It sucks.

A lot of other words describe the emotions as well, words that are unprintable in respectable places such as this.  But let’s say you’re a fan of the Detroit Tigers.  You had the post-season wrapped up and your team blew it.  To make matters worse, you even had tickets for the Division Series in your cracked & frayed hands.  Suddenly, out of the blue, the Twins got hot and your guys got cold and there was a playoff.  And you had a lead and blew the lead and blew your chances and ultimately lost the game.

Yeah, that sucks.

Now put yourself in the shoes of the guys on the field.  Mets fans can do this too, based upon 2007 and 2008.  These sudden cease & desist orders to your seasons is hearbreaking.  For the players, it’s even worse.

If you’re a player who was in the race until the bitter end and now sits watching another team play in your playoffs, well, man you ain’t feeling so good.  It’s like losing a girlfriend and watching some other guy marry her.  Sure you blew it with her.  But it doesn’t stop the pain from eating away at your arteries.

Even worse, think about the Twins players.  They had Cinderella Story written all over them.  The great late-season comeback, the comeback within the playoff game, the series in New York against the Goliaths of baseball, circa 21st century (and pretty much 20th century as well).  And you blew it.  Hell, you even had a lead in the 9th in Game 2.  You had your shot at infamy.  And you blew it.  Now you’re sitting on the same couch as the Tigers, watching other teams play in your playoffs.  It’s not fun.

And it really, really sucks.

The wound can run very deep.  There’s blame everywhere, from the teammate who blew the big game or made the colossal error to the manager who made the bonehead decision to the teammate who suddenly forgot how to run the bases to everyone but yourself.  Because one way to get over the season fast is to flip the Denial switch and put your self-criticism into hibernation with the bears and donkeys.

When you finally take responsibility, it will be later in the winter.  It will be when all the baseball games are done and the free agents are signing and you’re looking at the way your team is shaping up, or new team if you were traded or waived or released.  Then you’ll get a sense of how you can possibly improve or get over the hump next year.  Then you’ll get that sense of regret that is so hard to admit to yet so hard to fight.

And you’ll look into a metaphorical mirror and tell yourself that you had a hand in organizing the couch party last October.  You were an accomplice to the drop in season ticket sales as the off season progressed.  You had something to do with the fan base on the attack and the hot-seat status of your manager.  And you’ll think about how you watched the post-season from your couch instead of playing in the post-season while other guys watched you and how much you envied those who played and wished you could stuff a pillow into their faces.  You’ll wish the pennant-winning, World champion style champagne had a small amount of poison in it so those guys could feel as lousy as you the day after.

The problem is, your hangover started the first Tuesday in October and theirs didn’t begin until November and yours was the terrible, awful kind where you remember certain things you did and said and wish you hadn’t done or said those things while theirs is the kind of hangover that brings a smile to their faces because, damn, every throbbing pain in the brain was worth it.

Watching from the couch sucks.  Maybe next year, they’ll get to share your pain.  And you’ll be throbbing in the brain.

You can only hope.

Jimmy Scott is probably the greatest pitcher you’ve never heard of.  Visit Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight to read more from Jimmy and guests Desi Relaford, Eric Valent & Cassidy Dover.  You’ll also hear a new interview every Monday morning with former MLB players, agents, wives and others; giving new outlooks on this great game we call Baseball.  Go there now to hear Jimmy’s latest interviews with Rollie Fingers, Desi Relaford, Brent Mayne and MLB Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt.  You can follow Jimmy on Twitter or Facebook.

But there’s a worse part to an injury.

Who likes to be fooled?  Maybe your buddy, who asks for $500, swears he’s good for it.  And he isn’t.  Maybe the woman who woke up next to you isn’t really 21 like she said she was and like her “drivers license” indicated.  Maybe your agent says you’re his top priority then won’t return your calls.  Your reaction to these moments is frustration, embarrassment, even a little fear.  And you swear you’ll never fall for that stuff again.

Then you get injured.  You go through the incident itself – maybe running down the first base line, maybe a short right field collision, maybe tripping over a helmet on the way back into the dugout – and you survived.  It hurt when it happened, but after one, maybe two nights of little sleep (pain & worry the main reasons), you’ve mentally accepted that this happened to you.  Injuries heal.  You’re not going to die.  You’ll eventually be fine.  So you let the swelling go down, you have your surgery, you do your rehab – or, you just let time pass.  It’s all dependent upon what you did to yourself.

