Um, so anyone thinking David Ortiz is about to get railroaded?

August 7th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

To preface: I am not accusing David Ortiz of any HGH/steroidal malarkey. I actually think he’s a (gasp!) clean player, one of those “good for the game” type individuals and an overall jolly man, you could say. (That is unless you’re a Yankees fan. Then he’s a goddamned cocky cheater.)

But as Big Papi blasted his 40th home run of the season yesterday and now stands at 109 RBIs 110 games into the season, (Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle are the only others players to achieve those marks 110 games or less into the season and that was in 1961) people are going to start questioning his freak stats, no? And again, it’s not because they have any solid proof, but because (to be horribly cliché) it’s the age we live in. You know, the one where the last two great sluggers of our era, Barry Bonds and to an extremely lesser extent Albert Pujols, became entangled in some HGH/steroid controversy.

Oh, look! This guy from the Portsmouth Herald seems to share the same general sentiment as me.

Hey, I had to find someone who talked about this (if only for an instant) to back my point a little bit, OK? You aren’t going to believe some crazy talk from a blogger are you?

Exactly.

In a land of forgiveness, we still choose denial

August 2nd, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

In one corner, we have Floyd Landis. The Mennonite from Pennsylvania, a demon on the velo and champion (for now) of the Tour de France. In the other corner is Justin Gatlin. Thick, strong and explosive, he’s arguably the fastest man on the planet.

Both men are at the height of respective sports. And both men are most likely (gasp!) cheaters.

It’s already been pointed out by MJD and Pat Forde that in the cycling world (and one could assume, by extension the land of track and field) drugs, doping and testosterone is all just part of the game. Fair enough. I don’t feel confliction towards the sports when I realize this sad truth, it is what is and I’ll accept it.

But what continually confuses me is why these guys presumably continue to hide behind ill-conceived lies (sabotaging masseuse/alcohol). Now, if I was in a similar situation, I might choose the same sort of tactics.

But if recent history is any indicator, Floyd and Justin should take a page out of the Jason Giambi book.

Let’s take a look at some of the ballplayers entangled in the steroid/HGH baseball circus:

Rafael Palmeiro. Dude went in front of Congress, pointed and said he “never took steroids.” Later that year, he tests positive and tries placing the blame on teammate Miguel Tejada. Public perception on this guy is extremely low.

Same thing with Mark McGwire. Although never testing positive for any steroidal business his “not here to talk about the past” routine in front of Congress dropped him from heralded slugger to whimpering, little girl in the court of public opinion.

Jose Canseco. Say what you will about the guy for a being a snitch, but in my mind he comes out looking a lot smoother than McGwire and Palmeiro.

And lastly, Jason Giambi. Guy admits to a grand jury he knowingly used the cream, the clear etc. etc. does an apology without necessarily implying exactly what he was apologizing for and he went on his merry way.

Now, I’m not saying Jason Giambi is a revered figure across the land, but don’t you think he’s leaps and bounds ahead of guys like McGwire and Palmeiro - character and perception wise?

America is a land of second, third and even forth chances. Why not admit wrongdoing (presuming they are both guilty) in a sport we all know is pretty tainted anyways and save face a bit?

Hey, we found some more cheaters

July 31st, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

So we know Floyd Landis and Justin Gatlin went ahead and failed some drug tests recently. (Gatlin is innocent. That damn sabotaging masseuse!)

Perhaps in honor of that (although we think perhaps not), Sports Illustrated has gone ahead and busted out one of their fine photo galleries on the subject of “Cheating Controversies” – what appears to be the top 10 of them, in fact.

We got your Albert Belle corked bat, the Black Sox scandal and Danny Almonte, pretty standard fare cheaters.

But perhaps the most interesting one on the list (and our personal favorite) is Rosie Ruiz.

In 1980, Rosie Ruiz [(left)] won the Boston Marathon in 2:31:56 with nary a bead of sweat on her brow. How does one accomplish such a feat? By entering the race in the final half-mile. Ruiz had also earned her spot in the race by dominating the New York Marathon. Of course, in that competition, she reportedly rode the subway most of the way.

Um, blaming beer, masseuses or that you “grabbed the wrong bat” certainly isn’t going to work for an excuse here.

Perhaps she “unknowingly” knew the race was 26.2 miles?

More to ponder on the Grimsley situation….

June 12th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

Friday, Chris Mihlfeld (Pujols’/Grimsley’s trainer) denied he has any ties to steroids or HGH and not only was he sure his name wasn’t blacked out in the affidavit; he claims he has spoken to Grimsley and the former Diamondbacks pitcher has assured Mihlfeld his name wasn’t mentioned.

Okay, a few things to mention in regards to this.

First, this in no way takes Mihlfeld off the hook. (Just as Deadspin’s calling his name into question incriminated him.) There’s simply not enough solid information one way or the other to know for certain who exactly Grimsley name dropped. Until the names are actually released or someone comes out and admits they are in the affidavit before the names are released, it’s pretty much all still going to be speculation.

One of the more interesting things going on with this situation is what the commenters on Viva El Birdos have done. A few have done some educated guessing as far as the font/size of the text in the affidavit and inserted Mihlfeld name into it. Take a look at this link. (If the image looks small, just cursor over it and a magnifying glass will appear so you can zoom in.) It seems to suggest that although ‘Kansas City Royals’ fits, Chris Mihlfeld doesn’t fit because it’s too short.

This guy’s doctoring of the affidavit suggests that Gene Monahan (trainer of the New York Yankees) is a perfect fit. However, Monahan is still the trainer of the Yanks (not the former trainer as the affidavit says) so that doesn’t really work out. And adding to that, the commenter wrote in ‘Eugene Monahan’ to make it fit right. And what makes even less sense is that ‘Eugene Monahan’ and ‘Chris Mihlfeld’ are the exact same length (13 letters) but yet one fits and one doesn’t. How does that work?

Others have pointed out that the way the name is blacked out (the end of it isn’t high, suggesting it can’t be a ‘d’ and it must be something smaller, like an ‘n’ or an ‘m’) suggests that the name can’t be Mihlfeld.

Gosh, all this speculative stuff has my head hurting.

So yeah, let’s just wait this one out, because that’s about the only sure way we’re going to know the truth.

And lastly, former Yankee Jim Leyritz admitted to using amphetamines during his career Friday on the Dan Patrick show. Leyritz made the point that the use of these so called ‘greenies’ was prevalent among players in the game during his tenure in the league. Which brings up the point ‘If a lot of guys are using performance enhancers, there’s no testing for it and they work, why not take them? What’s the harm in it? It can only help, not hurt.’

Okay, enough of this. Time to see if the U.S. can crawl out of this 2-0 hole against the Czech Republic.

Gulp.