Joel Hanrahan

Who?
Ok. I get it. You don't live in western Pennslyvania. You don't live remotely close to western Pennsylvania so that you can watch ROOT, a network on television that carries the Pirates. You don't remember when the Pirates were good (hint - Barry Bonds still played for them) and thus, you still might root for them just because. You don't think of Sister Sledge and wonder if Andrew McCutchen could make this team family, too. You don't root for the Washington Nationals and follow their former players, no matter what way the wind takes them. You don't scan the highlights and stats of those obscure teams that time and better sense seem to have forgotten. You only think of Pittsburgh when Bud Selig threatens to contract another team and you hope that your team can get Andrew McCutchen because MLBTV and your fantasy magazines talk about how good he is supposed to be.
You're just clueless because Joel Hanrahan has 22 saves and a sub 2.00 closer ERA (1.24 and 0.94) for the season. Sure, he only has 1/3 of an inning over the minimal 1 inning per outing thing that makes most closers today so.... lame, but yeah... he's doing it for Pittsburgh!
And sure, Pittsburgh lost today, but they're still 39 and 38 after a weekend series with the Red Sox. And sure, it was at PNC Park, but folks... they had the biggest crowd ever on Saturday night to watch Hanrahan come in and shut the show down for the first 2 batters. Barring a missed opportunity to catch the 3rd out at the wall by Xavier Paul (something any other red blooded web gems seeking outfielder - to include Manny Ramirez - would have done) and thus, a runner on 2nd, he brought out the real fireworks - not the ones that came when the control booth let a few loose too soon hoping and believing that the end was real. And after Adrian Gonzalez (he who is currently tops in batting average in the majors) was eliminated, it was pandemonium. People were literally screaming for their Bucs like in the days of Andy Van Slyke... like in the days of Kent Tekulve and Dave Parker and Willie Stargell... like in the days of Manny Sanguillen... like in the days of Bill Mazeroski... like in the days of Honus frickin' Wagner.
And I'm not a Pirates fan, but I do appreciate the good things in baseball (even enough to eat crow on how I said the Red Sox would mow through them and the Padres - neither happened, I might add). Seeing a city that has been dead since 1993 return and rejoice. Man... that was nice.
And what does this mean? Sure, there are over 80 games left, and a team can go to seed, but a team can also believe in itself. They're 4 games out with the loss on Sunday, but this is the Pirates and it's June 26th and they're only 4 games out and they're above .500 and St. Louis is stick a fork in it done and Milwaukee is up front, but a few key series, a lot of hanging on, a lot of wins against underachievers like the Astros...
This is a team with a closer who looks like Eric Gagne without the glasses and the Canadian who might be getting some fist pumps of energy ready for the Three Rivers area.
And wouldn't that be nice?
Like Cleveland's turn around season (1 game out in 2 less games than Detroit - 40 and 36), we have to feel good about lots of teams in this (and few teams out - the Marlins, Astros, Cubs, Dodgers, and Padres - AND thanks to the Minnesota turn around (at least for a while) no teams that dead in the water in a non-respectable way YET in the American League (even though we all know who the pretenders are - Kansas City, Baltimore..).
So please... .forgive us our happiness and excitement if we get carried away, but methinks that my cousin's kids might actually be having a year worth remembering when it comes to baseball!

Kevin Millwood

When you need a job, you look at the openings, your talents, and your needs, and you make a logical decision to see what you can do.
For example, Kevin Millwood is currently hanging out with the Red Sox in the minor leagues. He's not very happy because he's not in the pros, but to be honest, this isn't the days when he was filling the number 4 slot with the Atlanta Braves. His ERA isn't league leading like it was when he was in Cleveland. He's not throwing a no-hitter for the dead era Phillies. He's just a pitcher with an upside that hasn't lived up to expectations for quite some time. The 4-16 stint in Baltimore last year with a 5+ ERA wasn't good either.
So if he's crying over not being in the majors - just because he once was all right (thank you, Leo Mazzone), then perhaps there is a sense that he "just hasn't earned it yet (baby)."
And he isn't alone.
Future Just for Men spokesman Jason Giambi is sending out all the right signals to the Yankees to let them know that he doesn't want to be a role player for Colorado and wants to play for them (it's not quite Rickey Henderson informing the major leagues that "Rickey wants to play and he wants to play for you," but hey, it's a start. With comments like:
“I wasn’t touching the ground, I was excited." (at the prospect of playing in New York and hitting a home run).
“Just being excited like old times to have that opportunity to play in front of (the fans) again. I went up there, and I think he could have thrown the resin bag at 2-0 and I would have swung at it, no matter what.” (in an attempt to ass kiss for the Big Apple since his second stint with the A's wasn't quite the way his first stint with them was.
And we can't fault him for trying since we're trying to work and we're willing to work any number of places - though having a specialized advanced degree pretty much says that I'm stuck in some variation of it because too many employers think I'm too "skilled" to be "happy" at lesser part time jobs that would accomodate my slightly over part time hours of teaching. Too many other employers think I'm too pricey for the starting salaries that they can afford due to my "advanced" degree (interesting because I thought that a liberal arts masters degree wasn't quite as "advanced" as a STEM degree, but yeah...).
So if there is love and a paycheck and an opporuntity to get it, so be it. Let Mr. Giambi do what he has to do to earn it. Let Mr. Millwood work hard to have the comeback he deserves (and who can say that he's not worth one more chance - aren't we all?).
In the end, all people deserve the right to earn a living - even Barry Bonds - he who was so hated that he didn't get a job after posting a .480 OBP and 132 walks to go with his 28 home runs in the year he set the all time home run record. And yeah... this was something about BALCO, and Bonds was a clubhouse cancer, but if that's the case, why bring him back for the record? And maybe there was a fear of the perjury trial and what could be said, but if you look at Barry's stats... they were positively sick (even if it made me physically sick to see him beat McGwire's home run record). This was a man who in 2004 walked 232 TIMES! Somehow, only 120 of these were intentional. This was a man who is ranked #21 all time on Baseball Reference Dot Com. This was a man who was walked with the bases loaded. This was the man who was walked 177 times the year he hit 73 home runs (McGwire was walked 162 in the year he hit 70).
But like so many others from an era that made a mistake, he was passed over and left to be forgotten. It's not that he didn't shoot himself in the foot and sabotage his world, but still... isn't ours a society of second chances? Aren't all sins save upsetting Oprah worth another chance?

