Worst. Associates. Ever.

Why do you do this, A-Rod? You were the town hero and you seemed to have moved past all of the media melodrama and gossip stuff, but then there's things like this. Take it away, NYDN:

"A-Rod hung with Ingrid Casares and Guy Oseary, and Jeter was on the other side of the room with friends," says our spy. "There was literally no interaction between them."


The same was true at a Grey Goose and CAA party the following evening, with Jeter keeping his distance from A-Rod's table, which included the likes of Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and Cameron Diaz.

Holllllllllllly crap. Forget about the Jeter/A-Rod drama, which has been one of the most overblown stories since A-Rod came over in 2004. But, Tom Cruise?! Was A-Rod trying to lead the room in Intolerable Company Over Replcement Player?

/rimshot

And let's not go down this road  of discourse again with Cameron Diaz...

Worst. Statue. Ever.

I just... this is so wrong. 

The Milwaukee Brewers said Monday the ballclub will erect a bronze statue at Miller Park in honor of baseball commissioner Bud Selig.

Brewers owner Mark Attanasio says the statue in the stadium's plaza will honor the 75-year-old commissioner "for all of his efforts on behalf of the Milwaukee Brewers and Major League Baseball."

The 7-foot-high statue will join those of Hank Aaron and Robin Yount, which were unveiled in 2001, the first year of play in Miller Park.

Oh come on! Really? I could maybe understand giving it to him as an owner, but the fact that they're also saying it's for his role as commissioner is just ridiculous. He deserves less than nothing for his tenure as commissioner because to say he has bungled his way through the job would be most generous. If the Brewers really wanted people to take notice, they would stand the real Bud Selig on a pedestal and allow passerby to punch him square in the cock.

Well, at least it's nice to know some noble folks are preparing to get on the warpath to take this stupid piece of metal to the ground. I recommend sowing the ground with salt as well.  I love me some scorched earth.

Joba Chamberlain Is Glad The Chains Are Off

The Super Bowl and the conclusion of the NFL season means only one thing... baseball is almost here! Soon people across the nation will be as bored with Spring Training as they are with the offseason, but let's not think about that right now. Whee!

As we move closer to joyous communing of pitchers and catchers, let's check in with the old namesake once again to see what he has to say about the Yankees offseason and the future. The interview is surprisingly lucid and insightful, meaning they probably caught Joba earlier in the day before he hit the sauce. Here's the one part I found awesome.

Q: How much of a relief is it to you that the "Joba Rules," which limited your innings, are now a thing of the past?

JC: It means I’m growing up. As a competitor, I definitely got frustrated at times. But at the end of the day, I also understood why they were doing it. And I have the utmost respect for them taking that time and going through the good and the bad with me. Now we’ve done it. We’re better for it. We all learned how to handle the situation, and now I can just go out and play the game and get 200-plus innings in.

Awesome. The chains are off. Let's feed the high pitch count (but hopefully not!) beast.

Tuned Up: Whole Lotta Love

Here's your offseason musical kickoff to the work week. If nothing else this allows for me to impose my superior musical tastes on the masses. Now you may be asking, "What does this have to do with baseball?" To which I answer, "Fuck all." But you'll be hearing some good tunes regardless. Suggestions for next week's Tuned Up can be sent here. Or leave 'em on Twitter or in the comments.

This week it's Led Zeppelin with "Whole Lotta Love".

Friday Odds And Ends

Here are a few things that happened around baseball this week that didn't quite warrant a full post.

Adam Jones, Multitasker

We can go ahead and file this one under "unfortunate." The Orioles prized young outfielder (who I'm still not drinking the Kool-Aid on, by the way) was pulled over at the most inconvenient of times on Wednesday. No, he wasn't with a lovely co-ed, but he was giving a radio interview at the time. Awkwarddddd.

Adam Jones was conducting a telephone interview on XM's MLB Home Plate show on Wednesday when he was pulled over by police in Arizona. Apparently, there is not law in Arizona outlawing talking while driving. Jones was pulled over for having windows that are too tinted.

That's discrimination... against his windows for being a certain color!


Do You Believe In Omens?

If so, then the Rays might want to rethink this one:

The Rays announced Wednesday that they have agreed to sell the naming rights for their spring training home, the Charlotte Sports Park, to the Mosaic Co., which mines phosphate to produce fertilizer.


