A Small List...

...of everything that has happened since my beloved Cubbies last won the World Series (1908):

1. Radio was invented.
2. TV was invented.
3. Movies gained both color AND sound
4. MLB added 14 teams.
5. George Burns celebrated his 10th, 20th, 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th, 70th,
80th, 90th and 100th birthdays.
6. Haley’s Comet passed Earth...twice.
7. Blues, jazz, rock, and rap music were all created.
8. Women gained the right to vote.
9. Alcohol was prohibited.
10. The prohibition of alcohol was repealed...have one on me!
11. World War 1
12. The Great Depression
13. World War 2
14. The U.S.S.R. was born...AND died...
15. The whole Cold War thing happened.
16. Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier.
17. The computer was invented.
18. The transistor was invented.
19. The entire civil rights movement happened.
20. Sputnik
21. Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in outer space.
22. Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the surface of the moon.
23. Hippies...wow.
24. 11 amendments were added to the U.S. Constitution.
25. 18 U.S. presidents were elected...or, if you like, 17 were EEElected, one was SEE-lected...heh heh heh...
26. Three other North American sports leagues were created (NBA, NHL, and NFL) and Chicago teams have won championships in each one.
27. The Titanic was built, set sail, sank, was discovered, and became the subject of a major motion picture.
28. Wrigley Field was built and becomes the oldest park in the National League.
29. A combination of 40 summer and winter Olympics have been held.
30. The internet was invented.
31. The Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox, Arizona Diamondbacks, Florida Marlins, and Chicago White Sox have ALL won the World Series.
32. Harry Carey was born...AND died...
33. Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Oklahoma, and New Mexico were added to
the Union.
34. And, in spite of all this, Cub Fans continue to hold out hope that THIS is THE YEAR!

The Rocket In The Docket

Whoever is in charge of giving a story legs, thank you sooooo much for the current Roger Clemens steroid fiasco.

This thing is the gift that just keeps on giving.

First, Clemens and Andy Pettitte get outed for using illegal performance enhancers by their former trainer Brian McNamee in the Mitchell Report.

Then, giving tons of credibility to the charges that McNamee made in the report, Pettitte ‘fesses up and cops to having done exactly what McNamee said he did.

Then we get 24 days of utter silence from The Rajah, while every right-thinking person in the western hemisphere is wondering why it’s taking so long for him to respond…unless, of course, there is some truth to McNamee’s claim, in which case the time taken is being used to rev up the spin cycle.

While waiting for something, anything, from Clemens, this knucklehead releases a video to YouTube (!!), denying all charges. YouTube? YouTube??

What, the Weekly World News couldn’t squeeze him in under the banner headline about the two-headed cows being abducted by aliens? But wait…there’s more.

Sure enough, Clemens stages an “interview” on 60 Minutes that should have shamed the company that gave us Edward R. Murrow and investigative journalism. Had this sham been any more softballish, there would be a keg of beer at each base.

Next, we get a lawsuit (!!), where Clemens is suing McNamee for defamation of character. Just for kicks, I went to a legal website to read up on defamation of character, and the site was quick to advise that proving defamation is difficult under the best of circumstances, even if the defendant is lying. Basically, Clemens is trying to curry any public favor he can by saying, “See? I’m suing…” even though this kind of suit rarely pays off.

Finally, there’s this spurious “tape” that Clemens and his people have been playing, claiming that McNamee is recanting.

All of this, had it been done by itself, is enough to keep me writing for the next year…but it only gets better.

Like Doyle Brunson holding the case ace on a royal flush, McNamee’s lawyers have re-raised every time Clemens pushes into the pot because they know they are holding the best cards.

When Clemens went semi-public on YouTube, McNamee’s lawyers immediately called on him to meet the real press.

When Clemens denied having ever used steroids, McNamee’s lawyers double-dog dared him to make the same statements under oath.

