Nothing Against A-Roid

Well, it looks like A-Rod’s hair isn’t the only thing he’s been chemically enhancing.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve probably heard by now that Sports Illustrated printed a story revealing that Frost-Tip tested positive for steroids in 2003.

Wait a second. That’s funny. I feel like A-Rod did something else of note that year. But what the hell was it? Oh, right. Win AL MVP and the league home run championship.

What a coincidence.

But believe it or not, I’m not going to take this opportunity to rag on A-Roid. (Though obviously he has a new nickname for life.) I mean, you all know how I feel about the guy. This doesn’t really change that. And whatever. If someone somewhere is doing something morally compromising, I just assume that Frost-Tip is involved. So it’s not a surprise or a disappointment. Tell me Bernie Williams tested positive, that’s a different discussion.

My issue right now is actually with the MLB Player’s Association.

Yeah, I said it.

I believe in unions. Screw the man and all that. But Adam the Bull made an interesting point today on WFAN. (Not interesting enough to forgive the name, but I’ll address that another time.) He said that, while, on the one hand, it’s the MLBPA’s responsibility to protect the players who have been busted for violating the steroid rules, it should also be its obligation to protect those players who haven’t. The ones who are struggling to compete in an industry in which people have gone outside the system to give themselves an unfair advantage. So, when Gene Orza, the COO of the player’s union, warns players about upcoming drug tests, he may think that he’s only sticking it to the people at MLB. But not so.

By enabling the guys who are juicing to keep on juicing, he’s kind of sticking it to all the players who aren’t. And by keeping all of this under such a veil of secrecy, the people at the MLBPA end up tarnishing the names of everyone in the sport. Until someone decides to just bust this thing wide open, every player is a suspect. And that hardly seems like a way to protect whatever members of the union are within regulations. And those would seem, to me, to be the members most deserving of the union’s protection.

But not so fast, MLB. You’re not exactly exempt either. This whole thing only got so out of control in the first place because you let it. By treating our bitterness over a strike with a steroids-fueled home run frenzy. Patently imbecilic.

Basically, it would be as though your kid had a weight problem, and you were worried because all the other kids were teasing him. So when he started smoking crack and got thin and made friends, you decided not to say anything. Obviously he was going to eventually start robbing gas stations and having paranoid delusions, but for the moment, the problem was addressed.

Well, guess what? That’s obviously the dumbest way to deal with a problem ever. My analogy may be a little far-fetched, but seriously. Your kid is fat, you put him on a diet. You don’t let him smoke crack. People don’t like baseball? You do more promotions, have players do more community outreach, do more personal interest stories. I don’t know. Ever heard of marketing? I thought the whole reason advertising was everywhere was that we were all stupid enough to buy into it. But whatever you do, you don’t turn a blind eye as a steroid epidemic of unbelievable proportions takes over your sport because the effect that it’s having is working to your advantage. That’s lazy, and it’s immoral, and for salaries of up to $18 million a year, I would expect the guys over at baseball to be doing more than just calling it in.

So, here’s a revolutionary idea. Maybe the people at MLB and the MLBPA can see this as possibly the one opportunity they’re ever going to have to share a common goal—the total elimination of steroids from the sport.

It could happen.

And Coco Crisp could just wake up one morning and realize that, somehow, miraculously, he doesn’t suck anymore.

(Don’t worry; I haven’t forgotten.)

A H-O-R-S-E By Any Other Name

In case anyone wasn’t totally clear on just how bad things were going in the economy, let me paint a picture.

This year’s NBA All-Star weekend is going to feature a game of H-O-R-S-E—something that’s long been fantasized about by many. Only it’s not going to be H-O-R-S-E. Because it’s going to be G-E-I-C-O.

No, you read that right. Like, instead of an “H,” it’ll be a “G,” and instead of an “O,” it’ll be an “E,” and so on. I totally get why no one buys fiction anymore. I mean, the stuff that actually happens is truly amazing.

Now, we’re obviously all totally inured to advertising at this point. We go to the movies and see advertising for sodas, we buy cans of sodas and see advertising for movies. It’s everywhere, shamelessly woven into the fabric of our lives, and you know what? We deal with it. That is, however, until it subsumes the event that it is supposed to be merely sponsoring. That’s when we decide to get annoyed.

And by we, I, of course, mean me.

H-O-R-S-E is a game that reminds people of their youth, which is why it was such an appealing idea to bring it to the All-Star Game. Seeing as that H-O-R-S-E is such a classic game and that its name is integral to the actual playing of it, it’s going to irritate people when they find out that the good people at NBA had the gall to actually sell the naming rights. Like they owned them.

