Seems like the "wrongest thing that has ever been said about baseball" label could use another entry

Guys. Guys.  GUYS.  Fellow bloggers and baseball fans. Listen up. All of the Hall of Fame stuff you've read these last few weeks is great.  You've read about backne and BALCO and bWAR, but you don't realize that there's one simple fact out there that shows how bad HOF voting is bad. Good thing there's Forbes.com writer Chris Smith to point it out for us.  I won't discuss the whole article because you know the boring parts about Bonds and Clemens, but here's the crux of it:

There are plenty of arguments to be made about what’s wrong with the Hall of Fame, but there may be no simpler example of just how messed up the current format is than this one simple fact: Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens received a different number of votes. This year Clemens received 206 votes, or 37.5% of the total, while Bonds got 202 votes (36.8%). That marks the third straight year that this has happened. In 2013, Clemens received 214 votes (37.6%) to 206 votes (36.2%) for Bonds; last year Clemens again outpaced Bonds, 202 (35.4%) to 198 (34.7%).

So guys: Chris Smith has disovered the one simple fact that shows how bad this voting is. The fact here isn't that the best-hitting catcher in baseball history wasn't elected, or that two writers actually (actually!) voted for one-time all-star Aaron Boone, two voted for one-time AL saves leader Tom Gordon, and one for this guy.  Heck, I would argue that it's more of a travesty that 15 actual human beings returned ballots that apparently did not vote for a guy who won four straight Cy Youngs and has the second-most strikeouts in baseball history.  OR that 49 actual human beings did vote for a guy with the highest ERA+ of any starting pitcher in history.

Apparently the real problem is that three writers, for some reason, don't believe that Bonds and Clemens have exactly the same steroid resume.  But you know - there's a lot of gray area there. In fact, Mr. Smith even acknowledges that Clemens was found not guilty of perjury and the charges againstn Bonds were dropped.  Maybe someone out there has a slightly different view of the evidence in these cases. That seems a lot more plausible than the terrible voting decisions I pointed out last paragraph, all of which are grounds for some justice.

Anyways, thanks for the enlightenment, Mr. Smith. Armed with this one simple fact, I will now go to the BBWAA and they will recognize the error of their ways, reform the voting system to be a beacon of justice and fairness and the American Way. 

Now that that's said, I also happen to think that John Smoltz should've been like a sixth-ballot Hall of Famer.  Has there ever been another guy whose HOF candidacy was indirectly boosted by an injury that forced him to switch positions and generate an unusual stat line?  But that's for some other post.

Rick Reilly gets OHsofuckingclose to writing a good article; ruins it in the last five sentences

Been working on a post about Jonah Keri's MLB trade value rankings, but it's not done, so I thought I'd share this tonight.  Holy ballsack, there is no way Rick Reilly wrote the first 95% of this.  You can bet your bottom dollar he wrote the last 5% though--particularly the last sentence.  You'll see.  Most of this is so inoffensive (and at times, even dryly funny) that I can present it with very minimal comment.  The subject matter: while HOF voters are taking idiotic (and often completely unfounded; Bagwell, Biggio, and more to come) stances regarding players who are allegedly tied to PEDs, the expansion era committee voters happily sent in three managers who managed several of STEROID HISTORY'S GREATEST MONSTERS for extended periods of time.  Although the two voting bodies consist of different people, that's fucking dumb, no?

I'm so pumped up for next July in Cooperstown!

I can't wait to see who's going to be in the crowd at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony for new members Tony La Russa, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre.

Maybe Mark McGwire will show up? It might be as close as he'll ever get. La Russa managed him for 15 seasons in both Oakland and St. Louis and says he never saw McGwire do a single steroid. Imagine that.

Simple unadorned sarcasm that doesn't have a cringe-inducing pun or play on words.  Like I said, if you're like me, you'll have a hard time believing Rick wrote this.

Maybe Alex Rodriguez will attend? He probably won't get in, either. Former New York Yankees skipper Torre says he didn't even notice A-Roid's alleged PED use in the four years he managed him. A-Roid's got plenty of time to go to Cooperstown. He's appealing a 211-game suspension for PEDs. Torre? No ban for him. In fact, he's an executive vice president of Major League Baseball now.

Maybe former Atlanta Braves manager Cox will look out in the crowd to see his old star Gary Sheffield. Probably not. Cox says he never saw all the PEDs Sheffield was taking when he had him right under his nose in the Atlanta clubhouse.

To be fair, Cox was probably legally blind by the mid 90s.

In all, the three managers being inducted oversaw at least 34 players who've been implicated as PED users and never noticed a thing wrong.

Now this isn't entirely fair.  It's not like any of these managers have (to my knowledge) gone on record and swore that they never once ever suspected any of their players ever took any steroids ever ever cross my heart and hope to die on a stack of Bibles.  But the general point here is 100% fair--the national media and a good chunk of baseball's fanbase have spent the last 15 years getting preachy and angry about steroid use.  It's escalated during the course of the last 5 or so years to a fever pitch.  It's probably not going away anytime soon.  So given that the role of a manager is to know his players inside and out so he can put them in the best possible position to succeed on the field, how is there zero outrage directed at these guys?  I'm not saying that steroidmongers should treat managers exactly the same as they treat players.  I'm saying, given that there are dozens of writers and hundreds of thousands of fans bursting with moral indignation at the idea of guys like Clemens and Bonds getting into the HOF, why hasn't there been ANY discussion at all on the national level about the role managers played in enabling steroid use?

Sorry.  Rick, you're doing a good job.  Back to you.

You could build a wing with the admitted and suspected drug cheats they won with: A-Rod, Roger Clemens (Torre), Jason Giambi (Torre and La Russa), McGwire, Jose Canseco (La Russa), Melky Cabrera (Torre and Cox), David Justice (Torre and Cox), Andy Pettite (Torre), Manny Ramirez (Torre with the Dodgers) and Sheffield (Torre and Cox.)

What the fuck is Melky Cabrera doing with the rest of these guys?  Other than that, great point.

If we get really lucky, maybe disgraced HGH pitcher Darren Holmes will show up. He played under all three of them!

I'm sure Rick didn't do that research himself, but the fact that he thought to ask someone else to do it represents a level of effort miles beyond what he usually puts out.

It's just another year in the Hall of Farce, 

Dumb, but not as dumb as his usual "jokes."  I'm just thrilled he DIDN'T go with "Hall of Shame."

where the codes of conduct shift like beach sand; where the rules for one set of men are ignored for another; where PED poppers can never enter, but the men who turned their backs to the cheating get gleaming, bronze plaques.

Hail The Great Enablers!

Holy crap, it's a little melodramatic (it's not like the managers were buying the steroids for the players or anything), but wow, that's borderline good writing.

La Russa's slipping on the Hall of Fame jersey Monday is the sight that really tested my gag reflex. He did more for juicers than Jack LaLanne. 

A dated reference, to be sure, but again not nearly as dumb as his usual fare.  I expected a joke about Orange Julius or something.

He managed McGwire and Canseco -- the Wright Brothers of the Druggie Era -- for 21 combined seasons. He made millions on their pimpled backs, won his first World Series title on their syringes and built his 33-year managing career on their artificially carved biceps.

Under La Russa, the Oakland clubhouse became a kind of leather-upholstered showroom for creams, rubs and injections that allowed players to work out harder, recover quicker and attack the game like a wolf in a hen house. It didn't change much in St. Louis, either, where he says he didn't notice what McGwire, Troy Glaus, Fernando Vina and Ryan Franklin were doing.

Score another victory for Baseball's Best Fans, who trip over their dicks telling you about how their team always Plays The Game The Right Way.  I hope Will Leitch falls out of a hot air balloon.

He spent eight hours a day around these guys, eight months a year, and yet he never saw a thing. Maybe he dressed in a different clubhouse?

Who knows whether and how many of these players were openly using in the clubhouse, but the managers aren't idiots.  You know they knew.  Sorry to acknowledge Canseco, because the last thing he deserves (besides attention) is acknowledgement, but I pretty firmly believe him (and Ken Caminiti, and the rest of the long list of players who have said that everyone in baseball knew everyone was using).

But he goes into the HOF and those players never will. Maybe he can send them some Instagrams.

A pretty bad cultural reference without any meaningful context other than "this is one-uh them apps them kids like to use these days," but still, this is an A+ relative to everything Reilly has done since like 2004.

Hey, you think any of the three skips will mention how PEDS helped them get to that sunny afternoon in Cooperstown?

Oh, and I can't forget to thank Katalina at Tijuana Pharmacy for all her help. Like my players always said, "We can't get cut without Kat!"

You won't even have to be in Cooperstown to smell the hypocrisy. Even the faintest scent of a rumor of PED use is enough to sink a player now.

Managers? Odorless.

Take Houston Astros great Craig Biggio. He had more than enough career to get in, and even though there isn't a stitch of evidence against him, the writers have kept him out because they have a niggling hunch he might've used.

Again, the BBWAA is not responsible for the election of these managers, but the broader point is absolutely worth talking about.  Currently, the discussion about steroid use by subtopic is split up as follows: 90% players, 5% MLB itself, 5% owners.  Managers need a chunk of that pie.  A pretty big one.  (Obviously the owners and league could also stand to gain at least twenty percentage points as well.)

Remember, kids: If you play the game under even a single cloud of suspicion, you're out. Manage it under one? Come on in and pull up a plaque!

Can you imagine this in any other sport? Do you think for a second Johan Bruyneel, the manager of all of Lance Armstrong's cheating, champion Tour de France teams, didn't know what was going on? You figure Bonnie and Clyde's driver just thought they were always running late?

