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Cool.....

Jeff Pearlman asks why....good article.]Pee No EvilWhy are sportswriters pretending baseball's steroids era is over?By Jeff PearlmanPosted Friday, June 2, 2006, at 5:12 PM ET Albert Pujols It's easy to understand the media's love-fest with Albert Pujols. The St. Louis Cardinals slugger crushes baseballs into the outer realms. And more important in the wake of the BALCO fiasco, he has yet to be tainted by evidence of steroid use.Pujols has 25 homers in 51 games played, putting him on pace to break Barry Bonds' record of 73 home runs in a single season. Both fans and rival players breathlessly praise Pujols as they once did Bonds. St. Louis' marketing department is constantly churning with new ideas for milking the Albert cash cow. And within baseball's press boxes, writers and reporters check their e-mail, drink free sodas, and question, well, nothing.Two weeks ago, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Pujols "is being touted as the first P.S. slugger, post-steroids." The paper also categorized speculation that Pujols might be juicing as an "errant rumor." The New York Times followed up with this Pujols quote: "My testing is proving a lot. It's working really good." Is Pujols abusing steroids or human growth hormones? I don't know. But what's alarming in this era of deceit is that nobody seems interested in finding out. A little more than one year removed from congressional hearings that produced the most humiliating images in the game's history, baseball writers have a duty to second-guess everything. Instead, everyone is taking Pujols' test results at face value. Have we forgotten that Barry Bonds has never failed one of Major League Baseball's drug tests?In Sports Illustrated's baseball preview issue, Tom Verducci, who has done great work exposing the proliferation of steroids in baseball, credulously praised the likes of Pujols and Twins catcher Joe Mauer. Verducci exclaimed that baseball is now "a young man's game, belonging to new stars who, certified by the sport's tougher drug policy, have replaced their juiced-up, broken-down elders who aged so ungracefully. It's baseball as it ought to be. A fresh start." In other words: Masking agents? What masking agents?Last year, editors at the Post-Dispatch assembled a task force to investigate whether Mark McGwire had ingested performance-enhancing drugs. After a short stretch of fruitless reporting, the effort died. One would think that Pujols�a 13th-round draft pick who has put on 20 pounds of muscle since his debut in 2001�would at least warrant a gander, or perhaps a flight or two to his native Dominican Republic to check out the friendly neighborhood pharmacies. Yet the paper has lifted nary a finger in examining Pujols' background. "Albert isn't an enhanced thug like some of the other suspects," explains Rick Hummel, the longtime Post-Dispatch baseball writer. "He hasn't grown significantly and he's always had a lot of power. So what's there to look into?"What's there to look into? How about this: For the past decade, baseball has been routinely pulling the bait-and-switch with its fan base. When McGwire and Sammy Sosa engaged in "The Chase" for the home-run record during 1998, we were told the game was being saved, that two great men with selfless hearts were doing the impossible. Oops, it was all a lie. Three years later, we were asked to suspend belief yet again as the 37-year-old Bonds, with a head the size of Jupiter, effortlessly broke McGwire's standard. Why are journalists so soft in this area? One reason: fear of being shut out. Over the course of a 162-game season, beat writers and columnists work their tails off to develop relationships with players. You grovel. You whimper. You plead. You tiptoe up to a first baseman, hoping he has five minutes to talk about that swollen toe. You share jokes and�embarrassingly�fist pounds. Wanna kill all that hard work in six seconds? Ask the following question: Are you juiced?After having been duped by the men they cover, America's sportswriters are playing dumb again. One year after being dismissed as a has-been, steroid-using fibber, Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi is the toast of New York. Recent articles in metropolitan newspapers have praised the steadfastness and resiliency that have led him to hit a team-high 14 home runs. But where, oh where, are the doubters? At the start of spring training in 2005, Giambi looked smaller than in seasons past. Now, he has muscles atop muscles atop muscles. Yet unlike the San Francisco Chronicle, which dedicated itself (journalistically and financially) to learning the truth about Bonds, none of the New York dailies have assigned an investigative team to the case. The closest we've come is Joel Sherman of the New York Post, who recently wrote a piece titled "Clean Machine�Giambi Says Fast Start Is Untainted." The article dies with this whimper of a quote: "The big thing I learned during all my problems was that I can only control what I can control. I can't stand on a soapbox every day. I am working my tail off." I, for one, don't believe him. During my six years at Sports Illustrated, I fell for the trick and covered Giambi as the hulking, lovable lug who cracked jokes and hit monstrous homers. All the while, he was cheating to gain an edge. So, why�when MLB doesn't administer a test for human growth hormone�should I believe Giambi is clean?Likewise, when I look at Roger Clemens, I wonder: Where's the investigative digging? Like Bonds, Clemens is a larger-than-life athletic specimen. Like Bonds, Clemens is producing at an age when most of his peers are knitting. Unlike Bonds, Clemens does not have journalists breathing down his neck. Instead, the hometown Houston Chronicle has covered his recent re-signing with the Astros as a time for unmitigated celebration. Forget combing through his garbage for vials�I just want the Chronicle to ask Clemens whether he's used. Is the Rocket cheating? Again, I don't know. But doesn't someone have to at least try and find out?"A lot of baseball writers are drunks or cheat on their wives," says Jose de Jesus Ortiz, the Chronicle's Astros beat writer. "I would never question anybody unless I have evidence. It's unfair to feel that just because of Bonds now we're required to question everyone about their methods."Is it unfair to pester individual athletes about steroids? Maybe. Is it the right thing to do journalistically? Without a doubt. http://www.slate.com/id/2142937/?nav=fo

