Not the most dignified Mets moment to be certain, however compared to what ensued later yesterday afternoon, Francisco Rodriguez seems positively heroic. While the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Don McKee would have you believe losing two of three in the Bronx this week oughta signal the end of Jerry Manuel’s managerial tenure, the considerably less hysterical Ken Davidoff of Newsday ponders the question of at what point has a player accomplished enough to be a credible critic?

Pedroia calling Alex Rodriguez a “dork”? Not kosher, IMO, for a guy with two-plus years of service time.

You might remember, back when the 1987 Giants clinched the NL West, that Will Clark got all silly during the champagne celebration and said something like, “I’ve been waiting soooo long for this!” It was Clark’s second year in the big leagues. People scoffed, although apparently not so much that I can find it in Google now.

Jamie Moyer calling out A-Rod? That carried real weight. As it did when John Smoltz and Todd Zeile spoke out in favor of tougher testing for illegal PEDs.

Interestingly when Derek Jeter said earlier this year that he wasn’t comfortable with the notion that “Everybody” used illegal PEDs, reporters asked Jeter why he didn’t speak out at the time. Jeter said that he didn’t think he wasn’t yet enough of a veteran to do so. I believe that Jeter thought that way, and I think he wasn’t giving himself enough credit. By 2001, when he had a huge, long-term contract, he could’ve pulled it off.