As I think I've made pretty clear around here, I dislike steroid users but do not hate them with the flaming passion of a thousand burning suns.  I especially dislike guys like Bonds and Clemens, who were gigantic assholes in addition to using steroids, but what are you gonna do?  They were great players, as were McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, etc.  I don't want to be in the business of being the morality police and punishing players for conduct that wasn't against the rules when they were doing it.  I also don't want to be in the business of deciding who would or would not have gotten in anyways absent steroid use.  And I sure as fucking fuck especially don't want to be in the business of deciding whether a guy who's never been formally connected to steroids "looked like a user," or some horrendous garbage like that.  

So you know what?  If I were voting, I'd pretty much just vote without factoring it in.  That might allow for the admission of a guy like McGwire or Sosa who may not have made it in without roids, but that's a far lesser evil in my mind than the exclusion of guys like Bagwell or Biggio.  I don't like steroid use, but Jesus, can we please unbundle the national panties?  It happened.  There are now good measures in place to curb its use.  Anyways, this has been a great and thoughtful article by Rick, and I'm happy to see what he may be in the process of turning over a new leaf, so why don't we---

Next month, the writers are expected to vote down McGwire for the eighth time and Clemens for the second time. 

Oh no.  Rick, please don't.  Please stop while you're ahead.  We don't need to delve into this.  You've done a great job here--

They're right to do it. 

Noooooooooooooooo.  Even if you disagree with my steroids stance and agree with his, I hope you can agree that he didn't need to go into this.  The article would have been just fine without it.

Those guys are tainted beyond any reasonable doubt, though Clemens still maintains innocence. But for the expansion error 

Rick, please!  That's the kind of joke we're used to seeing from you!  The wheels are coming off!

committee to let these three managers in -- unanimously, no less -- after winning hundreds of games with better chemistry is the gold standard of double standards.

Jesus.  That's so disappointing.  Just please don't finish with one of your signature horrendous one liners--

If you believe they didn't know, then you'll fit perfectly in Dupers Town.

And the collapse is complete.  Jean van de Velde, Rick.  Rick, Jean van de Velde.

Bill Simmons started watching the 2013 Red Sox in August, and hey, what do you know, a championship! Time to write about them like he had been paying attention all season (Part 3 of 3)

It's sad it has taken me this long to wade through this.  I have missed about twenty great opportunities to comment on Bill's weekly NFL point spreads picks articles, where he is 25 games under .500 (and God knows how many aggregate games under .500 in the last however many years) and keeps saying things like "As for this Chiefs-Broncos game: I'm grabbing the points only because the line should be "Broncos by 3" and I'm getting an extra 1.5 points." (Actual quote.)  Oh yeah Bill, are ya?  Is it really the case that someone who is now 80-105-6 against the spread this season has the ability to discern 1.5 point errors in the spreads created by Vegas insiders?  Or are you just a fucking idiot?  This guy is a world class horse's ass.  Let's finish out his attempt to pretend to care about baseball at any time other than when the Red Sox are throwing a parade.

I am old enough to remember every Red Sox season since 1975. Baseball is long. Baseball takes forever. It's day in, day out, for six solid months — seven if you're lucky.

Insert joke about Chris W and the NBA playoffs here.

Winning is always fun. But this team? This team was REALLY fun.

Because they won a LOT.  Had they won only a medium amount, this team would have been a REALLY big disappointment.

They weren't the most talented 25 guys we've ever had,

Yeah, I don't have time to do a full breakdown of their roster, but what with them only winning 97 games and having like seven All-Star caliber players on the team (granted, only four made the team, but you can make the case for Lester, Lackey, Ellsbury and Uehara being in the neighborhood), I agree.  This is only one of the fifteen or so most talented Red Sox teams in their 100+ year history.  NO ONE BELIEVED IN US!

but they had a way of lifting each other up and making each other better in ways that — for an individual sport disguised as a team sport, one in which you're on your own just about all the time — make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Terrible writing.

For the first three months, I thought we'd remember them as a likable group that helped the city heal after the marathon bombings. We didn't have that one lights-out starter,

Clay Buchholz, as of his injury on June 8: 9-0, 1.71 ERA.

or that second big bopper in the lineup.

Yeah, all they had was a lineup with very good hitters at nearly every position.  Other than Will Middlebrooks, every guy who received significant ABs ended up with and OPS+ of at least 111.  I'm not going to track down their OPS+ as of June, but suffice it to say, it wasn't exactly David Ortiz and a bunch of all glove no bat guys.  This team could hit.  Anyone who actually watched them, rather than ignored them because they hadn't won a World Series since 2007, would know that.

You can only go so far with the "everyone lifting everyone else up" thing, right?

Throw yourself in front of a train.

A team with A-list starters — maybe Detroit, maybe Tampa —

Or maybe Boston, with Buchholz (ERA+ of 234), Lackey (116) and Lester (109)

would rip through us in October and that would be that.

WE NEVAH HAVE POSTSEASON SUCCESS!  IT'S NAWT FAY-UH

I never thought they had a higher ceiling until August, right around the time Koji Uehara turned into Dennis Eckersley circa 1989. 

Which, as the commenter from like a month ago pointed out, was probably the first time all season Bill watched a game.

You need weird shit to happen during the season to win a World Series; this season certainly qualified. In mid-August, they outplayed a scorching-hot Dodgers team in Dodger Stadium; that's the first time I remember thinking they had a chance. 

Or, again, the first time he remembers tuning in to watch them.  J-BUG SAID THEY WERE THE REAL DEAL AND I HAD TO WATCH WITH MY KEEN GAMBLING-ATTUNED EYE TO MAKE SURE.  6 TO 1 TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES AS OF AUGUST 1?  THAT LINE IS TOO HIGH, VEGAS!  THANKS FOR THE FREE MONEY!

They protected home-field advantage in September, rolled through Tampa in the ALDS, then everything crashed in the ALCS. Their bats died for 16 solid innings. Sanchez and Scherzer 

When he first wrote this, he said "Verlander and Scherzer" (they published a correction later), because, you know, he totally is a big Red Sox fan who watches every game, even when they're not playing well.

weren't just shutting them down; they were eviscerating them.

They weren't just pitching well.  They were pitching REALLY well!  Pulitzer please!

And then the eighth inning happened … and this happened.

AND I GOT A TEXT ABOUT IT AND TURNED THE TV BACK ON TO SEE HIM CIRCLING THE BASES!

[Ortiz grand slam video goes here; apologies to all readers in Michigan]

He came through. Again.

So here we are, about 3000 words into this piece: we're finally ready to hear about David Ortiz.  DID YOU KNOW HE PLAYED SMALL FORWARD ON HIS MIDDLE SCHOOL BASKETBALL TEAM?  HIS FAVORITE PLAYER WAS A CERTAIN 6'8" GUY FROM FRENCH LICK INDIANA (MAYBE YOU'VE HEARD OF HIM)?!?!?!?!?!

The playoffs were never the same. 

Horrendous, terrible, horrible, gut-wrenching writing.

The Beards ripped off eight wins in 11 games, more than enough for Boston's third World Series title in my lifetime.  My friend Sully summed it up best via text: "Aidan's (his 12-year-old son's) 

DON'T ACT LIKE YOU DON'T CARE!!!!  MY FRIEND MADE A BABY!  BE IMPRESSED!

reaction was like, 'Cool, another championship.' They have no idea that this doesn't happen." They really don't. I never thought I'd see one … and I've seen three in 10 years. Huh????

Die die die die die die.  The only reason I didn't put that in ALL CAPS was to distinguish it from the mean things I'm saying as Bill's proxy.  Trust me, I meant DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE.

We'll remember 2004 for all the obvious reasons. 

I HAD SEX FOR THE FIRST TIME!  WELL ALMOST!

We'll remember 2007 as proof that 2004 wasn't lightning in a bottle that could never be replicated. 

Fucking Cleveland.  Thanks, Ryan Garko.  Colorado-Cleveland would have been the least watched World Series of the 21st century (and who gives a shit about that, really?) and also would have produced a WS champion that wasn't patently obnoxious about everything.

We'll remember 2013 for Boston Strong and the beards, and over everything else, for David Ortiz. And that's the case for three reasons.

Let's start a list for no reason!  People like lists!  Bill is the Buzzfeed of sportwriters.

1. We thought he was done. 

Steroid joke here.  Honestly, I don't even hate Ortiz, so I don't really want to get into bitter specifics on my own.  But after the way 2009 was his worst season ever (.238/.332/.462 as a 33 year old) and he way he started 2010 (.185/.267/.407 through mid-May) it's kind of hard to believe he became a 4.4 WAR .309/.395/.564 player as a 37 year old in 2013.  I'm not some rosary-clutching loser who thinks steroid users are worse than war criminals.  I'm just saying, do I think David Ortiz uses steroids?  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm no comment.

This has to be mentioned. I wrote Papi's baseball eulogy in June of 2009, when his body was (seemingly) breaking down and he couldn't get around on 89 mph fastballs anymore. Boston fans loved him so much that they never booed him

WE NEVAH BOO OW-UH GUYS UNLESS WE FEEL LIKE DOING IT AT THE TIME

 — every Ortiz failure was greeted with an awkward silence, the ultimate respect for everything he meant. I can't remember another sound quite like it. 

You mean, like silence?  The same sound you can get pretty much anywhere on Earth at any time?

You almost wanted to hear a few boos, 

No you didn't, this is just awful writing.

if only to temper the collective discomfort. But no Boston fan could boo that guy, just like we could have never jeered at Bird or Orr. My final takeaway in that column: "Barring a miraculous return of bat speed, he'll be benched or released soon. It'll hurt, and I'm going to feel bad. I already do."

