By JEFF BLAIR, Toronto Globe and Mail

NEW YORK - The tabloid press is the conscience of the New York sports fan. So when one of them yesterday ran the headline "Earn Your Stripes" on its back page beside Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira's mug, the message was unmistakable.

Been there, done that. Johnny Damon has the World Series ring (2004 Boston Red Sox), the book ("Idiot: Beating the Curse and Enjoying the Game of Life") and the T-shirt. "Looks like Jesus, Acts like Judas, Throws like Mary," was a popular seller in Boston when he left the Red Sox for the New York Yankees.

Isn't this so baseball: Video replay works perfectly, and averts what would have been a travesty, and yet apologies seem to be in order.

NEW YORK - Pat Gillick stood in the Philadelphia Phillies dugout here Thursday night and drew a blank.

Chase Utley? Incomparable.

Not a left-handed Paul Molitor, because Molitor had what Gillick called a "no-load" swing. Bat steady. No movement.

Put aside the world citizen stuff and Usain Bolt matters in a way that no athlete has since Muhammad Ali because he makes us uncomfortable with truth (albeit in a different way) and that's very, very good.

Because he's a sprinter, we wonder if he won't go all Ben Johnson on us at some point, so we await the message in the bottle each time out. What are you going to do, eh?

The doubters won't go away until he offers something tangible, because let's be honest, A.J. Burnett hasn't always done stretch drives well.

It's never a good sign when your general manager is forced to speak like an economist.

In fact, my guess is the Toronto Blue Jays fan base felt a collective shiver down its spine when it heard J.P. Ricciardi Monday night defending the salary dump of outfielder Alex Rios by noting "the game has changed economically" and adding that "cash is king."

Predictably, the call has already been issued. Instead of "Release the hounds" it's "Release the names"

The drip, drip, drip from leaks off that list of 104 names of MLB players that tested positive in 2003 for performance-enhancing substances continued this week when The New York Times reported that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were on the list.

It's not all about Roy Halladay. The Toronto Blue Jays are already thinking about 2010 in other ways and have approached Adam Lind about going to Instructional League at the end of the season to play first base, a position he manned in college.

It is a contract issue that will make ace pitcher Roy Halladay's status with the Toronto Blue Jays pale in comparison. You want a feeding frenzy? Wait until you see what happens if catcher Joe Mauer walks away from the Minnesota Twins after 2010.