When Clemens and his camp began running selected excerpts of this phone conversation to friendly media outlets, McNamee’s lawyers have rightly demanded that Clemens’ camp turn over the entire tape willingly…or, absent that, that the tape be subpoenaed into evidence.

See, here’s the point: no matter what Clemens “seems to” say, McNamee’s lawyers have responded aggressively and in a way that Joe Couch Potato can readily understand, because it makes sense.

Videos on YouTube? Try talking to a room full of ink-stained wretches that are smelling blood.

Namby-pamby denials and running your mouth to friendly interviewers? Try saying the same thing under oath, tough guy.

Oh, you have a tape? Great. Let’s all sit down and listen to the whole thing together, you, me, and a big ol’ press contingent, and lets see what’s really on that tape, J. Edgar…

Unless, of course, you have reasons for not wanting to meet with reporters in a genuine question-and-answer press conference…y’know, because they might ask you the kind of questions that Mike Wallace conveniently left out.

Questions like: so what’s on the whole tape?

What took you so long to respond?

Why have you responded like this?

Why did you need to get injected in your buttocks with lidocaine? Does numbing your butt help you pitch better?

Why did you need to get injected with B-12 at all? Seems to me that you get the same benefit from swallowing a completely legal and over-the-counter pill with B-12, like, say, a Flintstones Chewable…

And the real question, the one that Clemens absolutely cannot avoid:

Why would McNamee tell the truth about Pettitte and lie about you, especially since he had to know that to lie under those circumstances would lead to all kinds of nasty legal problems later…and especially since he didn’t have to say a stinkin’ thing?

The best part is yet to come. Clemens will have to face the music soon, and this time he will be under oath

It sez so right here that you will hear the finest parsing of the English language since William Jefferson Clinton debated what the definition of “is” is…

Stay tuned.

Quick Slants - Stuff To Be Thankful For

I am personally thankful for each and every one of the following:

That my name isn’t Barry Bonds or Michael Vick.

That I’m nowhere near a retail outlet of any sort on the day after Thanksgiving.

That I’m not in charge of spinning Nick Saban’s latest verbal gaffe.

That, of all the names that will be published in George Mitchell’s report on steroids in baseball, mine won’t be one of them.

That I’m not a member of the Philadelphia Eagles and traveling to Foxboro this weekend.

That I’m not Isaiah Thomas.

That it ain’t me getting blowed up by Mo-Jo Drew on Youtube.

That I’m not Scott Boras.

That I’m not Stephon Marbury.

That I’m not the guy who signed Priest Holmes and Larry Johnson to big money contract extensions.

That I’m not the guy who gave Ahman Green a big ol’ pile of cash.

That I’m not the head coach of the worst Notre Dame football team in school history.

That I’m not Lloyd Carr.

That I’ll only get about a billion fewer questions about coaching at Michigan than Les Miles will.

That I have never driven to Wendy’s naked and drunk.

That I don’t have 9 different children by 9 different women.

That I’m not about to serve a 4 game suspension for smoking the herb.

That I’m not being reinstated after being suspended for smoking the herb.

That I’m not being reinstated to the worst team in history after being suspended for smoking the herb.

That I’m not the guy paying A-Rod $275 million over the next 10 years.

That I’m not a Bulls season ticket holder.

That I’m not the guy who had to set the largest point spread in NFL history and get his bosses to sign off on it.

That I’m not the guy who signed off on the largest point spread in NFL history.

That I don’t own the Vikings, Adrian Peterson notwithstanding.

That I don’t own the Supersonics, Kevin Durant notwithstanding.

That I’m not a Steinbrenner heir...as far as I know...

That I’m not the guy who has to revise all those Elias Baseball Abstracts when Barry Bonds does a perp walk and gets the Kennesaw Mountain Landis boot.

That I’m not Bud Selig.

That I’m not Bud Selig.

That I’m not Bud Selig. (Trust me, it bore repeating.)

That our next president will not be a woman.

That I don’t live in Los Angeles, the second-largest market in the U.S., and no pro football team to speak of, U.S.C. notwithstanding.