I HAVE DROPPED HIM FROM MY AL-ONLY 14 TEAM KEEPAH LEAGUE!  LET ME TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE 16TH ROUND OF THE DRAFT LAST SPRING!  IT IS RIVETING!

But wait! His bat speed eventually returned. That same season, Ortiz's name got "released" in connection with a positive result from a 2003 MLB drug test that was supposed to be anonymous, a stigma that trails him to this day. The details of that report were so murky, nobody can fully explain what happened — more than 100 players apparently tested positive for something, only they weren't breaking any baseball rules because there were no rules in place, and they could have triggered a positive test for amphetamines or some now-illegal supplement that wasn't illegal in 2003. Ortiz professed his innocence, although Boston fans would have preferred that he did it a little more belligerently. The moment passed and he hasn't failed a test since. He's never been involved in a Biogenesis-type scandal, outed by a clubhouse attendant, tied to some shady Victor Conte character, anything. He looks exactly like he looked in 2003; if anything, he's a few pounds skinnier.

But he's also 37 years old (he will be 38 on November 18), and he's cranking 98 mph fastballs, and he looked finished four years ago. So I get it. After everything that happened these past two decades, we're always going to be a little suspicious. Of everybody. 

You know what, that's way more than I'd expect Bill to acknowledge.  That's actually only 75% biased and idiotic.  But yeah, Ortiz is probably on steroids.  Peter King says MAYBE.  THAT'S A LEGIT 75% CHANCE.

But if you examine his 11-year Boston run as a whole, it makes a little more sense: His first Boston season in 2003 (31 homers, 101 RBIs, .288/.369/.592) doesn't look much different than his 11th Boston season in 2013 (30 homers, 103 RBIs, .309/.395/.564).

If you compare his numbers from when he was in his athletic prime to his numbers from when he was at the age that most professional athletes get put out to pasture, they're basically the same!  That PROVES that he's clean!

Bill Simmons is a fucking jackass.

Even if his 2013 World Series numbers look supernatural — 25 plate appearances, 11 hits, eight walks, two homers — really, he just caught fire for five games after slumping the previous series (2-for-25), then they smartly pitched around him in Game 6. Did you know his regular-season OPS in Boston is the exact same number as his playoff career OPS (including his trip with the 2002 Twins)? 

Fascinating!  Who gives a flying violent fuck, in the context of a discussion as to his value to the 2013 team, his likelihood of steroid use, and his relationship to Bill Russell?

It's true — .962 for both. Big Papi has looked the same for 11 years, barring a couple of peaks (2004 through 2006) and valleys (the homestretch in 2008, the first three months of 2009 and 2010). I don't know what else to tell you. 

You could tell us it's suspicious as fuck that a 33 year old cratered, and then was back to being a superstar at 37.  That's one option.  In fact you DID tell us that, you just failed to draw the world's most obvious conclusion from it.

In a vacuum, this goes down as the second-greatest career comeback in Boston sports history behind everything Ted Williams did after Korea. Ortiz was finished, then suddenly he wasn't.

/Larry B has head in hands

2. Five days after the Tsarnaev brothers blew up Boston's most sacred event, and just 24 hours after one brother was killed and the other was caught, everyone decided that it was OK to play baseball at Fenway again. 

MLB and John Henry decided it was OK to play baseball at Fenway again, because 1) the bombers were killed/caught, and 2) there was money to be made.

The game happened on a Saturday afternoon, preceded by an emotional ceremony and many prayers. You always hear that tragedies put sports in perspective, that they prove we shouldn't care this much about the successes and failures of a bunch of wealthy strangers. I'm going the other way — sometimes, sports put everything else in perspective. 

Horrible, terrible, head banging against wall god awful writing.  Klosterman would be proud though.  SECRETLY IT'S ACTUALLY PERSPECTIVE THAT PUTS EVERYTHING ELSE IN SPORTS!  THINK ABOUT IT!

Our favorite teams bring people together, keep family members close, bond people from different generations. 

Other thing that brings people together, keeps family members close, and bonds people from different generations: being close to people, being family with them, and interacting with them.

Some of the happiest moments of my life involve something that happened with one of my teams. Some of the best relationships I ever had were with Boston athletes that I never even met. That's a bad thing?

Yes.  The happiest moment thing, I won't lie, I actually agree with.  Some of my happiest moments do non-sarcastically involve sports.  The relationship thing?  This guy is a huge fucking loser.

Of course, we always worry that these guys don't care about us. 

Only if we're insecure and are desperate to think that OW-UH GUYS play the game the right way BETTAH THAN YO-AH GUYS.  Any of us who are rational just want to see our team win because we like our team, and we don't really care very much about whether the players are deeply invested in the team or just there to make a buck.  Because we're not fucking stupid.

That they're just passing through, throwing on some laundry, cashing some checks and pretending they care. We've all been burned by favorite players. 

IT'S
NAWT
FAY-UHHHHH

You start throwing your guard up after awhile, 

Holy Jesus, melodramatic much?

and eventually you stop caring quite as much … 

When your team goes a few years without winning a title...

even if you don't want to admit it. I am 44 years old now, a million years away from being the kid who lugged his autographed, framed Clemens/20 K's photo to six different apartments before breaking it into pieces in the seventh. 

Terrible writing; were these apartments he lived in, or apartments he visited in an effort to track down Clemens to get him to autograph it again?

It's really hard to rope me in at this point. But when Ortiz grabbed the mic on that Saturday and screamed, "THIS IS OUR FUCKIN' CITY!!!!!," I don't think I've ever been prouder of an athlete. 

Non-sarcastically, I kind of agree.  I love profanity on TV.  Although I find it annoying that the FCC didn't fine FOX, or whoever televised the game, because the director was a Red Sox fan.  You'd better believe that if the bombing happened in Phoenix and Paul Goldschmidt swore on TV, there would have been fines galore.  America is full of retards.

3. He's been the life of the World Series party three times now — 2004, 2007 and 2013 — and over everything else, that's when the David Ortiz era becomes historically fascinating. 

No. Lots of players have won three rings with the same team in non-consecutive years.

By the time I graduated college, Bird, Russell, Orr and Williams were the big four. All discussions started and ended with them. 

He's 44, born in or around 1969.  Graduated college in or around 1992 (because he went to prep school, the spoiled fuck).  WHAT ABOUT THE GREATRIOTS, BILL?  WHY WASN'T TONY EASON IN THE DISCUSSION?  Oh that's right, the Patriots weren't good yet.  I'm obviously trolling because there is no Patriot from the 1960s through 1990s who compares to Bird, Russell, Orr or Williams.  But I can happily say that although I would sooner throw myself into a volcano than become Bill Simmons, if I am still writing about sports when I'm 44, I'll have no qualms with talking about my favorite Rockies and Nuggets from days gone by.  That's because I'm not a frrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrontrunner (Do we have a label for that?  We should).

In the 2000s, Tom Brady made his run … and if the 2007 Pats had finished 19-0, he would have joined them. 

BUT HE DIDN'T WIN A CHAMPIONSHIP THAT YEAR, HE ONLY WON THREE OTHAHS, AND HE MADE ME SAD WHEN I BAWT TICKETS TO SUPAH BOWL FO-AHTY TWO AND WORE MY RANDY MOSS JERSEY, SO HE'S NAWT IN THE PANTHEON.

Right now, he's still standing outside the front door waiting for the bouncer to let him in. To be continued.

Barf.

But Ortiz? We thought the bouncer shooed him away a while ago. Now he's back. He just cemented his reputation as one of the greatest clutch Boston athletes ever, and one of the greatest clutch baseball players, too. He came through time and time and time and time and time again. So many times that I can't even keep track, actually.

Evidently you haven't been, because as you said yourself, Ortiz's regular season OPS in Boston is the same as his playoff OPS (.962).  It's higher than his career OPS with two outs and runners in scoring position (.945), in "late and close" (as defined by baseball-reference.com) situations (.875), and "high leverage" (also bbr) situations (.936).  Basically, he's always been really good; no better, and perhaps a bit worse, when it was 6-0 in the 4th inning of a game in May than when it was 2-2 in the 8th inning of a playoff game.

Throw in his personality, throw in the iconic "our city" moment, and throw in the stakes — nothing from 1919 through 2003, with people living entire lives and dying without seeing a Red Sox title — and I think the bouncer just let him in. 

Bill Russell and Bobby Orr and Ted Williams > Larry Bird >>>>> Tom Brady >>>>>> David Ortiz.

And you know what else? It's a great place. It's the best place. You get to live forever in there. People tell stories about you to their kids, and their grandkids, and they can always say they saw you play. You might even get your own statue downtown someday. Tomorrow, it happens for the great Bill Russell. Someday, it will happen for David Ortiz. It will.

Worst.  Callback.  Ever.  Fuck this guy.

Simmons tries to pretend like he never had a silver spoon in his mouth; some asshole dives into the deepest part of the deep end re: steroids

Whew, writing that title was a lot of work.  Not sure how much energy I've got left for the post.  Tonight I found two short articles worth bitching about, so I'll write about both.  You're welcome.  But wait!  Bonus item (thanks to tips in the comments to the last post), before I get to the Simmons article:

is this the greatest sporting event of 2013 (so far)? They just went end to end for 34 OT minutes. This is amazing.
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) June 6, 2013

In fact, no!  No it is not.  It did involve DA FACKIN' BROONS though, so Bill needed to check in with his Tweeps to see if everyone else was as impressed as he was.  He probably has a yearly Google calendar alert that pops up on June 1 that says something like "Check to see if Bruins are still in playoffs; if yes, follow them, if not, Tweet about disappointing recent lack of success and strain it puts on fanbase."   Now for the article.  Don't worry, it's not recent; Grantland, realizing that there is an insatiable demand for Simmons articles from fuckwits nationwide, but having to cope with the reality that he only writes about one per month, has decided to start posting old articles.  This one comes from the summer of 2005, just as he was completing his transition from "Bad writer who is still sometimes a little entertaining and occasionally makes you feel sorry for Boston fans" to "Bad writer who is also an insufferable piece of shit."

