THERE'S ONLY 1 "CORE FOUR", PATRICK MOONEY

Patrick Mooney of Comcast Sportsnet offers an interesting piece that many won't pick up on.  He connected the Yankees, and Mariano Duncan, to Derek Jeter.  Then he did something sneaky and sacrilegious. He anointed 4 Cubs' youngster as the "Core Four" in his title. I guess he was hoping no one would notice.  1 problem... I did notice, and it's just plain wrong.  There's only 1 "Core Four" and the Cubs don't have it, the Yankees do.

The piece was innocent enough at the start.  Mooney writes about Mariano Duncan mentoring Jeter, writing: "The Boss made sure Mariano Duncan got the message. The New York Yankees needed someone to look after the 21-year-old shortstop out of Kalamazoo Central High School.... Duncan remembered the conversation with Torre: 'Mariano, for now, you’re my starting second baseman. You know Derek Jeter is our shortstop and I want you to go ahead and take care of that guy.'

Duncan said Yankees owner George Steinbrenner also sent Mr. October: 'And then Reggie Jackson comes to me one day in spring training and says, ‘Mariano, I talked to George and he wanted me to tell you: If you go to dinner, you got to take Jeter with you. If you go out, take him with you. I want you to take care of that guy for us, because we want that guy to follow the right people.’” 

Then suddenly the piece changes gears and it speaks of Duncan's job these days with the Cubs and 4 kids who are "the next big thing."  Then, in the final paragraph he writes: "Whether or not the Cubs really have their Core Four, history shows elite young players can grow up fast."

Sure, you can backtrack now, but your title said it all:  "Cubs: After mentoring Jeter, Mariano Duncan connects with Core Four". You've tricked us, and while you're a "Cubs Insider", whatever that is, what you did was use a lot of buzz words to get the Yankee fans in.  But now I know and I'll be sure to not come back.  It was borderline irresponsible.

Now, to all the BYB readers... look...  I'm not asking you to go bash Patrick Mooney.  He was trying to be provocative and he was, he won.  But there are certain things that you just don't do....

You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't piss into the wind... and you don't... YOU NEVER EVER call another group of 4 ballplayers the Core Four.  That, my friends should never happen. There's only 1 Core Four...

And there will never be another.

You've made BYB the fastest growing Yankees fan site in history. Now shop at the Bleeding Yankee Blue store!  Follow me on Twitter @BleednYankeeBlu and LIKE Bleeding Yankee Blue on Facebook!