Wallace has a Love Affair with Quotation Marks

If Wallace Matthews over at Newsday read his column out loud, he would probably look a lot like Bennett Brower. In today's piece, he put the following words in quotations:

"No"
"Yes"
"No"
"Yes""ol' tomato"
"Cave in by last night or else"
"deadline"
"want"
"outrage"
"insult"
"played"
"negotiation"

None of those words were used in a direct quote of a person, he was just coining his own terms at will. Later in the column...

After backing off on A-Rod, how they expect anyone to believe they are now going to stick to their word on Santana is beyond me. Not when the Red Sox are out there poised to make Santana their No. 1 to Josh Beckett's 1A. Not when the Yankees rotation right now consists of Chien-Ming Wang, Andy Pettitte, the ghost of Mike Mussina and a bunch of kids wearing diapers under their uniforms.

I'm assuming he is referring to the Pampers-wearing 21-year old Philip Hughes, the Huggies-strapped 22-year old Joba Chamberlain and Luvs-donning Ian Kennedy who is a 22-year old. Mr. Matthews, these guys are really good.

Their minor league numbers are outstanding. The sample of their major league numbers are too small to make any statistically significant observations but we can note that all three more than held their own while getting their feet wet. Philip Hughes was widely regarded as the top pitching prospect entering the year. As a 21 year old, he pitched better down the stretch (5 starts 2.73 ERA in Sept/Oct) than the diaper-less Andy Pettitte (5 starts 5.86 ERA in Sept/Oct). Joba was unhittable coming up to the bigs and Ian Kennedy starred in his first 3 starts in the majors. Teams all over the league would love to have these guys in their rotation. Apparently, not you.

Give 'em all the diapers they need if they pitch as well as they have. What else you got for us?

And not when all of baseball already knows your word is as good as Kyle Farnsworth in the eighth inning of a close game.

Kyle Farnsworth and Mariano Rivera in Late Close situations as defined as PA in the 7th or later with the batting team tied, ahead by one, or the tying run at least on deck) in 2007:

How about that? Kyle Farnsworth has actually been better in these Late & Close situations than Rivera; less people get hits, get on-base, and hit for power when they face sarcastically-good Farnsworth. I certainly didn't expect these results but I figured I'd look it up. Substituting Kyle's name with an "ol' tomato" would have been much better. And funnier.

Wallace you just got "played" by yours truly.