One day, you suddenly feel pretty good.  Cool.  You recall that getting out of bed, literally, had been painful just a few mornings before.  Brushing your teeth or pouring cereal into the bowl or practically scrunching into the fetal position to jam yourself into your ‘83 Camaro (buy American!) had been acts of near-suicide.  Today, that’s gone.  Your body doesn’t hurt like it did just a few days before.  Even yesterday’s shadow pain – more muscle memory than real pain – isn’t there.  It’s like the old days, pre-injury.  There’s one thought that pops into your brain:

I’m cured!

This is the worst part of an injury.  You’re not cured.  You’re fooling yourself into thinking that folding your body into a car is the same as swinging a Louisville Slugger at a 97 mph squiggly fastball.  You think that because you can brush your teeth, you can suddenly throw a 97 mph squiggly fastball (when you never broke 89 mph before).  Since shaking a box of Fruit Loops into a porcelain bowl didn’t hurt, you can now toss your body against an outfield wall, slide headfirst into first base, or engage in a brawl near the pitcher’s mound like you’ve always done.  The worst part of an injury is deceiving yourself, emotionally bowling over reality with a new package of extra strength denial, and airing out the arm or hacking away in the cage when you’re not ready.

Here’s where players can make their injuries worse.  Here’s where certain “setbacks” are alluded to be a team spokesman.  “Edgardo had a setback while running today.  We’ll take a look in a few days and see how he’s feeling.”  In other words, Edgardo woke up feeling like a million bucks.  He’s young, so his desire to earn a million bucks (times 5 or 10) ASAP tricked him into thinking he was all better.  He got to the park early, made sure nobody on the coaching staff, none of the trainers, not one teammate, was looking, and he did his thing.  He sprinted from home to first base.  Only, since he had only healed to the point that driving himself to the ballpark didn’t hurt anymore, he didn’t make it to first base.  He tried pulling up 20 feet short of 90 and fell.  Because a trainer or an assistant to an assistant GM turned at just the right time to see this fool fall, he didn’t have to get up on his own.  And guess what?  The next day, it hurt like hell to get into that Porsche 911 (he almost dialed 9-1-1 at one point).

You like to think maturity helps keep a lid on reality as the years go by.  But contract status has a lot to do with how “mature” a player can be.  In the third year of a five-year deal?  No need to push it.  The doctors will greenlight me.  But, if you’re on a year-to-year career trajectory and the season is winding down, you need to show them.  Who?  Anyone with a checkbook.  You need to show them that you’re a quick healer or that you can play at less than 100% and still be effective.  You need them to know you’re a gamer.  You convince yourself that you’re suddenly fine because you need a deal for 2010, if anything, for the medical benefits.  Rather than listen to the doctor who told you you’re still a few weeks, or a month, or a couple of months away from beginning baseball activities again, you use your index of cereal bowl indicators to convince yourself that you know more than any M.D.  And when you feel the intense pain later that day from your self-proclaimed “test,” it’s a worse feeling than when the injury happened in the first place.  You know you’ve just lost another week or two or three with your stupidity.  Or you know, deep down, that you hurt something else.  You didn’t listen and now you suffer the consequences.

Next time you hear the prognosis on a guy playing for your favorite team, pray very hard to the Baseball Gods that he listens to his doctor.  Use your witchcraft or voodoo dolls to make sure he sticks to the prescribed comeback regimen.  Because if he falls for self-deception that one sunny morning, when the OJ with some pulp tastes amazing because it didn’t hurt to pour it into the big cup, he’s going to test himself and will soon know what the worst part of his injury is.  His own bullheaded stupidity.

Jimmy Scott is probably the greatest pitcher you’ve never heard of.  Visit Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight to read more from Jimmy and guests Desi Relaford, Eric Valent & Cassidy Dover.  You’ll also hear a new interview every Monday morning with former MLB players, agents, wives and others; giving new outlooks on this great game we call Baseball.  Go there now to hear Jimmy’s latest interviews with Rollie Fingers, Desi Relaford, Brent Mayne and MLB Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt.  You can follow Jimmy on Twitter or Facebook.

