When I saw on Yankees.com today that A-Rod has been contacted by the FBI to discuss Anthony Galea, a sketchy Toronto-based sports medicine doctor suspected of supplying 'roids to a variety of athletes (his assistant was caught smuggling HGH across the border... but I'm sure that was just a coincidence), I initially was uninterested. We already know A-Rod juiced and have made our decisions about whether we give a shit or not. Do we need to hear every time his name comes up in a discussion about steroids? He got the steroids somewhere and presumably used them in the presence of others - it's not like he made them himself in a converted meth lab and did them in isolation - of course his name is going to come up in connection with a steroid supplier. That's not news, it's exactly what you'd expect.

A-Rod cheated. SO DID A WHOLE BUNCH OF OTHER DUDES. I'm so ill of A-Rod being the poster boy for early 2000's steroid use, just because someone leaked his name and not the other hundred-plus goons on that 2003 "anonymous" list of players who tested positive. Of course, that list is by no means the end-all be-all of who did or didn't do steroids - there are surely even more - but I really feel that it needs to come out in its entirety to give the entire era some context. It's simply unfair for A-Rod to be the one taking the heat when so many of his teammates were doing the exact same thing (or worse). The fact that a whole bunch of players were doing steroids doesn't make A-Rod's cheating "less bad", but it does make it more understandable, and having to acknowledge how many good players were using illegal substances would perhaps quiet (even marginally) not just the A-Rod haters but the entire community of "oh my god using steroids is as cheat-y as incapacitating your opponents with a Tonya Harding whack; I could never vote a steroid user into the Hall of Fame!" idiots (get it through your heads: steroids don't magically make a bad player good. A-Rod still would have been good without them. Matt Lawton didn't turn into Barry Bonds with them. It doesn't work like that, so stop discounting everything a steroid user did the minute a positive test comes back.)

A-Rod participated in the test under the impression that the results where to remain anonymous. Why was that revoked for him and not others? I don't know all the legalities involved, but I sure do wish someone could step in and insist that the list be revealed in full, just to even things out a bit.

And if that's not legally possible for someone to demand, then Sports Illustrated should bust out the checkbook and find themselves a former lab assistant willing to spill the beans for a nice payout... because I'm sick of reading the words "steroids" and "Alex Rodriguez" in the same sentence. Let's start spreading the blame!

Yes, it's been a minute or two since I last blogged (and longer still since I kept this site updated on a truly regular basis), and I apologize for my absence. No, I haven't stopped obsessing over the Yankees (come on now), nor have I given up on the blog - 2009 was simply a wildly busy year in the land of the YC. Even whilst I was forced to push the bloggity to the back burner last year, I always intended to fire it back up as soon as one of three things happened:

1) I finished school, thus freeing up my evenings for bloggin'
2) Vince McMahon hired me as a high-paid special consultant for the WWE, with my sole responsibility being to watch every episode of Raw and Smackdown and offer suggestions on how the storylines and characters could be improved (for the love of christ, can John Cena and Randy Orton not be in a title match at just one PPV?), thus freeing up my days for bloggin'
3) Something ridiculous in the baseball world fired me up so much that I decided I simply MUST get back on the blogging saddle pronto, regardless of my lack of time to do so.

I'm still in school, and Mr. McMahon has yet to seek out my valuable services, so you can all thank Mark McGwire for inspiring me to dredge up my blogger.com password and get back to work!

Let me preface this post by saying that none of this is a joke. What you are about to read is 100% true.

Ready?

Oh, one more thing! Disclaimer/reminder: I have been a staunch Rocket supporter throughout his career - even when he was on other teams - so don't think that I'm just trying to bash the fellow. Even throughout all this steroids hoopla I've still be giving him the doubt, not casting aspersions on him without the solid proof that would definitively prove him to be a juicer.

Ready now? Are you sitting down? Here goes!

As you know, after trainer-boy McNameanie made all of his juicy allegations about Clemens, the Rocket - as part of his non-stop Denial Crusade 2008 - filed a defamation lawsuit against his former trainer. It took a couple months, but Bri-Mc has finally responded to the suit with some more allegations... and it is far juicier than just a little injection in the ass action:

The allegations, in all their glory!