Outside the Boston Garden before Game 7 of the '84 NBA Finals, scalpers were getting upwards of $2,000 per ticket. Since we were fortunate enough to own midcourt seats, I remember my father perking up as we heard the numbers being tossed around on Causeway Street. Four grand for our seats? He could barely afford season tickets as it was. 

Yeah fucking right.  Get the fuck out of here.  You went to some fancy fuck New England prep school before attending Holy Cross.  I'm real sure your dad was combing the couch cushions to find the loose change needed for those GAHHHHHDEN seats.  That obviously fabricated last line speaks to my contention above: this is a transparent case of Simmons saying "This anecdote about the incredible cost of scalped game 7 tickets is interesting and needs to be in the column... but I'd better not make too much of a show out of the fact that my dad had expensive season tickets!  How can I accomplish that?  I guess I could always just lie.  Done and done."

Did he ever really consider it? Of course not. 

We were huge Celtics fans and didn't need the money!  Why would we have?

As basketball fans, we knew Game 7 of an NBA Finals was the ultimate experience.

Yep, he was a shitty writer back then too.

You can't possibly imagine the level of intensity, the overpowering electricity in the building, how it keeps going higher and higher.

Unless you've sat at midcourt for a game 7, that is!  In that case, you'll be able to imagine it perfectly, because like me, your dad had season tickets.

Rarely are these games well played – there's too much pressure, too much energy.

I like the unintentional foreshadowing of game 7 of the 2010 finals here. 6 FOR 24 LOLOLO LOLOLL OLO LOLOLL

I kept thinking about that game while the Spurs outlasted the Pistons on Thursday night. You never beat someone in a Game 7 to win the title. You outlast them. You persevere. You survive.

Other things you do: outscore them, and in doing so, beat them.

We'll remember them as one of the weaker championship teams in recent memory, 

He was obsessed with how the present will look in the future back then, too.  Also: eight years down the road, and I don't think that statement is true.  That Pistons team was the defending champs, and they were tough.  The Spurs quasi bookended that 2005 title with much more easily won titles in 2003 and 2007.  I wouldn't sell that 2005 team short at all.  The 2006 Heat?  That's one of the weaker championship teams in recent memory.  

a team that could be pushed around at times, a team whose quality players disappeared for entire games. They needed a miraculous effort from Big Shot Brob in Game 5 just to avoid an ignominious 3-4-5 sweep in Detroit. They couldn't close out the resilient Pistons in Game 6, which any of the better NBA champions in history would have done. Yet none of that stuff will matter 50 years from now. As Joe Theismann would say, championship teams win championships.

The fact that he quoted that as legitimate analysis rather than ridiculous bullshit to be laughed at tells you everything you need to know.

Lost in the shuffle were the defending champs, 

More shitty writing.  They were not lost in the shuffle.  They were one of the two teams on the court.  They won three of the seven games in the series.

who defended their title with the requisite amount of honor and integrity. 

Just like the 2008-2009 Celtics, when they outlasted a mediocre Bulls team and advanced to the second round!  What a fantastic title defense!

They carried championship belts like boxers, shouted "on and on and on" before games, always thrived with their backs to the wall. 

They were really good.  But America needs to know: were they as good as the Patriots?

Some kept comparing them to the Patriots, 

No one did that.

and their impeccable record in must-win games and closeouts put them in the general ballpark. But the Pats won 34 of their last 38 games and haven't lost at home since December 2002. The Pistons never dominated over a prolonged stretch like that;

Pick your jaw up off the floor--I know it's shocking, but Bill reached the conclusion that [team that doesn't play football] is not as FACKIN' DAWMINATING as the GREATRIOTS.  Fun fact: that Pistons/Spurs finals feels like a long time ago, but the Patriots have not won a Super Bowl since.  Warms my heart.

Enough of that. Moving on, some jabroni from ESPN named Steve Wulf has written the hand-wringiest steroid piece you will ever see.  For the most part I will present it without commentary, because for the most part it is absurd and embarrassing on its face without the need for explanation.

This is important. You must care. You need to stop enabling the cheaters the way we used to. You have to root, root, root just as hard for the game itself as you do for the players.

Players have been cheating in one way or another for 125 years.  Somehow, some way, the game seems to be doing fine.

Yell, don't yawn. A new generation of players is playing us for suckers, just as Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro and Roger Clemens did. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, A-Rod, shame on me. Whether it be on the blogosphere, or in Twitterville, 

Use of "Twitterville" is a good way to out yourself as old, out of touch, unfunny, and probably not worth listening to when it comes to sports analysis.

or over sports radio, the vox populi seems to want the latest revelations to go away. Funny that some of the same people who criticized Major League Baseball 10 years ago for not doing anything about the steroid epidemic are now blasting the commissioner for trying to prevent a relapse. 

Who is saying that?

The illegal use of PEDs strikes at the belief in the game. If you can't trust a player's numbers, you can't really trust the score.

The next person to quantify the effect steroids has on a player's numbers, and furthermore, what the overall effect is when both pitchers and hitters are juicing, will be the first.  I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I'm saying it's not worth shitting ourselves over.  And in any case, that's a dumb leap of logic--I have no trouble "trusting the score" even if guys like Braun and Rodriguez are juicing.  Every team probably has guys who are juicing. They're all probably playing a little better than they would if they weren't juicing.  That means that even if one did want to avoid trusting the numbers, they should still be OK with trusting the score.  The baseball universe has yet to collapse in on itself as a result of any of this.

Does anybody have the nerve to ask this: Should the Yankees even count the past two of their 27 championships, the ones they won with Clemens (2000) and Alex Rodriguez (2009)?

I'm sure the 2000 Mets and 2009 Phillies were squeaky clean.  That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard.

Taking steroids or HGH or any other illegal substance is not a victimless crime. Even if the players don't care about the side effects of their elixirs, baseball does have a responsibility to the young athletes who would emulate those regimens.

Cue up Helen Lovejoy.  Holy shitballs.  While "preventing kids from taking steroids" is a perfectly reasonable thing for society to want, trying to connect it to MLB in this way is embarrassing.  The answers to steroid problems among high schoolers are increased awareness of the dangers of steroids, increased parental involvement in the lives of high schoolers, and increased efforts to shut down steroid suppliers on the law enforcement end.  Not among those answers: wagging one's finger at MLB.

The financial investment we put into being fans is nothing compared to the emotional investment. Remember that wonderful moment when Mark McGwire passed Roger Maris, hugged his own son and then met with the Maris family? Feels kind of cheesy now, doesn't it?

It was always cheesy.  Watching McGwire hit the ball all over the place was cool because few guys could do it like he did it.  It was not cool because he hugged his son at home plate.  If you watch sports and glean more than a small sliver of your enjoyment of them from the emotional storybook moments like McGwire meeting Maris's family, you're wasting your time.  Just watch something else.  And anyone who thought McGwire got to 70 without any extra supplements was miles out of the loop.

It's just plain wrong. Yeah, Gaylord Perry threw a spitball, and Ty Cobb sharpened his spikes, and King Kelly used to take a shortcut from first to third. But the use of clearly prohibited banned substances is cheating of a much more profound nature.

And why is that?  Go ahead, I'll hang up and wait for your answer.

The decision encompasses at least five of the Seven Deadly Sins: pride, envy, greed, gluttony, sloth. (Lust and wrath may be in there, too.)

Ah yes, the Bible.  That's why steroids are evil.  Thank you and please step down from the pulpit.

Scott Miller attempts to defend BBWAA, makes zero salient points, makes BBWAA look exactly as idiotic as it is

This whole HOF thing is just fucking infuriating.  I can't describe it any more creatively than that.  I've spent hours discussing it with various other internet loser nerds the past couple days, but this relatively short post will probably be the only one I write about the subject.  It's just... too... fucking... infuriating.

Outrage?

I'll tell you what's an outrage: 

Distraction?  I'll give you a distraction from my colleagues' idiocy that I wish you would focus on rather than focusing on them:

That 20 members of the Baseball Writers Association of America did not vote for Ted Williams in 1966 (out of 302 ballots). That 11 whack-jobs decided Babe Ruth was not worthy of their votes in 1936 (226 ballots). That, somehow, 36 writers bypassed Jackie Robinson in 1962 (160 ballots).

Can you believe baseball writers have been retarded jackasses for decades?  It's true!  Now let's just agree that because 5% of voters didn't cast ballots for Babe Ruth 75 years ago, what just happened during this election is totally acceptable.

That the first strong wave of the Steroid Era washed back out to sea Wednesday without anyone establishing a beachhead on the shores of Cooperstown is not an outrage.

If that were the only thing that happened, it would sort of be kind of acceptable.  Instead, guys like Time Raines and Mike Piazza and Edgar Martinez and Curt Schilling and Craig Biggio are not in the HOF yet, when they absolutely should be.

It is to be applauded on many fronts (Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa). 

You know, if there's one thing baseball writers just don't do enough of, it's applauding themselves.  Good for Scott for taking some him time and giving himself the pat on the back he doesn't at all deserve.

It is to be constructively criticized on others (Craig Biggio, Jack Morris, Tim Raines).