That I don’t have to share a locker room with Kobe Bryant.

That I haven’t won the Tour De France in the last decade.

That I haven’t won a gold medal in the Olympics in anything in the last two decades.

That I’m not the damn near unintelligible NFL analyst Emmitt Smith, an alleged Florida graduate.

That I’m not whoever was responsible for putting the NHL into WitSec with The Erasernator.

That I don’t live in a state that has twice elected actors (!!) as Republican governors.

That I don’t hang out with Pac-Man Jones, not even on accident.

That I’m not whoever was responsible for the abortion otherwise known as “D-War.”

That I’m not whoever was responsible for the crowd noise in Indianapolis.

That I’m not whoever was responsible for releasing “Grindhouse” on Easter Weekend...I mean, really...

That I’m not whoever was responsible for the Homeland Security Department (gee, thanks a bunch, Dubya...idiot).

That I’m not the Republican that will lose by 48 states in the next presidential election.

That I’m not one of the few remaining thousands ducking the hail of bullets in Detroit, recently voted the U.S.’s most dangerous city...

That I'm not one of the few remaining thousands ducking the hail of bullets in Detroit, recently voted as the U.S.'s second-most dangerous city, after, of course, Detroit.

That I'm not looking for a house, a car, or a job in Detroit.

That this isn’t a political column.

Sometimes.

That I’m not the guy who has to live with banning alcohol on team flights and sponsorships from Anheuser-Busch and Miller...not that there’s a conflict of interest or anything, I’m just sayin’...

That I’m not a New York Knicks season ticket holder.

That I’m not a New York Knicks season ticket holder.

That I’m not a New York Knicks season ticket holder. (See Selig, Bud.)

That NASCAR will never overtake MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) in the public eye, because if there’s one thing that rednecks love more than pro wrestling and flaming car wrecks, it’s genuine and bloody whupass on pay-per-view.

And finally, that for all of my carping, sports remain a refuge in a vast sea of entertainment “meh” because I remain fully convinced that at least some of the people are trying some of the time.

Don’t believe me? Just ask that helmet-shaped bruise in the middle of Shawne Merriman’s rib cage...heh heh heh...

Evolution Of The Game(s)

Somewhat lost amidst the hoopla surrounding Barry Bonds inexorable pursuit of baseball's Holy Grail was that perennial nice guy Tom Glavine won his 300th game as a starting pitcher.

I say somewhat, because for a reality-deprived sports maniac like myself, Glavine's achievement has been properly noted, if in most quarters with some sepia-toned sadness, as though we were seeing the last pandas die without successfully mating.

Indeed, if you look up any collection of articles discussing Glavine's feat, most of them bemoan the dearth of future 300 game winners...as though this were a bad thing.

Friends, did I miss something?

I thought that we taught our children that individual accomplishments are secondary to team goals.

I thought that winning the game was the whole goal of teamwork.

For all of our carping about the lack of 300 game winners on the horizon, for all of our complaining about not seeing iron men log 300 innings or more in a season, let's remember something: great teams are still winning over 100 games in a baseball season.

And all this without staffs littered with 20 game winners (surely the next pitching species on the endangered list).

It's gotten so bad that there's a new faux-stat in vogue: the quality start. To get a quality start, a pitcher must go at least seven innings...this, despite the rule that says a pitcher gets credit for the game if he completes five innings.

Again, it's nice if a pitcher is good enough to put up a body of work deserving of the Hall of Fame, but I'd guess that Jack Morris will take some solace in his World Series ring from 1991 whenever his 254 career victories leave him out of baseball's Valhalla.

Seriously, if 300-game pitchers go the way of the sabre-tooth tiger, I say so long, hasta la vista, and good night.

There are lots of reasons for the lack of 300-game winners on the horizon, all of them valid, and none of them Tony LaRussa's fault.

First off, there are all of 23 men who have won 300 or more games as a starting pitcher in the entire history of baseball.