Yet, there’s the other side.  While some guys can’t wait to get away from their well-paid group of “friends” who either weren’t paid enough or weren’t worth their paychecks, hence the going home after game 162, there are some guys who don’t want to go home.  Why?  You’ve heard phrases like Life begins at 40, right?  For ballplayers, Live begins at home once the season ends.  In other words, the responsibility of thinking basically only about yourself every day ends abruptly.  Now you need to think about the wife or live-in girlfriend and the kids.  The younger guys might end up going home to where their parents live; maybe not the same house, but likely the same town.  Since most kids aren’t buddy/buddy with their folks, and since most Thanksgiving dinners are not the stuff of a Norman Rockwell painting, most MLB kids do not look forward to seeing Mom & Dad every day for the next 5 months.

For some players, there’s surgery.  Read the Notes section a day or two after the last game of the season and you’ll see this player and that player are suddenly scheduled for some sort of surgery, ranging from minor to Six Million Dollar Man rebuilding, the kind that you’ll hear about as spring training begins and ends and our Six Million Dollar Man is wearing jeans every day instead of a jock.  If you’ve ever had surgery, any kind of surgery, it’s not fun.  Some guys know already they’ll have to go under the knife the first or second week of October.  Some guys know but are in denial about it, just like they’ve been in denial about how bad their team is, and will continue to be, in order to get to this point in the season.  Some guys just think they’re sore right now and are in for quite a surprise once they take that exit physical.  And then the fun of the off season, of not having to travel all the time or live in a hotel half the time or hang out with a band of jerks most of the time or get badgered by the media the times when you screw up doesn’t really matter because you’re going to spend much of your upcoming time rehabbing.  If you lust for the upcoming 5 months, surgery is like a cold shower.

The upcoming off season isn’t really an off season for some players.  Some are going to fly to Arizona or Hawaii or Mexico or Central America and keep playing.  There’s the Arizona Fall League for the game’s more elite prospects and the Caribbean League for those who either come from that part of the world or need to get better at their game.  Some will keep playing because they simply love to play baseball.  They grew up playing ball all year round.  Why stop just because they’re adults?  Others live for the Caribbean League because they are stars down there.  Even if they’re not big shots in the States, they may be legends-in-the-making south of our borders.  There are always fans willing to pay to scream your name.  There are always ladies will to whisper your name in your ear.  There is always the pull of fame and its perks.  When the MLB season ends, the fun for some has just begun.

Finally, there are the guys who are going to spend the entire off season either being courted by teams and sponsors – your elite free agents – or guys doing the courting – your 25th man free agents.  These are the guys who will feel the stress of looking for work starting 15 days after the last game of the World Series.  Some guys will love the process.  It’ll be their Caribbean League equivalent, getting loved and cheered by front office executives, media personnel and fans in cities you could love if the money is right.

Other players will hate the process.  There’s either the stress of squeezing as much money as possible in a bad economy from the winning bidder and then living up to your new billing as The Next Big Thing or there’s the stress of your phone not ringing.  There’s that stress of knowing your agent is working to get 28 other guys jobs before he gets to you.  Which means the available jobs won’t be as lucrative as you had dreamed, or the city you’ll have to settle for isn’t on a coast, or you might be insulted by not getting any offers until Christmas and New Year’s and MLK Day and Valentine’s Day pass you by.  There’s the stress of waiting and wondering why you skipped playing in Puerto Rico this off season when you could have been showing off your skills instead of protecting yourself from possible injury.  Add in that you potentially don’t like your wife (or she doesn’t like you), your parents bug you every day, and, quite frankly, you don’t have anything to do and suddenly miss the camaraderie of hanging out with a bunch of jerks all the time and you’ll begin to long for the end of the off season.  Soon enough, you’ll find yourself telling people you can’t wait for 2010, when The New Season Cometh and you can get away from the reality of a cold winter without baseball.

Jimmy Scott is probably the greatest pitcher you’ve never heard of.  Visit Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight to read more from Jimmy and guests Desi Relaford, Eric Valent & Cassidy Dover.  You’ll also hear a new interview every Monday morning with former MLB players, agents, wives and others; giving new outlooks on this great game we call Baseball.  Go there now to hear Jimmy’s latest interviews with Rollie Fingers, Desi Relaford, Brent Mayne and MLB Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt.  You can follow Jimmy on Twitter or Facebook.

