Rickey Being Rickey

Gotta love Rickey Henderson, he is one of my all-time favorite baseball players.

Bud Selig

I keep wanting to go through a Spring Training without having to have some player spend news cycle after news cycle put us through some steroid crap. I get it, players used steroids. Put in testing, make the penalties tough and let's move on.

Since it keeps coming up though and this week Bud Selig said he's not to blame. It angers him that he hears comments about how much at fault he is and that's just wrong. Well Bud, you're wrong. Next to Donald Fehr the union chief you're the person most responsible for this entire mess.

There what some 3,000 players, a few dozen trainers, owners, managers, agents, the countless media people, and of course the millions upon millions of fans. All of them are to blame to certain extent. The players as a group probably should rightfully so get the blame. But there is a lot of blame to spread around and it a lot of it needs to land of Bud's lap.

Let me get this straight it's okay for players to use steroids when it makes baseball millions of dollars recovering from the 1994 strike (as an aside World War 2 couldn't cancel the World Series but Bud Selig can) but once Congress get's involved steroids are bad.

If someone is naive enough to think that MLB and the owners didn't want the boom in the late 90s and early 2000s fueled by these 'Roided up players then more power to them. The entire league, the media, and even the fans are to blame. Since it's your league Bud the buck should stop with you.

So Long John

I know he isn't retiring but he is leaving Atlanta. I can't say that I blame him since ATL wasn't going to offer him near what Boston did.

Man was Smoltzie good. Good luck in Beantown.

Free Tacos For All

Thanks to the Tampa Rays for free tacos for all!

It's Not Tampa Bay!

The Giants and Jets should be the New Jersey Jets or Giants. There is no place as New England or Carolina. There is no sports team that plays in Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay is a body of water not an actual location. I mean I guess there could be a swim or sailing team or something that plays in the bay but the Rays or Bucs don't.

Go Tampa Rays! Small market for the win!

The All Star Game

I wonder if the NL can actually win one of these. I doubt it but since I'm planning on watching this one I hope they do.

2-3

A hitter with a 2-3 count doesn't get to see another pitch. Silly announcers.

2008 is going fast

I guess spending six weeks in another state only thinking about when I was going to be able to spend some time at home just makes the year go by pretty quick. I really can't believe that it is almost April. Actually I'm having a hard time believing it is past February. We usually have a decent Valentine's Day date and then do something, anything for my birthday but both of those went without any fuss. I guess my brain is just going to take a little time to understand that the green stuff on my car doesn't mean the flowers are blooming early it just means I've missed 1/2 the year. Oh well, it means baseball season starts soon and our vacation in June will be here that much sooner.

Is it baseball season yet?

Only two weeks to go!

Just Plain Crazy

Normally I think John Rocker is a raving lunatic, actually I still believe Rocker is a lunatic. I do completely agree with everything he said today. I think MLB while not pushing performance enhancing drugs very much looked the other way. I also think encouraged coaches and doctors to look the other way. Chicks dig the long ball and that put people in the stands.

John Rocker is still crazy, he's just correct here.

Baseball Season?

Is it baseball season yet? Can it be the start of football season? Now ratings for ESPN go down big time in our household.

For Girard

Only two weeks left.

The Braves big acquisitions this offseason that will report in two weeks, Javy Lopez and Tom Glavine. Not bad if it was 1998 but it is 2008 so I'll reserve judgment for later.

And I call myself a baseball fan

Again with the silly ways sports teams work. I'm still working on various sports die cast stuff at work. We do a two pack, a home and away pack as we call it. It includes a Dodge Viper as the home and a Nissan 350Z as the away. The files are labeled but it is much easier for me to switch the folder and look for the thumbnail for what I'm doing. So I do the NFL or at least the 10 teams or so we're doing a home/away item for and then move onto MLB. Then the MLB just messed me up, the Dodge Vipers are now white based and the 350Zs are color based and quickly scanning the thumbnails and I'm messed up.

About half the time I'm working on the MLB files, with numerous fuck ups, I am just curing the art team for switching it, for making the home now the away and vice versa. Then I realize I'm wrong, the home jerseys in baseball are white and they wear the colors on the road. And I call myself a baseball fan.

Poor Bonds

If you follow sports at all you've heard the Bonds is indicted for perjury. I know because I'm trying to watch PTI and can't because it is all Bonds, all the time. Other than missing Tony and Wilbon I have a pretty big issue with the coverage. They keep brining up over and over that he isn't guilty of anything. Hold on, hold on. As it relates to criminal charges, correct he isn't guilty of anything. However in the terms of the sports world he's been guilty for a long time.

The indictment is for perjury and obstruction of justice from testimony from four years ago. In that testimony Bonds says that he didn't knowingly take steroids, that is the lying part. He didn't knowingly take the cream or the clear or whatever random other name they had for designer drugs that gave Barry a size 11 hat. He didn't knowingly...

In that same testimony he admits that he took steroids. Knowledge of what it was or not, he admits to taking steroids. That is my issue with the Bonds defenders. The leaked testimony has been out there for a few years. In that testimony he says he used steroids, he just didn't know what it was. How do only a few people get that?

You can debate all of the implications of steroids, if it is really that helpful or really that big a deal. You can say that 75% of people used steroids so it wasn't a big deal. Whatever you want, it isn't a big deal but that is a different discussion. The Bonds supporters say he didn't do anything yet for two years now we know he did use them. But that keeps getting overlooked and I really don't understand why.

9 Days Off

I guess 9 days off does hurt your chances to win a World Series. Either that or the American League is so much better than the National League. Naw, it must be the layoff, that makes for better TV.

Free Tacos for Everyone!

That is right, the Red Sox stole a base in the World Series and we call get a free taco.

October 30 from 2pm to 5pm you can get your free taco. Good times for all!

This just in...

The Rockies have had 9 days off between games. I can't believe the sports outlets haven't reported this yet.

JDub joked to me about it yesterday, today I watched PTI and Sports Center and it was brought up a few times, even before you talked about the Rockies team.

Kevin Millar Night

Since KO and I are in Baltimore we figured we'd take advantage of some connections and see an Orioles game. This is step seven in my quest to visit all of the stadiums (Turner Field, Fenway, Phillies, DBacks, Padres, Rangers, and now the House that Cal Built). Yeah I know I'm not that close but it is fun to knock a few off every now and then. This also brings me only to only needing to see the Royals, Mariners, and A's till I see all of major league teams.

As you can see we got great seats. Nice 8th row on the third base side. Here is future Hall of Famer Vlad Guerrero.














We miss you Leo!














Oh yeah, I caught it mid pitch baby!

Barry Bonds can suck it

I don't care about the steroids/HGH issue, I think it sucks ass but I also think a ton of players did it as well. I just don't like Barry Bonds, he is an ass, I don't like players who act like a dick. The Braves had to deal with Barry in 91 and 92 with Pittsburgh and then in 93 with the Giants. They did had to deal with the fucker a few years later when the Giants got good again. Sure I wasn't going to bitch about the steroids/HGH thing and I won't. The think that bothers me the most about Barry, how the hell is he allowed to wear that armor? It allows him to stand on the plate with no fear of getting hit, it shouldn't be allowed. Anyway, enough bitching about Barry Bonds, what an ass.

To quote a song from the now defunct 96Rock in Atlanta during the great summer of 1993

"...strike out Barry Bonds..."

No Day Games

Crash says that Congress should outlaw the DH and astroturf, I don't like either of those things but eh. I do think there should be a law requiring at least one day game every weekday. How am I supposed to waste time at work with no baseball game. Bastards.