metirish

Let's just play ball.

Hilarious from Letterman.... Representative Elijah Cummings apparently wants to bring Rodriguez before Congress. ] "I think we're going to have to see what Rodriguez will tell us," Cummings said in a phone interview. "He is in a confessing mode, so maybe he needs to put his apology into some meaningful action by cooperating with the committee so we can see if there are things we need to reopen to make sure baseball is doing all that it can to rid itself of this kind of practice."

Yeah numbers mean nothing really , as we know a lot of players took them to help recover from injury or just to recover from games, unlike Rodriguez who was just young and stoopid.

="John Cougar Lunchbucket"] Filip Bondy who may as well titled his piece in the snooze today GOD I LOVE THE TASTE OF DEREK'S BALLSACK practically apologizes for even asking whether Jeter did it and finds the answer: "Why would my name be on that list?" as an acceptable response. . Bondy definitely finds that answer acceptable... ] That was the answer we wanted to hear. Jeter is the guy who stays out of trouble, doesn't go trawling for it. He remains single, so his romantic dalliances amuse instead of disgust us. He keeps quiet about the contract that expires in 2010, about his place in the lineup, about the pitchers and teammates and coaches who have failed him in recent seasons what would these guys do if their beloved Jeter was dirty...Snooze has 15 pages on Rodriguez.

I watched the interview last night , thought Gammons was disgraceful , not surprised by that though.

Johan Santana feels great but will not play in the upcoming WBC.

I've been thinking about this and I don't dislike Rodriguez anymore after this debacle , I have never cared for him but this doesn't make me care even less for him. I have been following baseball since the mid nineties so in reality looking back I have been a fan in the steroid era.

At least he's not out with a twisted testicle. (Merged from 2009 Insults and Injuries, 3/12/2009)

Alex didn't know what he was taking either...of course you didn't.....

I don't doubt it , no reason to think MLB players aren't like other athletes in sports where doping is a problem and that they stay ahead of the testers.

" All we are saying is give Jetes a chance".....

Please , let us all join hands now...

