In which New York sports radio’s #1 (consumer of Diet Coke) swears that he will never use Twitter. While “never”, is a very long time, perhaps it really is better off this way?

…somebody had to make David Wright look composed by comparison last night. And not to condone helmet (or beer) tossing, but those who didn’t catch last night’s Tampa/Toronto tilt are well advised to check out Blue Jay Hunter’s Zapruder-esque analysis of the two called strikes that caused Lawrie to (literally) flip his lid. Lawrie’s meltdown makes for a fun late-night clip, but as BJH puts it, “Lawrie will have consequences for his actions, and (home plate umpire) Bill Miller will not … or at least, we’ll never hear about it.”

Pete Rose hits the live stage Friday night at Belterra Casino Resort in what is basically a one-man show billed in various places on the internet as “An Evening With Pete Rose,” or “4,192 — The Making of the Hit King.”

“It’s me telling stories about how I got started playing ball, the impact my father had on me as an athlete, signing with the Reds and right on through the breaking of the (all-time) hit record,” Rose said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

There will be graphics on a big screen, questions from an on-stage interviewer to maintain the storyline of river rat Pete growing up near Anderson Ferry all the way through breaking Ty Cobb’s hit record on Sept. 11, 1985, and Rose’s forte, taking questions from the audience.

“That’s what keeps it fresh for me,” Rose said. “You never know what people are going to ask. Somebody will ask a question I haven’t heard before and it calls to mind a story and I’m off and running.”

Hardball Talk’s Craig Calcaterra suggests brave attendees ask Pete, “how it felt to kill Bart Giamatti”, and assuming you can make that inquiry without being escorted from the premises, you might also raise the subject of maiming another player during a meaningless exhibition game.

Hamilton had gone 5-for-5 with four homers the previous night for the red-hot Rangers, while Beckett — coming off his role in the fried-chicken-and-beer episode last September — was struggling for the disappointing Red Sox.

There also is this:

Hamilton plays in the Dallas-Ft. Worth market, where fans and media are far more forgiving than they are in Boston — relentlessly intense, occasionally over-the-top Boston.

I’m not defending Beckett, whose act is beyond tired. He knows the landscape in Boston, yet he chose to stay with the Sox, signing a four-year, $68 million extension in April 2010.

I don’t honestly believe Rosenthal is indirectly campaigning for the Yankees or the (broke-ass) Mets to sign Hamilton this offseason, but there’s no way an afternoon of golf, jell0 shots or worse goes unreported, especially if the outfielder isn’t getting it done on the field.

In stark contrast to Josh Hamilton’s terrorizing of American League pitching, Angels 1B Albert Pujols has struggled mightily since signing a gargantuan pact this past winter, so much so that Adam Dunn feels sorry for him.  Writing for The Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Norman Chad (above) proposes that Albert isn’t merely a big useless lump in the middle of Mike Scioscia’s lineup, but is instead, “a living, breathing ‘John Carter’”. Full points to the Slouch for not referencing “Heaven’s Gate” or “Tusk”.

If Pujols — who signed a 10-year contract — doesn’t defunkify, we’re looking at something that goes beyond free-agent bust. He’s entering hallowed cultural territory. Here are, unofficially, the five biggest flops of the past halfcentury in American life:

• New Coke (1985): Was anybody complaining about Coca-Cola? What were they thinking? This was like adding skylights and terraces to the pyramids.
• Chevy Chase’s talk show (1993): Magic Johnson’s talk show was actually worse, but he was a point guard. Chase is an entertainer.
• Ben-Gay Aspirin (1990s): Yes, Ben-Gay Aspirin. For real. I mean, I’ll smear that delightfully smelly stuff on my back, but do I care to swallow it?
• Dennis Miller on “Monday Night Football” (2000-01): I still have nightmares of the former funny guy referring to Mike Shanahan as “Shanny” 37 times in four quarters.
• Susan B. Anthony dollar (1979-81, 1999): Hey, I was as big a fan of women’s suffrage as the next guy, but I don’t want some feminist coin rolling around my pocket ruining the feng shui of my favorite quarters and dimes.

(above : absolutely not a photograph of Frank Francisco)

Earlier today, the New York Daily News’ Andy Martino asked (via Twitter), “Why do people compare (Frank) Francisco to (Armando) Benitez? There have been many bad closers in the intervening years.”  Said loaded question came less than 24 hours after Francisco blew his 2nd save in 3 games against the Marlins, Sunday’s ending with an on-field meltdown that almost resulted in Terry Collins being squashed by his enraged reliever.

Putting aside for a moment whether or not Sandy Alderson’s two-year, $12 million investment in Francisco was ill-advised (hey, we could be stuck with J.J. Putz), The Journal News’ Howard Megdal takes exception to Martino’s inference, pointing that persons quick to compare Francisco to Benitez have legit reasons for doing so besides race.

Armando Benitez was a heavyset reliever who threw a majority of fastballs. His second pitch was a splitter. He suffered from command issues with his slider pitches, tended to leave those fastballs over the middle of the plate when he got beaten. He was primarily a flyball pitcher whose velocity tended to hover in the mid-90s. He walked well more than four per nine innings, and struck out better than a batter per inning.

All of these things are true for Frank Francisco, too. All of them. They are both a very specific type of pitcher. They also look remarkably similar, facially, and wear practically the same number: Benitez wore 49, Francisco wears 48.

And Braden Looper was a groundball pitcher who barely struck out anybody. Mets fans weren’t fond of him, but it wouldn’t make any sense at all to compare Francisco to Looper, for reasons having nothing to do with race.

Notice also that despite a general dislike of Francisco Rodriguez within the fan base, no one is comparing Francisco to Rodriguez, despite the two of the being of Latin descent.

Well, not quite no one. No one with any credibility, perhaps.

Boston’s Kevin Garnett (above, right) is no stranger to bold statements and overblown analogies, and during a Saturday chat with WEEI’s Grande & Max he continued on a similar path, promising that he’d kill himself in order to win. I’m hopeful Billy Hunter has made it clear KG cannot be contractually held to this pledge.   Transcription courtesy of Slam :

‘I’d die out here if I had to and that’s real talk. I’ve been doing this for a long time and ways where I know how to conserve energy and get ‘em at free throw lines and when guys are shooting free throws, those are valuable seconds for me. When I train in the summer I train for a lack of, and when I say that, I mean rest. I program my body to recover as quickly as it can. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m a cerebral player these days and I know how to buy myself time on pick and rolls and stuff like that, things that you don’t see when you’re in your seat and it helps me.’ [...] ‘I have no life at this point. I go home, get treatment, come back in here, study tape, film. No life at all. This is what it is.’

“I hit 42 batters in my career,” Peterson said, “every one of them deliberately.”

He’s quite proud of that, if only because it says something about his control, and also because, in his mind, it helped him last as long as he did in the big leagues, with a 133-131 record from 1966-76, including a 20-11 season with the Yankees in 1970 and two other 17-win seasons for them.

“All of my pitching strategy was about winning games and giving myself an advantage,” Peterson said. “I didn’t throw that hard, upper 80s most of the time, and so I had to use purpose pitches. Hitting batters was part of my game plan.”

And Peterson can remember each and every one of his 42 victims with great pride.

“My all-time favorite was probably Rick Monday ,” Peterson said, “even though I broke his elbow with a pitch that put him out for 50 games. I felt terrible after about that, but at the time I took great pleasure in hitting him because, in my mind, he was this brash guy from California who needed to be taught a lesson.”

(from Mad Magazine, Bob Clarke, 1971.  Image copped — GET IT? — from Jim Blanchard)