That sucks for Gary, get well soon, any word on who the Mets will call up to take his place, any numbers on the broadcasters in the minors, I hear the guy at Hagerstown is a prospect.

Jae Seo has been moved from the starting rotation to the bullpen, Odalis Perez will take his spot in the rotation. http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060603&content_id=1485917&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

I saw that but thought CF was taking the piss.

Great to hear Howie on the TV, what's up with Gary though?

Lou Pinellia is fucking annoying...

Pujols leads the NL with 25 HR and 65 RBI , Albert though is not in the top ten in BA with .315, Freddy S�nchez of Pittsburgh leads the league with .358.

Ducks sign Juan Gonzalez

]No, there's no "phantom" calling of the game. The network version of the game will be the only telecast that exists. I was in Baltimore a couple years back and was wandering around the harbor an hour or two before the game when I walked right past Howie Rose (then doing TV) and his wife & kids. Just as I was about to ask him what the hell he was doing there instead of being down the street at the stadium I realized it was a network game giving him the day off to spend with the family. Thanks FK, it would suck if the Mets had a no hitter and Gary wasn't on to call it, it would suck for him at least...but that will never happen...

I just picked this up, looks interesting.

Very lame that the team was considering suing for libel.I wonder will Raissman get invited back as a guest on "Daily News Live" after this article.

From ESPN insider... ] L.A. story? Jun 1 - Dodgers GM Ned Colletti is expected to explore acquiring a veteran starter by the July 31 trading deadline, and Greg Maddux is a possibility, the Los Angeles Times reports. According to the Daily Herald, Maddux is owed $6 million for the rest of this season, which could stall a deal, but if the Cubs have any heart at all they'll find a way to get him out of Chicago.

I have a kinda dumb question, when SNY or the WPIX don't have the Mets game like last Saturday or if it's a Sunday night ESPN game does Gary and the SNY crew have the night off or does Gary still call the game for future SNY airings?

Yeah I miss Matty, especially when in Milwaukee he would go down the slide just like Bernie, or get caught by the camera crew having a conversation with Bernie...didn't he get banned from one park a few years ago?, I'm thinking it was the Bob or Miller Park.

I thought the interview with Pedro was a high point for Cotter, he's a total bollox, I sensed that Pedro was getting a little annoyed by the interview though, Cotter needs to work on his skills, after every Met win the first question he asks whatever player they get coming of the field goes something like this..." how do you guys keep doing it, you never quit right"....

I'd be embarrassed to strut to the plate with that music playing, and it doesn't seem to fit LoDuca's hot temper, I thought he'd be more an Anthrax or Type O Negative kinda guy.

Martinez - 4 Sanchez - 2 Wagner - 2 Chavez - 1 Valentin - 1

Time the Mets won a Pedro game, this one could be a classic.... GO METS

Well as we all know Nady had surgery early this morning, Milledge called up to take his spot, Cameron is batting .245 with only 1 home run and 16 RBI in 34 games. 41 SO in 139 AB's

Yeah I meant as a Met...sorry...

