They just LAID into Mike from the moment he took the hill, warning their listeners over and over again that the Moose hadn't looked good the last time out, that his ERA this year was up, ad nauseum. And when the struggles actually began? Forget about it.

"Self-important, self-congratulatory thinking ... you're listening to the Yankees radio network."

Sterling takes everything so personally, as if the Moose were trying to give up doubles into the gap to every batter. "It's easily got to be the worst outing of his career," he fumes, and then when Suzyn tells him about a worse start back in Baltimore, he doesn't believe her. Then this non-sequitur -- "Well, he couldn't have picked a worse time for it." You know what? Fuck you, buddy.

3) Radomski snitches

As juicy as this story already is, it ought to be be labeled with a massive DEVELOPING sign because:

-- We don't know how many, if any, Mets are involved

-- We don't know who else he named

-- We don't know what, if anything, Mitchell and Selig can do with that information.

All of these things are likely to come out sooner or later, most likely before the official Mitchell Report is delivered. What I'm hoping is that we start getting a couple of these ESPN pre-confessions, a la David Segui, from guys who know their goose is cooked and want to get ahead of the media cycle.

Benny Agbayani, I'm looking in your direction.

4) The latest "Sacrifice the Future" column arrives

Oh, happy day! Dan Graziano of the Star-Ledger took the prize this time, arguing -- in all seriousness -- that the careful plan the Yankees have for developing their flamethrowing young prospect (who's all of 21, mind you) -- ought to be immediately abandoned in favor of ... being irresponsible with him.

See, there's a chance that Chamberlain's future lies in the bullpen -- that instead of being the heir to Roger Clemens in the Yankees' starting rotation, he's the heir to Mariano Rivera in their bullpen. And if that's the case, they look back on 2007 and wish they'd treated him as a real relief pitcher, rather than some porcelain doll they had to handle just the right way.

There's no scenario in which they wish any such thing. If you want to argue that making the postseason is far and away the most important thing to the team, and they can't hold back under any circumstances, fine. Go ahead and say it. By any reasonable standard, the next five years of Joba Chamberlain's career are far more valuable to the Yankees than the rest of this season; and that's counting the monetary impact of making the playoffs, which is not insubstantial. Already pitching in a new role, already pitching in a higher-stress environment than any he's ever experienced, the priority has to be NOT RUINING HIS ARM.

But that's not even what Graziano's saying. His argument is that the only way the Yanks can trust Joba to be a setup man or closer next year is if they force him to audition for the role right now. Which is fucking nonsense.

He also drags Joel Zumaya into the argument, which is fine except for the fact that Chamberlain has four pitches to Zumaya's two, not to mention mechanics that look like they can actually stand up to being a starter. Graziano tries to finesse this by getting a quote from Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski, who's literally never seen Chamberlain pitch before, on the comparison:

I'd say there are some similarities, from what I've seen," he said. "He seems like a maximum-effort guy, a real hard thrower.

Yeah, sounds like you've put a lot of thought into it, Dave. Why don't you stick to having Sean Casey as a first baseman and get back to me when you know something?

5) Screamin' A, out in Philly

This won't affect most of us, as our exposure to ESPN's Stephen A. Smith comes primarily through his work on, well, ESPN. NBA Fastbreak, the weekend SportsCenters, the late and unlamented Quite Frankly, etc. But let's all put our hands together for Philly Inquirer sports editor Bill Marimow and his sensible, if utterly belated, realization that having a highly-paid columnist who doesn't give two shits about his job isn't worth the scratch.

Read the whole post on Phawker to get the full story. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.