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.

Harold Reynolds

America is a land of second chances. From 1983 to 1994, Harold Reynolds wasn't an offensive threat at all. His 21 home runs from the second sack weren't anything to write home about. Hell, Ryne Sandberg had more home runs in a season during 6 of his years in the pros than Reynolds had total, and considering that he was the new face of second base (before Utley, Cano, and Soriano showed just how much power one could have from that position), Mr. Reynolds was just rapidly decelerating into career ending lack of productivity. All the same, he did have 60 stolen bases in his best year, but as a whole, he was what he was - average and his batting average of .258 for a career proved just that.
Nevertheless, he became a face for baseball because he went on to be a baseball guy for ESPN Baseball Tonight, and in that, he was always knowledgeable and interesting. However, after nearly a decade, he was canned from ESPN for hugging a female intern, which was considered offensive and sexual harassment when 3 weeks later, she said something about the hug and the dinner afterward. Maybe it was because she was white and he was black. Maybe he didn't return her further advances or maybe she just didn't hit it off with him. Either way, ESPN was not happy.
Later that year, he filed suit and won against his former network in that they settled the money he had asked for, and eventually, he went his way until MLBTV picked him up, which is unlike Steve Phillips, also an ESPN guy canned for issues that he had while being in a bizarre love triangle (cue New Order). There began the 3rd chance for Mr. Reynolds.
Now, Reynolds is on the air daily with Billy Ripken (the least of the Ripkens), Dan Plesac, and Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams (getting another second chance for himself after becoming Joe Carter's monkey boy and the most hated figure in Philadelphia history this side of JD Drew and Santa Claus). Together, they're disseminating what can only be described as "porn" since the constant baseball images on MLBTV are not only addictive and a guilty pleasure when I should be working or being productive on my days off, but a constant opportunity to gawk at the money shot home runs and defensive gems. I get to skip to the best parts of the greatest arguments, relive the memories past of glory that is missing from my life in this cold, nasty winter as I wait for life to come back to a former glory. Somehow, the images of the past and a past never seen have become my substitute for a daily life.
Not that I'm complaining. The countdowns are incredible and the Bob Costas interviews are enlightening me to all that is the grandeur of baseball. While they play the old Ken Burns Baseball stuff (I have this on DVD - it's the Vivid Entertainment of baseball), they haven't gotten to the new stuff yet. Someday, I'm sure they will, and I'll be able to record it rather than having to pay for the DVD just yet. On really good days, there are things on there like the entire game of Bill Mazeroski's home run to beat the Yankees and make Mickey and Roger cry.
If only MLBTV reached out to the world with their history (through Youtube), there would be a generation of baseball converts, but unfortunately, the already converted will be the only ones to relish in this greatness of a past world that can no longer be - at least until baseball becomes a game instead of a business.
Nevertheless, the hot stove is always burning - at least until my wife gets home and we watch "acceptable" television together.

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.