Sin Eater

I was reading the New Yorker this last week, which is just all kinds of cheery about how the current economy is a whiter shade of ghastly, and something that's going to have fairly permanent and long-reaching effects. (And just when you thought the worst was over, probably because you, personally, aren't unemployed. You unfeeling bastard.)

Anyway, the writer makes the point that part of our problem with the current crisis is that we have no villains to blame. Sure, you can scapegoat Bernie Madoff, or the Detroit auto CEOs, the AIG bonus babies or any number of watchpuppy people in the press and SEC... but none of these people are all that satisfying, and the punishments are far from visceral.

It reminds me of the steroid situation, really.

Even the most disgraced roider -- your Sosas, your McGwires, your Palmeiros, your Bonds, your Clemens, etc., etc. -- is more or less free to enjoy the grotesque amounts of moolah that they made from breaking the rules. Sure, their retirements may not be willing, their legacies might be tarnished, and they might be bitter and unhappy about various aspects of how it ended... but it's not like any of them were doing time in the crossbar hotel with Dog Lovin' Michael Vick and friends.

Maybe this eventually changes if Bonds is held up on perjury charges. Maybe someone famous going to jail and/or having their assets seized really wouldn't make anyone feel or act any differently about steroids.

But then again it might, right? And it might even be a deterrent? I'm not asking for much here, really...

205 Drop: Top 10 reasons why David Ortiz is struggling

The list today is one of those small moments where we really can't just kick a man when he's down. For the record, I have nothing against Ortiz, despite the fact that the man has killed me in any number of fantasy leagues, previously with competence, and then last year by being on my roster. But at least I was able to avoid him this year, so we're all good.

Yankee Fan, of course, might feel a little bit differently. (And enjoy the list a bit more.)

Blogrolling Is unpopular on many levels

Fewer people listen to Jose Canseco than read this blog. Jose, I weep for us both.

Major League Jerk finds an even more rotted tooth than the Bad Tooth. If you're missing your quota of Mass Hate from me this week, by all means click, and take pity the poor Boston fan/columnist, needing his small comforts of shadenfraude on a Sunday in May when his NBA team gets back to even in the Final 8, his MLB team wins a tight game against their division rival, his NHL team won a playoff game, and his NFL team moves another day closer to a year where they'll win their division in a walk. Clearly, they needed to bask in the misery of a team and fanbase that isn't even in their freaking league to somehow get through another day in their vale of tears.

In other news, the temperature in their collective asshole is 75 degrees, with light humidity and a strong southerly breeze. The weather is always nice it's the reason why they spend so much time there!


EMBED-Fan Does A Bruce Lee Flying Kick At Yankee Game - Watch more free videos

It's good to see that the fans at the new Yankee Stadium can still fight each other, rather than have their staff do it for them. I am a little disappointed that the spectators didn't chant "E-C-W! E-C-W! E-C-W!" after the flying kick, though.

An unprovoked Mark Cuban confronts Kenyon Martin's mother to tell her that her son is a thug or a punk. Happy Mother's Day! You know what else he is, Cubes? A member of a team with a playoff pulse. Also, a member of a team who doesn't have a complete asshat for an owner. The only way this story gets better is if the Angry Yellow Man decides to take matters into his own hands in Game Four. Does God love us all that much? Only time will tell.

(Kudos, by the way, to embattled Dallas forward Dirk Nowitzki, for having oceans more class than his owner. With luck, maybe this will enrage the UFL commish enough to move him.)

Update -- God does love us, and Kenyon's said, "I'm going to take care of it." The quote continues, "By violently assaulting him until his smarmy little head leaks brain juice out of his eyes, ears, nose, mouth and a new hole I'm going to call 'Kenyon's Fun Zone'." Oops, I'm sorry, that last part was just in my own mind.

Mike Florio from the Sporting News fingers six 2009 NFL playoff teams that he doesn't think will make it back. My team isn't on it, so he must be right.

205 Drop: Top 10 conclusions from the Manny Ramirez suspension

Today's list of snark concerns a little-known outfielder for the Dodgers, some guy by the name of Ramirez. It's a little surprising that he doesn't get more press notice, having been suspended for 50 games for violating the league's drug policy, but I suppose once this story happened to JC Romero, it's all old hat. Anyway, go click...

The Manny Taint

I'm not going to dig too deeply n the ManRam story here today. Someone in Blogfrica has to avoid it, and frankly, there's nothing here that we haven't seen a hundred times before, and with each time it happens, it shocks a little less. It also says something that the biggest story here isn't that he cheated, but that MLB caught him, and is actually going to subject him to the same punishment that it has given to the borderline players that have been caught before. JC Romero and Manny Ramirez, equal in the eyes of the law. That's a little refreshing, on some level.

Assuming no further complications (a big assumption, but one that's relatively safe, given the amount of money that's behind ManRam's rehabilitation), he'll return in early July. The Dodgers will still be in first place in the mostly putrid NL West. Given Manny's advancing age and interest in proving the world wrong after this scandal, they might even be better off for this in the long run, given that they'll have a much fresher Ram for their playoff run.

