Morning Black n Yellow Java: What The Postseason Means

The Alex Rodriguez situation has generated enough discussion, but I saw it from a very different angle yesterday. I was talking to a big league player that about came out of his seat as the lowlights of the interview ran on a tv above his head. The thing that pissed him off the most was one thing that I missed during the 60 Minutes interview.

The players contention?

Not everybody in baseball cheats.  He was very adamant about it.

It’s something that as baseball fans we’ve heard people say quite often.  Babe Ruth was always drunk, players were always on speed in the 70’s and 80’s and now it’s the magic muscle juice.  The entire situation seems rather sad and points toward more grief between players, owners, and MLB in the future.

One of the coolest comments I heard from him was this, it was about playing in the playoffs.

"It’s crazy Smitty he said.  The intensity is so different.  I wonder if Neil will feel it like I did.  You go from those important games in September right into the post-season.  The playoffs are so intense.  We would get in at four and five in the morning and had to be at the park at nine.  It was so hard to sleep.  So much fun…..so much pressure… (His eyes were drifting to those special places in his mind–all of those postseason appearances)I was fortunate in my career to have made it to the Series, but even just playing in the first couple rounds, like the Pirates did…it’s different.  And the hardest part about it is after you made the postseason is coming back and….it’s the game after the home opener.It’s just different.  The crowds during that second game are so much different, and that’s when he looked me directly in the eyes and said…and you have to play your ass off for 161 more games to get back to that special place.  I have to get back there again."

Yeh, I had some goose bumps.

Elsewhere, Clint Hurdle spoke at the VFW in Harrison last night.  Some of the things my buddies tole me were interesting.

Clint Hurdle stopped talking to A.J. Burnett in mid-November.  He felt he was getting in the way.  Wow.  That sucks.

I wonder if Hurdle felt like A.J. was coming back, which is what we heard.  On the way to the Winter Baseball Meetings, many in the organization felt it was a done deal for Burnett.

Now, well it seems that it’s leaning the other way.  I can’t repeat myself enough.  I have wrote over ten articles about it.

The bottom line is this… the 2014 team needs A.J. Burnett.  Badly.

Light a candle.  I want the Bucs back in Buctober.