I laughed. I wonder what happens if they really have to trade him someday. I'll bet in our PC society someone gets at least verbally reprimanded for this.

Yahoo is reporting that Roger Clemens lawyers have launched the most devastating hole into McNamee's story about him offering proof that he was never at Jose Canseco's party that was supposed to be the party that started all of this.

Digging back into my archives for this one. With pitchers and catchers reporting next week I figured this was as good a time as any to put this up.

I am so sick of ESPN telling me how football is better than baseball. Recently I read Bob Costas' book, Fair ball. I have to say, “it made me ill.” I realize it was written a number of years ago now, but he makes so many arguments that I believe have come to be proven wrong that I almost feel like I wasted my time reading it. One of the contentions he makes is that Baseball is no longer

America

's past time and he insinuates that baseball is to blame. In fact he says baseball is broke. Here's my one word response: HOGWASH.

Now, don’t turn me off yet. I actually agree that there are probably more Americans watching football than baseball. Personally, I watch both. I agree that there is probably more Americans watching football. My point is that doesn't make football better than baseball. I would submit that what attracts more people to football is not the mental side of the game. Don't misunderstand me here, I'm not saying that there isn't a mental side to the game of football; I am saying that most average football fans don't understand it. To truly appreciate baseball you have to understand the mental side of the game or you're done.
Most people, in my opinion watch football because they want to see someone get the snot kicked out of them. Baseball is art. Baseball brings more to the table. In short I believe that Football by and large is more popular in

America

because

America

is dumber than it was 50 years ago. Our standardized test scores would certainly seem to prove my point. I enjoy football, I love the Steelers. I can tell you every QB for them from Bradshaw to Ben. I'm not knocking football. I'm just saying that Costas' book is flawed and the media mad dash to cry how the game is broken is wrong. Baseball is still a beautiful thing. Even if Barry's cheating, which I believe he probably is, baseball brings things to the table that other sports don't.
Let's take my beloved Steelers for instance.   What's their game plan? Get the lead, run the ball 5 million times.  In baseball what happens when you get the lead? You still have to give the other team a chance to score for however many outs they still have coming. There is no running the ball into the line and keeping it out of their hands. You actually have to give the ball to their offense and let them take their swings. It's conceivable in football that you could get the lead with 6 or 7 minutes to go in the game and never give the ball back to the other team's offense.
Another reason why the average person might not be turning to baseball today is the microwave effect. Our's is the only generation to set the microwave to cook out meal and tap our fingers as we wait expectantly for it to cook, the whole time rolling our eyes because it's taking too long. Bill Veeck said, "This is a game to be savored, not gulped.  There's time to discuss everything between pitches or between innings." One of the things I've always said is that Baseball is like good sex, you can't rush it. Good baseball is about relationship. One of the buzzwords today is community. Baseball builds community.  It's not an up and down sport, it's not ten guys jumping at each other so one guy can run around the corner for a few yards. What it is, is a game that is as much about the anticipation as it is about the actual happening. How many of your favorite memories for baseaball involve sitting on the edge of your couch or standing in a screaming stadium, with every one around you offerering their opinion on what is going to happen next? Throw a fastball, hit a home run, or throw a change up get him to ground softly to second. Will the batter be the next Kirby Puckett, or the next chump? Baseball is about what might happen, what could happen as much as it is about what does happen.
I just watched a show tonight that talked about what if Steve Bartman hadn't caught that foul ball in the NLCS. Perhaps, a better question from that game is what if Alex Gonzales had handled the ground ball to him?
Baseball requires more of the fan. And it should be that way.  If nothing else this whole steroids fiasco proves that anytime baseball gets too fixated on the Glitz it turns on itself and tarnishes its rich past.
Simply put, it is easier to sit and watch a football game and cheer. You can be loaded out of your mind and still figure it out. Not a lot of nuances that the average fan has to pick up in order to be that into it. Now, I’ve been to my share of games that involved drunken baseball fans. I’m not trying to attack football here as much as I am attempting to defend baseball.  I’ll write a formal review of the book later.

