Category: MLB General

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MLB General

To protect and serve, ourselves


What are the perks of being a major metropolitan police officer in America today? Well, the pay is decent, they offer a good retirement plan, medical and dental are included, and as an officer you are free to pick and choose what you want to use as your own personal property from the evidence collected throughout your shift. What? That last one isn’t an actual benefit? Somebody might want to conduct a procedural seminar in St. Louis because the boys in blue are under a completely different impression.

Nine or ten different officers are being investigated by the St. Louis Police Department for allegedly using about 30 confiscated tickets to last year’s World Series after the tickets were taken out of the hands of scalpers on the streets. The tickets were dispersed amongst the officer’s family and friends before being returned to the evidence room for storage. The crafty coppers were able to pull off the ploy because Busch Stadium no longer tears patron’s tickets, but instead use a scanner to electronically read the tickets. The value of the tickets varied from $50 to $250 and the incident could get the crooked cops canned.

Exactly who is St. Louis employing to keep the streets safe? Our guess is that Lt. Jim Dangle played a role in all of this.

Links:

[SI.com]: Report: police used seized Series tix

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MLB General

Odds and Ends: Are you looking at George’s crotch again?


Well folks, there’s no other way to explain it. Apparently men (or at least the men in this study) are fixated on crotches. Some might say that we “respect the cock“.

A study by Jakob Nielsen to track how different people look at web pages came up with some unexpected results. According to the data, men tend to study the crotch and the face while women look only at the face. This also happens when the image was of an animal too. This was discovered on the American Kennel Club site. We couldn’t even make this stuff up. (via Can’t Stop the Bleeding)

In other news…

[Chicks Dig the Long Ball]: Mascot Madness

[Yahoo]: Pete Rose thinks fans would be elated if baseball reintated him because his name is synonymous with baseball. Actually Pete, your name is synonymous with gambling.

[Leave the Man Alone]: The dumbest theory we’ve heard in a while

[Steroid Nation]: Evander Holyfield finally gets Tyson back for biting his ear

[Awful Announcing]: ESPN to televise this year’s Rock paper Scissors championship

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MLB General

You favorite baseball parks — Lego style


While MLB urns and coffins are getting all the press, we just found somethign that’s a lot cooler. You can can replicas of baseball stadiums built out of Legos and put whatever photo you want on the customized scoreboard. The “deluxe” stadium is made out of 3,500 lego blocks. Currently they have PNC Park, Heinz Field, Camden Yards, M&T Stadium, Citizens Bank Park, and Yankee Stadium but it looks like you can get them to build anything you want.

We’re waiting on a quote for our Veterans Stadium replica. We wonder if a LEGO Santa Claus or a LEGO Michael Irvin stretched out on the field costs a lot extra.

Links:
[Burik Model Design]: LEGO Sports Arenas

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MLB General

MLB loses its erection


Ahhh the last time we’ll be able to make a baseball ED joke and post a picture of Raffy Palmeiro. Viagra is ending its five-year-old endorsement deal with Major League Baseball. The overwhelming reason is that changes in pharmacy guidelines meant that drug companies couldn’t advertise in prime-time anymore and that took away most of the value of the deal. However, the leagues have also been growing increasinly wary of advertising sexual dysfunction drugs in a family friendly atmosphere.


Sports properties saw dollar signs, and there was a land rush,” said Michael Neuman, CEO and founder of Amplify Sports and Entertainment, New York, who had worked on marketing programs for a variety of pharmaceutical brands from Pfizer, Amgen and GlaxoSmithKline. “But when you had ads talking about four-hour erections during NFL games, people from ownership on down started questioning the association.

Links:
[Sports Business Journal]: (Subscription) ED era wanes as Viagra exits MLB deal

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MLB General

MLB says screw the cable subscribers


MLB has completed a seven-year, $700M deal with DirecTV. A deal that was so bad for the fan, it caught the eye of Senator John Kerry. “Extra Innings” had more than 500,000 television subscribers last year and only 5,000 would be frozen out by the new deal because they can’t get satellite service.

However, everyone had been in an uproar because anyone who doesn’t have DirecTV would have to switch from their cable providers. DirecTV and MLB tried to address those concerns by allowing cable providers the same package if it could match the terms of the deal with DirecTV. Unfortunately, that probably won’t happen. IN Demand’s president said the terms were impossible and called it a “defacto exclusive deal”.

While we feel for MLB fans and we think there should be more choices and not less, what about NFL fans? DirecTV and the NFL have been holding us hostage for years. Where was the senatorial media posturing when that deal was struck? Anyway, back to Extra Innings. May we suggest that you completely screw DirecTV and switch to the web based version. Sure the quality isn’t as good but you get to watch the day games at work.

Links:
[Boston Herald]: DirecTV strikes MLB deal

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MLB General

Go ahead and keep taking HGH


Dr. Don Catlin, the scientist who MLB hired to develop a urine screening test to discover HGH told the Denver Post that a reliable test for HGH might never be developed. MLB banned HGH recently but doesn’t test for it because the drug policy only allows urine testing because blood testing is “an invasion of privacy”. The NFL players union also does not allow blood testing.

So basically, you can take HGH all you want without getting caught unless you do something stupid like having a boatload of it in your house when federal agents raid it.

As for the drug test, we are very suspicious of everyone so we can’t help but think maybe the Dr. Catlin has already discovered a test for HGH and is planting this information with the Denver Post so that athletes who are cheating will continue to do so. Then, just as they think they’re getting away with it… bam… all of the sudden the drug test is the next day and includes a urine test for HGH. And when the results get back, a lot of minor leaguers will be getting their call up to the show.