• He partied with the likes of Monica Lewinsky and Michael Jordan (boy does that sound like a rockin' fiesta!)
• He and trainwreck country star Mindy McCready had a 10-year affair... BEGINNING WHEN SHE WAS FIFTEEN M'ER F'ING YEARS OLD.

And there you have it! I'm sure both the Rocket and M-Mc (and hopefully Lewinsky... PLEASE!) will have something to say in response to this soon enough, and I for one simply cannot wait to hear the gold that these statements will surely be.

Let's predict what their statements will be!!!

In addition to my usual Yankees Chick posts, I have also begun writing a bit for AOL's FanHouse blog. I will post the beginnings of those articles here on YC, and then you'll have to click the link to jump on over to FH to read the rest... stick with me here, amigos!
--------------------------------------------------------

The Roger Clemens vs Brian McNamee battle has been heating up more with each passing day, and while it probably wont be reaching critical mass until they hook up with Congress tomorrow, the water continues to boil today.

The Rocket initiated a lawsuit against his former trainer back in early January in response to what he viewed as defamation; in case you've been completely out of the loop, McNamee was a key source of info in Senator Mitchell's epic steroids report, calling out many players as juice abusers, Rocket included. Roger has vehemently denied the allegations, so the defamation suit was the logical next step in his all-out crusade to prove his innocence (or at least lack of guilt).

Continue Reading Clemens to McNamee: Let's Take This Legal Biz Up a Notch

In addition to my usual Yankees Chick posts, I have also begun writing a bit for AOL's FanHouse blog. I will post the beginnings of those articles here on YC, and then you'll have to click the link to jump on over to FH to read the rest... stick with me here, amigos!
--------------------------------------------------------

Let's all just face the facts and surrender right now: This Roger Clemens PED saga will never end. Ever.

Earlier today FanHouse's own Josh Alpner discussed a Newsday story which reported that Rep. Tom Davis, who was on Senator Mitchell's committee, corroborated Mitchell's claims that Andy Pettitte had at one point asked trainer Brian McNamee for "the stuff you give Roger." With Davis backing up McNamee's story, Pettitte's appearance (or lack thereof now that he has been recused) in front of Congress becomes less important.

Continue Reading Another Clemens PED Update

Brian McNameanie is either an absolute goldmine of steroids information or certifiably insane. I suppose it could be a combination of the two; that explanation would make the most sense to me.

Earlier this week it was the stockpile of bloody medical supplies, and now the man is reporting that HE ALSO INJECTED THE ROCKETTE (AKA Rog's wife) with HGH!!! She and Rog appeared in an issue of Sports Illustrated back in '03 and McNameanie explained that the reasoning behind it was that the Rockette wanted to look her best for the bikini shot.

This all makes me want to take a nap. Wake me up when Trainer Boy comes up with the next chapter in this epic novel - perhaps some photos of him shooting up a baby or hidden camera footage of Rog cooking up some homemade steroids with a recipe he found on BALCO's website.

Through the power and magic of YouTube, a video surfaced this week of Pedro "Who's Your Daddy? Oh Yeah, I Remember Who" Martinez and Hall of Famer Juan Marichal participating in a delightful cock fight (must... resist... sexual... jokes...) down in the DR a couple years ago. The "sport" (hobby? What would this activity be classified as?) is legal in the DR, so the backlash for the dudes adds up to nothing more than some outrage from PETA (and what DOESN'T fire those nutcases up, really?) and subsequent promise from the MLB that the league certainly does not condone animal cruelty - in case you thought otherwise. Whew! For the record, neither do I.

The video has been taken off YouTube, so don't get too excited and/or incensed at the prospect of seeing the two honorary soltadores getting in on the fighting action.

I hope they at least ate the roosters that lost. Put them to some delicious use.

I've discussed the Rocket-Steroids-McNameanie-Congress hoopla approximately 8923419018937 times here on the bloggity by now, and while at one point I was pretty sick of it, I now find myself shamefully addicted (much like my proclivity to enjoy such television programming as Rock of Love [AKA Rock of Skanks {Jessica and Kristy Jo are my faves, in case you were wondering}] and Degrassi). In the wise words of Depeche Mode, I just can't get enough.