Does Major League Baseball have problems? Of course, any business does. But all the Chicken Little’s in the media need to pipe down and enjoy the game. Get steroids out, let the rest alone. If baseball is losing some of

America, it’s probably ok. In a generation that has to have the “right now” effect, baseball just doesn’t offer that and it shouldn’t. Besides all other arguments, I am reminded of an age old cliché: “Variety is the spice of life.”

In what can only be described as an attempt at sensationalism, many sports news outlets are reporting that Pedro Martinez was seen at a cockfight in his home country. Fox sports shares a story from the NY Post where the authors makes a Jr. High attempt to connect Pedro to Michael Vick.
Here’s my favorite quote:

The video marks the latest incident involving sports stars involved in animal cruelty.

Atlanta Falcon quarterback Michael Vick is serving a 23-month federal sentence and has been indefinitely suspended by the NFL because of a felony conviction on dogfighting charges.

There’s one big difference between what Vick was doing and what Pedro was doing. Pedro’s not breaking the law of his country. Even our astute investigative reporters note that he was with the man who used to be the country’s Minister of Sports and that it isn’t illegal in the country they are doing it in.  Have we really come to the place in our country where even the liberals think we need to start making the rules for how other countries live their life? Is **** fighting disgusting? Yes. Is it wrong? Yes. Does it matter what I think in the Dominican Republic? Nope. This is just dumb. If Pedro wants to go to a **** fight, that’s his business, not mine.
I even saw some idiot clamoring for Pedro to be put in jail on a message board. He kept saying, “We put Vick in jail, same thing for Pedro.” Has the American education really failed that badly? Is the ability to weld logic in America really that poor? Maybe we can invade the D.R. next so we can make sure they create laws that we like too. Did Vick get railroaded? Probably. Did he get more time than a no-name non-football player would have? Absolutely, but he did it in a country that has laws against it. The Dominican not only doesn’t have laws against it but it seems to be nationally accepted. It’s time for Americans to get over their hubris. It’s time for the “sports reporters” to just report the news and leave their agendas at home.

What is cheating? I had a fun conversation with a friend of mine where I called Bill Belichick a cheater. My friend told me that he didn’t consider him a cheater. He asked me how it was different than scouting a team. My answer was simple, “Scouting is legal, taping the other teams coaches is not legal.” I have quite a few New England fans, and they all seem to be deflecting rather than defending their beloved coaches actions. One guy employed the, “Well, they thought they were being taped, too!” defense.  Numerous others have told me, well they didn’t gain an advantage in the game they were caught in, so it’s not a big deal. I have to admit this bothers me. Maybe, I’m naive. Maybe, I’m just dumb, but I really believe that honor matters. That winning inside the rules of the game matters. To me, if I knowingly break the rules I’m cheating. If there are rules that don’t make sense, then I say change them but until they do, if I break them in an effort to get an advantage I am cheating. If I fail to get an advantage then I am just inept at cheating, but it’s still cheating.
Now, most of these conversations happened before the alleged taping of the Saints Super Bowl walk through. I’ve always wondered how Belichick went from what he did in Cleveland to what he did in New England and I will be the first to admit that ascribing all of his recent success to cheating would be sophomoric and over simplistic but for those Belichick defenders I have a serious question. If it turns out that these allegations are true and that they did videotape the walk through was that cheating? How many rules can you break before it’s cheating? One of the most remarkable things about this run by this team has been those plays where the defender seemed to know better than the receivers what was coming. Those last minutes drives where it didn’t seem the defense could muster anything to keep the Patriots from methodically marching down the field and winning the game. If --and I realize at this point it’s merely allegations-- the Patriots did indeed videotape the Saints walk-through then they should be punished. Belichick should be suspended for at least a season. To me, it is irrelevant if they gained an advantage or not, they broke the rules.
Ok Pats fans and those who wish to defend Bill, tell me these three things:
Was videotaping the coaches hand signals, which is blatantly spelled out in the rules as illegal cheating?
Was video taping (again if it happened) the Saints walk-though cheating?
How many rules can you break before you’re considered to be cheating?

I’ll get to the whole Belichick getting out-coached last night another time.