Henry, Lucchino Wrong On Need For Cap

Both John Henry and Larry Lucchino think MLB should consider implementing a salary cap (or "salary zone").

I disagree. There is no need for a cap on players' salaries. When management starts banging the drum for a cap on their earnings or an absolute limit on ticket prices, let me know.

The Red Sox held their first full-squad workout on Wednesday. ... Jonathan Papelbon says he was "starting to kind of break down" during last year's ALCS and hopes that the team's improved bullpen will lighten his work load a bit.

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ESPN has identified Yuri Sucart, who lives in Miami, as Alex Rodriguez's drug-smuggling "cousin". ... MLB investigators will soon ask Slappy to "further explain his admitted use of performance-enhancing drugs".

Daily News reporter Christian Red needed only two minutes and $19 to purchase "one 100 mg ampule of testosterone enanthate, a 2.5 ml. syringe and a package of 10 Methandrostenolone pills, the powerful oral anabolic steroid known as Dianabol" at a nonnondescript pharmacy in downtown Santo Domingo. No word on whether he also picked up some Tic Tacs.

John Harper of the Daily News thinks it's good that Derek Jeter ("the master of the vanilla sound bite") is now speaking out against steroids, but he wonders

where was he seven or eight years ago? ... If he felt this strongly, why wasn't he out front when the players' union was stonewalling for years on drug-testing? Why wasn't Jeter leading a fight for his union to adopt a policy that would protect the clean players, not the dirty ones?

When asked whether he regrets not speaking out as strongly in the past, Jeter actually used A-Rod's "young and naive" excuse.

I think when you're younger, in terms of young players coming up, a lot of times when you're around the (union) meetings and things, you're really learning. It's a learning process.

Harper points out that by the time A-Rod says he began using banned substances, Jeter was one of the game's most famous players and had been a part of four World Series champions. But, to hear him tell it, Jeter was still learning his way around the game, too shy to speak up around the veterans.

Jorge Posada believes Rodriguez was genuinely choked up when he paused for more than 30 seconds at the end of his press conference statement. Of course, A-Rod had no trouble thanking his teammates and continuing to speak at the very beginning of his statement. ... Well, Pedro didn't call him Dumbo for nothing.