The story of three PED users

The A-Rod letter of apology.

Andy Pettitte admitted using performance-enhancing drugs. The Yankees announced this week that they will retire his number and honor him with a plaque in Monument Park.

Jason Giambi admitted using performance-enhancing drugs. When the 44-year-old former MVP announced his retirement this week, there was an outpouring of respect and affection around the game.

Alex Rodriguez on Tuesday released a hand-written letter of apology to "the fans" for "mistakes" that led to his season-long suspension last year. He is drawing near-universal scorn.

There are differences among these three, not least of which is that A-Rod continued to use even after the game's culture shifted. I am much more forgiving of players who used steroids in the heart of the Selig era, when there was no real rule against using and a culture that essentially expected use. That's when Pettitte used. That's when Giambi used.

A-Rod used then too. But he also used after the rules changed.

Does the apology matter? Not to me. Rodriguez is a baffling figure; he had every baseball gift a player could ask for, and it was never enough. I cannot pretend to understand what drove him to use even after it became anathema. Unlike Barry Bonds, Rodriguez seems to want to be liked; he just doesn't know how to get there. I don't think he can get there -- at least, not without opening a vein of humility and detailing not just the what but the why in a way that isn't self-serving and defensive.

He doesn't have to do that, and I don't expect him to. Giambi and Pettitte didn't either, and they still have the admiration around the game -- certainly from the media -- that has eluded Rodriguez for years and probably always will.

A historical rarity: no active 200-game winner

Andy Pettitte: 240 career wins in the regular season,
19 more in the postseason.

Andy Pettitte called it quits Friday. His retirement leaves a gap in the Yankees rotation and raised a Is-He-a-Hall-of-Famer argument.

And, coupled with Jamie Moyer's Tommy John surgery, which least keeps the 47-year-old off the field for 2011 (he says he'll be back in 2012, but really, is that likely?), Pettitte's departure leaves Tim Wakefield the active career wins leader. Moyer has 267 wins, Pettitte 240.

Wakefield has 193 W's. After spending some time chasing this down, I'm quite confident that only once since 1880 has a season opened without an active 200 game-winner, although that may depend on how you define active.

That was 1968. Whitey Ford retired after the 1967 season with 236 wins, leaving nobody over the 200 win mark until Don Drysdale got his 200th win on June 26th, 1968. So there was a bit less than three months in which there was no active 200-game winner. (Drysdale pitched in 1969, during which season Jim Bunning got his 200th, and Juan Marichal got there the following season ... and the chain was not seriously threatened until now.)

Now to explain the "active" question. Bobo Newsom entered the 1948 season with 205 wins. He went 0-4. He didn't pitch in the majors again until 1952. Baseball Reference lists him as the active leader in career wins for 1949. If you don't count Newsom, there was no 200-game winner in the majors until Bob Feller got there in 1950. And if you do count Newsom, we can't know if there is an active 200-game winner now until we know for sure that Moyer's done.

Wakefield is no cinch to get the seven wins he needs for 200; he won four games all of last season. And the next man on the list, Roy Halladay, has but 169 — 31 wins shy of the big round number.

So if Wakefield doesn't get there, nobody will this year.

Two hundred wins is a lot. In all of major league history, 110 pitchers have gotten there. Sandy Koufax didn't.  Nor did Dizzy Dean, Lefty Gomez or Rube Waddell, to name four Hall of Famers.

It's pretty daunting, really. Say a 24-year-old breaks into the majors and averages 15 wins a year for 10 years. That's pretty strong pitching — and at the end of it, you have a 35-year-old pitcher with 150 wins.

Series-ous pitching choices

One thing I've found to admire in Joe Girardi's handling of the Yankees this postseason is his willingness to drop the hammer.

Two-inning save from Mariano Rivera? Done that. Strip the two weak links from his rotation and go with three starters? Doing that.

