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A Call To Duty
by Larry Mahnken

Consider the following:

- The Yankees are 31-33 in games Tony Womack plays, 6-1 in games he does not play.

- Tony Womack's 32 runs scored a in a six-way tie for 54th in the American League. The three players who most often bat behind him have a .955 OPS, .847 OPS and 1.025 OPS.

- Among qualified players, Tony Womack ranks 171st in the Major Leagues in OPS. There are 172 qualified players.

- Tony Womack ranks 165th in OBP in the Major Leauges among qualified players.

- 85 Major Leaguers have a higher Batting Average than Tony Womack's OBP.

- 108 Major Leaguers have a higher Batting Average than Tony Womack's SLG.

- Of the Top 25 base stealers in MLB, only Dave Roberts and Nook Logan, who play in extreme pitchers parks, have scored fewer runs than Tony Womack.

- Among Major League left fielders with 100 PAs in left, Tony Womack ranks 32nd out of 32 in OPS, .119 OPS points behind #31, Brian Jordan.

- No batter on the Yankees with more than 60 PAs has a lower OPS than Tony Womack. The second-lowest OPS on the Yankees is that of Bernie Williams -- it's .162 points higher.

- Tony Womack has the lowest Isolated Power in the majors, .025.

- Tony Womack has the fourth-lowest Secondary Average (a measure of all things a player does other than batting average) in the Majors .

- Tony Womack has the third-worst Runs Created per 27 outs in the Majors .

- Tony Womack has more sacrifice bunts than extra-base hits (6-5).

- The average AL Left Fielder is batting: .281/.338/.437.

- Tony Womack as a Left Fielder is batting: .224/.252/.237.

- The average AL #2 hitter is batting: .265/.322/.373.

- Tony Womack as a #2 hitter is batting: .237/.268/.252.

Tony Womack is not hitting. He's not scoring. The team isn't winning when he plays, and, while it's probably just a coincidence, they happen to have lost only once when he didn't play.

And yet he's the Yankees' #2 hitter. Sometimes Joe Torre bats him ninth (where he happens to be hitting .314/.360/.357), but he never stays there. There, in between Derek Jeter and Gary Sheffield, is The Out. When the Yankees need to put together a couple of runs in the late innings, and have the the top of the lineup coming around, they have some of the best hitters in all of baseball coming up - Derek Jeter, Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, Hideki Matsui... and The Out.

There's no reason for Tony Womack to be batting at the top of the lineup. Indeed, with Robinson Cano established as a legitimate secondbaseman, there's no reason for Tony Womack to be in the lineup at all. There's other guys who can play leftfield, they can play it better than Womack, and they'll hit better than Womack has.

Ricky Ledee, who struggled so badly in 2000 that the Yankees traded him with Jake Westbrook for David Justice, hit better that year than Tony Womack is this year. John Vander Wal and Shane Spencer, whose struggles inspired the Yankees to trade for Raul Mondesi, hit better in 2002 than Tony Womack is hitting now. In his worst month as a Yankee, July 2003, Raul Mondesi hit better than Tony Womack is hitting now. Todd Zeile, who's family was told by our own Sean McNally that he sucks, hit better than Tony Womack.

Aaron Boone hit .254/.302/.418 as a Yankee.

ENRIQUE WILSON HAD A .579 OPS LAST YEAR!!!!!

The Yankees have suffered through a lot of lousy players, far more than a team of their resources ever should. And yet it is likely that no single player has been more damaging to the Yankees than Tony Womack. Certainly in the past decade, perhaps ever. Perhaps no player has ever been more damaging to any team in history.

This has to stop. George Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman, and Joe Torre need to know that we won't put up with this, and it isn't enough to boo, or call the sports talk shows and rant incoherently. It is for this reason that I ask each and every one of you to, for the sake of the team we love, and more importantly, America, that you affix your name to the Put Tony Womack Out Of Our Misery Petition. Will it help? It can't hurt.

NOTE: THE PETITION WAS RE-DONE TO CORRECT A SPELLING ERROR, ALL THE SIGNATURES NEED TO BE RE-SUBMITTED

--posted at 8:00 PM by Larry Mahnken / |

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