I mean, it’s not a total surprise. I’m guessing that the genius who thought of this figured that we’d all think it was insanely clever and adorable. Like everyone seems to think that gecko is. Everyone except me. What can I say? I’m just not a huge fan of those Geico commercials. Yeah, I know; I’m the only one. But A) Australian accents make me insane, B) Talking animals remind me of mascots, and C) I don’t get what’s so goddamn funny about a caveman.

Leaving aside my feelings about cavemen and Australian accents, the bottom line is that there was a semi-tasteful way to do this. Like to have it be H-O-R-S-E—sponsored by Geico. That I could have lived with. But this leaves me with the unsettled feeling that the only derby I’ll be watching this July will be the Exxon Derby.

But maybe I’m just being bitter. My friend Josh seems to think that we should capitalize on the advertising frenzy and is actually working on a deal with Google in which every fifth word he speaks will be Google. I’m currently trying to work out a similar arrangement with Snuggie.



You’d be surprised, but for people who walk around wearing blanket-robes, they’re kind of a bunch of hard-nosed pricks.

Leave Michael Phelps Alone

In a recent article entitled, “Michael Phelps Betrays Himself and His Admirers,” David Ramsey wrote that Phelps “fills us with shame.”

Because he took a bong hit.

And Ramsey isn’t the only one up in arms. Elisabeth Hasselbeck of “The View” and countless others have been making a stink about Phelps and his degeneracy, expressing their disappointment in his failure to act as a proper role model, even going so far as to demand that he serve time for his crime.

I’m sorry. Maybe I missed all the news coverage on this one, but did Michael Phelps kill a prostitute and burn an American flag after he finished smoking that bong hit?

I’ve never been a huge Michael Phelps groupie. I mean, much respect for all those medals and everything, but as soon as someone starts to have a following, that’s kind of where they lose me. Naturally, though, now that the world’s turned its back on him, I’ve obviously come to love him.

Sure, smoking pot is juvenile and silly and whatever. But you want to know what else is juvenile and silly and whatever? 23-year-old dudes. And you know what? Even though he has weird super strength and some kind of magical hidden retractable fins and is more famous than most of us will ever be, at the end of the day, Michael Phelps is just a 23-year-old dude. So I don’t get the expectation that he’d do anything other than act like a 23-year-old dude.

I understand that what he did was illegal. It’s just hard for me to take seriously that people are so up in arms about this when we live in a culture that turns a blind eye to the excessive consumption of alcohol by its young people. And legal or not, alcohol is the most toxic drug there is.

Seriously.

Too much alcohol can literally kill people. Too much pot makes people eat too much and laugh at dumb crap. Again, detox from alcohol can literally kill people. Detox from pot makes people get jobs and haircuts.

But what about his DUI in 2004, people will ask. Isn’t this a pattern? Well, a DUI is a heinous offense. I will admit that. I have no tolerance for that kind of idiocy. But it’s not impossible that the only pattern it was a part of was the pattern that dictates that dumb teenage boys will act like dumb teenage boys. Phelps lives his life under a microscope, so we just get to bear witness to every dumb thing he does.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that these behaviors are indicative of some kind of issue with substance abuse. It seems a little weird that our reaction would be to demand his head on platter rather than to express our concern. If the guy’s got a problem, he deserves our sympathy and support—not our censure.

In any event, I think it’s a little early to make that kind of assessment. For now, all we’ve got on our hands is the case of a 23-year-old kid who smoked weed at a party. And if that 23-year-old kid isn’t an Olympic medalist, this story sure as hell ain’t making headlines.

Oh, and speaking of which, State of South Carolina, I’m sorry but what? Criminal charges? For photos of someone taking a bong hit? I mean, really South Carolina. You already have John Edwards and those accents working against you. Is the goal to just eliminate any doubt from our minds that you are not a state to be taken seriously?

Well, don’t worry. I’m sold.

Battle Lines Being Drawn

Last night, Mets fans gathered outside of the SNY studios to stage a “Bring Manny to Queens” rally. The turnout was small, but the message was clear: Some people just have way too much time on their hands.

Don’t get me wrong; I believe in protest as a valuable tool to affect social change. I just kind of think that if you are going to expend that kind of energy it should be on something that matters. Like an actual cause.

