"It's great to be young and a Yankee."

Well, that didn't take long.

As opposed to the amount of time that lapsed before I commented on this news bit, Jim Rice wasted zero time parlaying his new HOF status into arrogant misspeaking.

I guess once you're in the Hall, you are, in fact, holding the ultimate trump card in terms of MLB consequence. You're never a guy just hanging out in retiree pergatory, you've paid your dues and it was recognized and you'll never been a has-been or an also-ran. You'll always have that HOF-ness about you.

But I don't know if this necessarily means you should exploit that by immediately bad mouthing some of the current greats:

"You see a Manny Ramirez, you see an A-Rod [Alex Rodriguez], you see [Derek] Jeter ... Guys that I played against and with, these guys you're talking about cannot compare. We didn't have the baggy uniforms. We didn't have the dreadlocks," Rice said. "It was a clean game, and now they're setting a bad example for the young guys."

Flexing the muscles in his right arm, Rice said, "That's all the steroids you need . . . It's called God-given talent."

Now he backtracks saying he was misquoted and that obviously ARod and Jeter aren't who he was talking about because duh they don't even wear baggy pants and have dreadlocks.

Yeah, we're well aware of that fact, Jim. What we're not aware of is how Jeter ever got on that list of bad examples. Fine, I love ARod, but ok, I can see why you don't want anyone following his example. Manny is human garbage. But Jeter? Bordering a little on defamation of character, since he implies that steroids is the main thing for Little Leaguers to avoid. Both Manny and Arod have been caught, but Jeter? Not so much.

I agree that there are certain players who I wouldn't want my kid aspiring to be like, but as morally bereft as those players may be, I find it just as detestable and low to trash players unprovoked.

I wouldn't want my kids doing steroids, but I also wouldn't want them ingratiating themselves at the expense of others.

I'm pretty sure Jeter must have been like Dane Cook in the end of that movie "Waiting..."