Wow, reasoned response. I like it.

JP must not have understood the question.

I remember when Gary Sheffield was looking for a job, he was sending notes over to me. Tampering happens every day in this business.

Wow. Way to throw Sheffield under the bus there, J.P.

Then again, why the hell not? A bus is a terrible thing to waste.

They got a voice double. Ricciardi doesn't actually come out sounding this intelligent.

“What’s the difference between [Steinbrenner] saying that and someone pulling A.J. Burnett aside under the stadium at Yankee Stadium and saying, ‘Hey, why don’t you do this?’

Well, there's no difference. They're both tampering. If I rape your mother on a nationally televised game show with millions of viewers--sponsored by Brawndo!--or if I just rape her in a deserted back alley, I've still raped your mother. Is JP saying they should just abolish the tampering rules? I wouldn't really care, but that seems to be what he's advocating.

Well, there's no difference. They're both tampering. If I rape your mother on a nationally televised game show with millions of viewers--sponsored by Brawndo!--or if I just rape her in a deserted back alley, I've still raped your mother. Is JP saying they should just abolish the tampering rules? I wouldn't really care, but that seems to be what he's advocating.

Yes, Shooty, I believe J.P. is taking the Bobby Knight approach to both tampering and mother-raping. If tampering's inevitable, you might as well relax and enjoy it.

Well, there's no difference. They're both tampering.

Well, what goes on under Yankee Stadium stays under Yankee Stadium* . . . . And that's kind of the point. The reason you have to just shrug and not worry about what goes on under Yankee Stadium when "someone" approaches Burnett is that there is going to be no way to prove what happened, what exactly was said, or even THAT it happened.

But this time . . . Hank and his big mouth did it in broad daylight. Maybe that's what J.P. isn't getting. If the tamperer just hands you the smoking gun and says, "I shot the Sheriff," I think the, "I can't prove it so I just have to live with it" reasoning kind of goes away. Doesn't it???



* - Unless you're a construction worker who happens to be a Red Sox fan, in which case you have a big mouth and you blab about it and it gets dug up, but that's another story completely. And another Yankee Stadium, too.

But this time . . . Hank and his big mouth did it in broad daylight. Maybe that's what J.P. isn't getting. If the tamperer just hands you the smoking gun and says, "I shot the Sheriff," I think the, "I can't prove it so I just have to live with it" reasoning kind of goes away. Doesn't it???

Yeah, this is my point of confusion.

I run into this is my new "job". Its commonplace for small and sometimes big $ fine-able offenses to occur every week. You rat someone out, get ready to feel the heat from everybody else. Doesn't matter if it was a little stupid dress code violation or something that might get them DQ'ed from competition or something that every fan saw him do. Let the fan say something or let the office catch him in the act.

Ricciardi doesn't want to be the rat. I'm not saying I agree with it, but filing would probably cost him with the rest of the GM's.

Plus, at this point it's not like it isn't a foregone conclusion that AJ is opting out. If the Jays really thought they had a chance at bringing him back at 2/$24M, maybe Hank's declaration that he's willing to open up the vault means something. But in the real world, yeah, bigger fish...

Plus, at this point it's not like it isn't a foregone conclusion that AJ is opting out. If the Jays really thought they had a chance at bringing him back at 2/$24M, maybe Hank's declaration that he's willing to open up the vault means something. But in the real world, yeah, bigger fish...

There is the unbridled joy of just sticking it to the Yanks! Anyway, isn't this more the team president's area rather than the gm's?

Plus, at this point it's not like it isn't a foregone conclusion that AJ is opting out. If the Jays really thought they had a chance at bringing him back at 2/$24M, maybe Hank's declaration that he's willing to open up the vault means something.

While he may (probably) be opting out, he's still under contract to the Jays, and they should have the exclusive right to renegotiate with him. In fact, there have been some rumors that they've been trying to do just that. By Hank opening his big mouth, he has hurt the Jays, even if AJ was looking to opt out, by changing the amount of leverage they have.

But this time . . . Hank and his big mouth did it in broad daylight. Maybe that's what J.P. isn't getting. If the tamperer just hands you the smoking gun and says, "I shot the Sheriff," I think the, "I can't prove it so I just have to live with it" reasoning kind of goes away. Doesn't it???

OTOH, there's the part that BBTF isn't getting: "Tampering happens every day in this business." I'm pretty confident that several teams "tampered" with A-Rod last year, and that the Red Sox "tampered" with JD Drew the year before. Lots of internet message boards were lit up with irate accusations against Hank Steinbrenner for tampering during the Santana trade saga. I'd even bet that a decent prosecutor with subpoena power could prove tampering in a fairly large number of recent cases. But for whatever reasons, it just doesn't work that way in practice. Everybody inside MLB knows all sorts of stuff about this that we never will, and that means that if the Jays or Brewers go after Hank for this, he'll just turn around and spill the beans on a dozen times when other teams "tampered" with Yankee players in the past.

Why is it up to the Jays to file a complaint? If Hank's comments were made in an interview (versus someone reporting a more clandestine communique, directly to team management), couldn't MLB take unilateral action? In those "hostile work environment" training sessions I have to sit through once a year, the target of an action doesn't necessarily have to be the offended party in order for discipline to be meted out.

Murray Chass climbed the Empire State Building two years ago and screamed about how the Sox tampered with J.D. Drew, but all he had was supposition, innuendo and maybe some unsourced "close to the club" comments. But there was no evidence. Maybe the Dodgers did have some, but a la most NFL teams videotaping each other's coaches, didn't want to say anything so their own dirty laundry wouldn't be exposed.

“Everybody is looking at Sabathia and Burnett, not just us,” Steinbrenner said Thursday. “We’ll see. I mean, our main concern is, are their arms going to be okay after this season?”

What terms did he offer in this deal? Or weas it that after almost 40 years of FA in MLB it hadn't occurred to AJ and his agent that other teans might, you know, look at a FA pitcher. I mean, when has that ever happened before this season, anyway, teams looking to pick up a free-agent pitcher?

Yeah, that sure turned AJ's head.

EDIT: OR, maybe it's the comment about their arms, because no one's ever talked about AJ's arm before and no one ever raised questions, especially on Primer about CC's pitch counts.

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"I remember when Gary Sheffield was looking for a job, he was sending notes over to me. Tampering happens every day in this business."

Wow. Way to throw Sheffield under the bus there, J.P.

What's the consequence for Sheffield? He can't tamper with himself. If Ricciardi was accusing anyone of wrongdoing there, it was himself for reading Sheffield's notes.

What terms did he offer in this deal? Or weas it that after almost 40 years of FA in MLB it hadn't occurred to AJ and his agent that other teans might, you know, look at a FA pitcher. I mean, when has that ever happened before this season, anyway, teams looking to pick up a free-agent pitcher?

The issue is that Burnett isn't a FA pitcher. He has an opt out option, and someone saying they are interested in signing him if/when he opts out.