David Ortiz

One has to wonder about all the hype and the hooplah associated with David Ortiz's first plunk from the Yankees in 1 full season worth of games (162) between the 2 teams. Sure, the Red Sox do tend to hit a lot of Yankees, but is this hatred, crowding the plate, bad pitching or what? And sure, it is the unwritten code of baseball as exacted by great men like Bob Gibson that a certain 17" of plate is mine and that a certain amount of respect is mine. All good pitchers ever knew this. That's why Pedro was so dominant (you gotta love that Gerald Williams hit - it sure did scare Tampa Bay, that's for sure). All good hitters knew this. That's why Barry Bonds wore tank armour on his arm.
Who cares who takes offense to a flipped bat? For years, the Yankees made people put up with their fecal material (as if it didn't stink) because they were winning and they were on top. Now, they are starting to suck. They're starting to get old.
If the best thing that the Yankees can do to trump up to justify CC taking a shot at the sluggi one is that Joe Girardi was worried about the feelings of poor little Hector Noesi (and since the Yankees pitching staff is injured, thin, and brittle in mind and body, they've got a lot of protecting to do), then so be it because it's New York and they'll do what they can to stay in the forefront of everyone's mind - even when they're on the decline.
"Hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers, and cheating on your income tax," Columnist Mike Royko once said.
We agree. That said, if you haven't seen the following video of Big Sluggi getting nailed by CC Sabathia on  MLBTV's Intentional Talk, then you're really missing out.
In the end, if Sluggi is having a great year and rebounding from the usual early season crappiness and post steroids drought that he has been forcing Boston fans to put up with, then bring on the retaliation towards him - we haven't thought anything about him since Obama ran for president, but hey, if he's 2004 David Ortiz, we'll take that he's going to be a target. For us, Papi can be in it to win it and make the Yankees hate him all that he wants. They still owe him a foot on that game one shot he almost put out of the stadium in the 2004 ALCS (game 1) when the Red Sox started to rally back after Mussina had left them in a stagnant morass. The time has come to pile on the misery to make the Yankee fans remember the 1980s and early 1990s for what they were - a complete joy to all non New Yorkers!
So let Girardi and crew cry. They'll be making us put up with their Jeter 3000 lovefest soon enough, which frankly put, is enough to make us vomit (even if we're doing better with getting over that whole Jeter sucks thing - besides, it's all about hating on A-Rod).

Giovanni Ramirez

There's a stigma about Barry Bonds - he's an asshole. He's a liar and a cheater. The list goes on, but when it came to the family of Bryan Stow, the victim at the Dodgers / Giants game earlier this season, he showed that he still had orange and black pride with an "uncharacteristic" respect for humanity when he gave Stow's children college scholarships (and a signed glove and bat).
This is a hell of a lot more than we can say for Giovanni Ramirez, an ex-con picked up in a surprise raid on his place of residence (along with evidence and others at the scene), who is being held on investigation for this 3 strike offense that would see him charged with assault with a deadly weapon. And if it is true that he is the prime scumbag who beat the tar out of Stow and left him completely unable to care for himself or his children as he slowly moves out of a medically-induced coma.
And sadly for the McCourt family, the Stow family is now suing the hell out of the Dodgers for their part in the beating (seeing as they won't be able to take successful legal action in monetary form against the ghetto trash that was picked up in the incident). Says the lawyer for Stow:
It's fairly simple. The Dodgers have shown a total disregard for public safety. They've gotten rid of security people, they've had all these incidents at their games, more than other teams, there's also a known gang presence. What did they think was going to happen?
And if this brings attention to people who take obsession with their teams too far and makes us all realize that we can hate the Yankees, but that we should still respect the flesh and blood human-ness of their fans. Talking trash about the team is one thing, but throwing beer and throwing punches? Talking smack on Jeter and A-Rod is one thing, but provoking fans with insults to who they are? Sure, we've all been there in a fierce rage where our team wins or loses in a heated rivalry and we've all taken the abuse and dished it out, but at the end of the day, it's just a game and that's why the game is so great.
But how this incident didn't happen a hundred times before as the networks fiercely covered every single Red Sox / Yankees game for the better part of a decade and fanned the flames on the best rivalry in baseball (and John Roseboro vs. Juan Marichal not withstanding, there are very few events in Dodgers / Giants lore that merit mentioning - other than Jackie Robinson refusing his trade to the Bay). Here, Red Sox and Yankees fans do the deeds that could cause trouble - they go into the stadium in full uniform. They drink and they get loud, but somehow, other than getting doused in beer and talking a lot of smack, there are no major incidents.
In L.A., this year, it's all different, and that's sad, which makes it nice to see someone like Bonds trying to make up for the problems that it caused.