This hurts me more than Nick Adenhart’s death from last month.  I did not know Nick Adenhart.  I did know Gabrielle Schoeenweis.  For those who didn’t know. Gabrielle was found dead on Wednesday by her 14 year old daughter.  Her husband, Scott Schoeneweis, has pitched for six different teams.  Right now, he’s an Arizona Diamondback.  Right now, he’s a widower.

I never met Gabrielle face-to-face.  Our relationship was not close by any means.  But we did speak on the telephone and trade emails.  She agreed to an interview last fall, right after her husband’s New York Mets team blew another first place lead at the end of a second consecutive season; right after her husband gave up a game-winning home run to a Marlins team that sent the Mets home for a second consecutive season.  She had no fear of speaking to me.  Quite the contrary.  She was lively.  She was fun.  As we spoke, her husband was sitting nearby.  I could tell she’d look at him as she spoke to me.  I could tell she loved him very much.

She also loved her children with all of her heart.  When Scott gave up the last home run, Gabrielle was in the hospital after giving birth.  Scott, to his credit, didn’t use his family concerns as an excuse.  He accepted his fate as scapegoat.  Gabrielle, to her credit, talked candidly about what happened.  She talked about meeting Scott.  She talked about dating and falling in love.  She talked about their plans and about being a mother.  She talked about their family.

It might be eerie to some; to others it might be a tribute.  If you want to listen to Gabrielle’s interview on Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight, you may.  You can hear Part I HERE.  You can hear Part II HERE.  You can hear Part III HERE.

There are four children without a mother tonight.  It doesn’t matter that Scott is a millionaire and it doesn’t matter that the children will be set financially for life.  Because right now, they are going to grow up in a one-parent household.  They don’t care their dad pitches in the big leagues right now.  All they care about is their mother is gone, longer than any road trip their father would ever take.  That is the tragedy here.  That is the damn shame of this all.

If you pray, please say a prayer for those children.  If you don’t pray, take a silent moment for the children.  They aren’t special because of who their dad is or who their mom was.  They’re special because they are children.  They are the ones who need to be in our thoughts tonight.  I ask that if you ever do anything for me, you think of them tonight.

Knowing & Not Knowing What He Took

Because of our “holier than thou” posture, we all assume that A-Rod should have known what he was putting into himself.  Quick thing: Last time you had a sore throat, or your kid had strep, and the doctor prescribed something for you or your kid, what was the drug you were given?  Hurry.  The clock is ticking.

Yep, some moms out there will know immediately and rattle something off.  Maybe a handful of very involved fathers too.  But the majority of us?  Come on.  If a doctor says, “Jimmy, take this,” I will take it.  I won’t ask, “But what is it I will be putting inside my body because I must know?”  I won’t think about all the times I’ve been out at a restaurant and someone said, “Try this, Jimmy” and I said “What is it?” and they said, “Just try it” and it was yummy.  I won’t tell you how many times a trainer says to use ice, or heat, or puts something else onto my body.  I won’t tell you that I’m not paying attention half the time, thinking ‘Just make me better; just make the pain go away.”  Because I am holier than thou.  I can’t believe A-Rod didn’t know.

Truthfully, do you always know?  Is it just because it’s A-Rod, is it just because it’s steroids, that we can proclaim ourselves more holy than Alex?  Can you answer that truthfully?

Even so, it doesn’t appear as if there was a Doctor No in A-Rod’s life during this time period, just a mysterious cousin.  Well, if A-Rod trusted the cousin, there you go.  A-Rod said he was “young” and “stupid.”  But did anyone ever tell you ballplayers were lazy too?

The Press Conference Invitation: Player POV

Jack Curry, in a New York Times article wonderfully illustrated by Michael B. Weimar, wrote this about why A-Rod’s teammates attended the press conference:

“Cashman acknowledged that some players probably showed up to support Rodriguez because they consider him a friend and others attended because they realize that the Yankees need an effective Rodriguez to help them have a potent season. And others probably went because it seemed as if they were expected to attend.”

