Tyler Kepner: Yankees Plot Insurance Fraud to Get Out of A-Rod's Contract

Leave it to New York Times hack Tyler Kepner to transform a serious news story about PED allegations against A-Rod into a venomous, whacked-out rant that makes demented WFAN callers seem lucid by comparison.

My favorite part about Kepner's piece is the following, when he basically says the Yankees are looking to get out of A-Rod's contract by what would amount to insurance fraud:

    "The results of baseball’s investigation, in theory, could help the Yankees if they attempt to void Rodriguez’s contract. That would not be easy — the Yankees failed to do it with Jason Giambi — but there may be another exit strategy.

     "The Yankees have continued to emphasize the seriousness of Rodriguez’s hip injury, with General Manager Brian Cashman asserting last week that it could keep him out all season, not just for the first half. The natural next step in that progression is that the injury would end his career, as it did for Albert Belle of the Baltimore Orioles in 2001. This would allow Rodriguez to collect his money — but with insurance, not the Yankees, covering most of it.

   "That is the dream outcome."

First, as a member of the reality-based community, I must report that I heard Cashman say on the radio, in simple English, that A-Rod is likely to play next year; but merely that there is a slight possibility he may not.

That's just a routine, predictable observation on Cashman's part; most serious medical procedures have a range of possible outcomes with varying probabilities. The sports media's distorted and inflammatory presentation of Cashman's comments reveal more about the incompetency of the media than anything about A-Rod's health.

But Tyler Kepner took it to a new level by portraying Cashman's comments as a first step in using insurance to get rid of A-Rod's contract. Kepner is implying that Cashman's comments are spinning the injury as a prelude to the "dream outcome" Kepner rhapsodizes about.

But what Kepner's getting all excited about would merely amount to an attempt at insurance fraud - hyping the extent of an injury for financial advantage. And a rather clumsy attempt - this imaginary scheme would not exactly rise to the Double Indemnity level.

Indeed, Kepner's theory is so stupid that it is actually pretty funny. He's basically saying that all the Yankees need to do is spin the sports media with a few more comments that "emphasize the seriousness of Rodriguez’s hip injury" and then the insurance company will fork over $100 million. Someone has to tell poor Tyler Kepner that insurance companies have medical investigators, and that such investigators might possibly use means other than reading Brian Cashman quotes in the sports pages to easily uncover such a fraud.

Contrast Kepner's bilious rant with Michael Schmidt's excellent piece on the allegations. Schmidt's article provides news, which is what I expect from something called the "newspaper." Kepner however is as demented as Jerome from the Bronx - but that is unfair to Jerome, because Jerome's rantings had a style that was fun to listen to.