The only thing this does is take the Dodgers down from a 100-win team to a 96-win team, because even though ManRam makes their whole lineup better, it's not like they don't have a good lineup without him, and a weak division to kick around. The biggest hit in the Man Ram saga is all of his fantasy owners, who now get to hate him just as much as his non-owners. It's a bonding moment for all of us, really.

But before we put this thing to bed, I'd like to talk about the New England major sports champions of the last decade, and how every single one of them -- yes, amazingly, all of them -- are now more or less trading in dirty trophies. (And before Boston Fan jumps to conclusions as to how I'm clearly a New York Fan to go here, um, nope. Sorry about that.)

The Patriots, you know about, and the NFL's remarkably tone-deaf treatment of the matter means that we'll never really be able to put that team to bed. The 2004 Red Sox are loaded with guys that fit the profile of Roid Achievers, and their right-handed offensive linchpin is now an admitted cheat. ManRam is still a major contributor in 2007, along with a number of other likely suspects. The 2008 Celtics are the cleanest of the bunch, and they get to the Finals when a Hall of Fame ex-player packages his franchise player for a package of guys that play on just one side of the court, if at all.

This causes me no real joy. A tainted title is a wound that doesn't heal, and makes you wonder, really, why you bother watching the games.

But on the plus side, we get to hear Boston Fan cry about how awful this all is, and how everyone cheated and... zzzzzz... sorry, nodded off there. Enjoy your ignominy, Manny. Especially if, as some in Blogfrica are speculating, your cheating came from sexual performance doping, rather than pure athletic performance cheating. Nice legacy.

The Man Ram Goes Down

Manny Ramirez gets 50 games for steroids today, according to the LA Times. I'd say more, but the Bad Tooth will probably get you 5,000 words by close of day, and I've got a day job...

Top 10 Most Surprising Roid Users

As the Mitchell 103 and the ever dwelling sports media (and yes, I know, guilty) has shown, baseball's Roid Story refuses to go away. Let's face it: with hundreds of users of all levels of skill and performance on the books, it's more surprising now to hear that someone is, without a doubt and beyond the pale, clean.

But given the peer pressure and momentum of the roiders, would you be surprised to find out that the use went beyond the diamond? After all, MLB is filled with ex-players and eternal kids, folks who might want to have more insight into the new experience. Heck, you could even justify it on performance levels -- it's not like it's an easy life, given all that travel and pressure. Maybe your pitching coach feels like he needed a little boost before throwing yet another round of BP. Or the manager just says screw it, I want to be bigger too.

So, without further ado, the next wave of cheaters...

10. Tim McCarver. Sadly, the Web does not have the video of Deion Sanders throwing ice water on McCarver, because the Internets do not love us all that much, so we'll just have to live with the single frame. Nothing is as bitter as a bitter old man, and no one has a better memory for slights than an old catcher. McCarver uses to get big and plot his revenge. His verbose and excruciating revenge.

9. Bud Selig. What, you think that the commish who used the Roid Era wasn't going to sample the product? Let's face it, you don't make some of the decisions that the Budster has made (the All-Star Game being the most obviously addled) without being on *something*. I'm seeing him in a bombed-out basement gym, pushing the weight and talking about Commissioner Fight Club.

8. Joe Morgan. Big and Red, indeed. The Hall of Fame second baseman, stat hater and all-around lunkhead with a mic probably went with the Lemur flow on this one (see the higher entries on the list). At least, until he heard that the A's used. Then, he swore off them...

7. Rob Dibble. Take a look at his career -- strong peaks, injury history, temper tantrums -- and tell me he's not a roider. Next, take a look at his broadcasting "work" (go ahead, I dare you), and tell me that he's changed anything in his life since he was between the lines. He probably backs his postman off the plate.

6. Don Zimmer. Finally, the 2003 brawl is explained! Oh my goodness, indeed. But when you already have a plate in your head, a needle in the rear just seems like balance.

5. John Kruk. You'd think that a fat tub of goo who is only 50% more uncle than aunt (think about it... and then, for the love of Jebus, stop thinking about it) would refrain from the juice? No chance. When your diet consists entirely of beer, pizza, and pizza-flavored beer, you need a complex blend of chemicals just to remain upright. The fact that the man fits on your television, and isn't known simply as Krukkie the Hutt, is all the proof you need. That robe isn't getting any smaller, folks.

4. Scott Boras. Darth Agent can not give any advantage to any other agent. Even more frightening is the fact that the roids he is on work purely on his mind. It goes something like this.



3. Joe Buck. Shocking? Yes, I know -- shocking! You can't believe it! But without steroids, Joe Buck would not be able to summon the wild enthusiasm and excitement that he brings to every single one of his telecasts. (Because Joe Buck is, in fact, a flesh-eating zombie. Which, of course, is less surprising than him taking steroids.)