I’ve learned after years of fanmanship that there is not a balance of power in sports relationships. We care about our teams more than our teams care about us. Players, managers and owners are ultimately going to do what they do regardless of what we think about it. Sure, once in a while they appear to be responding to popular opinion, but usually only when it’s a question of damage control. For the most part, though, we don’t have a particularly loud voice in the decision-making process. Nor should we. Opinions are like pujols—everyone’s got one. Show me forty people who want Manny on the Mets, I’ll show you forty who don’t.

But the good news for Mets fans is that Wilpon and Minaya ultimately share the same goal as their fans—to win championships. They’re just going to try to accomplish that goal in whatever way they see fit. Regardless of what anyone has to say about it. So no matter what they tell us, if they sign Manny—and I don’t think they will—it won’t be because anyone froze his ass off on 6th Avenue in a dreadlock wig to make it happen.

Boras Being Boras

In today’s LA Times, the Creature from the Black Lagoon (aka Scott Boras) was quoted as saying this about the Manny dilemma, “I can’t put a timetable on this, but I know that spring training is a long time away,”

Um, I hate to be that jerk who breaks the bad news, but it’s actually not. I mean, maybe according to the Kabbalah calendar. But in baseball time, it’s in a couple of weeks.

Clearly Boras is trying to Jedi mind trick us into thinking that Manny isn’t screwed because he needs to divert our attention. From what? The fact that he’s the one who screwed him. How? By making Teixeira his real priority, by overestimating Manny’s market worth and by failing to encourage Manny to sign with the Dodgers—because that’s really the place where he belongs.

Manny’s options are dwindling away. The Giants won’t give him the years he wants, the Angels are supposedly not making anymore moves in the foreseeable future, and the Yankees plain old don’t need him. (Hallelujah.) As for the Mets, despite Jerry Manuel’s rumblings, I don’t see it happening.

The bottom line is that the Dodgers haven’t just given him his best offer. At the moment, they’ve given him his only offer. I’m no sports agent, but when the season’s rapidly approaching, and no one seems to want sign your client, don’t you advise him to take the only offer he’s been given? Especially when it involves $45 million?

But, like I said, I’m no sports agent.

Leaving aside the question of who wants Manny (the Dodgers) and who doesn’t (everyone else), the fact is that Manny makes sense as a Dodger. He needs to be the big fish, needs to play for fans who care more about big hits than running out the ground ball. In short, he needs a town so laid back that its residents are oblivious of the reality that there are few things in life more irritating than Manny being Manny.

So, Boras, I’d advise you to go to the Dodgers and give them a reasonable counteroffer—like one that’s basically the same as their original offer but just a little bit higher so that you fools can save face. But do it soon because their offer has already expired and who knows at what point they’re going to be too annoyed to give you the courtesy of saving face.

Or you could just go with the Andy Pettitte strategy and stand your ground until you get the Dodgers to give you half of what they had originally offered. That or wait for someone unhinged enough to give Manny a four-year contract.

It could happen. And the Cubs might also win a World Series again.

No Lie Worse Than A Bald-Faced Lie

In case we were all getting bored while we waited for pitchers and catchers to report, here’s a little bit of good news: More steroids intrigue.

Awesome.

Am I the only one who misses the good old days when the financial scandals happened on quiz shows, the press knew better than to publicize the tawdry details of a president’s affairs and the baseball players letting us down were at least underpaid enough to be sympathetic?

In this latest addition of “Roid Rage,” both David Justice and Doc Gooden deny claims made by former Mets employee/steroid peddler Kirk Radomski in his new book. The claims? That he gave David Justice HGH and Doc Gooden two cups of pee. I’m honestly not sure which one I’d pick given the option.

The bottom line in these cases is that we never really know what happened. It’s one man’s word versus another and all a person has to go on is a gut reaction. And there is nothing less reliable than a gut reaction. (Except maybe Fox News.)

That said, I’m obviously going to give you my gut reaction.

It’s a well established fact that Doc Gooden had a cocaine problem. A fact established by the arrests, the trips to rehab, the positive tests for cocaine and, of course, his admission that he had a cocaine problem. So there’s no real reason for Doc to want to hide any behavior related to his drug use. The fact that a drug addict would want to cover up a dirty urine is hardly newsworthy. And, yet, Gooden vehemently denies the claim that Radomski ever peed on his behalf, saying, "I don't know what he's talking about. I've made mistakes through the years, and I've admitted them, but that never happened. And the way the tests were administered, it couldn't have happened. I've done enough wrong on my own, I don't want to get blamed for something I didn't do."