Ken Caminiti

Providing the world doesn't end, you will be reading this - that you are means that it either:
A) hasn't happened yet.
or
B) isn't going to happen.
Nevertheless, the death of Randy "Macho Man" Savage did happen. While it seems sad, it seems that he's just another pro wrestler to die early from abuse to his body that years in the ring caused.
And while baseball has not seen death due to steroids since Ken Caminiti... let's be honest, even football hasn't seen much death (Lyle Alzado), it has witnessed lots of career death. From Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa to Barry Bonds to Roger Clemens, the stars of the past have been tainted. The stars of the present seem to be without a lot of the big guns steroids users with exception to Alex Rodriguez. It's a slippery and sad slope, but all the same, it's pretty much covered in its entirety at Baseball's Steroid Era (though they stopped writing last year).
At the time Ken Caminiti was famous for 2 things:
1) the 1996 NL MVP for the Padres.
and
2) doing a lot of steroids and not getting clean.
On October 10, 2004, he shuffled off this mortal coil, a victim of his demons. Prior to this, he never was able to go back to 1996 (neither was Brady Anderson), and while 1997 and 1998 were good, they will always be steroids tainted (as will his 239 home runs).
He finished his career where it started - Houston - and went noisily to his grave. In 2001, he was arrested, and it wasn't pretty - cocaine in Texas. He came clean to Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated in 2002 and admitted to how much better that steroids made him (Mark McGwire would disagree with this, but alas... as we've never used roids, we wouldn't know. We do know that they cut down the time between workouts, help with recovery, and make working out easy, so...).
Interestingly enough, in the discussions with Caminiti, he said that 50% of players are on steroids. Jose Canseco said that 85% of players were. Verducci thought Canseco was about shock treatment, but alas, history has vindicated him, but all the same, he's still a worthless piece of crap.
Today, Lance Armstrong faces the accusations of Tyler Hamilton, a cyclist who trained with Lance, and said that he also used EPO. Lance is famous for employing the Clemons defense (or vice versa): spend A LOT of money, tell the world that your accuser(s) is a lying piece of crap, and hope that you can outspend him / her / them.
It worked for Lance. He got the French book that trashed him from being published in America (either we love Lance, hate the French, or both), but it didn't work for Roger. Now, it seems that it's not working for Lance either, which is sad because his was a story that we needed to be real (cancer victim makes good and wins the Tour De France 7 times in a row, once again leaving the French to feel inferior.
Now, he looks to see his image and world destroyed as Hamilton has given up his Olympic medals, and just like Floyd Landis who took Armstrong to task, we see a sport so shattered with regard to PEDs. EPO is the undetectable drug of choice for the field as it's natural in the body - unless there is too much of it there, so players will measure their level and and inject more to get to the top of the spectrum for what they can have in there. The EPO allows for more oxygen to be absorbed by the body during breathing, and wahlah, the cyclist kicks butt in the mountains.
Until he's found out.
Then he's meat, and that's not good.
Many baseball players have walked the line that Mr. Armstrong looks to walk, and while they've come back from disaster in varying degrees, the yellow bracelets for Lance will be history very soon. It's a shame since it's talent at the end that wins the race, and Armstrong is talented, but some will say he's dirty, and perhaps that's true, but in the end, is a player cheating if he's just cheating to keep up with a sport full of cheaters?
And for this, we have to wonder if all sports will soon be seen as "sports entertainment" rather than natural competition. Wrestling survived when it admitted to being "fake." Will baseball and cycling when they admit to benefiting from better living through chemistry? Since they can't be like the NFL and just manage to avoid the fray despite their cast of 300 pound goons who run 4.0 40s, we can only wonder.

Carl Everett

We live in a culture that all too often lacks respect for life. For example, no sooner did my 86-year old neighbor pass away than one of those "we buy houses" people called his 82-year old widow and asked if she wanted to sell the house. She's a nice person, but she told him what was what, which is a good thing. That said, we're hoping for lightning and karma. They're more thorough.
In the end, they had clearly no respect or understanding what the meaning of life and living is (it comes down to 4 simple things: 1) Love and only love 2) Doing your best at something 3) Impressing the people who matter and 4) Experiencing the happy things in life.
This does not include: 1) Treating people like crap 2) Manipulating other people for personal gain 3) Getting so messed up that normal functioning is impossible 4) Committing crimes against people, businesses, or humanity 5) Forcing stupid views of life on humanity (even if it's allowed by a Constitutional amendment).
Thus, it's clear to see that there are some people out there in the baseball world that can use some serious help.
With that, Carl Everett and his dinosaur are back. When last we heard from Jurassic Carl, he was talking about the relative merits of Creationism, which for its purpose, does have some interesting science behind it, but alas, Carl was all about stating how "God created the sun, the stars, the heavens and the earth, and then made Adam and Eve. The Bible never says anything about dinosaurs. You can't say there were dinosaurs when you never saw them. Somebody actually saw Adam and Eve. No one ever saw a Tyrannosaurus rex."
It's one thing to quote science... another thing to just quote the Bible. For that, we can quote the
word of Giorgio - the potential to be just as absurd - slightly more entertaining.
Nevertheless, when your only good deed ever is breaking up a Mike Mussina gem with 2 out and 2 strikes in the bottom of the 9th, there isn't much else to say for you. In his nearly 14 years of MLB time, he hit 202 home runs for 9 teams and batted .271. This netted him almost $45million from 1993-2006. A pretty good haul for a guy who had a lot of talent but was regarded negatively on and off the field - religious conviction not included.
Last night, he didn't do much to change the world's opinion of him as he ended up in jail for assault and witness tampering, but it's all in a day's work when you're angry at the world.
Nevertheless, he isn't alone.
Also included in the list of people who need to understand the meaning of community is our good friend Elijah Dukes, who is also what can only be referred to as "an angry black man" (like Everett), was picked up for driving with a revoked license. Add this to threats and surliness, and we have a true idiot.
Yep... that's not changing his outlook in the world of post baseball.
And as for baseball as a whole, African Americans make up just 8.5% of baseball, which is its lowest total in years. Granted, we're not as flashy as the NBA or hard hitting as the NFL, but we're THEE major sport. It's not that problems don't cut across ethnicities, but to think of attitude problems presented from the inner city experience (Albert Belle, Lasting Milledge, and Gary Sheffield come to mind), there definitely seems to be more in the public eye (and perhaps this is a racist media, but if you're in the limelight, don't you think you would do what Jackie Robinson did (WWJRD)? And while this leads me to question if there is an unwritten rule where certain players are written off if their street sense makes them too little of a team player, I really have to wonder if this is just self-fulfilled prophecy of doom? After all, we're in an era of integration and acceptance. This isn't black cats on the field and spikes aimed high with slurs from the stands as things to be accepted.
But to wonder what is and what should be and how we got the way that we did, we only have to go back to the #4 game of the past 50 years on MLBTV and I think of Andy Van Slyke telling Barry Bonds what to do and getting the "international peace sign" for it. Have we divided back to the early 1950s again where only a few select African Americans get to play, and if so, who chooses the names? Have we created this situation with our socioeconomic divisioins or is there something else? If the MLB won't take this, why will the NBA and the NFL?
Granted, there have been tons of angry white guys in baseball... none more so than the violent racist scum Ty Cobb, and for this, he too was hated, but players wanted his bat in the game for their team. What does it say when players have talent and aren't wanted?
It's not that we're excluding all blacks or even all inner city blacks. Torii Hunter is a role model to the game (as is CC, Heyward, and Howard), but what about these guys past and present?
It's a sad world.
Here's to the good things that comes with all people playing the game right and living life to the max.