2. Nate Silver. Is it possible to be the world's biggest baseball stat nerd, then pivot on a dime and become the world's biggest political polling nerd? I'm calling shenanigans. He's on the brain roids, people, and the delusions of grandeur (Oscar predictions?) are becoming palpable. Step away from the throbbing brain, people. I've seen a lot of movies, and those never end well.

1. Bill Simmons. You think a non-juiced writer can kick out 10,000 words on Manny Ramirez? No. Or, at least, I hope to hell not. Besides, I've listened to that podcast (the things I do for you people), and you can definitely hear the back acne, impotence and paranoia. It's all there, people.

And why else would a writer go to the steroid well so often? Wait, crap, forget I said that. I SAID, FORGET I SAID THAT!

Betting The 103

ESPN's Peter Gammons saying there's a "very good chance" the rest of the 104 names of players to test positive for PEDs in 2003 will be revealed within the next month.

Now, seriously, Las Vegas... do I have to do all the work for you on this one? Give us an over/under bet on how many members of the 2003 All-Star Game were taking the needle!

National League All-Stars (First the starters, then the pitchers, then the reserves)

Jason Schmidt -- Power pitcher, hurt soon after, played in Balco Land... Call it 3 to 1 against

Javy Lopez -- Fell apart fast, but catchers do that -- 5 to 1 against

Todd Helton -- A lot of injuries recently, power has fallen to hell, screamed a little too loud at earlier allegations... 2 to 1

Jose Vidro -- Never really was good enough to show a performance spike -- 10 to 1

Scott Rolen -- Prototype injury breakdowns and erratic power, friends with McGwire -- 3 to 1

Edgar Renteria -- Still around, durable, some performance spike but not huge -- 8 to 1

Jim Edmonds -- McGwire teammate, injury prone, erratic power -- 4 to 1

Albert Pujols -- Epic power, some injury experience, a Cardinal but no real spikes -- 6 to 1

Gary Sheffield -- Always was a misanthrope, performance spikes with contract years, moved to a lot of teams, many teammates to rat on him if he was juicing -- 6 to 1

Bary Bonds -- Um, duh. That's one.

Armando Benitez -- Closers always spike; 10 to 1

Kevin Brown -- Huge chance, given the money and injury history, along with the bad personality and cheating history -- 3 to 1

Shawn Chacon -- Yes, he really was an All-Star once; 12 to 1

Eric Gagne -- Have to think he's likely given the career path -- 4 to 1

Russ Ortiz -- I'm as surprised as anyone to see him here; was in BalcoLand then -- 7 to 1

Mark Prior -- Prototype, but I suspect Dusty Baker was the real career killer here -- 8 to 1

John Smoltz -- No real spike, still around, would be surprising and disappointing -- 15 to 1

Billy Wagner -- Kind of a hyper-competitive ass and injury-prone, but most closers are like that -- 9 to 1

Mike Williams -- Pretty sure he couldn't afford them, and if he did use, he got bad product -- 15 to 1

Woody Williams -- If he did them, he must not be able to reach home plate without -- 25 to 1

Dontrelle Willis -- Never really a flame thrower, seems too flaky/genuine for cheating, and as a Marlin, was probably skipping meals to pay his bills -- 15 to 1

Randy Wolf -- Just not good enough to be a user -- 12 to 1

Kerry Wood -- See Prior -- 8 to 1

Paul Lo Duca -- No power, but injury prone and a homicidal jerk -- 3 to 1

Richie Sexson -- Was always big, was never good again, but was pretty durable -- 7 to 1

Luis Castillo -- Not enough power for drugs -- 15 to 1

Marcus Giles -- Surprisingly apt career for a juicer -- 5 to 1

Aaron Boone -- Have to think that both Boone Brothers are highly likely cheats -- 3 to 1

Mike Lowell -- Red Sox players are always clean -- 14 to 1

Rafael Furcal -- More interested in DUIs than ROIDs -- 12 to 1

Luis Gonzalez -- Durable with a big power year, might have used and gotten out -- 8 to 1

Geoff Jenkins -- Perfect career arc and injury history for it -- 5 to 1

Andruw Jones -- How else can you explain him? 3 to 1

Rondell White -- I suspect even he forgets he made this team -- 10 to 1

Preston Wilson -- The big year was probably more altitude-related than needle, but still, a huge year and then ill health -- 8 to 1

American League All Stars

Esteban Loiaza -- What, you don't think he was immoral enough for it? 3 to 1

Jorge Posada -- Too long a career and too durable -- 12 to 1

Carlos Delgado -- Similar to Posada at first base; if he did use, it wasn't in 2003 -- 12 to 1

Alfonso Soriano -- One big year and some injury history, but the big years also coincided with salary drives and hitter parks -- 6 to 1

Troy Glaus -- Another prototype juice career, and a McGwire teammate -- 7 to 1

Alex Rodriguez -- Our second locked down juicer

Garret Anderson -- No real power spike to speak of -- 12 to 1

Hideki Matsui -- Acne? Check. Injury prone? Check. On a team with cheaters? Make it three... 8 to 1