There’s another reason: History.  This is history, man.  Who wouldn’t want to say they were there?  If you’re a guy who more than likely won’t make this Yankees team team, or any Yankees team ever, don’t you think a perk of being in camp with the Yankees is stuff like this?  How many guys in the future will be able to say, “Yeah, I was there.”  Seriously, this is as big as going to the Obama inauguration, only you don’t have to stand two miles away.  You’re in a privileged space because, since cuts haven’t been made yet, you’re a Yankee.

While this is a big story from a baseball perspective, while it’s big from a personal Alex Rodriguez perspective, it’s just as big for the guys in camp who are trying to make the 25-man, heck, the 40-man roster.  Todd Linden, a veteran of 270 MLB games, will probably not make the team.  He got an invite to spring training back in January with the Yankees, not knowing the invite would also be to an Alex Rodriguez press conference.  Yes, he might turn up either in AAA for the Yankees with the vague assurance that he’ll be called up “if something up here happens,” or he might end up in AAA for the A’s or Royals or Pirates after getting cut with 7 days to go in camp.  But he’ll always be able to say he was there.

Todd’s path to superstardom will be blocked forever by his inability to become a superstar.  In ten years, Todd Linden will be cool to his friends and the people who come in contact with him because he was a Major League Baseball player for a little while, not because he was a big star.  But the little tidbit that Todd will always have in his back pocket, the little nugget he’ll always be able to throw out at parties or small gatherings, the one item his wife will be sick of him bringing up year after year due to his own insecurities (he made it, but never really made it, you know?), will be this: “In 2009, I, Todd Linden, attended spring training with the New York Yankees big league camp.  I sat in the same locker room as Jeter and Burnett and Posada and A-Rod.  Oh, I also ‘hung out’ at the A-Rod press conference.”  At which point, Todd’s hangers-on will hang on more tightly.  What was it like, Todd?  Where did you stand?  Did you think A-Rod was sincere?

“Tell ‘em what you were wearing, Todd,” the frustrated Mrs. Linden will say.

Todd will, as men do, pretend he didn’t hear his wife try to pop the balloon he’d immersed himself in and therefore not bring up the Boyz II Men T-shirt he probably had draped over his upper torso.  Instead, he’ll talk all about how A-Rod handled himself in the clubhouse.  He’ll talk about A-Rod’s workout regimen.  He’ll discuss where the bathroom stalls were in relation to A-Rod’s locker.  He’ll say he never saw anybody do any steroids in his whole career, that he himself never did any steroids because “I wanted to play clean,” as every ex-MLB player says who never got caught now says.  He’ll say that 2009 camp was so rewarding for him.  The guys were great and, man, what a great time in his life.

“Tell ‘em how long you were in camp, Todd,” the visibly flustered Mrs. Linden will say.

Todd will blow off her comment, knowing he was only there for two weeks before being a member of the first wave of cuts, a first wave he didn’t expect, especially since bodies were needed in camp when A-Rod and so many others left for the World Baseball Classic.  He won’t talk about his bitterness toward the Yankees, or how his agent couldn’t get him anything with any other team.  He won’t talk about how he ended up playing in the Independent Leagues during the 2009 season or how he was a little bitter because he’d had such high expectations for himself.  Instead, he’ll talk about parts of 5 seasons with the Giants, a team that also included Barry Bonds.  He’ll compare his former teammates Bonds and Alex Rodriguez and go into a detailed analysis of each, then discuss their steroidal activities.  Then he’ll discuss the stigma the two always played under while he didn’t play under any stigma because he was a clean player.  “Nope, we didn’t talk about it much, me and the other players.  That was a media thing.  We just wanted to play baseball.”

And deep down, way deep, Todd will be a little sad that he didn’t get to play as much baseball as he had dreamed.  He’ll be proud that he did make it, that he did play as many years as he did, that he actually hit 8 big league home runs.  But he’ll always feel incompetent when compared to A-Rod, to Bonds.  He’ll secretly wish that he had been the guy up on that podium, apologizing again to Selena Roberts and his teammates.  He’ll secretly wish he was the guy who’d taken something and not known what it was.  He’ll secretly wish for all of Alex Rodriguez’s problems, because they are the problems of a superstar baseball player, of the type of player Todd always wanted to be.  Yeah, Todd probably thought yesterday as he stood at that press conference, it stinks being him.