For fucks sake Bob grow up. ] Sunday, February 8, 2009 Last updated: Monday February 9, 2009, 11:52 AM By BOB KLAPISCH RECORD COLUMNIST Baseball is at the outer limits now, a dark universe where everyone cheats and lies. Let us join hands and admit we�re down to the last player we can trust � Derek Jeter. Pity this sport if the Yankee captain falls into the abyss, too. With Alex Rodriguez now exposed as a steroid fraud, baseball turns to Jeter as the last outpost of honesty. Someone has to be beyond suspicion; someone has to care enough to say �no� to the syringe. It�s Jeter, it has to be. Indeed, most Yankee fans will take his shrinking power numbers over the artificial A-Rod�s. Now we know how a man could hit 50 home runs and play Gold Glove middle-infield defense at the same time. But give A-Rod this much credit: His fall from grace has legitimized Jeter�s decline. We can take comfort in the fact that the captain is aging before our eyes; it assures us that he�s clean. Jeter�s home runs are down, his slugging percentage is shriveling, he�s hardly steals bases anymore. And that�s how it should be for a soon-to-be 35-year-old. Though it may create a public-relations nightmare for the Yankees in 2010 when Jeter�s contract expires, his lowered profile has turned him into the anti-Alex Rodriguez. Which is why he cannot fall, not now, not even retroactively. If Jeter�s name is among the 103 players who failed drug tests in 2003, we might as well turn off the remote this summer and start watching the Newark Bears or Jersey Jackals. Or maybe it�s time to surrender to the WWE. We are, after all, reeling from the news that A-Rod, the onetime poster boy for clean living, is a liar, after all. And he�s not the only one being shamed: According to Sports Illustrated, the players� union was part of the scam, tipping off A-Rod to an imminent drug test in 2004. Of course, some baseball insiders said A-Rod�s incredible growth and surge in muscularity over the years should�ve been a tipoff. Perhaps. But no one ever waged a whispering campaign against Jeter, who, with a laugh once said, �Just look at me� when the conversation at his locker turned to steroids. He�s just a notch above skin and bones, not much in the way of muscle. Nor has Jeter ever experienced an unnatural spike in his numbers; he peaked in 1999 at the age of 25 and hasn�t been quite the same since. The arc of Jeter�s career, in fact, is even more believable than Mariano Rivera�s, who�s maintained his inhuman cut-fastball even as he begins this season at age 39. There�s no doubt Rivera is the greatest closer in the sport�s history. His durability is due, in large part to his natural athleticism, conditioning and work ethic. But this is what one major-league talent evaluator had to say about Rivera after it was learned that A-Rod, another hard worker, had been exposed as a fraud. �If you want to start taking a hard look at everyone, and I mean everyone, then look at the year Rivera was in the minors and all of a sudden goes from 91 mph to 95-96 mph [on the radar gun], in just one start,� he said. �If I�m going to be suspicious of everyone, that�s one thing that would jump right out at me.� The idea that Rivera could�ve been enhanced is more than the Yankees care to contemplate. It�s too dark, too sinister � just as indigestible as Jeter using a syringe. It takes a certain mind-set to cheat like that. It requires a torrent of vanity and arrogance, not to mention a risk-taking gene that borders on stupidity. Jeter has never craved attention the way A-Rod has. Rivera has displayed the same modesty. But arm-chair psychiatrists beware: Everyone believed that Andy Pettitte was as innocent as a dove, too. Just goes to show, the lure of steroids is so powerful, no one is immune to its temptations. There are those � Barry Bonds sycophants, mostly � who insist that juicing doesn�t actually enhance a ballplayer�s skills; you can either hit home runs or you can�t. But if that were true, why have so many players injected themselves? The answer comes from a former major-leaguer, who told me recently why he used steroids at the midpoint of his career and how they helped him. �The biggest thing was my vision. I saw the ball so much better and I was able to wait longer before I swung,� he said. �The ball looked like a softball. I couldn�t believe how easy it was to hit.� Turns out, a vast number of players found similar reasons to fall in love with the juice, perhaps as many as 70 percent during the steroid heyday. That�s why it�s important to hunt down the honest ones and, yes, put them on a pedestal. It takes guts to say no to synthetic achievements. It takes strength to age naturally. A-Rod was too insecure to trust his genetic coding, and now he�s paying the price. His debt to baseball cannot be repaid any time soon. Perhaps Rodriguez doesn�t know (or care) about the devastating effect of his fall. All of baseball suffers with the knowledge that his home runs and speed were concocted in a laboratory. Woozy with bad news, baseball only has one place left to turn. Fingers crossed, prayers said fast and furious, the sport embraces its last remaining icon. Jeter better not fail, too.

I'm certain one of our members commented along these lines when this came out. From Ian O'Connor's article today. ] The first sign of serious trouble came last February, when Rodriguez volunteered he�d been drug-tested nine or ten times during his monster 2007 season. Players are supposed to be tested twice during a season, three times if selected for one of 600 additional random tests. A-Rod�s odds of being tested as much as he claimed were a gazillion to one, unless, of course, he�d turned up positive for amphetamines and earned an extra half-dozen mandatory trips to the urinal. O'Connor lays this mess on Hank. Hank

How are you holding up Steve?

I admire Alfonzo's desire to keep playing{still only 35) , hard to believe that his last season with the Mets was 2002.

Looking at the roster it would not surprise me, not that it means a whole lot now anyway. http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/2000.shtml

It's been a bad few weeks for the Yankee Brand .

Madden seems to take personnel offense that Rodriguez would tarnish the great yankee name.

Bill Madden in the Snooze today says the MFY's need to 'Cut him loose - no matter the cost" , they would be "applauded for it"....hey it's only $270 million....

My wife tells me that the word in Puerto Rico is that Beltran is on that list.

Andruw Jones turns down non-roster spring training invite from the MFY's.

A-Fraud

Some advice , don't be livid over such things.

="Kong76":i3pptdpk]Pulsipher is pitching tonight for Puerto Rico. I thought he was from Georgia or Mississippi.[/quote:i3pptdpk] I was watching the game last night and they mentioned that Bobby Valentine was MVP of the 1973 Series while playing for the Dominican Republic , Doyle Alexander had the most wins in that series. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Caribbean_Series Kong76 Feb 07 2009 12:22 PM Yeah, it's not a heritage thing like the classic series. I probably thought I was being clever or funny ... I should stop that.