Due to the lack of substantial evidence in Senator "Don't You DARE Mess With Me, Constituents, Or I Will Put You On Some List So Fast You Won't Know What Hit You" Mitchell's report and the rage/passion-fueled denial blitzkrieg on Rog's part, I've been throwing most of my support behind the Rocket (but let's be honest here, carinos, that is largely influenced by the fact that I just really like the dude), but the latest in the saga may throw a point or two into McNameanie's court. Trainer-boy allegedly turned over some actual physical evidence back in January (where has this news been for a month? It's pretty juicy, and that ain't no pun [yes it is]). He claims he has syringes and nasty gauze pads with some of Rog's blood on it, which have been sent to a lab to see if they do indeed contain blood. If the lab confirms that the goods do indeed have blood intact, the next step would be for prosecutors to attempt to get a court order forcing the Rocket to pony up some of his own DNA to see if it matches.

All of this begs a few questions of your Yankees Chick:

• Why the F did McNameanie have a stockpile of used bio-hazard medical supplies? Perhaps he was creating a shrine or runs a fetish website dedicated to naughty nurses and HGH.
• If the lab results come back and indicate that whatever the hell was on those disgusting syringes was NOT blood, what else could it possibly be?!
• Assuming it IS blood, what would prosecutors need to do to get that court order to demand some Rocket DNA?
  

Help me, dear readers. Help me understand.

Nailing down a cheater is tricky business - just ask Nancy Drew and those crafty Hardy Boys. There are plenty of ways to cheat in sports (just ask Gaylord Perry and his industrial-sized tub of Vaseline), but steroids and PED's as a whole generally seem to be looked upon as the cheaty-est form of cheating. It's obviously a huge issue at the moment, but with all the advances in modern medicine (call today for your free trial of Enzyte!), the problem is going to get a lot bigger (thanks in part to that Enzyte) as the drugs get even trickier to test for. Some PED's can be identified during the super-effective random drug tests administered by the ever-vigilant MLB, but for juice like HGH, the only way to prove that someone has used them seems to be to either find some canceled checks (way to cover your tracks, Lo Duca) or have your trainer out you to a crazed ex-Senator that may very well be on some sort of drug himself. Unlike other drugs, HGH will not cause your urine to sound steroid sirens when tested; to identify whether a person has been using HGH, hormone levels in the blood must be measured against the person's "normal" hormone levels.*

To curb the use - or at least strike some fear into a few potential user's hearts - of PED's, the idea of requiring every player to provide a blood sample to be frozen has come up. With every player's blood on ice, the MLB would have the ability not only to thaw it out and test it whenever they damn well pleased but to test for more drugs than they currently can. Awesome mental picture of a meat locker filled with vials of baseball blood aside, this sounds like a very wise idea - easy and convenient testing, blood at the ready for advanced tests as they are developed, and, like I said, a neat photo op.

There are problems, though. No one seems to agree on whether the frozen blood would hold up very well and thus provide reliable results from the drug testing, and more importantly, the players union doesn't like the idea one bit. There are questions as to whether it would violate civil liberties, and it would have to be voted in for the next bargaining agreement. The MLB is all for it, especially given the current cloud of cheater-ness hanging over baseball's good name, but the union will have the final word on this.

The word will be no.

Can someone Photoshop me a meat locker full of baseball blood anyway?

EDIT 01/17/08: Billy from Seraphim7.com sketched out a great pic of my aforementioned blood-filled meat locker dream! Check it out here and share my dream: http://uberuser.seraphim7.com/2008/01/where-baseballs-secrets-go-to-die.html



*I am not a chemist by trade (or by anything else... sorry Dr. E [YC's high school chemistry teacher]), so I'm sure this explanation is beyond weak. Look it up, Googlers.

Let me start this posty with a sincere and hearty apology for once again deferring to steroids "news" (and by "news" I of course mean "ongoing story that simply refuses die... like a cockroach") as a topic of conversation/blogging, but let's face the facts: it IS somewhat interesting, and there really isn't much else going on. There's only so much "will Santanamania come to New York?" or "should Jobamania be a part of the rotation?" a person can handle, especially because there ain't nothing new to say about it (wooooot grammar!).