And for a few brief, telling moments, he’ll secretly wish to be A-Rod for just one day, even if that day was yesterday.

Jimmy Scott is probably the greatest pitcher you’ve never heard of.  Visit  Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight to read more from Jimmy.  You’ll also hear a new interview every Monday morning with former MLB players, agents, wives and others, giving new perspectives on this great game we call Baseball.  Go now to hear Jimmy’s latest interviews with Shea Hillenbrand and Scott Brosius.

But here’s the thing: He never really quit.

Bernie never held a press conference and told the world, “I have retired from baseball.”  He never had some “family spokesperson” speak for him, never issued a statement from behind “The Williams Compound” walls that he was out for good.  Until a player does that, he always has that little bit of Nolan Ryan in him, a little Roger Clemens; the part that is 99.9% sure it’s over. The end of a baseball career is the only time when a .1% outweighs the rest; when you still have a part of you that wants to come back for one more season.

PROS & CONS

If you’re in Bernie’s shoes and you stop playing at 38 years old, and not necessarily voluntarily, you keep wondering if you can make it back.  You put together lists in your head of why you should even consider playing again.  It’s a Pros & Cons list, with the Pros being reasons to try to play again.  Since it’s your list and comes from your head and is biased because of the .1%, the Pros usually outnumber the Cons.  For example:

CONS: Being away from my kids for long stretches, being away from my wife for long stretches (for some this is a Pro, I know), can sit home and play guitar all day, can come and go as you please with no manager or coach or agent screaming at you to wear a jock even though you’re sick of the chafing.

I could go on, but there aren’t any more major Cons.  Let’s look at the Pros:

PROS: Money, pride, desire to stay young, desire to be with the guys again in the clubhouse, the need to satisfy your competitive mojo, faith in yourself that you can still play, wanting to prove to everyone who thought you were done that you weren’t, the cheering sound of a 50,000-person crowd, love of the game, the feel of the bat in your palms, the glove on your hand, the ball traveling from your fingertips to a cutoff man who may possibly be named Derek Jeter, a manager or coach or agent screaming at you to wear a jock, playing guitar in the clubhouse or the hotel or the airplane every free moment, being a good example for your kids never to give up, showing your wife she married a M-A-N.

It’s possible to come up with more Pros, but you get the idea.  If a guy like Bernie really wants to come back, it’s never hard to justify it to yourself.

PUERTO RICO

Once you’ve made the commitment to give it one more shot at 40 years old, the hardest part isn’t stepping onto the field.  The hardest part is staying there.

You don’t realize what two years of inactivity does to you.  You don’t realize what two years of others improving, of the game going on without your contributions, means until you face that first pitch and think, very quietly, “I don’t remember balls traveling that fast from pitcher to catcher before.”  You’re two steps slower.  Your arm is two years older.  Your body at 40 isn’t the body of a svelte 20 year old.  But you don’t care.  All that matters is the grass under your cleats and the uniform over your shoulders.  You’re playing again.  The Cons at this point never seemed to exist.

Bernie felt this in Puerto Rico this year.  He went down to his native domicile to play in the Puerto Rican winter league and got a hit in his first at bat.  You know how that feels?  Joy.  That’s what that is.

Then he hit a snag.  He didn’t get a hit in his next 5 at bats.  Then he got hurt, straining his right quad.  If you’ve never strained your right quad, be very happy.  It’s not fun.  It’s not pleasant.  And it takes a while to heal.

There are guys who would take that 1 for 6, suffer the strain, and say to themselves, “I gave it my best shot.”  Then they’d go home.  Would they be satisfied?  Yes, they tried.  Yes, they made it back onto the field.  But is 1 for 6 enough?  Depending upon how the guy justifies it in his head, maybe.  Or maybe not.

For Bernie, it looks like a “maybe not.”  He has been added to the provisional 45-man roster for the Puerto Rican team participating in this year’s World Baseball Classic.  That’s a big step.  He has until February 22nd to heal up his leg and catch up to fastballs and curveballs and the occasional circle change.  On that day, the team’s roster is cut to the final 28.