He was aided in this plan by the TV-driven schedule, which has given the Yankees more days off than games played (the fact that the Yankees cleaned up the Twins and Angels in quick fashion helped too). He was also aided by the fact that nobody seriously questions the use of CC Sabathia on three days rest. The man's an obvious horse with a track record of short-rest success.

Now, however, Girardi — for the first time — has to push A.J. Burnett (above) and Andy Pettitte. And the result with Burnett on Monday was not good.

But it was justifiable:

1) The old-school pitchers from the '60s and '70s heyday of the four-man rotation generally agree that three days rest may detract from velocity but sharpens control. Burnett has had a season-long issue with wildness — remember, he led the AL in walks and wild pitches and was among the leaders in hit batters — and he was out of control Monday. It happens.

2) Burnett had a good, if small, track record on three days rest: 4-0, 2.33 in four starts.

A good decision; it just didn't work.

Now it's Pettitte's turn, and his record on short rest isn't quite so good: 4-6, 4.15. The ERA isn't out of line with his career stats, and this is still a tolerable decision.

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Meanwhile, Charlie Manuel has his own decisions to make.

*Can he trust Cole Hamels in a Game 7?

*Should he start J.A. Happ on Wednesday (Game 6) and save Pedro Martinez for Game 7?

* Can he use Brad Lidge to close a game after Sunday's disaster?

Pedro, by reputation, prospers on long rest. The career numbers don't really bear that out, however, and this year's numbers are too skimpy to put any weight on.

Hamels has not fared well this postseason. The stat mavens suggest it's been tough luck, that the key ratios of walks, strikeouts and innings are all in line with last year. Luck or bad pitching, it's added up to a lot of opposition runs.

There's there's his now notorious quote after Game 3: "I can't wait for it to end. It's been mentally draining. At year's end, you just can't wait for a fresh start."

My guess is that Manuel will go with Pedro on Wednesday and Hamels on Thursday if needed. Hamels did it for him last year. And off Monday's pitcher use, I expect Ryan Madson to get the ball late — but at this point, it's all hands on deck for the Phillies.

Quotes, notes and comment

Of course we’re going to win. If we’re nice we’ll let it go six (games), but I’m thinking five. Close it out at home.

—Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins on Jay Leno's show

* The Yankees have played nine games in 24 days, a leisurely schedule by any measure. Mike Scoscia, whose Angels team had a much deeper starting rotation than did the Yanks, called the schedule "ridiculous," which of course it is, but we don't see him or his players turning down Fox's money.

Yes, the extra off days allowed the Yankees to go with just three starting pitchers through the first two rounds. Managers have done that in the past. Tom Kelly used just three starters in both 1987 (Frank Viola, Bert Blyleven and Les Straker) and 1991 (Jack Morris, Kevin Tapani, Scott Erickson) — and after the '87 Series Whitey Herzog beefed about how the short series didn't expose the Twins weakness in he back of the rotation.

October has historically been about front-line players, not the fifth starter. With the exception of "personal catchers" — see Jose Molina working with A.J. Burnett — we don't see the backup catchers in October either.

My problem with all the off days isn't so much that it's possible to skip the fourth stater — its the loss of the sense of continuity baseball thrives on.

* Indications are that Joe Girardi is leaning toward starting Chad Gaudin in Game 5 rather than have Burnett on three days rest. This would mean a Yankees rotation of:

CC Sabathia-Burnett- Andy Pettitte-Sabathia-Gaudin-Burnett-Sabathia.

And that means the longer the series goes, the better for the Phillies.

Considering how eager Girardi has been to go for the kill, it's baffling that he'd take a Series start from Pettitte (or Burnett — I'd rather use a lefty like Pettitte against the Phillies than a righty) to give it to the last man on his pitching staff. I'll believe it when I see it.

* The Houston Astros wanted Manny Acta, but refused to give him a three-year deal, so Acta took the Cleveland Indians job instead. Two years was enough for Brad Mills, however; he took the job.

Which is the better job? If the Indians owner has a realistic notion of where the franchise is right now, Cleveland is — but he fact that Bobby Valentine was a finalist there suggests they have delusions of grandeur.