Greg Anderson

In another world, we'd be celebrating Josh Johnson's no hitter this morning, but he came up 5 outs short, and the reality is that if it didn't happen, so be it. And more importantly, we have the train wreck that is the Barry Bonds show trial.
And so if you're the feds today, you have to be wondering if it was really a victory to spend YEARS AND YEARS of your life chasing down Barry Bonds for steroids and other performance enhancing clear and cream drugs. And why wouldn't you? The trial that should have been slam dunk ended in a mistrial and we can spend tons of time trying to figure out why, but that's really not worth the time because Barry will walk into obscurity and hatred, and perhaps, some of it is unfair, and perhaps, some of it was brought on himself, but in the end, a sure-fire Hall of Famer isn't in there. To this, maybe there needs to be a wing across the street from Cooperstown that allows once great tarnished players to get their props from the fans who want to see them. And maybe there, the light will be just a little bit less glowing, but all the same, we can see Bonds, Clemens, Shoeless Joe, Pete Rose, and Mark McGwire for their part in the greatness of an era - even if it was all just smoke and mirrors to the latter day saints troop led by Bob Costas.
According to the good folks at ESPN:
The final votes were 8-4 to acquit Bonds of lying about steroids and 9-3 to acquit him on lying about HGH use. The panel voted 11-1 to convict him of getting an injection from someone other than his doctor, with one woman holding out.
And if you're the feds, you have to be wondering, why try Roger Clemens? Why waste the time and the money? Is he any less guilty than Bonds, and haven't we already seen the partisan shift with him one time (as the conservatives in Congress lined up behind him while the liberals attacked him viciously)? How far will his money and his fame and his ability to clearly act innocent (if not a little enraged) on camera go?
And so if Bonds isn't guilty, then we might have 2 men completely out of baseball and the Hall of Fame, but just like 8 other guys who are out of baseball and weren't guilty in court... the real sentence has already been handed down - and it wasn't at a show trial.
And really, why? Do we just believe that 1 person clearly wasn't in some way prejudiced against the evidence to decide that Bonds NEVER EVER got an injection from Greg Anderson who was released from jail after being thrown back in the hole AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN for not testifying and not complying with federal orders?
Which makes us wonder... if Barry Bonds isn't celebrating today (and I wouldn't know why he isn't - his goose was pretty much cooked before he hit the trial, and he got a sentence that will give him probation and no jail time, and even if that means no Hall of Fame, he wasn't getting in anyway... at least since what happened after 1998), what present will he be giving to Greg Anderson for being a "good ol' boy" all of these years?
I suspect it will be a really nice one.

Victor Conte

Once an obscure 1970s musician, Victor Conte's life didn't amount to much of anything other than being a note on the music scene of the time when he was a part of Tower of Power. He didn't last long with the group, but it was his ability to figure out how to do pharmaceutical work on his own that made him, well... "great."
Starting the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative and hooking baseball players like Gary Sheffield, Benito Santiago, Jason Giambi, and Barry Bonds to substances like the Clear and the Cream made him a household name. Game of Shadows documented all of it without revealing names and took Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams to jail for 18 months for not divulging sources. They sat in the same spot as Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds's trainer who wouldn't reveal any names either. Marion Jones was in prison for her use of steroids as well. Tim Montgomery, another track and field champ, suffered for his name's mention and so did Bill Romanowski. All in all, 27 athletes were destroyed for their association with the company.
And like his chemist Patrick Arnold who got 3 months in the pokey, Victor Conte was given 4 months in his own private cell only to come out claiming he never gave Bonds steroids, which seemed to be a 180 degree reversal of where he used to be, but alas... prison does strange things to people.
Now driving a $250,000 car and crusading against doping while selling sleep enhancers, Victor Conte's reform is apparently complete while Bonds (and Roger Clemens in a whole other ball of wax legal hearing) faces perjury charges. Fortunately, for him, he will do so without loud angry phone messages that he left on his ex-girlfriend Kimberly Bell's phone answering machine, which once again teaches all young people in relationships one of the two most important messages - don't allow your angry emotions to be recorded on modern technological devices that could be used against you (the other being, don't let your dirty bits be recorded on video - something that has absolutely nothing to do with Will I Am, by the way).
Thus, a judge who doesn't want to make the jury prejudicial of Barry Bonds (kind of hard to do after Barry went so far out of his way to be hated - Jeff Pearlman wrote all about it in his book Love Me Hate Me Barry Bonds), at least he saved Bonds from being sent up the river for steroids rage in the digital age, but nevertheless, it will be a long weekend for the home run king as his trial is set to start on Monday.
Let the games begin.

