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?

Jason Giambi

In 2000, I got myself a Jason Giambi rookie. In 2001, I gave it away after he signed with the Yankees and got rid of his dirtbag image for pinstripes.
Somewhere in those years afterward, I never forgot that he was once the guy that Mark McGwire took under his wing and even begged St. Louis to sign (instead of Tino Martinez who the Yankees cast aside for the Cardinals despite his contributions to the magnificent run that all of their fans thought they had over the past 5 years). Sure, he was salivated over with Seattle in that year that the Mariners beat the Yankees in 1995, but it wasn't the same way that the Yankees lusted after Giambi. Like someone else's girlfriend that is hovered over when the imminent breakup is about to occur, but that doesn't work out when the window of opportunity is there (is everything a Seinfeld episode, or is it just me?)... Tino went to the Yankees, but he was quickly cast out when the opportunity came to get Giambi.
And so the Yankees did, but for the fact I gave his rookie card away (I wouldn't touch Yankee cards at that period of my life - especially ones that featured former "one of my favorite players"). I felt the same way with Randy Johnson and Kevin Brown. Randy was someone that I once adored the hell out of in only the way that a grown straight man can feel for a baseball player that he'll never know. Brown was someone whose talents I really liked. I didn't know much about his temper, but I'll tell you... I loved seeing him smash his hand in the dugout during a stretch run collapse.
Who knew that it was a sign of fierce competitor-ness / roid rage?
And when Giambi got struck by "parasites," I wasn't thinking about how he took Miguel Tejada to task in the 2001 playoffs for being a schlub. Though I never forgot that, I just felt that it was the universe paying him back for taking Yankee dollars and creating a demise of the Oakland team that was dominating August to make the playoffs year after year (Zito, Hudson, Mulder, Tejada).
He was 33, 43, and 38 for home runs in those last 3 Oakland years as he rose from the ashes of a dismantling that saw McGwire shipped to St. Louis. He was first in MVP in 2000 and second in 2001. He batted .315, .333, and .342 those last 3 years. He was 123, 137, and 120 for RBIs those years. He was also 105, 137, and 129 for walks in those campaigns! In the end, he was holding down the first sack and leading a team of dirt bags to the ALCS only to see them implode to the Yankees - we can blame the universe or we can blame his fat ass brother for that, but all the same... the A's were never to be again.
Giambi found a new hope and he found BALCO, and after 2 seasons without scruff, he wasn't the same man again. He did bounce back, but never to the level of his time in Oakland or his 2 41 home run seasons that began his New York tenure (and so began the Curse of Jason Giambi and Mike Mussina - the 2 players that the Yankees had to have at the end of their 3-year run, but couldn't win it all with).
He went back to Oakland in 2009, and it meant well at the beginning, but by the end of the year, he was playing in Denver, a town he still plays in. It's a bit role, and he sort of resembles the guy that he used to be - with a little more gray in the beard... the mustache thing is now over as he looks scruffy again, and for one evening, the old Jason was back killing Philadelphia substitute pitching (Kyle Kendrick) last night.
In the end, he had 3 homers and 7 RBIs.
Now that he's 40, he finally has a 3-homer game. He joins Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, and Reggie Jackson on that short list. For that, we wish him well and back in the lineup on a regular basis, but sadly, the end is coming... there will be no Cooperstown due to his non-specific apologies, but we will remember... that evening with Tejada's playoff goat self.
He was once the man.
Last night he was again.

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.

Cliff Lee

So what kind of Christmas present can you get after spending 13 prospects and $250million+?
In mid-December, the Phillies found out when they gave their fans the present that they yanked away from them the year earlier and sold it as a coup of enormous potential. They had just blown the playoffs to the Giants, who went on to win the World Series based solely on pitching. All the same, the Phillies had lost the NL Championship because their offense was lousy in the clutch. The Phillies had also lost Jayson Werth, who was viewed as a saviour to the team, but was now an overpaid price for the Washington Nationals allowing one to wonder if it's about money, opportunity, or love that a player accepts the chance to go to another team. I guess we'll just have to believe that it's the extra year that nobody who wasn't ruling the cellars of their division would have to pony more up to get.
Of course, we have to be happy for the big losers, i.e. the Yankees who missed out on their opportunity to lay claim to Lee. Thus, we see that the if you can't beat them join them mentality that brought Jason Giambi to the Bronx for a shave and a steroid nightmare wasn't convincing to Lee who in the past few years established himself as great since finding a way out of the baseball Hell that is Cleveland. At least he did it classier than Lebron did, but you knew that after being a revolving door for football teams, baseball players, and anything else of remote value, the populace would over-react and spew venom. Then again, we can't say that King James didn't kind of sort of deserve it.
So Christmas dinner was served and Lee was in the City of Brotherly Love, the fans were digging out their old jerseys or wishing that they hadn't used them to clean motor oil off of their garage floors, and life was good. The baseball gods were smiling because now the team had the big 4 to make them win the division. Roy Halladay and his perfect game and no hitter. Roy Oswalt and h is lost legacy that was brought back to life in a short stint in Philadelphia. And then there was Cole Hamels of the awesome 2008 and the lousy season after that. Sure, last year, he was back to form in ERA, but the 12-11 record shows that the team doesn't hit for him.
Thus, the true problems aren't solved because Howard has a big hole in his swing. Jayson Werth is gone. Raul Ibanez is older than dirt. Polanco is a singles man. Jimmy Rollins is washed up. Chase Utley has potential when he isn't fragile and injured. Sure, there are a few prospects coming up and Carlos Ruiz is a nice feeling for the hometown fans, but who is there to put a fear in pitchers come the playoffs? Ryan Howard isn't the man and no matter how much some fans complain and argue otherwise, what has he done in the clutch? Even Alex Rodriguez reinvented himself against Minnesota's bullpen, which I could pretty much break through on in any given high profile October game.
But I digress...
I'm not saying that Lee was a bad move. He'll do exceptionally and the fans love him, but... how much hard luck can the staff handle as the offense doesn't produce and Brad Lidge implodes in the closer role. Now those masseusse and psychiatric jobs will definitely be high pay as they hope to stave off the late inning sadness and try to be like the Orioles of the early 1970s were supposed to be the greatest pitching staff ever. Then again, there was the mid nineties Braves and the 1954 Indians.
No matter what happens, they'll be fun to watch even if the pink cap wearing sunny side up rooters of Philthydelphia will be screaming loyalty now that they're winning despite the fact that they were nowhere to be found in 2005, but what's new? That's Boston and New York, too. But such is the joy of being a baseball fan in a world of bandwagon jumpers.