Jack Morris doesn't belong in the HOF unless he buys a ticket.  As for the other two guys, and plenty of others on the ballot, you are sadly fucking mistaken if you think the BBWAA deserves some "constructive criticism" for freezing them out.  They deserve a "swift ball-kicking."

But what it is not is a disaster, or catastrophe, or the coming of the apocalypse.

It certainly isn't, and of course it's just sports, blah blah blah, but it's awfully fucking disingenuous to tell readers "Hey don't get all worked up about these HOF omissions!" when a good chunk of the BBWAA spent the last several months getting plenty worked up about the candidates (and telling the public about how worked up they were).

Hall of Fame voting throughout history has been messy, imperfect and, often, contentious. But one thing the test of time has proven, unequivocally, is that the process works. 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH

Spoken like that awesome BCS Twitter feed that they introduced to try to squash momentum in favor of a playoff. "Hey just a reminder, under our system #1 and #2 always play each other!" "Hey, just a reminder, most players who deserve to be in the HOF eventually end up there!"  Clearly, in each case, there is no better way to do things.

Not only does it work, it works better in baseball than it does for any other Hall of Fame in any other sport.

Again, how about some distractions?  The football HOF is a total joke.  At least we're not them.  Now leave us be.

If Tuesday's voting was circumspect, far better that than rushing ahead recklessly. 

No.  Not far better, or better in any way.  You're holding out on a bunch of guys who have never been linked to steroids and who don't even have stats that suggest steroid use, so that you can posture and grandstand about what awesome responsibilities you have.  You can all go get fucked by a hippo.  Guess what happens next year?  Maddux, Glavine and Thomas join the ballot.  And then there will be like 12 people on there who absolutely deserve to get in, no argument, and another 5 who arguably should get in, when writers can only vote for 10 guys and the vast majority of them vote for fewer.  Had guys like Biggio and Raines been rightfully elected this year, it would be less of a problem.  Not hard to figure out.

As Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson said during the MLB Network telecast, given the number of decorated and controversial players on this bloated ballot, “this was one of the most talked about classes in history.”

And somehow this justifies electing none of the extremely well qualified candidates.

Tuesday's shutout is a setback to the joy and pageantry of the Hall's induction weekend in July 

SOMEONE THINK OF THE WRITERS AT THE CEREMONY!  IT WON'T BE AS FUN THIS YEAR AS IT USUALLY IS!

and, larger picture, it is a sad day for baseball. Ever since well-placed flashlights started revealing skeletons in the juicers' closets, there have been many sad days.

Oh my God.  Go fuck yourself.

But as the late Hall of Famer Sparky Anderson regularly reminded, the game is bigger than any one man. It flourished post-Ruth, flourished post-Stan Musial and Robinson and it will flourish post-juicers.

Barfbarfbarfbarfbarfbarfbarf

The last time the BBWAA failed to elect a player was in 1996. Yet from that class came six players who eventually were elected to the Hall of Fame.

And from this class should come, even for the mall hall people, at least seven players (Biggio, Bagwell, Piazza, Raines, Schilling, Clemens, Bonds) who are absolute locks and six more (Walker, Martinez, Trammell, the rest of the roiders) who probably should be in.

Again, a process.

Again, a sentence fragment that tries to justify something that is totally unjustifiable by relying on the mind-numbingly idiotic assertion that "these things take time."

Biggio's 68.2 percent topped a vote requiring 75 percent for election, leaving him well-positioned for the next year or two. Two years ago, for example, Roberto Alomar did not gain entry in his first year on the ballot, falling just short at 73.7 percent (another outrage). Then he jumped to 90 percent of the vote in his second year on the ballot.

This isn't even the thrust of this rant, it's for another time, but why?  Why?  Why did that happen?  Did like 70 voters decide to stop being dipshits during those two elections?

Everyone focus up for this part, I'm about to say something that will sound hyperbolic but I swear is not intended as such.

Major League Baseball issued a statement following the shutout that notes election to Cooperstown is “our game's most extraordinary individual honor” and reads, in part, “achieving enshrinement in Cooperstown is difficult, as it should be.”

That was much more on the mark than players' union boss Michael Weiner's reaction, calling the election “unfortunate, if not sad. Those empowered to help the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum document the history of the game failed to recognize the contributions of several Hall of Fame worthy players.”

Wrong. What is unfortunate and sad is that the union, pre-Weiner, stonewalled every attempt at steroid testing for years. No small part of the reason we reached this point is because the union for far too long permitted and nourished an atmosphere in which its members who cheated flourished (both on the field and financially) as its members who stayed clean were put at a disadvantage.

OK, here we go.  "This is not hyperbole" disclaimer is in place.  This blog has existed for almost six years.  I have probably written something like 500 posts for it, and read a shitload of bad sportswriting in search of articles to post about.  

(/Larry B clears throat)  

This attempt by Miller to sweep MLB's tolerance, if not tacit approval of steroid use under the rug is probably the most dishonest thing I have ever seen in these 5+ years and 500 posts.  It would take time I do not have to go back and review all my old posts to see if any other articles I've read can match it, but I certainly can't come up with anything off the top of my head.  Pretending that it was the union and the union alone that prevented steroid testing from appearing sooner than it did is fuckheadery of the highest order.  Scott Miller is, in a few words, a tremendous asshole.  May he be fired immediately and never again heard from by baseball fans.  Chris W said this and I think it's a good way to end this post so I can go calm down: "Who harms the game more? Some guys using steroids in an environment who encouraged it? Or fringe non-players who turn the game into an adversarial me-fest so people pay attention to the sad little Chasses and Lupicas of the world?" Yup.

Hey! Here's a Guy Who Has Managed To Write the Dumbest Article About Steroids and the Hall of Fame Ever!

Doesn't that seem impossible? I mean, really--impossible? The HOF steroids issue has reached critical mass this year with like 5 or 6 guys on the ballot whom baseball fans strongly suspect used steroids. Given that is the case, everyone with a BBWAA card and a sense of strangely positioned moral righteousness has decided to sound off about this, that, and the other thing in an increasingly cacophonous cipher full of sound and fury signifying blah blah blah. And a lot of those articles are really really dumb.

But this article by some knucklehead named Dominic Genetti really takes the cake for terrible, terrible articles about steroids and the HOF. Let's dive right in.

Well the moment has finally come, players wrapped around steroid controversies are on the baseball hall of fame ballot.And it includes three guys who have their supporters and their haters — Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa. Out of the three it appears only Clemens has the only route to enshrinement. Despite trials and accusations and this and that, there has been nothing that points to Clemens using anything but water. But the accusations and negativity around Clemens is too fresh, there hasn't been time for the haters to take a moment and see the light of truth. Plus, there hasn't been time for Clemens himself to get out and be a coach or be involved with a major league club to refurbish his reputation. Trust me, the day he becomes a pitching coach for a competitor, the love for Clemens will come back. 

So far so...whatever. I mean, me personally, playboy, I don't give a fuck about steroids in the hall, not with dozens of known amphetamines users snugly secured in the plaque room, but if one did, this isn't the worst beginning to some polemic against their enshrinement. Par for the course. Of course, Genetti is not content to just blandly moralize. No, he has to drop the stupid on us with the force of an H-bomb:

The best thing for the baseball writers to do is elect Craig Biggio unanimously and show those who took steroids — and send a message to those considering using them — that going against the game's rules, not playing naturally can, and will, hurt your career. It's clear Bonds had his issues with steroids and Sosa came forward confessing he used them during the peak of his career. 

Lol wut? That's the best thing for baseball writers to do to send a message about steroid? Is elect a guy unanimously who is far from exempt from steroids suspicion?

Also, I'd like to call attention to the last clause of this snippet regarding Sammy Sosa confessing to steroids use. In the words of "kids these days": Link plz!

Biggio is just the best choice of the top four popular names on the list anyway because no one played with more effort, more heart and more dedication than him. Clemens was a great competitor, so was Lee Smith — who had a great career as a closer and is also highly favored on the ballot — but Biggio did everything but pitch.

Hey, look--I'm not necessarily here to tear down Biggio, and shame on Genetti for putting me in the position to do anything resembling that, but this is unadulterated horseshit. Let's break down the idiocy here:

1.) To the extent that Biggio is a deserving HOFer (and he absolutely is), reducing his qualifications to "playing with effort and heart" is the equivalent of building Derek Jeter's case around him playing for one team his whole career. Matter of fact, I'm surprised jackass didn't bring that up here for Biggio.

2.) There are a lot of players on the ballot who played with heart and intensity. Like for instance, all of the serious candidates. You don't have a HOF career without playing with intensity unless you're Greg Maddux or some shit. But hell, let's reduce it to players who played with excessively visible intensity and are equally qualified as Biggio. Like, for instance, Tim Raines who isn't suspected of using any performance ENHANCING drugs, and comes up zero times in this article. Or Roger Clemens, the only evidence of steroid use for whom comes from a guy with the credibility of...well...Domonic Genetti

3.) I am getting real sick of Lee Smith as a legitimate HOF candidate. Shut the fuck up, BBWAA and elect the deserving candidates before you get to the Jim Rices of the world.

4.) Biggio did everything but pitch? I mean...most position players do that. It's kind of the definition of position players. Or do you mean he was a complete player who was able to seamlessly move positions? That has serious value--but only because he put up great numbers while doing it. Otherwise you have Brandon Inge. VOTE HIM UNANIMOUSLY PLZ KTHX BYE

Biggio was the kind of guy who made pitchers take deep breaths before every pitch because they really had to concentrate to face him. He did everything to beat you offensively. He made hitters and runners groan when he snagged the ball defensively because he very rarely messed up. And when he did he made up for it on the next play or at-bat. 