John Roseboro

Baseball learned from its violence and stupidity. Sure, we still have guys who want to start fights - class acts like Jose Offerman who have since been banned for life for attacking opponents with a bat, but yeah... we've learned.
We don't play our game to kick the tar out of our opponents. Sure, we have to be more like Bob Gibson and own those 17 inches of plate, but besides being afraid to pitch inside to brush back a batter that is crowding the plate (whether or not he has Barry Bonds' armor on or not), but that doesn't mean that we need to go beyond retaliatory pitching if our players get hit by a frustrated jerk of a pitcher.
The NHL on the other hand hasn't even learned from the NFL about what it takes to stop cheap hits. In the wake of their quest to be tough manly men that are pretty much only broadcast on hunting / fishing networks, they have decided to not eliminate head shots, which are all too often cheap shots to take out an opponent. They have said that out of 55,000 hits, only a small percentage result in concussions, so it doesn't matter what league leader and mega star is out with one now (Sidney Crosby). It doesn't matter than the Canadians want to go after the guy who took out Max Pacioretty (Zdeno Chara). But alas... be it legal because it's part of the game (like the WWE) or because it keeps things fast paced and physical, we never learn.
We don't let our players go all Pete Rose on Ray Fosse in the All Star games, but we want fast paced action - even with millions invested in play and development of stars. We want our cake and we want to be able to eat it too. We want to call it the integrity of the game, and we want to make sure that the nanny state doesn't take over, but sometimes, we just don't think.
Cheap attacks aren't cool. Even in the WWE, we're supposed to hate the heels that purport them on the babyfaces.
And if we look back to baseball's darkest moments and remember Juan Marichal at the plate getting so angry that he picked up his bat and used John Roseboro's head for a target after he threw too closely to Marichal's head on a couple of return pitches, we see dark and ugly. But such is a baseball feud between 2 teams (Los Angeles and San Francisco OR Boston and New York). Sure, there are other teams that hate one another, but for the most part, it's agression and the game. Coming up behind a player a slamming him into the boards and glass to the point where he is laying on the ice unable to contemplate what century he is in is a completely different story and for that, we don't need to pretend and call things manlier than they are.
Sometimes, we just need to step up and do what's right.

Bill James

The beauty of baseball is in its numbers. We know the important numbers. For example, Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs, which was then eclipsed by Hank Aaron who went on to hit 755 home runs despite never hitting 50 home runs in a season. And while Ruth did, he never had to play for a team called the Indianapolis Clowns as a second rate show act in the Negro Leagues.
We know that Ruth hit 60 home runs, and eventually, in 1961, he was passed by Roger Maris who hit 61 in 162 games instead of 154. We thank Ford Frick for reminding us of that distinction. Then, in 1998, Mark McGwire hit 70 and 3 years later, Barry Bonds hit 73. He would eventually go on to hit 762 though we seem to forget about his records in light of BALCO and look for a suitable replacement at the top of the numbers that are remembered.
We know that in 1968, Denny McClain won 31 and within a few years, he was made useless in baseball despite leading the league with 24 wins the next year. Nobody has come close since then. We know that same year that McClain was phenomenal, Bob Gibson had a 1.12 ERA despite only winning only winning 22 (he lost 9, but was named the MVP and Cy Young winner for 28 complete games and 268 whiffs). His movement was nasty and violent, a combination that comes out in the money shot porn of MLBTV's baseball history, but doesn't show up in the sheer numbers of baseball.
Thus, it becomes necessary that someone develops statistics that truly represent the power and effectiveness of a player as a whole. For the 31 wins that McClain got in that season, he had a 1.96 ERA and 280 strikeouts. Bob Gibson had 12 less Ks, .84 less ERA, and 9 less wins. Only one category is better, but somehow, his WAR (wins above replacement) is 11.9 compared to McClain's 5.9.
Who would you rather have? I know who I would rather have on my team. Watching him interviewed on MLBTV with Tim McCarver at his side and Bob Costas wearing the bib to catch drool (I'd be salivating to hear the story of Gibson plunking Pete LaCock in an old timers' game NEARLY A QUARTER OF A CENTURY after he drilled Gibson's final pitch for a grand slam as well).
But in the end, we need numbers to show us what season is better, and when we need those, we go back to Bill James, the stat guru of all stat gurus, whose contributions showed us how to create different statistics in baseball, which went on to show us how to create the definitive stats in baseball. And that's what the beauty of this game is. Frankly, it's a new revolution in sports and statistics. Hell, now we have Fan Graphs so amateur stats geniuses can make their own stats.
And it's all beautiful.
And it's the numbers that make the game fantastic.
Where would we be without them?