Now that I've said that, let's start chatting about the whole debacle. In my opinion, I'd say the whole mess started somewhere around the time that Bonds started hitting 2349802348919 homers per season and his head went from the size of an average humanoid cranium to a size more akin to the world's largest pumpkin - not because that was the first time steroids had ever been used in baseball (shocking newsflash: it wasn't! shh... don't tell Senator Mitchell... no need to get him more riled up...), but because it was around that time that the general public upped their interest in the matter. Since then, we've seen everything from juicy juice books to indictments to sit-downs with Mike Wallace, and you know there's no end in sight. Just for kicks - and as a reminder to us all of how far we've come as a society over the past few years (lies) - I've put together a little timeline depicting the juicy (get it?!??!?! GET IT?! I'm a humorology genius) details of the journey!

Sometime before 2001: Regular Barry Bonds transforms into Balco Barry
2001: Balco B hits 73 homers
2003: Barry testifies before a grand jury that he never used any illegal substances. I have a feeling that will come back to haunt him later on in this timeline...
2004: President (it hurts me just to type that, my liberal compatriots) Bush calls for a "crackdown" on steroids during his State of the Union address. 4 years later, he's made more progress on that than he has in Iraq, so I guess that's a feather in his cap. That and learning how to successfully consume a pretzel.
2004: MLB announces new steroids policy, complete with off-season testing. It works like a charm.
2005: Jose Canseco's tattle-tale book Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big released. He alleges that MLB was well-aware of the drug-use all along but since the 1994 strike dampened the public's enthusiasm for the game, they turned a blind eye to keep things exciting. I agree.
2005: McGwire, Sosa, Canseco, and Palmiero chat with congress. Poor Sosa has a hard time remembering how to speak English and McGwire has a hard time remember anything at all.
2006: Senator "politics is my name, but steroids is my game!" Mitchell launches his 20-month investigation into the wild world of juicing.
2006: Game of Shadows published, outing Balco and a bunch of their "customers", including - you guessed it! - Balco Barry
2007: Bondsy indicted on 4 counts of perjury and 1 count of obstruction of justice. Woops! Oh wait, innocent until proven guilty. DON'T JUDGE HIM.
2007: The long-awaited Mitchell report is released! It contains a gazillion boring pages and a list of 88 players who have used steroids... according to a couple trainer dudes, anyway.
A few days later: Dandy Andy Pettitte admits that the report is true in his case and that he did use HGH in 2002.
Then: Congress calls for Rocket, Dandy Andy, McNamee and some others to join them for a delightful hearing in January '08.
And then: Roger Clemens begins his Straight Talk Express Denial Crusade with statements from his lawyer, followed by a Yankees Chick-esque video blog on his site, an appearance on 60 Minutes, a super-emotional press conference, and, finally, a defamation lawsuit against McNamee. Oh yeah, then McNamee contemplates a countersuit.
2008: Hearing gets pushed back to February, meaning we have to sit through another month of talking about this without having anything new to say.
Future Onward to Eternity: Regardless of the hearings, lawsuits, Canseco sequels, denials, yada yada yada, this will never die down.

Ever.

Long, long ago, when the Yankees Chick was a child* - back in the times that people had to walk to baseball games barefoot in the snow and and got around in horse drawn carriages - Hall of Fame elections were a simpler matter. Those lucky baseball writers with votes (um... by the way... where's my vote? If anything screams "legitimate, respectable, sports journalist", it's YANKEES CHICK) just had to check out some stats, think about the players careers and athleticism, and determine whose accomplishments were great enough to deserve a spot amongst the best of the best in Cooperstown. Nowadays, in this crazy world of drugs and desperation (oh yeah, and greed), dolling out Hall of Fame votes isn't such a simple task. Voters now have to take into account the fact that a lot of the folks on the ballot might have been getting some unnatural "help" throughout their careers to get themselves on that ballot (of course, even back in the olden times a lot of players weren't exactly on the straight and narrow, but I have to say that coke and booze don't exactly measure up to HGH and anabolic steroids when it comes to smackin' homers), which makes things a shade less clear-cut. All those old-fashioned benchmarks that used to indicate a sure-thing for the HOF - 500 homers, 3,000 hits, etc - can no longer really be used by the voters to make their choices easier. Voters had their first taste of "hold on a second, I'm pretty sure this guy is a damn cheater" syndrome, and now each writer has 3 choices when casting their vote: They can determine that, regardless of whether player was juicing, he is intrinsically talented and deserves a spot in the Hall; they can look at the numbers and decide that it seems that a player would not have achieved his status as superstar without some drug-help and opt not to vote for them; or they can be so sickened by the blatant (totally objective!) feeling that the person was a-juicin' that they don't vote for them out of spite. In the case of McGwire last year, I'm pretty sure that his low vote percentage was a combination of options "b" and "c". In a few years, the ballot is going to be chock full of more rumored steroid-users with the likes of Sosa, the Rocket, and Balco Barry (among others that I'm suspicious of, like Mike-a Piazza, but maybe that's just me?), and it's going to be verrrrrrry interesting to see who makes it and how many votes they actually get. I have a feeling that the voters that don't mark their ballot for Balco B or the Rocket are going to be making their choices more based on option "c", because they both clearly had talent with or without juice. It's a lot easier to hate Balco B than the Rocket though, and if they both turn up on the ballot for the first time in the first year, I would be willing to bet y'all some cold hard cash (too bad I have none) that it will be ol' Barry that has trouble, not the Rocket.