Ichiro Suzuki -- Hyper-durable, no real power spikes, I'd be well and truly surprised -- 25 to 1

Edgar Martinez -- Too durable with no spikes, but did have some huge years -- 15 to 1

Lance Carter -- Was he in the league long enough to take some? -- 20 to 1

Roger Clemens -- Number three with a thrown roid rage bat bullet

Brendan Donnelly -- Ex-scab, cheat and general piece of garbage with some big years -- 4 to 1

Keith Foulke -- I'd be surprised, given that he threw a change, but he did play for the Tejada/Giambi A's in BalcoLand -- 12 to 1

Eddie Guardado -- Not really a flamethrower, and highly durable back in that day -- 15 to 1

Roy Halladay -- Lock durable without super speed, a shock if he did -- 20 to 1

Shigetoshi Hasegawa -- Who remembers or cares? Probably him, for one -- 15 to 1

Mike MacDougal -- One of those bad team non-stars, durable but not good -- 15 to 1

Jamie Moyer -- Obviously a juicer, given his lack of durability and raw stuff, and yes, That's Sarcasm; would be higher odds if he hadn't come out so strong against A-Roid, leading to "Methinks he dost protest too much" potential -- 20 to 1

Mark Mulder -- Wasn't a flame-thrower, but huge injury issues and a Balco A -- 9 to 1

C.C. Sabathia -- Only if the roids came in donut form, but maybe the Yankees require it -- 9 to 1

Barry Zito -- Doesn't throw hard or get hurt, but a Balco A -- 12 to 1

Ramon Hernandez -- Balco A, migrant worker, no real huge power spike -- 12 to 1

Jason Varitek -- Durable and faded is not really the roid way -- 12 to 1

Jason Giambi -- Fourth man in!

Mike Sweeney -- Classic roid career, but it's hard to see how any Royal cared enough to cheat -- 12 to 1

Bret Boone -- I'd be surprised if he didn't -- 3 to 1

Hank Blalock -- More of a park effect, but some durability and performance spikes -- 8 to 1

Nomar Garciaparra -- Probably the most likely Red Sox user, given the injury history and intermittent power -- 4 to 1

Melvin Mora -- Too durable with limited spike -- 12 to 1

Magglio Ordonez -- Big production, injury history, fought with his manager, but still didn't seem the type -- 9 to 1

Manny Ramirez -- Despite the Bad Tooth's protests, there are performance spikes here, and he's smart enough to tell someone else to dose him -- 8 to 1

Vernon Wells -- Severe spikes and injury history, but might have been too young to use at this age -- 9 to 1

Carl Everett -- Capable of any thing at any time, with the freaky kind of personality that says Chemically Enhanced -- 6 to 1

Dmitri Young -- I'm amazed that he made the team, and he did have injury issues, but roids don't usually make you fat -- 12 to 1

I'm putting the over/under at 14.5. Give me the over!

The Hidden Villain in the Roid Era

Marc Maron is a lefty comedian and political agitator. He's also a fairly perceptive mind, even though I don't agree with him all the time, and has a fairly original take in regards to L'Affaire L'A-Roid.

Maron equates the use of performance enhancing drugs to Viagra -- in that in both uses, you are substituting Extreme Fun for Reality, and it really just comes down to what you want from your experience.

(We're now going to spend the rest of this blog post trying, without success, to avoid the keywords that will fill the post with auto-spam comments.)

In one fell swoop, Maron pulls the shaky morality tentpole out of the three-ring circus of Public Condemnation For Dirty Cheating A-Roid. But let's face it... if there was something that the common person could take that would make them so good at their job that they'd be independently wealthy long before retirement age, you'd be seeing people shooting it into their eyeballs during the morning commute. Especially if that commute was long.

Not to get too far into the puerile, but would the women who are with the guys that can only function with the little blue miracles... be there if they couldn't? Some, sure, especially if the guy has more going for him than a reliable tool; money, looks and kindness can go far in the world. But not all, of course, especially if our theoretical Pharmaceutical Warrior finds himself lacking in the finer graces. For those couples, Extreme Fun compensates, just as it does for people who are paying two to three times for a ticket to a game that they did a generation ago. (Admittedly, not in the same parks. Oh, the siren song that is a new gouge-tastic yard.)

Maron believes (and who am I to question him on such things, having never played the Bob Dole Invitational myself) that what you lose with Extreme Fun is intimacy, honesty and integrity. The first two, sure. The last one, I don't agree, because my definition of integrity might be a little looser than Maron's. Going to our old friend Mr. Dictionary...

(Noun): Adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.

Nothing there about the character being, well, good.

This is getting pretty far from the toy department, but I think pathological people, more often than not, have integrity. I also think that if you're really good at your job, there's a reasonable chance that you are at least a little bit pathological about it. Michael Jordan might have been the most competitive man on the planet. At age 4, Tiger Woods' father threw firecrackers during his backswing to make him focus. Most stars of sports where youth is served hard (tennis, swimming, gymnastics, boxing, ice skating) and individualistic seem, at best, warped to a "normal" outlook. Every pro poker player you've ever seen on television seems like a spooky math and/or gambling freak. And so on, and so on.

When Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and untold hundreds more were using steroids, they weren't all lacking in integrity. Hell, they probably were able to justify it all in the same sacrifice for the team credo that athletes have used to motivate themselves since sports (and, well, war) began. (And whether or not a nation's soldiers should be given carte blanche to juice up is a whole 'nother kettle of inedible ethics fish. Let's stay on what passes for the target.)

Having integrity doesn't make you moral. Taking steroids when any number of opponents were doing so as well... might not even be unethical, because ethics are dependent on the individual.

But what they are, and this is key, is a perversion -- an unplanned, ad hoc, unfairly administered perversion -- away from intimacy and honesty, and into Extreme Fun.

And here's the nasty truth that no one wants to admit in this whole mess. We, the MLB-watching public, were much more interested in buying the lie. And until we take our share of the blame, and admit it, and refuse to buy the fake crap... well, everyone's just going to figure out a better way to cheat.

After all, no one's gotten poor from selling Viagra, right?

Blogrolling: Now With Extra Knee-Capping, Arson, and Hot Nazi Babe

Tonya Harding, still whining about the world treating her badly. You really don't need to click, but you're going to, aren't you? Yup, me too.

Does it make me a bad person to (a) wish Harding wasn't so regrettable to look at, (b) wonder whatever happened to Celebrity Boxing, and (c) be filled with a nearly equivalent amount of loathing for Bryant Gumbel? No need to answer.

Charles Barkley is back on the TV tomorrow, and will also get his own reality show just for being a terrible, terrible golfer. I think I speak for all of America when I ask this single question: will there be oral sex?

Tom Waits on the old Letterman show, when Letterman still had the fastball; Tom, of course, has never lost his. Never could stand that dog.



Nick Underhill goes hard on the A-Rod, on the off chance that you haven't gotten enough of that story yet. Better than most.

Fundamentally Unsound offers up another big helping of Answery goodness, for all of you that liked the last batch.



And finally, today's inappropriate humor video from blog favorite Sara Benincasa, a NYC talent with dead-on sensibilities who also does a great Sarah Palin. If you like her stuff, by all means, click through: there's plenty.

Blogrolling: Do Not Be Like This

I rarely post video of the first Mrs. Shooter, but when she earns it, she earns it. (I also rarely make this cheap of a joke. OK, the latter is a lie.)



The MoonDog has redesigned his sports blog. Go and tell him how much you hate it, and want the old site back. People who do a huge amount of work on their site always appreciate it when you do that.

Grand National Championships with your college basketball bubble teams. I promise not to care about this unless my alma mater (Syracuse) goes on a big run, at which point I'll become all knowledgeable and stuff. (Go Flynn Go!)

Quick Hit with the top 13 scariest masks in sports. The top spot is an unquestioned winner, and kind of reprehensible.

I'm including this last one more for the technical freakiness of it all, but if you insist on seeing a sports parallel, it's easy: the protagonist is A-Roid, and the dude he meets is Bonds. Also, I am the Walrus.


Hemlock from Tyson Ibele on Vimeo.

Blogrolling: Iggy, Sosa and Zombies

Liberty Ballers has the numbers. Did you know that Andre Iguodala isn't only good at making Yao Ming look like he's getting the bottom bunk and liking it, but also at Clutch Shots? (Yes, that's two double-entendres in a sentence there if you are scoring at home, or even if you are alone.) Feel free to make your Small Sample Size, Do Turnovers Count, and He Can't Be All That Good Because He's In Philadelphia and The Team Is Only .500 comment at the click...

Do we all owe Sammy Sosa an apology? A hug? A fresh supply of corked bats? Or the simple ignorance that we'd give any Cub? Tom Scocca weighs in; go check it out. (Me, I'm just going to keep ignoring it.)

If you must read Jane Austen, at least read it with zombies. (H/t, Five Tool Ninja)

A-Roid

Word on the Internets this weekend, to save Blogfrica from actually dealing with the NBA or Pro Bowl, is that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003. At this point, the only authority you can trust on roids is, clearly, Jose Canseco.

As a blogger, you get two flavors of post about this.

1) A-Rod's a fraud! Let me spend the next few hundred words saying how I always knew this!

2) Every good player is on roids, so let's just make them legal now, and part of the strategy of the game, kind of like when a NASCAR guy chooses to change tires or fuel up.

Both tactics bore me, so here's a third tactic...

Who, in 2003, are we absolutely certain *wasn't* taking steroids?

Think it over. The best players in the game were clearly using them, without anyone seeming to care. Barry Bonds ruled baseball with an oversized head. The Oakland A's won the AL West with guys like Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada. Sammy Sosa led the Cubs, Mark McGwire led the Cardinals, and the Marlins beat the Yankees in a relatively blah 4-2 World Series, after the Marlins-Cubs and Sox-Yanks both went to seven games. It was a great year for baseball, thanks to the overly dramatic playoffs. Sure, people were talking about steroids, but no one was really letting it get in the way of the games.