Number of times pitchers worried about what pitch to throw Jeff Bagwell: Zero

Number of times Bagwell made a mistake and made up for it on the next play as if he were Carl Lewis in the middle of a national anthem: Zero

Biggio's 3,000-plus career hits are more than enough to get him into the hall his first time on the ballot and the efforts he made in the field everyday should make him a unanimous choice.

Relevance of Biggio's 3000 hits to hall of fame qualifications: 100%

Relevance of Biggio's effort in considering his qualification as BEST BASEBALL PLAYER EVER OR AT LEAST MOST DESERVING OF BEING FIRST UNANIMOUS ELECTEE TO HOF: I don't know...like 0.25%?

It's possible by "efforts in the field" he means "fielding." So...given that the only players elected to the HOF solely for his fielding (Bill Mazeroski, Ray Schalk) had to wait for the Veterans Committee to put them in....relevance of fielding to Biggio's unanimity? Like 12%

I can remember when he would start games at catcher and finish the game at second base. He was made of concrete and bricks, it seemed like nothing could stop Craig Biggio and because of him the Houston Astros — the team he spent his entire career with — had successful runs into the postseason becoming the second team in the history of the NL's Central Division to win the pennant in 2005. The Cardinals were the first to do so in 2004. 

Hey, yeah! Biggio was a great player. I agree. And hey, the Astros had a great run in the 2000's. That's absolutely relevant to Biggio's HOF qualifications, I would agree as well. If only there were another player on that team equally un-implicated by any objective source in the steroids scandal to whom this Astros success would apply!!!!

Oh and the 2005 Astros? Weird year to pick to talk about how Biggio didn't benefit from PED's. Let's imagine that the psychic abilities of Genetti and other likeminded fools are right and Biggio never used but Bagwell did. How would the success of a team with three steroids superstars (in Bagwell--in this bizarre hypothetical--Pettite and Clemens) be a testament to the CLEAN MACHINE CRAIG BIGGIO?

A franchise can only have so many faces as each baseball season comes along and Biggio is certainly one of Houston's many — and in most eyes he is the only. 

I'd love to see some sourcing on that, Genetti. A team who had a gimmick called "The Killer B's" celebrating a number of superstars whose last name started with B--one of whom besides Biggio played for the Astros for nearly 20 years. That sounds like a team with only one face of the franchise. I'm really curious who these Astros fans are who are like "Forget Berkman and Bagwell--all we needed was Biggio." I suspect they number in the one's and their names all rhyme with Vomit Dick Richard Petty.

There are a number of players waiting for that opportunity to get "the call" with the voice on the other end telling them they've been elected to the National Baseball Hall Of Fame and Biggio should be the one who gets it this year. A lot of folks will say that if he doesn't get in now, he'll get in eventually. Well okay, I get their logic, but if he's going to get in eventually, let's just put him in now and not someone who needs to work his way back in to the hearts of baseball fans after a steroid controversy. 

The petty asshole in me wants to point out how poorly constructed that last sentence is from a "not writing like an 8th grader" standpoint so...I will.

If it were up to me, I'd like to see both Biggio and Smith go in. That'd be quite the induction class to go along with former Cardinals shortstop Marty Marion, who seems to be highly considered by the Veterans Committee. 

One of the most stacked ballot in years, only three players from which have any substantial stink of steroids on them and he hopes three people get in--one very qualified, one who would become one of the 5 worst pitchers in the hall...and Marty Fucking Marion.

The last thing I'll say is this: I understand people are suspicious of people with strange numbers in the steroids era. I'm not going to argue whether steroids users deserve to get in, that steroids do or don't help performance, or what the standards of the HOF should or should not be (except to say Lee Smith shouldn't sniff the HOF until every single holdover including Jack Morris is inducted). But I will say this:

No matter what standard you use, Craig Biggio is every bit as circumstantially guilty of steroid use as Bagwell. Same team with Caminiti, Clemens, etc etc. Same longevity. Same late career spike in power numbers. These can all be explained rationally, but I'm not interested in that, since  these writers aren't--no matter how rational or irrational you want to be, to argue that Biggio is THE CLEAN SAVIOR OF BASEBALL AND THE HOF and Bagwell is a DIRTY USER WHO USED AND CHEATED WHILE USING AND I JUST KNOW absent anything beyond the evidence available to every baseball fan makes you a moron, a hypocrite, and a piece of shit. Or in other words, Domonic Genetti

Embarrassing

ESPN employs a few legal analysts whose job is ostensibly to explain complicated judge-y court-y crime-y stuff to viewers/readers. It's a practice that makes sense in theory, but is utterly worthless in reality if they're going to let lawyer/writers like Lester Munson run wild with editorial commentary that's full of total horseshit. That's what happened here. I have no idea who Munson's dog in this fight is; could be federal investigator Jeff Novitsky, could be someone on the prosecution team, or maybe he just hates the judge who oversaw the trial and sentencing. In any case, I don't have much time to break it down but if you want to read the whole thing, just know that it reads like something a government PR rep might write in the aftermath of an expensive and relatively fruitless investigation/prosecution.

Q: Isn't a sentence of 30 days of home confinement a sign that the agents and the prosecutors failed in their pursuit of Bonds?

A: No. His sentence is not the result of any failures by federal agents and prosecutors.

Wrong.

There is no doubt that Bonds used steroids, and there is no doubt that he lied to the grand jury about his use. The problem that led to the conviction on only one count and a deadlocked jury on three counts of perjury was not the quality of the work of the agents and prosecutors.

Some of the work they did was quality. Much of it was shitty. If you're looking for some light reading that might make you think that the investigation was perhaps I suppose not handled quite as professionally as it could have been I guess, try this.

The problem was the refusal of Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, to testify against him.

If you can't close a case against someone without a key adverse witness's testimony, and you fail to get that testimony, you have fucked the dog. You did not conduct a quality prosecution. This is like saying "We didn't lose to the other team, they just scored more points than us."

For reasons that are not yet known, Anderson went to jail twice instead of offering evidence against Bonds.

Here's a theory for you, Columbo: maybe Anderson's refusal to testify has something to do with money changing hands between him and Bonds (and the fact that the two of them are buddies, sure). Anderson didn't feel comfortable perjuring himself in front of the grand jury so he figured he'd just do his time for contempt of court instead. I'm sure he sleeps soundly at night, and I'm sure Bonds made sure he was taken care of financially during, between, and after his two stints in prison.

Anderson's refusal to testify prevented the prosecutors from connecting Bonds to positive drug tests and other compelling evidence of Bonds' use of steroids. If Anderson had testified, Bonds would have been convicted quickly on all four charges.

But don't follow Occam's Razor on this one, people Munson desperately wants to fool: this is absolutely not the fault of the investigators and prosecutors involved.

In the face of Anderson's conduct, the prosecutors -- who occasionally stumbled --

Yeah.

rallied brilliantly

Brilliantly?

at the conclusion of the Bonds trial and obtained the conviction for obstruction of justice

Which is just as good as a conviction for perjury, as long as you don't care about establishing that Bonds actually lied under oath.

and were one vote shy of a conviction for perjury.

Put that one on your resume, prosecutors involved.

This outcome, even with the light sentence, is a triumph for investigative agent Jeff Novitzky and prosecutors Jeff Nedrow and Matt Parrella.

Jesus Christ. This sounds like a North Korean newspaper reporting on its soccer team's performance in the 2010 World Cup.

The government will not be asking a higher court to change this outcome.

No fucking shit, you fucking spin artist. They already have the option to retry Bonds on the perjury charges the jury deadlocked on. Bonds hasn't been let off the hook for those yet, so there's no need for the government to appeal. Not that they'd be able to buttfuck their way to a conviction the second time around anyways (should they get the chance). If the outcome of the trial was "guilty on obstruction of justice, but not guilty on perjury," you can bet your sweet bippy they'd be appealing along with Bonds.

It is Bonds who will be filing the appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The fact that he's appealing a relatively insignificant charge to avoid spending 30 days under house arrest because he has the money to do it is, again, not something over which the feds should be high-fiving each other. Read the rest if you want. It's fucking bizarre. And sad.

Make an immediate run for the Canadian border if Gregg Doyel is ever elected president

Bask in the glow of Gregg's mind-bogglingly stupid stance on how we should form public policy.

In the case of The United States v. Roger Clemens, the government thinks it's helping somebody. Not metaphorically or symbolically, but literally. The government thinks this is good. This is something we want.

No, the government thinks it's something the government wants, because the government really doesn't want people to perjure themselves in front of federal authorities.

This is helping.

Yes. A conviction will help, because the next time some asshole like Clemens is in front of Congress or a grand jury they'll be less inclined to be like GRRRRRR I AM ANGRY AND I LIKE LYING SO I WILL LIE NOW AND THEN I WILL THROW THIS PIECE OF A BROKEN BAT AT ORRIN HATCH BECAUSE HE'S AN ASSHOLE.

The government thinks this trial will remind everyone -- that's you, and that's me -- that lying under oath is wrong.

Assuming Clemens is found guilty or pleads to something, will it not? Will that result make you say "Nah, fuck it, I'm going to keep on perjuring myself anytime I get a chance. It's a fucking rush."

The government also thinks this trial will serve as a lesson for all you kids out there that steroids are bad. Don't take them, little Johnny Ballplayer. This is your reminder. That's what the government thinks.

Here's what I think about The United States v. Roger Clemens: I think the government's case is run by idiots.

Ohhhhh snap

This isn't a Tea Party rant about Big Government sticking its nose into our affairs. And this isn't a liberal plea for compassion toward Clemens, because he has been through so much already. No. This is neither of those.