23.

That's it.

Period.

So, before we all start crying about the sudden lack of 300-game winners, let's talk about the paucity of 300-game winners in respect to a few other baseball hallmarks.

There are 27 men who have 3000 or more hits.

There are 22 men who have 500 or more home runs.

There are 14 men with 3000 or more strikeouts.

Yes, I will admit that the offensive numbers are more likely to change in the short term, but not by much. For example, the 3000 hit club is not likely to grow by another 10 men in the next 5 years, nor is the 500 home run club.

So, again, there are only a handful of men in baseball who have been good enough for long enough to win 300 games as a starting pitcher. This tells me that we should not bemoan the lack of the achievement, but rather celebrate the singularity of the achievement. These few men defied age and, more importantly, younger hitters to get their wins. Before we bury them, let's praise them.

Second, if there are a lack of 300-game winners, it might be due to the fact that managers might have more options available to them.

Let's go back to 1904. If you lived in the Big Apple back then, you might have cheered for the New York Highlanders (who became the Yankees). That team went 92-59. Starting pitcher Jack Chesbro, usually appearing on two days rest, went 41-12 while appearing in 55 games. In plain terms, the man won a third of his team's games by himself. And I'll bet the rent that his manager, Clark Griffith, would have run Chesbro out to the hill 100 times if he could have.

Not impressed? Let's get a little closer to films with color and sound.

In 1968, Bob Gibson went 22-9.

Not impressed? He had 28 complete games. (Do the math, bunky: he was the pitcher of record in 31 games, and he finished 28 of them. Talk about a pitcher who could have sued for non-support...)

Still not impressed? He had 13 shutouts. That's 13 times that his team only had to score one single run to win. (For the record, he won four games that season by the score of 1-0.)

And for you roto-stat-freaks, he posted a 1.12 ERA, and a 0.853 WHIP.

He appeared in 34 of his team's 162 games.

And if it were up to Red Schoendienst, he'd have appeared in 90 games that season.

In other words, if there's a lack of 300 game winners, it might be because there's an abundance of live arms in the bullpen.

Managers keep their jobs (or lose them) based on their won-lost percentage. Therefore, it's in a manager's best interest to field the best possible lineup out of 25 players, in order to win games. Back in the old days, when arms like Gibson's were rare, you ran him out to the mound every 4 days, only because you couldn't run him out there every 3 days...and, to be frank, because you knew that the guy replacing him might not have been fit to lace Gibby's cleats.

Nowadays, it just makes sense to shorten games.

One, it keeps your starter fresher for longer. If a guy doesn't have to log 350 innings, he's likely to be a lot more effective during a white-hot pennant race than the guy who gets overused.

Two, when you shorten games, it makes it harder for batters to adjust. Just about the time that a good hitter has timed a good pitcher and gotten a feel for that pitcher's rhythm, you pull that pitcher and replace him with a fresh junkballer out of the bullpen. Now the batter has to start all over again, but this time it's late in the game and his team is down a run or two, which means that he might be pressing against a pitcher that he hasn't seen all day.

Better yet, when the game gets late, you can situationally pitch to hitters, doing thw whole lefty/righty thing until the game is in the books.

In other words, managers are managing games like they were the seventh game of the World Series.

Remember a few years ago, when Randy Johnson came out of the bullpen in Game 7 to help seal the victory for his team?

That happens every night in the bigs, and we're too spoiled to notice it.

Finally, it may be that pitchers aren't willing to extend themselves like they used to.

After all, when Gibby was chunkin' for the Redbirds, he was literally putting food on his table for his children. Nowadays, Carl Pavano can suck so bad that he'd mess up Stephen Hawking's math and his family would still never have to taste Spam forever.

In other words, when modern, multi-millionaire pitchers get to the sixth or seventh and they have the lead or are tied, and the welfare of their children doesn't depend upon their pitching a shutout into the eighth or ninth, they are much more likely to give the ball to skip and let the bullpen sort it out.