Bernie Williams fans can circle 2/22 on their calendars.  That will be a big day for him, when all of the Pros and the mental justifications are either satisfied and celebrated or wiped away with one quick Con.  Make the team and your journey back continues.  Get cut and get out for good.  It’s a time when that 99.9% finally equals 100%.  And maybe the big press conference will follow soon after that.

Or maybe not.

THE EVENT

Meanwhile, you can see Bernie Williams this Saturday, January 24th at the Hillside Food Outreach 7th Annual Neighbors Helping Neighbors event. Bernie is hosting the event, with special guest Robinson Cano, in Thornwood, New York.

Bernie’s going to play guitar and make it worth your time.  Ticket prices range from $275 to $1500.

What is Hillside Food Outreach?  “Hillside Food Outreach exists to provide food to those in need throughout Westchester and Putnam Counties. It is our Mission to deliver food to people who are, for whatever reason, unable to access local food pantries.  We also provide food bags for special needs diets, such as diabetes.

“It is our objective to meet the needs of the poor and destitute of Westchester and Putnam Counties by delivering food and friendships.”

If you can, go see Bernie on the 24th.  And say hey to Robbie for me.

Jimmy Scott is probably the greatest pitcher you’ve never heard of.  You can hear a new interview every Monday morning with a current or ex-MLB player, agent, or wife on Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight.  Go to www.jimmyscottshighandtight.com and listen.

But Guerin’s game never was about gaudy goal totals. Unlike Bossy, who spent his entire career with one franchise, Guerin has played for seven different franchises. He has brought his dependability—nine straight seasons of at least 20 goals—to nearly every part of the country and became just the 79th player in NHL history to score 400 career goals when he pushed in a shot past Toronto goaltender Vesa Toskala in a 4-1 victory Friday night at Nassau Coliseum.

Bossy and Bryan Trottier are the only other two players to reach the milestone in an Islanders uniform, leaving Guerin in some pretty good company. The right winger now has 13 goals this season on his way towards extending his 20-goal streak to a full decade.

“I’ve been able to stick around in this league for quite some time and had some success, and it’s a big thrill for me,” Guerin said.

The 16-year veteran scored his most goals with the Devils, recording 108 in 380 games with the team that drafted him fifth overall in 1989. Guerin played in New Jersey from 1992-1998, playing on the Stanley Cup-winning squad in 1995.

Guerin twice scored 40 goals in his career. The Worcester, Ma. native’s best season came for his hometown Bruins in 2001-02, when he scored 41 goals. He became a captain for the first time in his career when he joined the Isles before the start of last season and is considered one the veteran leaders on a team that is trying to develop prospects like first-round pick Josh Bailey, who tallied an assist on Guerin’s 399th goal in the second period of the win over the Maple Leafs.

“It’s awesome for Billy,” coach Scott Gordon said. “Everybody on the bench was extremely excited for him. It’s quite an accomplishment.”

Guerin is just the eighth United States-born player to reach the plateau, becoming the first since John LeClair reached the mark in March 2006. He joins Hall-of-Famer Joe Mullen and other All-Stars like Mike Modano, Jeremy Roenick, Keith Tkachuk, Tony Amonte and Pat LaFontaine on the list.

“Looking around the league at some of the Americans coming up, hopefully that will change soon,” said Guerin, who was also a member of Team USA when it won the 1996 World Cup championship. “I’m proud to be a part of the few guys who have done it.”

Guerin recalled his first career NHL goal coming against the Hartford Whalers at what used to be called the Hartford Civic Center (now the XL Center) when he found the net on Oct. 28, 1992.

Drafted fifth overall by New Jersey in 1989, Guerin notched his first career goal with the Devils against the Hartford Whalers on October 28, 1992. The season before, Guerin was called up from the team’s AHL affiliate in Utica and appeared in five regular season games, registering zero goals and one assist.

As an interesting statistical fact, Guerin scored three goals in six games in the playoffs before the Devils were bounced in the first round, giving him goals on his playoff ledger before his first official goal. Only regular season totals are counted as part of his 400 mark.

“You never forget your first one,” Guerin said. “It was a long time ago, but it was at the old mall in Hartford. You cherish every one of them and hope it’s never the last.”