You know it's a good time of the year when you read the paper and you find your own little news nirvana- baseball stories. What you thought I was gonna say Saddam and George's will/they won't they tete-a-tete? (and speaking of, this war better be good. We've had hours and hours of foreplay and this country is on the verge of some serious blue balls. It's turning into the biggest buildup to a bang since Sam & Diane way back on Cheers. Which makes you wonder if there's something going on between those crazy kids- George and Saddam. A little hooyay, maybe. There is a fine line between love and hate, after all. Can't you see them arguing and arguing with each other and then one turning to the other and saying "is this turning you on?" and the next thing you know, Saddam's got a new boyfriend. Speaking of TV shows, since pretty much the entire world agrees that we don't want to fight a war but that Saddam is a really bad guy, maybe we should just let George and Saddam go at it, mano a mano- fifteen rounds. It'll be like the old Frankie Goes to Hollywood video for "Two Tribes." And maybe we could get FOX to broadcast it. It's not like they have anything else now that Joe Millionaire isn't on anymore. It'll be called "Political Boxing" and we could have the undercard be Rummy vs Chirac and Bill vs Hillary. Wouldn't that be great? Oh wait, where the hell was I?)

Anyways, we're starting off the year with a humdinger- King George Steinbrenner has accused the Golden Boy, Derek Jeter- aka Mr. Four Championship Rings, aka The Man who Single-Handily Beat the A's two years ago, aka the man who dated Mariah Carey before she went nuts, aka the Once and Future Yankee King- for partying too much. After missing out on winning the World Series two years in a row, George has decided that the reason is because Mr. Jeter stays out too late.

Of course, this is ridiculous. You just don't know someone who was has four World Series rings for being a party animal. It's just George being George, pushing buttons in hopes of getting some sort of reaction, hoping that he so pisses someone off that they'll be even more motivated to kick some baseball butt. Just like he always does.

The thing is, of course, that everyone knows that's what Steinbrenner is doing. He's trying to push Jeter's buttons but unfortunately, this puts Jeter in a box. There's no way he can get out of this situation without having it play badly.

The first thing that could happen is that he could get more motivated as a result of it and have an even better season than he has in the past. Problem with this, though, is that it feeds into George's plans. It'll mean that George is right, that insulting his players is actually a good idea.

He could also pretend it doesn't mean anything and deny that it'll affect him one way or the other. Problem with this is that nobody will believe him. If he has a bad year, they'll say it's because of what George said. If he has a kick-ass year, they'll say it's because George pushed him into it. The only way to get out of this is to have exactly the same year as he had before. Things just don't happen like that.

Which leaves option three. He could just give one big huge "fuck you" to George and go party. Go out clubbing every night and nail every chick in New York (which, if he hasn't done, he could do as easy as easily I could post something stupid that'll get me in trouble). He should go out and find if ecstacy could be considered a performance enhancing drug. He should do crack on the On-Deck circle. Why not? If he is Mr. Yankee, he's gotta uphold the tradition of the Babe, the Mick, Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson.

To me, it's obvious which option he should take- Option Three. Which is, of course, the reason why I'm not a professional baseball player or much of anything at all come to think of it.