Links:
[Denver Post]: Test for HGH may be fiction

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MLB General

Yeah and Michael Vick smokes only medicinal marijuana


A report came out that John Rocker was among the names on the client list for the pharmacy in Orlando that was busted last week for distributing steroids over the internet. That news suprised about no one and the general reaction was “well, that explains a lot”. But we find he defense pretty amusing.


That was a growth hormone that was prescribed by a doctor in relation to his rotator cuff surgery in 2003, so I don’t really think there is anything to the story,” Debi Curzio, Rocker’s publicist, told the Daily News for a story on the newspaper’s Web site Tuesday night.

First off, how much does it suck to be John Rocker’s publicist. Second, the excuse that he took it for medicinal purposes is laughable. A lot of people we know with shoulder surgery didn’t take HGH afterward. Finally, if you’re John Rocker, why even bother trying to repair or spin your image. You are in the Bigoted Athlete Hall of Fame. Nothing you do is gonna make anyone think less of you. Just go the Romo route and milk the roid rage persona for all it’s worth.

Links:
[Boston Herald]: Report: Rocker admits taking HGH, but for medical reasons

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MLB General

Tommy Lasorda couldn’t have paid for hookers… he’s too cheap!



Rumor: Lasorda likes his hookers to
dress up in panda suits

This story has been all over the blogosphere for a couple of days now and we’ve avoided it because the thought of Tommy Lasorda getting oral is pretty damn disgusting but there was a quote in the NY Post’s Page Six today that made us jump in.


Lasorda’s lawyer, Tony Cappazola, was also indignant. “He’s very upset. It’s a slimy book so full of inaccuracies. For instance, she says she called Tommy back on his cellphone and he didn’t even have a cellphone . . . She’s an over-the-hill, desperate hooker attempting to make a buck,” said the lawyer, who scoffed at Gibson’s claim that Lasorda paid $1,500 in cash. “You know Lasorda. He wouldn’t buy lunch,” Cappazola said.

This is what we call the Homer Simpson defense. I wasn’t drinking and driving… I was out buying porn! A lot of bloggers have wondered why Tommy Lasorda needs to pay for sex (he did lose 30 lbs in 3 months, you know). As Charlie Sheen said, he doesn’t pay them for sex, he pays them to go away.

Links:
[Page Six]: H’WOOD BIGS ON MADAM’S LIST

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MLB General

Jan 29 in Sports History: Inaugural Hall of Fame classes

In 1936: The first members of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY were named. The first class to be inducted was Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and Honus Wagner. While the term hall of fame was always used metaphorically, the Baseball Hall of Fame was the first of its kind in sports. Now, there’s a Bowling Hall of Fame (St. Louis), a Motorsports Hall of Fame (Talladega, AL), even a freaking Shuffleboard Hall of Fame (St. Petersburg, FL). Although, the selection process has been tweaked over the years, it still takes 75 percent of the vote from the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA –  sounds more like a porn group on Myspace) to be enshrined.

In 1963: The first class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame was announced on the same day 27 years later. The list of inductees was much longer than baseball’s. It included Sammy Baugh, Jim Thorpe, Bronko Nagurski, Bert Bell, George Halas, Pete Henry, Cal Hubbard, George Preston Marshall, Johnny “Blood” McNally, Red Grange, Mel Hein, Ernie Nevers, Dutch Clark, Curly Lambeau, Don Hutson, Tim Mara and Joe Carr. Each member had to be inducted by a unanimous vote that year. The selection process has changed over the years, and the current voting only allows for three to six members to be enshrined every year.

In 1995: Another year, another NFC team destroying an AFC team in the Super Bowl (I’m telling you, it ruined my childhood). This time, Steve Young and the San Francisco 49ers did the honors by beating the 19-point underdog San Diego Chargers 49-26 (in one of the worst non-covers of all time). Young found Jerry Rice for a 44-yard touchdown on the game’s third play and went on to a record six touchdown passes. It was the eleventh straight win for the NFC, and the fifth Super Bowl in as many tries for San Francisco.

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MLB General

Jan 23 in Sports History: Jackie Robinson elected to HOF


In 1962: Dodgers second baseman Jackie Robinson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. In an ironic twist, Cleveland pitcher Bob Feller was also elected. Feller, who is an outspoken critic of baseball’s controversies to this day, openly questioned that Robinson even belonged in the major leagues. When Robinson was breaking in, Feller said, “He’s all tied up in the shoulders and can’t hit an inside pitch to save his neck. If he were a white man, I doubt if they would even consider him big league material.” Feller was, however, very much in favor of integrating baseball. He was just dead wrong on Robinson, who obviously showed that he belonged in baseball. Feller is spouting off even today. As the oldest living hall of famer, he is still railing against the likes of Pete Rose and Barry Bonds getting into the hall, once called Jim Thome a “journeyman first baseman” and said that Latin players “don’t know the rules of the game.”

In 2000: The St. Louis Rams defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 11-6 in the NFC Championship game. In a matchup of contrasting styles, Tampa’s defense shut down St. Louis’ “Greatest Show on Turf” for much of the day. Trailing 6-5 in the fourth quarter (still sounds weird), Rams’ quarterback Kurt Warner hit seldom-used wideout Ricky Proehl for a 30-yard touchdown. It was the Rams first Super Bowl appearance since 1979, as they were set to play the Tennessee Titans, who defeated Jacksonville earlier in the day. It was the first Super Bowl matchup of two franchises that had relocated.