I don't think you could find 10 people in the entire country with knowledge of the basic facts of this case who hold that "liberal" opinion.

This is steroid fatigue. That's all this is.

I see. The government's interest in showing people that lying to Congress will not be tolerated bores you. Hey everyone, Gregg is ready for something new- can we get some fresh news going on here? Can't the government just let this go and do something awesome like bomb the shit out of North Korea or give free money to everyone?

I'm tired of the whole issue, and I'm preaching to the choir because I know you're tired of it. And the irony doesn't elude me, because here I am complaining about steroid fatigue even as I slog through another set of steroid-story dumbbells.

I'm not tired of it. I want blood! Let's see this fucker get strung up! Eat a penis, Clemens. You're the worst.

Maybe I'm the dumbbell.

Yep.

Nah. The government is the dumbbell, because this is stupid.

No, you were right the first time. Also- what's with the government worrying about all this terrorism stuff? Ugh, it's been like 10 years. Can't they busy themselves with something else? Terrorism this terrorism that. BORING.

Christ. What a fucking asshole.

I Beat All of You to It. Suck It.

This is a big, fucking, flagrant red flag. If you ever want a recipe for how not to write an article, aspiring sports journalists, this is it. Courtesy of everyone's favorite old guy tryin' to relate to the younguns, Gene Wojciechowski.

Jeter the name that matters
If Yankees' captain ever ended up on positive test list, baseball's done

The Essence of Beauty would never!!!! What an unholy thing to even suggest!

But in all honesty, Gene's right. If Jeter comes up dirty, attendance at Marlins games is going to fucking plummet.

BRONX BOMBSHELL: DEREK JETER SAYS HE USED STEROIDS

Well, what would you do if ESPN interrupted your regularly scheduled programming for that one?

I would laugh, have a beer, call 20 people, say "ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG!!!!! Baseball must be dead now!", and in all honesty, I would probably have to take a week's vacation and do nothing but write on this website. Remember when Eck won the World Series MVP award? Multiply that by 54. It would be an apocalyptic barrage of Wojciechowski-quality writing.

Would it be enough to make you shred your season tickets,

....for a team I root for that has zero players ever linked to steroids.

douse your baseball cards with charcoal fluid

Douse my whatball whats? It's 1991, right?

and delete America's pastime from your Facebook friends list?

I'd log on and do that Gene, except I'm too busy Tweetering while listening to Lady Googoo on my newfangled iPhonical Mobile Music n' SpeakToPeople device. Thanks for keeping with the times!

I am about 60% sure that Gene Wojciechowski thinks it's possible to be friends with "baseball" on Facebook.

If I ever see Jeter's name attached to the hip of performance enhancers, I'm done. I mean it -- I'll never watch another big league game again.

Why not just hold up a gigantic sign that says "I, Gene Wojciechowski, am the worst fan of anything in the history of things and people."

Because if Captain Pinstripes could do the Vitamin S deed, then anybody can.

Huh. You have a point there, Gene. There's no reason to be suspicious of Craig Counsell right now, but boy howdy, if that there Jeter's guilty, we can't trust anyone!

Jeter's name is where I draw the line in the PED sand.

Hey, I've got an idea, let's repeat ourselves for 8 straight sentences!

Hey, I've got an idea, let's repeat ourselves for 8 straight sentences!

Hey, I've got an idea, let's repeat ourselves for 8 straight sentences!

Hey, I've got an idea, let's repeat ourselves for 8 straight sentences!

Hey, I've got an idea, let's repeat ourselves for 8 straight sentences!

Hey, I've got an idea, let's repeat ourselves for 8 straight sentences!

Hey, I've got an idea, let's repeat ourselves for 8 straight sentences!

Hey, I've got an idea, let's repeat ourselves for 8 straight sentences!

He is the absolute last guy I'd ever suspect of juicing.

Really? What about like, Craig Counsell?

It seems so, well, beneath him.

I trust that Gene personally knows Jeter well enough to make this claim. It can't be that he's just salivating over The Essence of Beauty.

He is the one player who I actually think would walk away from the game if he thought he had to cheat to compete.

The only one. Really. You think that of the 750 guys on Major League rosters, that Derek Jeter is the only one capable of achieving that level of "morality".

You are an idiot.

To me, Jeter is the anti-Barry Bonds, the anti-Roger Clemens and the anti-Alex Rodriguez. He understands that if you compromise the game, you compromise yourself.

It's very easy to make stuff up and then publish it!

Bonds, who didn't need to cheat but did anyway, was undone by an ego the size of Alcatraz.

Fair.

Clemens, the pathological liar who tries to intimidate people into believing his gum-wrapper-thin explanations, cheated because he was "The Rocket'' and you're not.

Clemens, the [description of Clemens], cheated because [I don't have anything to say about Roger Clemens, nor do I have any clue why he did it, so I'm just going to type "because he was 'The Rocket' and you're not" and hope that people ignore it and keep reading].

And A-Rod, overpowered by the need to please and justify his historic contract, copped to at least three seasons of PED use -- but only after lying about it for years and only after he was cornered by the truth.

See? Nice and factual. He made you forget all about that awful Clemens line. Sneaky little devil......

Not Jeter. I can see him marrying Mariah Carey before I see him squirming in front of a Congressional hearing with the lawyered-up Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire.

Because he wouldn't be squirming. Imagine him standing in front of Congress, with those calm eyes cutting through the souls of every corrupt politician in the room, saying, "I've never taken steroids." Is there a poor sap in the joint that wouldn't believe him? Of course not. HE'S FUCKING BEAUTIFUL!

Jeter would never put himself in that position. At least, that's what I want to believe.

So at least you admit that this is based purely on your personal conjecture, and not on any real evidence that Jeter is innocent.

Then again, I wanted to believe it with his New York Yankees teammate, A-Rod. More than anything, I wanted to believe in the integrity of Rodriguez's numbers.

You know, that Pujols fellow is being a tad overlooked. It's articles like this that make the man simultaneously the best player in the world and underrated. Why don't you write an article wondering if the best player in baseball is clean?

I'm not a Yankees honk.

A Yankees....what?

In fact, I want to scrape my ears with a steel-haired barbecue grill brush every time I hear play-by-play man John Sterling do that grating, "Thhhhhhhhhhhhe Yankees win!'' thing. But how can you not admire the way Jeter treats his craft? He is the template for baseball professionalism.

What does Derek Jeter do to deserve this label that like, Grady Sizemore does not?

That's why I'd need a year's worth of Dr. Oz therapy sessions if it turns out Jeter did the steroids deed. And I'm not the only one.

You know, the word "hyperbole" is thrown around a lot these days......

Yankees fans would go into permanent mourning if Jeter betrayed them. A-Rod's steroids admission they could handle; he was a free-agent import. Jeter, though, was born and raised by the organization.

Yankees fans would. Padres fans would not. Baseball would survive. I'm getting sick of this.

You think Yankees and you think Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Maris, Berra, Munson, Reggie and Jeter.

And Brosius, and Spencer, and JETER, and Williams, and JETER and Martinez, and, and David Cone, and JETER JETER JETER ZOMG I LOVE JETER HE GIVES ME TEH BIGGEST JOYGASMS EVERRRRRR!!!!!!!!!

Can you imagine if Albert Pujols, the man who eventually replaced McGwire at first base, was a syringe enthusiast? City officials would have to set up a baseball suicide prevention clinic at Busch Stadium. Cards fans adore Pujols.

There it is.

A Jeter steroids admission would be the deal-breaker for me. Pujols, too. If those guys went pharmaceutical, I couldn't go to a big league game if Bud Selig paid me.

Again....you don't seem to like baseball.

Ken Griffey Jr.? If The Kid did it, I'm gone.

Meh.

Chipper Jones? The same.

Are people even aware of Chipper Jones these days? Have they ever been?

Mariano Rivera? I'd think about it.

No calm eyes. That's why he isn't a dealbreaker.

Joe Mauer? The sound of weeping followed by my baseball resignation letter.

Mauer, though an absolutely great player, has barely had an impact on anything in his career (thinking mostly along the lines of what the Twins have done since he's been around...). Why Mauer?

Jim Thome? Baseball's nicest guy wouldn't do that to us, would he?

Don't you fucking dare say that around me.

Tim Lincecum? Sadness if The Freak was a fake.

You're just getting bored and creating verbal puns.

Trevor Hoffman? Hells bells, please not Hoffman.

See?

David Wright? See Mauer response.

That's just your way of saying "David Wright is awesome and uninteresting."

So far the game has survived the depressing revelations. It sort of coagulates, scabs up and then heals as best as it can.

There is an absolute dogfight going on for the NL Wild Card right now, but sure, I guess we should be dwelling on...::sigh::...this.

But there could come a time when the PED damage reaches a tipping point. For me, the magic number is 2.

Wait for it. I mean it. Just wait for it.

Jeter's jersey number.

BOOM!

Honestly Jeter, if you read this article and are guilty, please come clean just to spite this guy.

I Don't Particularly Like Manny But......

As it is written, he whom Jay Mariotti attacketh like a man who hath no intelligence, pnoles defendeth.

Fans Glorifying Manny Need to Get a Life

Hear that all you baseball fans who like baseball? Get a new hobby, losers!

Here comes the standard Jay Mariotti "shit-for-brains-audience" recap....the one that he gives in every article to take up space that consists of news everyone already knows. It really is a lack of respect for the readers to do this every time.