Hey if this did happen the Mets would have a gold glove pitcher, the first since Darling?

From what I read about Duncan recently he won't be in the big leagues any time soon.

Bill Madden of course likes to dwell on the negative....it's the Mets and all. ] He's here to get major tweaking The kid arrived at Shea a few minutes before 6 p.m., just in time to get his briefing from Willie Randolph, a run-down on the signs from the Mets coaches and a few swings off a batting tee. For a brief while there at the Providence, R.I., airport yesterday, it had been touch-and-go for 21-year-old Lastings Milledge's much-anticipated, but hastily executed Met debut as his initial flight to LaGuardia was canceled and he found himself muttering, "Biggest day of my life. I can't believe this is happening to me." Actually, there are two theories as to why the Mets chose to bring their top prospect and 2003 first-round draft pick to the majors after just 50 games at Triple-A Norfolk (in which he had nevertheless hit .291 with 32 runs scored and 22 extra base hits). The public one was that, with Xavier Nady having undergone emergency appendectomy surgery after Monday night's game, they needed another bat rather than a 13th pitcher and Milledge's was the best available. The private one was that the Mets' high command felt Milledge, who's apparently developed a reputation for being a little too full of himself as he's progressed rapidly through the minors, would benefit from a couple of weeks of seeing how this present group of Mets go about their business for Randolph. Or as one Mets insider put it to me: "This is a real team here and these guys are really playing their butts off for Willie. Everyone's ego is in check, and from what I saw of (Milledge) in spring training, he's got great talent but he needs to tone down the all the stylin' and that other stuff." It was interesting that before the game last night, Cliff Floyd, whose place in the Met outfield Milledge might very well take next year, was issuing a glowing endorsement of the kid, noting, "He's willing to learn about baseball and that's what we're all here to do." Still, when asked what the most important thing he was told when he was first called up to the big leagues by the Montreal Expos in September of '93, Floyd said: "Be on time. You want young guys to respect the game." One can only wonder if Floyd was subtly referring to what many others observed about Milledge in his first major league spring training - that he routinely operated on "Pedro time" in that his standard arrival time at the ballpark was 9:00-9:15 for 9:30-9:35 stretching when everyone else (Pedro exempted) would be there at least an hour earlier. So what's the big deal, especially if he didn't break any rules? If nothing else, the perception that, already, at the tender age of 21, Milledge could be what is referred to in baseball as a "one-in-25" guy. For their sake, the Mets can only hope this is all perception because there is clearly talent here and seemingly a confidence to perform on the big stage of New York. And if there are any character flaws, this, rather than Triple-A, is probably a much better venue for straightening them out. "We're bringing the kid up and giving him an opportunity to play," said Mets GM Omar Minaya, "but at the same time he doesn't have the pressure of having to be 'the man.' Our rightfielder is Xavier Nady when he's ready to come back and Milledge is only here to help us out in the meantime." In that respect, there was little he could do to help out last night in a game in which Alay Soler's ineffective pitching put the Mets in a 7-1 deficit by the fifth inning. In his first at-bat, Milledge lined out sharply to short with none out and a couple of runners on in the second. His first major league hit - a leadoff double to left in the seventh - was likewise smoked, but his new major league mates were unable to get him home. While it was merely a snapshot, his tools - bat pop, speed afoot - are obvious. It doesn't take a seasoned scout to see the kid's got natural talent. He got here just in time to play last night - this time not by his own doing - and he had himself a pretty nice debut, even if it was in a losing cause. "I really wasn't nervous. I don't know why, I was just real calm," said Milledge. "Right now I'm not focused on how long I'm gonna be here, but how much I can contribute for us to win." While Minaya might insist this is only a 10-day-to-two-week cameo, Randolph conceded that "anything can happen." And even though the Mets would not be at all surprised if Milledge performs well enough to warrant staying here the rest of the year, the most important thing for the long term is not how he hits, runs or fields, but how he takes to the program. Originally published on May 31, 2006 http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/story/422385p-356547c.html

I don't know about that soupcan but Bannister can come off the DL on June 26th.