Andrew McCutchen

If you're a Washington Nationals fan, you probably feel that Bryce Harper arriving in spring training is the 4th stage of the end of the period of time that is "last in the National League East." There's Strasburg. There's Drew Storen. There's Jayson Werth. There's a lot of future out there, but what is there really? Baseball is just a game. It's played on a diamond and it provides distraction to fans while the world doesn't matter.
It's just sometimes that the world does.
Earlier today, Scott and Jean Adam + Phyllis Mackay and Bob Riggle were gunned down by Somali pirates.
As baseball fans, we often reflect on things as meaningless as what will happen to our teams in the season that is. When we think of pirates, we think of the Pittsburgh Pirates and how lowly they've been for 2 decades (thanks Barry Bonds), but it's not often that we think of these real life pirates until they're holding Americans like they did two years ago when they ended up dead and the American captain (Richard Phillips) was released safely because Navy SEALs are excellent marksmen.
Maybe we think of pirates when we think of Johnny Depp, but not any pirate that is hijacking vessels off of Somalia and Oman. If we as Americans do think of pirates in a way that isn't gunning them down quickly, we often play pretend with some ethical high road that sees us wonder what creates the need to take vessels hostage and ransom them for big bucks - as if we could find a way that would justify this and allow us to feel pity on a group of people that are made to do this to make ends meet. But in the end, other than the fact that people will pay big money to return oil tankers and yachts, is there really a reason? The aforementioned bleeding hearts will cry that the poverty of the nations make this a possibility, and perhaps, in some alternate reality that is so, but frankly, I'll take the Navy SEALs option any day.
But the thought of the haves and the have nots do strange things to people. It's as if we all sit around wondering what could make us all have at least enough, and while that's kind and wonderful, it's just not so. Wealth isn't divided equally in the baseball world or the real world. And we don't even have to be talking about a person who gets $64million for 5 years instead of a person who gets $51million for 3 years although it's safe to say that the comparative wealth of some versus that of others plays into things (hell, I'd be content signing for 1 year and $40,000+). In the nastiest parts of the world, we're speaking of living wages and the idea of being safely entrenched in life in a way that there are no more worries about the bad things that could be in a rough and tough lawless land that is governed by marauding gangs of thugs. And perhaps the warlords of the world eradicate the talent and opportunities of these modern day "swashbucklers" so that all they can think to do is become gun toting renegades instead of eventually becoming as potentially great at something as Andrew McCutchen is said to be for a more likable or rational group of Pirates.
That said, I'm not offering tryouts in warm weather locales for these thugs. I'm glad that they were shot up and arrested by our Navy - even if they weren't able to act quickly enough before these 4 innocent Americans were gunned down in cold blood.
I'm just sad that we have to live in a world that can't be civil enough to exist without trying to take from others while threatening with death and mayhem. I don't care if it's in the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, or Compton, California. There are good things in life and that's what we should be focusing on - not stating rest in peace to 4 brave Americans who were murdered for no reason at all.

Nomar Garciaparra

There's something about thinking that you're worth a lot of money if you're a player. I know that it's the Karl Marx school of labor negotiations, but at the end of the day, all things sell for what someone will pay for them.
Nomar Garciaparra in the offeseason before 2004 was a perfect example. Turning down 4 years at $15million per wasn't a wise business move. He was already the victim of losing nearly ALL of 2001 to injuries and his rejection of solid money contributed a lot to the multi-team deal that took him to the Cubs at the trade deadline and brought Orlando Cabrera into the Red Sox championship fold. Nomar was never the same.
Of course, 2004 started out rough and he finished the year with 321 at bats. The most at bats he ever had after this were 469 in his first year with LA, which netted 20 home runs. That was the only year after 2004 that he hit .300 again. In the end, whether it was tragic pride, Mia Hamm, a bum body, or ancient aliens coming back to intervene with his career, Garciaparra was never the same again.
Turning down 4 and $60million saw him never again make $10million a year again. His final year in Oakland, which was in the words of the Germans, "nicht so gut," saw him step to the plate 169 times to bat .281 with 3 round trippers. The next year, the Red Sox allowed him to sign a 1-day deal to come back and retire from the game with Boston colors on his body and an invitation to ESPN as an announcer.
The moral of the story is simple. A player can be rookie of the year. He can be solid every year down the pike and feel he is worth tons of cash, but there comes a point where a player has to be thankful and make the deal with Howie Mandel before the wrong case is picked. A player can take the odds and go for more, but the reality is that the banker has gotten stingy and there aren't as many good cases as bad cases.
Sometimes, the answer is to walk out of the room ahead instead of King of the Hill.
Somehow, the Yankees paid tons for A-Rod when he opted out early, and let's be honest... 2 years not hitting .300 (but hooking up with Cameron Diaz and Kate Hudson and a lot of love for Madonna despite divorcing his wife) and only hitting 30 home runs each year when he's being paid to hit 150 more than the 613 he has at the end of the season aren't good. Let's be honest, his injuries are getting more frequent as well. He's not the high 600s and low 700 at bats guy that he was. It would be safe to say that he doesn't get 700 homers. I'd even put money on not passing Willie Mays, but I wouldn't put a lot on it.
The reality is that Babe Ruth is safe from him. So is Hank Aaron.
Barry Bonds has nothing to worry about.
And looking back, Ken Griffey Jr. was the answer to beating Hank Aaron before injuries (to both him and McGwire) and BALCO changed the landscape of baseball forever. A-Rod was supposed to be the boy anointed, but steroids and starlets changed his world, too. For Griffey, his first 10 years saw him hit 2/3 of his home runs. The last over half of his career was 1/3 of his production. A-Rod put up some sick numbers for his first 10 years, and so has Albert Pujols (408), but 10 years isn't a career though it puts a person in the Hall of Fame.
Now, it's down to Albert and Albert alone to rescue the home run record from its taint. It will be the career numbers and the effect of them that will make or break the sport I love.
Let's hope that St. Louis comes to realize this sooner than later and doesn't get worried about the burn that could happen. And let's hope equally that Pujols realizes that sometimes, hometown discounts go further than an extra $100 million.