Alex Rodriguez was in Texas, leading the AL in home runs, spending the last of three seasons of futility in the heat.

Assuming that he was, in fact, guilty of going on the juice... I'm not all that sure that I'm going to feel terribly upset about it.

You see, the first person to cheat is kind of a trail blazer. They gain the biggest edge, take the biggest risk, and earn the biggest ire when they are caught. But with each succeeding cheater, especially when they cheating becomes common and/or outdated, the outrage is muted, and so is the urge to prosecute.

This is a tangent, but does anyone remember Douglas Ginsburg? He was the Supreme Court nominee made by Ronald Reagan in 1987 after the Senate bounced Robert "King Tut" Bork, and he got bounced for admitting that he used marijuana. Now, we've elected a President who has admitted to smoking it; admittedly, the President is chosen by the people, rather than the Senate, but one suspects that a Court nominee with a similar problem wouldn't be automatically rejected now. What's changed? Twenty years of people, well, using marijuana.

It's not quite the same thing, of course, since pot doesn't improve your athletic ability (unless Robert Parish owed his longevity to it, or it made Michael Phelps swim faster) in the same way that steroids do. But the principle is the same.

And the guys that weren't using in 2003 probably weren't, well, among the best players in the game. It just seems to be too much of an advantage.

Now, does this mean that we should ignore the possible cheating? Of course not; standards are standards, and the law is the law no matter how valuable the player or the color of his laundry. But if you are using this to feel morally superior to the Yankees, you might want to take a step back... because the simple fact of the matter is that your team probably has cheats on it as well...

And if it doesn't, maybe that's telling, too.

(Also, that we can just about close the Hall of Fame right now.)

Potpurri for Five

Yes, it's the return of the quick hitting thoughts based on nothing more than what's been floating around my head while I'm not really doing The Job, since I'm traveling. But here goes anyway.

1) Coach Has To Go: When you actively consider the bright side of any team's loss being that Coach might get canned from the loss.

So any Eagles Fan who is keeping Andy's Done in the back of their mind in the lead-up to tomorrow's Eagles-Cowboys game... yes, this is for you. Lions Fan who want to be sure that Coach Rod is on his face for failing to avoid Immortality, here it is. Cowboys Fan who dreams of Coach Wade taking the Switzer Bullet (um, it'd help if they had someone with a pulse, but really, your problem is your owner), same story.

And if you're really rooting for the loss, without any kind of fantasy football payoff or against the spread bet coinciding... well, let's just say that you're beyond the pale with Old Coach. You might start hoping he never existed, or something.

2) If you root for the team with the best record in the league and pule about the officiating in any game that isn't an elimination playoff experience, you are officially a Douchebag For Now And Ever, World Without End, Amen. (And yes, I'm talking about the Bad Tooth again, who couldn't take the Christmas present to a struggling nation that is his team losing. Though to be fair, I liked the follow-up loss to the Warriors -- the Warriors! -- more, just because the Lake Show's fans are also not far from Eternal Bag Status.)

3) With Randy Johnson's one-year deal to get his 300th win and then go away in San Francisco, can we officially designate the Giants as the Vienna of MLB? In that it's a pretty place to visit, history happened here, but it's otherwise irrelevant to, you know, actually important things happening?

Realistically, there are two uniform possibilities for The Unit to make his 300th look like anything but a stagger over the finish line: Seattle and Arizona. Given that he went 11-10 with a tolerable 3.91 ERA last year in the desert, and needs just five more wins to get the green jacket... seriously, Arizona, why couldn't you be the one to get this done? He's going to look silly doing this in SF. Well, OK, not as silly as Barry Zito continuing to work for the worst contract in MLB history, but close.

Oh, and SF? One year for $8 million here is a lot of cheddar in a bad economy for a guy who wont' really sell a lot of seats for you in his chase for the record. Why not, you know, buy a farm system that actually produces a tolerable position player instead?

4) Sammy Sosa says he's not ready to retire from MLB. Um, can someone tell these roid rock heads that if no one is giving you a job, your reluctance to retire doesn't much matter? I really don't want to have to write the same jokes again, and you don't want to read them...

5) A Houston hospital is changing its name from the Roger Clemens Institute for Sports Medicine to the Memorial Hermann Sports Medicine Institute.

In its statement, the hospital said the decision to take off Clemens' name was made "to better reflect its commitment to all sports and athletes" and that "the move reflects the desire to promote the broad range of sports medicine services and programs offered by Memorial Hermann."

In that shooting a cheating sack of crap who is well on his way to becoming the pitching equivalent of Pete Rose in terms of Hall of Fame estrangement in the ass with roids is, admittedly, a *very* narrow service...

If no one is hiring, you are retired

This just in from Los Angeles... according to a paparazzi who had the pleasure of photographing The Home Run Thing, Senor Bonds is not going to retire from MLB.