*AKA the 1980's.

Between the goddamn report itself, the subsequent confirmations (Pettitte) and denials (Rocket and... everyone else), the speculation about who should or shouldn't be allowed in the Hall of Fame, other people insisting that guys that weren't in the report should be on the list (Canseco impugning A-Rod), and everyone that isn't on the list having something to say about the dudes on the list (I am offering a bounty on Schilling's computer - whoever destroys it and henceforth Schilling's blogging "career" shall be generously rewarded), the juice craze has reached critical mass in the YC's brain. Before that list came out, I could not wait to get my grubby little paws on it, but now that we've all seen the report and realized that it was not as irrefutable as we might have hoped, I am just sick to death of all things steroid-related at this point.

Of all the people on the list, it's the Rocket that seems to be drawing all the attention, because with the absence of other big-name shockers in the report folks have no choice but to throw all their anger at him. The fact that his friend - and dude that shared the same trainer - Dandy Andy, admitted using HGH ain't helping the validity of his denials, but he continues to deny any involvement and to be honest I have to agree that his current M.O. of just steering clear of the media for the time being is probably the best move. Additionally, I would be willing to place cold hard cash on a bet that the man will be doing everything he can to pitch again this season. Any takers?

My other favorite post-Mitchell-report-shenanigan so far is Paul Lo Duca - one of the only guys that Mitchell had actual hard evidence against in the report - ditching out on his baseball camp for kids last weekend. I mentioned this one over in my FanHouse Minute video the other day; the story is simply that he had a little baseball camp set up out in Arizona, 20-something kids showed up, and Pauly was nowhere to be found. Best part? No excuse! Classy dude, eh? (That "eh" is to encourage Canadians to read this shit. Did it work?)

Now that I just re-read what I wrote so far, I'm most sickened with myself for caring enough about this to write yet another post about a report that I honestly don't trust the veracity of as far as I can throw it (and at 400+ pages and with me being a weakling, that really wouldn't be very far). Aren't y'all sick of it, too? (That "y'all" was to encourage southerners to read this shit. Did it work?)

First of all, yeah, I KNOW it's not Tuesday, but as I explained earlier, this blog did not exist on Tuesday, so let's pretend it's Tuesday and enjoy a little Top Ten action! Today's topic celebrates the joy and hilarity that is baseball arrests - and much to our collective enjoyment, there is no shortness of criminals in the MLB!

Top Ten Baseball Degenerates

10) Bondzilla: Juice and lying about it
9) Pete Rose: Gambling (obv), tax evasion
8) Jose Canseco: Steroids, domestic abuse, battery in a nightclub (teamed up with his brother for that feat - family bonding!)
7) Sidney Ponson: Assaulted an Aruban judge, DUIs (that's plural) and subsequent jail time.
6) Doc Gooden: DWI, driving with a suspended license, punched his girlfriend in 2005, violating probation - and, of course, a lotta drugs.
5) Hank Thompson: Jewel theft at age 12, armed robbery, charged with murder (later dismissed as "justifiable homicide"), larceny, assault.
4) Carl Everett: Child abuse (along with his wife), lots of altercations with umpires, homophobe, believer in the bible and honestly does not think dinosaurs existed.
3) Darryl Strawberry: Domestic abuse (several times), illegitimate children, tax evasion, coke, failed to make child support payments, driving while under the influence of painkillers, filed a false report claiming his car was stolen... when really he had just misplaced it.
2) Denny McLain: Failed to pay off a bet and had his foot stomped on by some mob members; later imprisoned for drug trafficking, racketeering, and embezzlement with Anthony Spilotro and John Gotti Jr.
1) Ugueth Urbina: Convicted of attempted murder charges and was sentenced to 14 years in prison stemming from a 2005 incident in Venezuela.