True, it’s possible that the old ballplayer instinct to “Deny ‘em all and let Mitchell sort ‘em out” may have kicked in. But, seriously, if Radomski’s story was true, I think Doc would have put the issue to bed a lot sooner by saying, “Yeah, I had a cocaine problem, which I wanted to keep from my employers. Obviously, I was never successful.”

But you know what else my gut tells me? That it’s a little weird that the only time David Justice would have purchased HGH from Radomski would have been right after the season had ended. And right before he was going to through airport security. I’m not saying Justice was never on the juice. I don’t claim to know. I’m just saying that the timing and location of their one and only transaction seems a little suspect.

Of course, Radomski does have a check that Justice gave him, which proves, at the very least, that money changed hands. But we’ll have to take Radomski’s word on that one. He can’t like produce the check or anything. But we know he has it. Cuz he told us. Unless, of course, as Justice suggests, Radomski is telling a "bald-faced lie.”

Touché, Justice. That’s harsh.

While we will never really know what happened here, a lot of the verifiable facts in the book were just plain wrong. For one, the assertion that Clemens and Conseco never played on the same team. (They played on not one but three of the same teams.) There was also the claim that the reason Radomski left the Mets was because the Wilpons had bought out the Doubledays and created an unpleasant working environment. (Radomski quit in 1995 and the Wilpon buyout happened in 2002.) Finally, Radomski suggests that Gooden's suspension happened in 1988 following Radomski's refusal to give Gooden a third clean urine. (Actually, that suspension happened in 1994.) The only thing these errors prove definitively is that Radomski had a lousy fact-checker, but it makes us question the veracity of a lot of his other assertions.

Regardless, there’s one thing I can say for sure: Anyone who distributes steroids for a living and, when exposed, is not penitent and humiliated enough to not want to write a mud-slinging book about it? Piece of crapelbon. Period. That’s not a gut reaction. That’s just obvious.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter all that much who’s telling the truth. I mean, either way, we’re left with pretty much the same results. Radomski’s still a scumbag, Gooden still had a drug problem, and David Justice will still be best remembered by history as one of the worst commentators of all time.

I know that’s how I’m going to remember him, anyway.

Pettitte: Driving A Hard Bargain

After months of fruitless negotiations, Andy Pettitte and the Yankees have finally come to an agreement. And I think we’ve all relearned an important lesson: When the Yanks brass make you an offer and say, “Take it or leave it,” they mean it. And if you’re a thirty-six-year old pitcher, coming off of a mediocre season and that offer is for $10.5 million guaranteed, you take it.

Or you could just go with Pettitte’s strategy and holdout for months, have your people spread rumors about a three year $36 million offer from a “mystery team” and then eventually sign with the Yanks for half of what they originally offered. True, Pettitte’s new contract is filled with incentive clauses and he stands to make even more than $10.5 million assuming he is able to meet the criteria laid out in the contract. $4.5 million in incentives based on innings pitched, 2 million based on time on the active roster. It’s also true that, based on past performances, the incentives are fully within Pettitte’s grasp. However, given his age and his shoulder injury at the end of last year’s season, my prediction is that he walks away with less than what he would have gotten out of the first offer.

It’s like they always say: $10.5 million birds in the hand is better than $6.5 million in incentive clauses in the bush. Or something.

Not surprisingly, Pettitte was somewhat sheepish about the deal, saying, “Heck, the bottom line is I'm a man, and I guess it does take a shot at your pride a little bit.”

Note to Pettitte: Don’t say heck. Ever.

I have made no secret of the fact that I didn’t think that we should sign Pettitte, that having signed CC and AJ, we should give the kids a shot at the back end of the rotation. But now that we have, I’ll say this, though I’m sure that no one in the Bronx will hear me: Put Joba back in the bullpen. We have a rock solid starting rotation without him. With Joba as your setup man, followed by Mo, we’re dealing with a six-inning ballgame—most of the time. Then, eventually, when Mariano reveals himself to not be an alien and his body gives out on him, Joba becomes our closer. Unfortunately, however, Cashman seems pretty wed to the idea that Joba belongs in the starting rotation.

But in Cashman’s defense, these are hard decisions, and he has a stressful job. He said so himself just yesterday: "I feel the heat. I've always felt the heat. I've never not felt the heat. Do I think it's any hotter now than it was before? No. But do I feel it every day? Yeah, I do."

Does anyone else see a second career in tropical meteorology in Cashman’s future?