Um, Barry? If no one is employing you -- and why they'd do that now, as opposed to last year -- you can retire or not retire all you like. I'm not retiring from MLB either, and you, Dear Reader, also won't give up The Dream. Send us all some pension checks now, please.

Potpurri for Five

In reviewing my fellow members of Blogfrica this morning, these small points that don't add up to a full bite. Consider it your continental breakfast of FTT, and the continent is Antartica, given that continental seems to mean "prepared without heat."

> "I can still hit if somebody wants me." - Mark McGwire, on the tenth anniversary of the greatest baseball moment of the Steroid Era that no one will admit to still remembering fondly

Um, Mac? To the great majority of the populace, thanks to your love of the junk, you could now never hit. No one wants to remember what you were like as a player, the good times in Oakland early on when you and fellow pariah Jose Canseco ruled MLB like a merry fraternity, or the later years in St. Louis where Tony LaRussa rode you back to Genius Status.

When players in the future pass you on the all-time home run list, there won't be a loving montage to your memory. Instead, they'll mention it in passing and with shame, and move on to the umbrella promotion in the upcoming 3-game homestand.

Oh, and in your last year in 2001, you hit .187, albeit with 29 home runs. I'm thinking that in your current condition, you'd be fortunate to get half of either number, and that's assuming you can pass the drug tests and fit in a uniform.

So, um, yes, you can technically still hit... only less good then, say, Cecil Fielder, Fred McGriff or Bob Horner. You know, like other guys who are not going to get jobs in MLB. (And about a tenth as well as Barry Bonds, who will also never play in MLB again.)

> Shawne Merriman to undergo surgery and go on IR

Wait, wait, wait... shouldn't he get five or six more opinions first?

Oh, and in further news, it takes two working knees to play well in the NFL, even if you are extremely talented. (Merriman had two more tackles than a dead man in the Sunday loss to Carolina, neither of which prompted a spasmodic dance routine, otherwise known as a sack.)

In related news, the bigger issue is that the Chargers were also without MLB Stephen Cooper, who led them with 179 tackles last year, for (drum roll please) testing positive for a banned stimulant. He'll miss the first four games of the season, and become another player in the list of Charger defenders who have missed time over banned substances. In Cooper's absence, the Panthers controlled the game with over 100 yards of rushing in the first half, and outgained the home team en route to their win.

Is anyone else noticing a pattern here in SoCal? And to be completely fair, if that pattern existed for one of the historically hated teams in the NFL (i.e., Patriots, Cowboys, Raiders, etc.), wouldn't their PR suffer more than those happy go lucky Lightnin' Bolts?

> Tampa beats Jon Papelbon in Boston to keep their lead in the AL East

That gives the previously struggling young club a game and a half lead in the division race. Unfortunately for all of us who dream of a Fox Armageddon Non-Major Market MLB Playoff, the Sawx still have a six game lead over Minnesota, a 7-game lead over Toronto (who knew?), and an 8.5 game lead over the Yankees for the wild card.

So your AL playoffs are shaping up as Boston vs. Anaheim in the first round (possible revenge for the Angels, though I think they'll lose yet again to Boston), and the Central survivor (the White Sox or Minnesota) vs. the Rays. There are still 20 games to go in the season, but you'd be surprised how often a game and a half lead will hold up with that much time to go.

By run differential, the Sawx are clearly the best team in the AL... but that's not how you play the games, and other than Jon Lester, there isn't a Boston SP that really looks like a playoff hammer this year. Yes, Dice-K Matsuzaka wins a lot of games, but his WHIP is very high (1.36) for a top tier pitcher, and his playoff history is not good.

After that, you've got a mix of the questionable (Paul Byrd, Bartolo Colon, Tim Wakefield) and the overrated (Josh Beckett, currently sporting a 5.56 ERA). If Dustin Pedroia wasn't giving them a ridiculous year, the offense wouldn't be all that scary either; Mike Lowell reverting to his career norms and David Ortiz's injury woes are making them pretty ordinary. A first round exit is not out of the realm of possibility, especially now that New England Fan is convinced that God has turned his back on the region in the wake of the Greatest Tragedy in Sports History, aka the Brady Injury.

> Vince Young is hurt, and also might be insane

After being diagnosed with a knee problem that will keep him out for up to a month, Young was unaccounted for over four hours. Depending on who you believe, he was also driving around with a loaded gun and thoughts of suicide, and talked about retiring in preseason.

Now, some very large chunk of me wonders, as I always do when the player getting the remarkably bad publicity is a minority member, if some of this is overblown. Lord knows that in my town of Philly, there are people with irrational hatred towards Donovan McNabb, aka the best quarterback in franchise history, for reasons that make a fellow go hmm. It's also not as if Nashville is the hotbed of tolerance.