Barry Bonds

What would baseball be without Barry Bonds? Ken Burns seems to think that extended sections of the 10th Inning should belong to him and his father, who personally thanks Mark Reynolds every day of his afterlife as he no longer stands as the biggest whiff threat in baseball history.
Well, here we go... the perjury trial is for real. The man with 73 home runs in a season and 762 for his career is officially facing 5 counts against him (instead of 11).
He still says that he's innocent, but so does Roger Clemens, and we all know how that's working out for him. So for Bonds, the big day is March 1st, which is when he gets arraigned for perjury. Greg Anderson, his former trainer and bestest buddy who never testified against him, will most likely get more contempt of court charges for continued refusal to talk (we have to wonder how much money that is translating to in thank yous from Barry). That said, Jason Giambi and more unknown former major leaguers are going to state that Anderson hooked them up with steroids in the same way it's alleged that Anderson gave Bonds the Clear and the Cream.
For Clemens, his next date with destiny is March 14th when his subpoena for the notes from the House committee that investigated Andy Pettite, Brian McNamee, Chuck Knoblauch, and Jose Canseco (because where there is juice, there is the Typhoid Mary of Steroids) is analyzed for whether they'll give up the documents or not.
Nevertheless, the issue here isn't whether these guys are guilty. Let's be honest, guilty or not, their entire careers are trash. Neither guy is taking his accumulation of some of the greatest numbers ever into Cooperstown. Neither guy is ever going to truly accrue fans or love - despite the fact that Roger was still able to find time to joke about throwing a broken bat at Mike Piazza when he performed for charity. In this, I'm just curious who thinks that inviting Roger to raise money is really the way they want to go with an event of this status, but with that said, I'm sure it got a couple of chuckles and guffaws.
So alas, the 2 biggest names in the Mitchell Commission hearing are going to be facing justice - even if it's only to show them that they can't fight authority because as John Cougar Mellencamp once sang, "Authority always wins." In the end, the 2 of them will go down like the Titanic and without the chance of getting saved that rescued Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle from their baseball exorcisms. There is no life preserver like the one that was thrown to Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Smoky Joe Wood. It's over.
There's no nostalgic love like that for Pete Rose and Joe Jackson. It's done.
And that's what's at issue here. Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds have done nothing to make people love them. Jeff Pearlman's Love Me Hate Me Barry Bonds and American Icon by Teri Thompson and others truly sum up how ugly and loath-able these once great athletes are. The lies and deceptions of Barry Bonds and his myriad of lives that don't remember what each other did while quietly countering his villainy with charity. The betrayal of Roger's wife and best friend to save his records in light of the accusations that were leveled at him.
And while these guys fight for their lives and their backsides not to be made entertainment in the federal prison system, there is something out there that wonders what will became of baseball and the rest of the accused steroids users in baseball. Who else is on the list of anonymous players from 2004? Who else will be named when the witch hunt continues? Who will the next test failure be? Do we really want to know?
I really have to say that I don't.
There needs to be at least a few good memories left of all that is good and pure of the game that I love.

Mark Reynolds

In case there is any feeling that I loathe Ryan Howard above all other players, let me dispel that rumor. Sure, I feel that $25million for 5 years + enough extra for a 6th year to take it just under $140million for the package is ridiculous and laughable, but that doesn't constitute hatred. Sure, I laugh when he whiffs and I feel that sitting him out from time to time to not hit 200 strikeouts in a year (for that reason, I'm not impressed with Adam Dunn either), but that doesn't constitute loathing of a player.
Loathing is something special - Barry Bonds in 2001 was loathing. Ken Griffey Jr. as the opponent in 1998 wasn't loathing (though I came close to wanting it to be), but it bubbled under feeling that way until he vanished from the chase for Maris altogether. Albert Belle until his retirement was loathing. Pretty much the entire Yankee roster until they choked in 2004 (GREATEST CHOKE EVER) was loath-able. Hell, many of them still are, but fortunately, the worst have gone the way of the dodo bird.
Now, the hatred is reserved for Mark Reynolds and his mighty swings at... nothing.
According to the guys at MLB-TV, if he didn't sit out from time to time, he could not hit ball 300 times a year. Last year, he came to bat 499 times. He whiffed 211 times. That sucks.
In full seasons from 1921 to 1933 (and 70 at bats in 1920), Joe Sewell struck out 114 times. His career average was .312. In just under 8000 career at bats, Lloyd Waner whiffed 173 times from 1927 to 1945. That's it. Even as recently as 1948, Lou Boudreau only struck out 9 times in a season (560 at bats, .355 average). For him, it was "all future and no past."
For Mark Reynolds, the entire career of Joe DiMaggio from 1936 to 1951 (minus WW2) yielded 369 whiffs. For Reynolds, that isn't even 2 full seasons. Yogi Berra may sound like an idiot with some of his quotes, but from 1946 to 1964, he struck out 414 times. That includes 3 times in his last 9 at bats when he finally called it quits in 1965 as he was well past his prime. In his last 7 at bats, Reynolds struck out 5 times. He also sat 5 full games and came in to pinch hit in another game. There, he walked.
The Diamondbacks shipped him to Baltimore for 2 players after they signed him to a $14.5 million 3-year extension. That gives him $5million this season to shoot for the stars and whiff the incredible total of 250+ times (if Buck Showalter doesn't choke him out first).
MLB TV calls him the 7th best player on the hot corner. I think they're smoking crack.
Yep...
We've reached critical mass in baseball on whiffs. Reynolds hit .198 for the year. His 32 homers and 85 RBIs led his team into last place (65-97) in a relatively competitive division.
He's not alone in his futility. Carlos Pena was also sub .200 with 150+ Ks - albeit for a winning team (the Rays). At least they're home run hitters - for what that's worth. BJ Upton and Austin Jackson can't say that for their major whiffs.
So yeah... Houston... we've got a problem. Too many strikeouts. It's gotta go. I don't care what the statisticians say. This is just futility.

