1. I hope we reach a point where no one cares when a sixth-string quarterback who can’t pass is released or any person on the planet – athletes included – reveals they are homosexual.
I wish both pieces of “big” news yesterday weren’t. The cult of personality around Tim Tebow is kind of like Jersey Shore to me – I just can’t figure it out. The difference between Tebow and Bobby Douglass (look him up, kids) is the noise machine that ESPN has too often become.
Let’s put it this way: I think Tebow is closer to his own reality show than being a starting NFL quarterback. I keep hearing he is a good guy who works hard. You have now described my father. Neither belongs under center nor getting wall-to-wall coverage from major news outlets.
He is the Kevin Maas of football players – brilliant briefly, but revealed ultimately not to have the true skills to succeed. And when was the last time you thought about Kevin Maas?
As for Jason Collins revealing his sexuality, I guess someone had to become the first American male professional team athlete to announce he was gay. I admire the dignity with which he did it and the general acceptance that his announcement has met.
But, really, can we all move on from this now, too? What adults are doing consensually in their own bedrooms is none of our business. None. If we feel it should be, I would line up some of the heterosexual animals I have covered in the last 30 years for some of the stuff they have been claiming to have done rather than caring about if someone is homosexual.
We know now that Collins shared a locker room with hundreds of teammates in high school in Los Angeles, in college in Stanford and for 12 years so far in the NBA – and the republic did not fall. His sexuality was a non-factor before. It should be now again. Same for any other person, which obviously includes athletes.
Why should the NBA or the NFL or MLB be different than our everyday life? I could care less about the sexuality of the other reporters in a press box. Can you do the job or not?
By the way, all signs are that Tim Tebow cannot do his job – if you are interested in him, why?
2. In today’s Post, I wrote this column about the state of the Yankee lineup.
To this point, the Yankees’ offense has defied expectations – and logic. It has regularly lost frontline performers and yet kept doing enough to help the Yanks win.
That has been about the group in general hitting far more home runs than anticipated without so many big boppers from last year. I wrote this column in the early editions of the Post about the home run binge. The offense has done enough because Robinson Cano has put down a good first month to battle for an MVP. Travis Hafner and Vernon Wells have been reborn as middle-of-the-order forces. And there have been just enough timely hits despite an overall lack of hitting.
But there has also been two days of punishing bad Indian pitching and going 6-1 against the Blue Jays, all of which might have been camouflaging that you cannot hold on forever without good players.
And the Yankee problem might be this: The hope not long ago was that Curtis Granderson, Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira would return around May 1. But May 1 is tomorrow. None is close to ready. And the team is getting less healthy, not more so.
Jeter, obviously, suffered an extreme setback with a new fracture on his ankle that will take him out until at least the All-Star break. Francisco Cervelli’s broke his hand and is gone for a month. And the signs last night were that Kevin Youkilis is heading to the DL with a lingering, chronic back ailment.
Youkilis played Saturday for the only time since April 20. Joe Girardi said he had no regrets about that, but of course the Yanks should regret that. It means they cannot fully backdate a DL stint and Youkilis will be out for a longer period of time. And since this back condition has been an issue previously, the Yanks have to wonder how much now they can get from Youkilis if this is his condition barely a month into the season.
3. So think about what this means about the Yanks’ infield left side. It started in the offseason as famous as could be with Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. Then Youkilis stepped in for A-Rod. Then Eduardo Nunez stepped in for Jeter. And now Jayson Nix has stepped in for Youkilis.
Nix is hitting .217, Nunez .169. No one has more at-bats with runners in scoring position (14) without a hit than Nunez while Nix is 1-for-15. True to the Yanks’ success this year that one hit by Nix was a two-run homer off Justin Verlander on April 7 that was huge in a Yankee win over Detroit.
Still, we are talking about a duo that is 1-for-29 collectively with men in scoring position. I never thought I would say this, but Nunez actually much more tentative swinging on offense than playing defense. His swing seems disjointed, like he is feeling for the ball rather than trusting his hands and eyes.
I have been a Nunez believer, thinking he had bat speed, foot speed and at least offensive confidence. But it might be that he is what he is. His OPS in the minors was .679 in nearly 3,000 plate appearances and now with 579 career plate appearances spaced over four seasons Nunez has a .670 OPS.
If that is the case, it is just one more potential long-term dead spot in the 2013 Yankee lineup. They have survived it in April. But can they for a whole year?