But I suspect there's more smoke than racism here. Remember, Young's Wunderlic score in the combine got leaked, and it was remarkably low for a quarterback (though extremely good for a houseplant). He was clearly the worst quarterback to get snaps for the Titans last year, and when you consider that the other guy getting time was Kerry Collins, that's saying something. His decision making was questionable at best, and he only really looks comfortable when the game goes into sandlot scramble mode. He may be mobile, relatively fearless and gutty -- heck, for all I know, he might still turn into Steve McNair, which was clearly the plan here all along -- but it's also quite possible that he'll be a head case flameout.

Ed Note and update... Young's mom (!) says he isn't interested in playing football any more, and even if he changes his mind or the report isn't true, I'm not sure how you come back from that. The Titans have signed Chris Simms to back up Kerry Collins, and the scary thing is, their QB situation might be better right now. Let's just say that I'm not very concerned with the Titans making it back to the playoffs this year...

> An assistant high school coach in CA doesn't react well to a coaching change (H/t, With Leather)

Startlingly, they caught the guy. (For non-clickers, he was a 34-year-old assistant who responded to a termination by trying to burn the school down. That'll show 'em! That'll show 'em all!)

And that brings us up to today's main FTT sponsor. This forehead smacking moment is brought to you by Swingline Staplers, who remind you that when you take someone's Swingline, you may be burned to death!



Remember, for the stapler that men go to prison for, it's Swingline!

Epic Drop: Top 10 Reasons Why Shawne Merriman Is Going To Play With Torn Ligaments

Here's the link that will make you think... that someone in Shawne Merriman's life needs to get him to breathe a towel or six of ether and get cut on before the big idiot wakes the hell up.

In researching this piece, I checked out Merriman's web site, which is as Extremely Manly as you might imagine. Guess what? It doesn't mention his wife or kids, and I couldn't find anything on the Web confirming or denying the existence of anyone taking up dependent status on his 1040. There does seem to be some women in his past, but nothing too serious.

Say what you will about the effect that a wife and kids might have on a man's liveliness, but I guarantee you that if there were an equal partner in the future Merriman earning potential, there would be no way in hell that he wouldn't already be under the knife. Good luck, Charger Fan (and anyone that already drafted the Chargers as their defense in a fantasy league...)

The Goalposts Moved Faster

Vai Sikahema is an ex-NFL punt returner for the Cardinals and Eagles who parlayed that into a local sportscasting gig in Philly. My best memory of him is below, a rather memorable touchdown celebration against the Giants.



For some reason, he wound up in a celebrity boxing match with the train wreck that is Jose Canseco.



You can now compare and contrast for yourself, which put up the bigger fight...

Epic Drop: Top 11 Signs That Miguel Tejada Was Older Than Advertised

Your list is here, and it hurts this old A's fan's soul, really. Even when Miggy took the money and left, we didn't hold a grudge. It didn't hurt that the Orioles were no threat, and we'd never have to worry about seeing him in a playoff. In his last year, and especially during the 20-game Streak, Miggy was everywhere and everything; he was the A's David Ortiz that year.



Now, of course, he's guilty until never proven innocent, his power a probable bottle product, his joy at playing the game long gone, his worth quickly ebbing. No one will look back on his career and think Hall of Fame; no one will remember just how wonderful the left side of the A's infield was with him and a healthy Eric Chavez. (How good were they? I grew up with Schmidt and Bowa; Tejada and Chavez were better.)

Anyway, the fact that he's 33 instead of 31 is just the latest indignity. It's 10 pounds of sad in a 5 pound bag, and one more tale of warning that Free Agent Riches don't always work out...

Drugs on a Hanger

The New York Times
The Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit has cannon balled into the consciousness of people who do not know a flip turn from Flipper since it was introduced in February, and swimmers wearing it have sped to 22 of the 23 world records. A coach who has worked with several Olympic gold medalists who are sponsored by Speedo describes the suit as "drugs on a hanger."

"It's exceeded our expectations," says Stu Isaac, a senior VP for sales and marketing at Speedo. Some have suggested that the corset-like fit of the LZR suit not only streamlines the body but also engages the central nervous system in ways that previous suits did not. Others say privately that this new wave of swimwear is enhancing a swimmer's buoyancy to a degree that could be considered performance-enhancing.

"I think people are feeling panicked," says Kicker Vencill, who has qualified for the trials in the 50 and 100 freestyles but does not have a swimwear sponsor. "I've heard people say they're willing to break their contracts with other companies to wear the Speedo suit."

I've written this before in regards to laser eye surgery versus steroids, but honestly... better gear has the same effects on the veracity and integrity of sports records as steroids and HGH and anything else that comes to mind as a Great Satan.

And yes, I know, drugs are bad and addictive and have side effects and hurt children. And if they didn't, which they eventually won't because there's too much money in the pharmaceutical industry to not fix the problems? Would it be all OK then to watch the best players of that generation own the records, because life is just easier for them?

The whole thing reminds me of the fact that IQ test scores keep rising, year after year. As a species, of course, we are not getting that much smarter... but we are getting better at taking IQ tests. Athletes aren't, for the most part, getting better -- but they are getting better at breaking records.