"Why look for conspiracy when stupidity can explain so much?"
- Goethe


Dear Mr. Brown,

Your pitching coach, Mel Stottlemyre, recently said: “Brownie isn’t happy when he gives up runs."

It doesn’t look like you are going to be too happy this year. If you actually end up pitching, that is.

Nor should Yankee fans be happy when you take the mound. Not that your ineptitude should be a surprise to anyone, as you have been one the most disappointing performers and flat-out nastiest personalities that has ever donned the pinstripes.

Let me be clear: please retire.

Do something good for your team; say you are unable to pitch because of your chronic pain, collect your guaranteed 15 million, cry about your injury, and go back to Georgia. This season is far too important to have you screw it up with Year Two of “The Kevin Brown circus.”

If you continue to soil the sanctity of the Yankee clubhouse with your cantankerous presence, your year is destined to be filled with false hope, inevitable setbacks, poor pitching performances, deception on your part about your health, and no doubt some psycho episode where you do something stupid.

Unlike the Ed Whitsons or Steve Trouts of yesteryear, who failed in May and June on poor Yankee teams that never came near the playoffs, you were in the ultimate spot to redeem your horrific Yankee season last year in Game #7 of the ALCS.

Joe Torre and Mel Stottlemyre asked you several times how you felt before that game; each time you looked them in the eye and said that you were good to go. You took the ball.

Not that you care about Yankee history, but just so you know, there is this team 206.3 miles away with whom we have a sort of “rivalry.” This was the team that you were pitching against in the ALCS last year. They are called the Boston Red Sox. (They were the disheveled, hairy guys…remember?)

The game you screwed up, Game #7, was arguably the most important game in Yankee history, since a loss would have been catastrophic. It would have meant the Yankees would have finally fallen to the Red Sox and would have perpertrated the worst collapse in sports history. (I just wanted to write this paragraph as if it didn’t happen.)

But it did happen.

After your meltdown (5 ERs in 1 1/3 innings), you told reporters that you felt as if you had “steel rod driven through my left side.” Yet you took the ball. Your line for the ALCS was 21.60 ERA in 3 1/3 innings.

Do you remember your performance in Game 3? You were chased off the mound after giving up four runs in two innings in an eventual 19-8 Yankee win. You effectively burnt out the bullpen for the rest of the series. (See Gordon, Tom)

The fact that your enormous ego and solipsistic personality contributed greatly to the Yankee loss in the ALCS is bad enough; the fact that Torre and Stottlemyre trusted you and you played on their vulnerability is inexcusable. They should know better. You clearly are incapable of knowing better.

The grave sin here is not that you pitched poorly—your $15 million a year salary not withstanding—the grave sin is that you fooled yourself into thinking that you were healthy enough to pitch.

The Yankees bought your deception, and it cost them the pennant.

The argument that there was no one else to turn to in Game 7 is a poor excuse. You were simply unable to pitch so you should not have been an option. Vasquez, or even Laoiza (who hurled three scoreless innings in Game 7), would have been better choices. Or a game pieced together with Mussina, Vasquez and the bullpen. Instead, you turned in the most gutless performance I’ve ever witnessed. You know when you are “on;” it is when your sinker is down. It was very apparent that your pitches were up throughout the ALCS and yet Joe let you stay in way too long.

Okay, so that was last year. Last Freakin’ Year.

2004: The year of your self-indulgent wall punching incident that laid you up for 3 ½ weeks when you should have been tuning up for the playoffs. It was an act that caused the normally taciturn Mike Mussina to comment: "If you're going to get hurt playing this game let's get hurt playing the game. Pull a hamstring, get hit with the ball. But to take yourself out for possibly the rest of the season because of a situation like this is frustrating for the rest of us."

2004: The year that Brian Cahsman tried, to no avail, to release you for conduct detrimental to the team.

2004: The year that you mastered the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, but were 6-6, 5.89 against the rest of the league.

2004: The year you stole 15 million dollars from the Yankees.

Now the 2005 season is about to begin. It’s has been a long winter, but this season brings new life and new hope. And yes, the Yankees have a chance to win 110 games. I fully expect them to win the World Series.

The pitching is vastly improved with the additions of Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright to go along with Mike Mussina.

Despite Wright’s stellar spring (1.06 ERA, 17 IP, 12 H, 2 R, 5 BB, 6 K, 1.00 WHIP), Torre decided to pass him over for the 4th starter position and insert you there instead. The plan was to give you Jaret’s early season starts while he fiddled his thumbs in the bullpen. Clearly, Joe did not make this decision based on merit. (Last year, Wright’s was 15-8 and averaged 7.56 Ks per 9 innings.) Torre made this move because of your fragile ego. It was a futile attempt to keep you happy.

But then on the last day of Spring Training, just as the team was getting ready to fly north, your back tightened up again, and now it turns out that you will be unable to pitch at least a few weeks. You’re back on the DL.

That noise you hear is me rejoicing in the fact that I won’t have to watch you pitch for awhile.

Kevin, in case you haven’t figured out by now, I don’t like you. My friends don’t like you. I am sure my cats don’t like you either. Red Sox fans no doubt love you, as you are likely to hurt the Yankees if given the chance.

You’re a disgrace to the Yankee uniform. I am tired of your sideshow. God willing, your bad back will keep you out all year. If not, I just hope the Yankees win a lot of 9-8 games every fifth day, with the likes of Mike Stanton or Felix Rodriguez picking up the Ws.

As far as your personality goes, I had an Elizabethan Studies Professor back in college who would have called you a churlish, boil-brained, boar-pig. But I think of you more as a pribbling, ill-nurtured, maggot-pie. But hey, I guess it’s a “tom-A-to, tom-ah-to” kind of thing. Either phrasing will do.

The fact that the Yanks are stuck with you and your 15 million salary this year has me apoplectic, so does the fact that you are keeping Chien-Ming Wang off this team. For good measure, I should mention in passing who the Yankees gave up for you: Jeff Weaver, who tied for the National League lead in quality starts last year, and Yhency Brazoban, who turned out to be a solid set-up man and is actually closing now for the Dodgers while Gagne is on the DL. I can only imagine the depth of laughter that emanated from the Dodger front office when they pulled that trade off.

But I’d like to wind up this letter on a positive note. (I really am a half-glass-full sort of guy when I’m not thinking about you.)

I want you to imagine how great this year can be for the Yankees, and I want to imagine yourself watching the Yankees celebrate their 27th championship while you watch from your den in Georgia.

Tonight I’ll raise a glass for the glorious “Post-Brown” era that is yet to come.

It can’t come too soon for me.


Cordially,

Phil, a Yankee fan who dislikes you a lot less than most do.

 

Phil is a staff writer for NYYFans.com, and he writes a weekly column for the website of WCBS News Radio 88, the home of the Yankees. You can reach him at PhilAllard27(at)hotmail.com.