Stealing Home

Pettitte is stupid. (And I wish this was an opportunity to criticize A-Rod, but Berroa was playing third.) Watch the replay. Berroa is playing about fifty feet away from the base. Pettitte's windup takes about twelve seconds. If you want to take chances like that, you need to do something to hold the runner. Fake a throw or something. (And righthanders should never even pitch from the windup with a runner on third.)

"I saw him in the corner of my eye and tried to speed up my windup," Pettitte said. "I couldn't speed up my windup fast enough to get him out." You can tell that, if he hadn't sped up his windup, the play wouldn't have even been close. But Pettitte still threw a curveball, which was not smart. Why did he do that? In the wise words of a coach I once had, probably shitburgers . . . rolling down his leg.

I was going to say that Ellsbury is the only thing to ever come from Madras but apparently River Phoenix was born there (because his parents were cult members).