Tell me YOUR favorites in the comments section!!


Read Last Week's Top Ten: Crazy Factoids About Olde Tyme Baseballe

Over the last few months, we've heard a lot in the media about what the Steinettes have been up to, particularly the Hankster (apparently Hal is either mute or just not allowed to speak). Little Stein has been featured in newspapers and websites spouting off about what he plans to do with the team, wrestling the reigns from Big Stein quite successfully…. But this begs an important question: what the hell has become of the Cash Man? We have barely heard a peep from the dear fellow since the commencement of the Steinette takeover, and while The Hankster has actually not made any moves that screamed “I’m just like Daddy and will ruin everything that the Cash Man has worked on lickety-split,” I am more than just a smidge fearful that perhaps all the hard work Cash has done to get this team away from their old sell-the-young-to-get-the-ancient habits might be for naught if he’s pushed completely out of power.

Of course, I don’t really know if the Cash Man actually has been usurped by Hankster, but it is certainly strange to me that he has been so silent. What dost thou think??

Barry Bonds was indicted on 4 counts of perjury and 1 count of obstruction of justice today, all stemming from his gigantic head and the fact that said gigantic head made it very obvious that he is or was a juicer (oh and I guess they have some actual "evidence", too, but really, that head size pretty much seals the deal in my mind). I'm all for cracking down on cheaters and I'm glad Balco B is finally feeling some heat, but I feel I must point out the asinine nature of this: our government is spending time (and my money and yours, assuming you pay taxes you dirty tax evaders) tracking down and prosecuting big-headed athletes whose only crime essentially boils down to douchebaggery. Pardon me, Mr. President... can we please focus on resolving this hack-job of a war you have us all involved in? Oh, what's that? You're too busy talking about baseball with Senator Mitchell? No problem, I'll go ahead and let the troops know they're going to be stuck in Iraq for another few years. They won't mind so long as they can rest assured that cheaters are not allowed to prosper!

Ladies and gentlemen, A-Rod has returned to the building. Or Team.

After testing the free agent waters for a solid 17 days, it looks like A-Rod is going to be back in NY next year. And the year after that... and the year after that... and the year after that...

Though it is currently yet to be confirmed, word on the street is that A-Rod and the Yanks are working on a 10-year, $275 mil deal. This comes as a bit of a surprise after the kibosh the Steins and Cash Man put on post-opt-out negotiations and Boras's delusional determination to score a deal worth closer to $350 mil, but happen it did.

When I first heard the rumblings yesterday of A-Rod crawling back to the Yanks in hopes of opening up some negotiation chat, I assumed it was part of some sketchy evil-doings by Boras, a move with obvious ulterior motives - some sort of attempt at raising his value on the market or weird "let's throw people off" move. I honestly did not think it was a genuine sign of a desire to rejoin the team, and I certainly did not think that the Yanks would have any real interest beyond perhaps some curiosity as to how much he and the Boras-Man were asking for now that they'd had a couple weeks to shop the kid around. The team actually said that they would be willing to talk to A-Rod, but would not be willing to deal with Boras (wise move, my friends). The fact that a deal not only came to light but was sussed out so quickly is incredible and leads me to think that there must have been either serious groveling, ass-kissing, or interesting contract terms discussed. It does sound like A-Rod will be "crediting" the Yanks (via his salary) for the $30 mil that they lost from the Rangers when he opted out, and I would guess that that gesture of good faith on A-Rod's part likely made for a good start to the negotiations.

I have been supporting A-Rod for years, defending his post-season performances and assuming/hoping that any signs of greed were either misconstrued or could be blamed on Boras because I believe he is an absolutely amazing player and takes a lot more shit than he really deserves. For the first time though, I really 100% believe in my support of him. Shaking Boras off to make his own decision shows a lot of character from a man that has seemed to be at the whim of money and his agent for his entire career. I'm thrilled about this.

You?