Damon Defends A-Rod—Beltran Responds

At the 29th annual Thurman Munson Awards Dinner Tuesday night, the NYPost caught up with Johnny Damon and Carlos Beltran regarding the upcoming season and the Joe Torre book.

While Joe Torre claims that the "A-Fraud" reference was in a joking manner such as, "are we going to see A-Rod today, or A-Fraud?", it sounds like a cop-out to me. I love Torre but I am not buying it, and neither are players who were once close to Joe Torre.

Just down the street, earlier in the day, Torre was releasing his book, "The Yankee Years."

Not only does Damon back up Rodriguez, he also predicts that he will win his fourth AL MVP award in 2009.

"All I know is, A-Rod is such a great teammate," the Yankee center fielder said.

"A-Rod is just a great guy who works harder than anybody," Damon added. "Alex is one of the greatest players ever, and I would put my odds on him to win another MVP this year."

Johnny Damon said he didn't have plans to read the book.

Also honored that night for a Thurman Munson award, Carlos Beltran gets mentioned in Torre's book as well. Torre wrote that Beltran, when he was a free agent, wanted to be a Yankee so he could "hide amongst the trees."

Beltran almost came over to the Yankees when he was a free agent at the end of the 2004 season, but found a home on the other side of the city, in Flushing, with the Mets.

It's funny Torre would even say anything about a guy that he has never even met, but that is just the case here.

"I never met with Joe Torre, so I don't know what type of person he is," said Beltran. "When I met with the Yankees as a free agent, he wasn't there [at the negotiations], so if he said what he said, that's just an opinion."

Beltran went on to say that he feels good about their team and the recent addition of pitcher Oliver Perez.

"We have done a good job," Beltran said. "What we have with Francisco Rodriguez, J.J. Putz and now, adding Oliver, I do believe with the whole group that we have, we are good enough to win our division."

So far, the players mentioned haven't let any Torre comments get to them and remained focused on the task-at-hand, and that is the 2009 season.

Alex Rodriguez will be a marked man when reporters start crowding around him in Tampa, so I just hope he handles the questions quickly and moves on.

Before the 2009 season Rodriguez, among others, are joining the Dominican team that began its training for the upcoming World Baseball Classic in Boca Chica, Dominican Republic on Tuesday.