The county has spent $12 million on litigation in the past decade fighting Mosaic permits for mining on thousands of acres in the Charlotte Harbor watershed.


Pending county approval, the Rays' spring training site will be called Mosaic Field at Charlotte Sports Park. The value of the 15-year agreement was not disclosed. Mosaic spokesman David Townsend said that information was confidential.

Unfortunately it isn't the early 2000s when I could make a joke about the quality of the talent on the field being appropriate for the name of the stadium. DAMN!

Do Not Question Adam Dunn 

He now possesses a certain set of skills, skills that make him a nightmare for people who question his preference for the Three True Outcomes and his lack of fielding ability.

No one has ever accused Adam Dunn of being Willie Mays with his glove, but the Nats' slugger has repeatedly said how much he enjoys playing defense. And with first base his anointed position heading into 2010, a few Nats fans had their interest piqued when Manager Jim Riggleman said Dunn was learning jiu-jitsu this offseason to help improve his agility in the field.

"Adam can play good defense at first base," Riggleman told MASN on Dec. 19, when breaking the jiu-jitsu news. "Dunn is the least of our concerns."

Well, Dunn was in town last week for the Nats winter caravan, offering me my first opportunity to ask him about the Brazilian martial art and how it would help his job performance at first base this spring.

"It'll help me whoop somebody's ass," Dunn noted.

JP Ricciardi, when asked for comment, was nowhere to be found, though reports of him cowering in his basement clenching his blankie have been reported by several outlets.

Joba Chamberlain Has A Work Ethic

A few tri-state area media outlets are positively agog over the fact that Joba Chamberlain is reporting to camp early to try and seize the fifth spot in the starting rotation. As it stands right now, the two main contenders are the namesake and Phil Hughes, and Joba is looking to set himself apart from the competition through some extra hard work:

Two weeks away from the official report date for Yankees pitchers and catchers, Joba Chamberlain is heading into spring training with his heart set on the No. 5 starter’s job.


"I’m going in with the mind-set that it’s mine," Chamberlain said Tuesday at the Thurman Munson Dinner in midtown.


Unshackled from the constraints of the Joba Rules, Chamberlain sees 30-plus starts and 200 innings in his 2010 season – though he also believes that nothing’s going to be handed to him.


"I know there are going to be guys fighting for it also, which makes it even better for me because I love it. I love the competition," said Chamberlain, who faces a primary challenge from Phil Hughes. Alfredo Aceves, Sergio Mitre and Chad Gaudin are also on the Yanks’ starting depth chart.


"I love the fact that we’re going to push each other and make each other better, and in turn make our team better."

While I am thrilled beyond belief that the Joba Rules have been lifted (suck it Francesa!), this extra effort by Chamberlain will really only be worthwhile if it yields results. Specifically, the namesake has to do something about his control as he is definitively on the wrong end of the BB/9 leaderboard on Fangraphs. If he doesn't work that out, then that 200 innings is a bigger pipedream than my thoughts of a romantic evening with Miranda Kerr.

However, if Chamberlain and Hughes both have successful Spring Trainings, then the Yankees are in quite the enviable position.

Nick Swisher Not The Only MLB-er Going On TV

As I pointed out in yesterday's link dump, Rob Iracane, over at my weekend place of work was more than kind enough to torture himself document, Nick Swisher's appearance on CBS' How I Met Your Mother, wherein he showed why he's a baseball player for a living and not a professional thespian. Well, it turns out Swisher won't be the only person from Major League Baseball to be gracing the silver screen in another capacity this offseason. Strangely enough, this second high-profile fellow also has ties to the Yankees:

Torre is scheduled to appear in two TV series in the next month, beginning next Monday on ABC's "Castle'' and then


March 11 on CBS' "Garry Unmarried.''


Apparently he's not ready to stretch his thespian talents just yet. In both episodes, he plays ... Joe Torre.


The "Castle'' series takes place in New York, where a suspense writer tags along with a female detective who is his latest muse. Just go with it.


The Torre episode is called "Suicide Squeeze,'' which ABC describes as about a beloved former major league baseball player found dead after a goodwill trip to Cuba. Torre leads the detectives into New York's Cuban community to help solve the murder.

Ummm, pardon me?

Either way, it's a good thing the current Yankees skipper isn't going to help try and solve the murder because he would probably hold up the entire investigation through practices such as switching pens for note-taking for no apparent reason and discarding evidence bags despite the fact that they might be useful later. You see what I did there?