Just to refresh your memory, Manny Ramirez is a shamed steroid cheat. He used a female fertility drug that produced artificial testosterone, making him the latest in a pathetic line of high-profile players who have done performance-enhancers and contaminated an entire baseball era. He also is a petty quitter, having stopped running out groundballs in a hissy-fit ploy that forced the Red Sox to trade him to the Dodgers.

How's everyone doing so far. Still with us? Or are we moving too fast?

So why were people cheering him when he returned last weekend after a 50-game suspension?

Because Manny Ramirez arrived last year, swung the Dodgers over his shoulder, and carried them 21341923423.23 miles to the postseason. A role-model? No. A great baseball player? Absolutely.

And giving him long, robust standing ovations?

Good players that cause you to get to the playoffs when you otherwise wouldn't tend to get those.

And proudly wearing $22 concession-stand dreadlocks and No. 99 jerseys?

Because baseball fans do these kinds of things.

And waving signs that said "We Still Love You, Manny" and "It's all about the dreads, not the Meds" -- stadium greeting cards that made him feel good when he should be feeling like, well, a convicted scumbag?

I'm sure he felt like a convicted scumbag over the last two months. He got caught, admitted it, and served his penalty. What the hell are the fans supposed to do? If I'm a Dodgers fan, I cheer Manny. If I'm a Yankees fan, I cheer A-Rod. If I'm a Giants fan a couple of years ago, I probably don't boo Bonds (after much deliberation). It's that simple.

Why oh why would anyone with a soul, a conscience and working brain cells glorify a cheater?

Yeah, especially after he murdered all those puppies and killed people while driving drunk.

Manny Ramirez does not equal Hitler.

Because most of these goofs were Dodgers fans who made the short drive from Los Angeles to San Diego, where they bought up 60 percent of the seats and turned Petco Park into Mannywood South. As we saw in San Francisco with the local fawning over Barry Bonds, some cities simply lack the sophistication to hold an appropriate grudge against a cheater.

Holding grudges: A trait commonly found in sophisticated people

All they seem to care about is whether the player produces and the ballclub wins.

What terrible Dodger fans.

And right now, with the Dodgers holding the best record in the major leagues and surviving just fine in their time without Ramirez, fans are checking their morals at the turnstiles and dreaming about a dreadlocked World Series in Chavez Ravine.

Checking their morals at the turnstiles. Wow. Everyone who cheers for Manny is going to hell.

In New York, Ramirez will be peppered with questions about why he used steroids. His reluctance to address the issue so far has been as big a disgrace as the drug bust itself. With stunning arrogance, his defining quote to date on the topic was this June 9 gem: "I didn't kill nobody, I didn't rape nobody, so that's it, I'm just going to come and play the game." Actually, I might argue that he and the other superstar cheats have raped the game.

Baseball, coincidentally, is not a person.

Until he specifically answers the steroids questions, which Dodgers owner Frank McCourt says won't happen, Ramirez will face media heat nationally. This could lead to a breakdown in performance and attitude, if his meltdown in Boston last July is any indication.

Once Manny left for L.A., however, the media heat just disappeared completely, right? How'd he play there?

Also, 2008 Boston Manny: .299/.398/.529. Fuck you, Jay.

But when he was away, the likes of Andre Ethier and Juan Pierre excelled. A brooding Manny is a Manny who can distract the finest of clubs, as the Red Sox can attest.

OK, don't play Manny. Play Juan Pierre, and see how that works out. I hear he's close to his career norms this year!

And might I remind you, Ethier's breakout in the first place occurred last year, and coincided with Manny's arrival. I'm not saying one caused the other, but you can't say that Ethier has just magically started to be a good player without Manny around.

So when Mannywood officially reopens next week, fans can spend $99 for two seats in left field and two blue "Mannywood" t-shirts. My guess is, the place will be packed for the rest of the season.

Know what else the Dodgers should include in the package?

A vomit bag.

Hilarious.

Detective Jay Knew the Whole Time

You'll just have to take my word for it that Jay wrote this. It's a well-known FireJay policy that we don't link his articles.

At least three times, maybe more, I've asked Sammy Sosa if he ever has used steroids. Each time, he testily answered no, once stating that the only performance-enhancing substance he took was a "Flintstone vitamin." He had this goofy, cartoonish way about him that made you want to believe him, even though deep down, as someone who noticed that his head and upper body were swelled disproportionately to human reality, I knew he was as stone-cold guilty as any of them.

You. Fucking. Genius.

That's what I said, the biggest scandal in sports history. Think about it. Nearly every baseball superstar we've tried to embrace the last dozen years because of his magnitude and numbers -- Sosa, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez being the foremost -- has come up dirty.

Frank Thomas, Albert Pujols, Ken Griffey Jr, David Eckstein. Your move, Jay.

And all it does is make me ill for gushing over each of them at one time or another, starting with the Summer of Love in 1998, when Sosa and McGwire waged a muscle duel and blew past the single-season home run numbers of Roger Maris and Babe Ruth.

Gushing over them...but earlier you said.....knew entire time? pnoles confoozled.

The surge rejuvenated a game that lost some measure of popularity earlier that decade, when a labor impasse led to the cancellation of a World Series and widespread fan apathy. Alas, it turned out to be nothing but a hoax, just like almost everything else we've applauded in the Steroid Era.

Anyone else need this history lesson as badly as I did? Whew, thanks Jay. I'm up to speed now.

I'm ashamed to have admired their accomplishments, even while I was openly suspicious in some of my columns back then.

I'm ashamed, because I'm just like all of you, but suspicious, because I'm way smarter and better than you. I knew the entire time, cheered anyway, but documentation exists, Jay smart. I cheered, but I knew, I ashamed. Jay Good. All Else Bad.

Nah. It just was a matter of time and circumstance before the heat finally caught up to Sosa and he officially joined the Liar's Club. That's what angers me most about these villains, the deceit and the lies,

It hasn't even been a month since you wrote that it was impossible for the Chicago Cubs to win a World Series. Ever.

Like the Rocket and the Home Run King*, Slammin' Sammy conceivably could be headed to jail after standing before Congress under oath and testifying that "everything" he knew "about steroids and human growth hormones is that they are bad for you, even lethal" and that he "would never put anything dangerous like that" in his body. "To be clear," he said that day, "I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs. I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything." He was accompanied by a lawyer who said Sosa had difficulty speaking English, which struck me as odd considering Sosa knows English very well, including every choice curse word he has used when scolding media people.

Hmmmm....so Sosa actually does speak English very well, even though a lawyer said he did not? Detective Jay is on the case! I bet no one else ever noticed this!

Problem was, his testimony came in 2005, two years after the alleged positive test was included among the Dirty 104.

Which means Sosa may have been lying under oath. Perhaps we'll be calling him Slammer Sammy.

Throw the book at him boys! Another case cracked by Mariotti! His pure intellect is perhaps only surpassed by his one-liners!

So, no, he doesn't belong in the Hall any more than McGwire, who has been rejected overwhelmingly in his first three years of eligibility by the voting baseball writers -- myself included.

Did anyone know that Jay has a Hall of Fame vote (seriously)?

Well I don't have much to say about that, so enjoy this Chone Figgins quote that Jay plugged into this article.

"It's just like gambling on baseball. If you're not supposed to do it, you shouldn't be able to get in," Los Angeles Angels infielder Chone Figgins said. "It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Cheatin'. It's like not paying your taxes. They eventually catch up to you."

I hope Chone Figgins makes the Hall of Fame in 2020 or whatever just on the basis of this quote. Taking steroids is like not paying your taxes. Love it.

But wait, we haven't heard an Ozzie Guillen reference yet! Enjoy this quick, easy, and seamless transition that gives Jay an excuse to talk about Ozzie.

The infamous 2003 list was supposed to remain anonymous under terms established between Major League Baseball and the Players Association. For some reason, either the union didn't destroy the test results or someone in management is involved in hanky-panky. How interesting that Sosa's name was leaked in a Times story published on the day the Cubs were scheduled to play the crosstown White Sox -- owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, Selig's right-hand man forever -- in the opener of their interleague series. Ozzie Guillen, manager of the Sox, said before the game was rained out that all the names of the Dirty 104 should be released publicly.

Whew. See? Ozzie's relevant to this article too!

The Blizzard of Oz is a flaming hypocrite, of course, having said three years ago that former major-league pitcher Jason Grimsley was a snitch for serving as a steroids informant in a federal investigation. "Shoot the [bleep]," Guillen said then. "The only thing I can say is that a former player should shut up and go. Shut up and move on. We don't need these guys. Baseball is better without him." Now, Ozzie thinks all names should be revealed.

Now that he ::sniff:: doesn't write for the Sun-Times anymore, look how hard it is to squeeze in these Guillen insults! You can tell, this is absolutely killing him. Also, I love when Jay calls other people hypocrites. It gives me just the world's biggest joygasm.

I sensed Sosa was up to no good several years ago, when he claimed to have been "robbed" of $20,000 in the lobby of the Caracas Hilton. He had placed the money in a plastic bag, wrapped it inside a towel and supposedly left it in the lobby while he and his brother ate in a hotel restaurant.\

There's Jay's sharp eye for suspicious activity! Gee, I bet you could read that story to 25,000 of us normies and not a single person would have caught onto a whiff of shadiness.

Uh, what was Sosa doing in Venezuela with $20,000 in cash stuffed in a bag?

This logic is superhuman!

I was able to ask my questions to Sosa. Each time, he denied ever using steroids. I wanted to call him a liar but couldn't.

Today, I can.

...said Jay Mariotti, triumphantly, out of breath, planting a flag atop the highest mountain in Iowa, as onlookers in the distance gasp in awe upon seeing his rotund silhouette standing bravely in the orange, setting sun.

That shit's POETRY.