Ken Burns

I've always hated Keith Olbermann. As an ESPN analyst, I always found him to be a smug piece of crap, and that was only listening to him and Dan Patrick, another smug and annoying piece of crap. I was glad when he left the radio because I hated to be in the car for drive time and to have to hear those two spazzes tell me about sports news. Maybe it was the self righteous approach to the steroids era where all of a sudden all of these analysts who had formerly swooned over Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were cursing their souls to hell - kind of like Bob Costas on the 10th Inning of Ken Burns baseball.
The 10th Inning was meant to be so many things, but in the end, it was what it wasn't. I saw Albert Pujols, the greatest player of the generation for a few seconds, but I never heard his name mentioned. Hell, I saw Chris Rock more than I saw Phat Albert. Sure, there were some good parts, but in the end to reduce every single World Series victory (after the Sox in 2004) to a closer throwing a final pitch after sitting through the long version of the Bobby Bonds story in a transition into Barry Bonds... yeah. That was worth the wait.
So today when Keith Olbermann, who pretty much spent more time in the documentary on the history of the last 15-20 years of baseball than Larry Walker, Albert Pujols, and the curse breaking teams from Philadelphia into 2008 and from Chicago in 2005 COMBINED, was dropped from his show, I had to give a little bit of a smug self-righteous piece of crap smile to think that somewhere between pathetic ratings on MSNBC and good ol' Bill O' Reilly beating the man from Countdown, who had the "Worst Person in the World" on every night is now gone from his spot on cable news. If he could take Rachel Maddow with him, life would be complete, but this is about sports and those who tell the story of them, and for that, we turn back to Ken Burns and ask him to give us the fan version of Baseball, the way it was meant to be... sans Keith Olbermann. It could be like those fan edited versions of The Phantom Menace where fans cut Jar Jar Binks from the footage and leave the film all the more entertaining for it (I'd cut out the kiddie narrated scenes from the pod racing as well and just stick to the racing and not the announcer as well, but that's just me).
Give me the section on Pujols... a little more talking about those victories and some discussion on those two World Series wins, if only for the history in them. Please note Mr. Burns that I'm not asking for that much more on Mark McGwire... even though he deserves more footage than your self-appointed savior of the Latino race that is Sammy Sosa, but I'll accept that as a discussion on the Latino culture's inclusion in modern baseball and your catering to Cubs fans as opposed to anything dastardly like the exclusion of the other sections was.
Nobody will mind. It's clear to see that the last hope for Olbermann was his angry political rant show on ultra liberal cable news network MSNBC, and now that it's over... you can re-edit your 10th Inning for true baseball fans like myself.
I'm sure that Doris Kearns Goodwin won't mind.

Barry Zito's Teddy Bear

The first time that Barry Zito came to New York in the playoffs, he was dealing, and the A's kicked butt. The second time he came, he was even better, but the A's weren't and they handed a loss to a great young pitcher. In the next two years, Zito went 2-1, and the A's went nowhere in the playoffs. When they got back to the playoffs in 2006, they still didn't go anywhere and Zito went 1-1. That said, when your team doesn't win, you just take the show to a different city and get a monster contract in hopes that you can be something great there.
The Giants bit in those days when there was still belief in Barry Bonds and getting a ring for the city of San Francisco for the first time ever and a ring for the Giants for the first time since 1954. Maybe someone should have told the 2002 Giants that it's cheaper to tell your guys not to celebrate before the fat lady sings than before Scott Spiezio starts a rally by depositing a 3-run home run over the outfield field wall.
Like Curt Schilling dreamed before game 1 of the 2004 ALCS, there's nothing like shutting up a city - even if he had to wait until game 6 to do, the Angels and their Thundersticks shut up Barry Bonds and his crew proving that K-Rod was better than F-Rod, and so the Rally Monkey got the win.
In 2007, Barry took his surfer cut, zen attitude, and teddy bear to the City by the Bay for $126 million over 7 years and rewarded the fans with ERAs of 4.53 and 5.15. The next 2 years were better as he was just over 4, which means about average, but in retrospect, the fact that he was left off of the post season roster altogether despite making $18million per year...
Normally, a really poor signing is measured in that free agency year upswing after a young player suddenly gets good, but Zito was one of the Oakland greats (along with fellow ship jumpers Tim Hudson and Mark Muldur). He was a man that had a fan base - maybe more so for that surfer hunk image that became all caring and sensitive with stories of his teddy bear, but for a guy to suck so badly that he's left off of the post season roster despite past success and the need to earn his $18million keep... yeah. Maybe that's why Carl Pavano doesn't have a home. One year of success in Minnesota after sucking up the place in New York with a long salary that never panned out and a serious dissing of Boston to get there... Perhaps the baseball world knows a Sidney Ponson mirage when it sees one - especially at the price that he's asking.
And there are good signings and bad signings in every off season. All up and coming teams have to sign big to get anywhere. Detroit signed Ivan Rodriguez for $40million over 4 years, though only half was guaranteed, to take a 43-119 team into the World Series in 2 years. Commitment is everything, but frankly, giving Jayson Werth 7 years and $126million after the relatively affordable and sane Phillies' contract that he has for 2 years $10million is absolutely ludicrous.
What do the Nationals get for it? Two years of dependable service, which in looking closely are the last 2. Three years with over 20 home runs, which are the last three. The last 2 years were 156 and 147 strikeouts respectively. Mind you, his rate didn't really drop last year; he just had less at bats. He did lead the league in doubles last year, but he's never had 100 RBIs. Joining Ryan Zimmerman as the power center of an Adam Dunn-less DC squad looking to compete for a new armed Stephen Strasburg and a yet to be shown Bryce Harper, there are things that the team must do. However, signing an above average Sasquatch for that long for that much money when even the big boys who can just throw money into the wind and hope for it to hit aren't offering 7 years to a 30+ year old fan favorite in a city that is over 2 hours north...
As Puff Daddy said, "It's all about the Benjamins," and I don't knock him for taking them... I would have, but frankly, I thought we were living in the era of sane baseball and not late life contracts to Derek Bell, Juan Gonzalez, Denny Neagle, and Mike Hampton.