This is NOT to say that they are lazy, only that priorities have changed. In the old days, starting pitchers scoffed at the bullpen, largely because the bullpen was only there in case the starter broke something beyond immediate repair. Nowadays, modern pitchers love their 'pens, because those guys who get Holds and Saves also preserve Wins for the teams.

And, ultimately, that's what matters most.

But I don't believe we've seen our last 300-game winner.

In fact, all a guy has to do is win 15 games a year for 20 years. Raise the number of wins per season, and lower the number of seasons needed to get there.

In other words, there are pitchers out there right now, doing their due diligence, winning 15-18 games a season, that will be on the doorstep of 300 before we know it.

And I can prove it.

Give me a fastball pitcher with a nasty change-up and modern bullpen tactics, and I can give you a 300-game winner by 2027.

Unless you give me C.C. Sabathia, Roy Halladay, and Johan Santana right now...heh heh heh...

For The Record, Part 2

This is the second of 2 articles pondering the significance of Barry Bonds breaking the all-time home run record.

A most amazing thing happened after Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's home run record.

Aaron himself appeared on video to congratulate Bonds for the achievement.

Aaron, who had steadfastly refused to say anything positive or negative about Bonds as the latter approached the Holy Grail of baseball records, recorded nothing less than an eloquent and dignified congratulatory speech that really put the capper on the occasion.

Never mind that Aaron never should have had to go through this indignity in the first place.

This act by Aaron highlights his character and his generation.

You see, Aaron came up in an era in which black folks didn't air each other's dirty laundry in public, because that just ain't what people did.

Aaron came up in an era in which black folks believed that decent character would eventually win out, despite the evils being perpetrated against them. It didn't matter if another black man was less than perfect. In that era, all black men were united against a common foe: white society.

We cannot make too little of this. Laws existed that restricted a black man's freedoms, even his pleasures. Laws existed that restricted a black man's movements and ability to earn. And those were the ones that were on the books.

Other laws existed regarding such improprieties like a black man cutting his eyes at a white woman, or offering impertinence to a white person, that were paid for in blood after dark.

As a joke of the era went, one black man would ask another, "How you doin'?"

The other would reply, "White folks still in the lead..."

At which both would laugh, or grunt, or not in sympathy.

One did not throw another black man under the bus in Aaron's era, not when there was a common enemy more than willing to throw both the accused and the accuser under the bus together.

So Aaron did what he'd grown up doing: he forgave another man.

When Aaron endured death threats and insults of the vilest kind, when FBI protection had to be afforded to his daughter, when he had to be escorted by an armed policeman as he approached Babe Ruth's mark, he forgave.

He could have spoken out like so many black athletes of that time did...but they were younger, weren't they? They weren't riding buses in the Jim Crow South of the 1950s. Those athletes were children in the 60s when Malcolm X was assassinated; to them, the battle had always been fought that way. For Aaron, for the generation prior to that, the battle had been won by being the better man.

That bears repeating: the battle had been won by being the better man.

Aaron has publicly and privately spoken about carrying on the example that Jackie Robinson set, professionally and personally.

When the obviously chemically-enhanced Barry Bonds broke his record, he could have reviled, just as Robinson could have reviled when the Phillies gave him the kind of insults that might have made a modern hood rat "catch a case."

Instead, as he'd done throughout his career, throughout his life, Henry Aaron chose to take the higher road.

In doing so, he forever provided a poignant reminder of the gulf of character that exists between himself and the eternally-tainted Bonds.

And, quoting the very first words out of his mouth when he finally broke Babe Ruth's record,

"Thank God it's over."

For The Record, Part 1

This is the first of two articles reflecting on Barry Bonds' becoming baseball's all-time home run king.

I saw the dinger.

THE dinger.

Number 756.

Any way you say it, the number demands a certain respect.

And yet, I find myself feeling weird right now.

Not ambivalent, but weird.

There's just something wrong when such a colossal indignity is committed publicly and nothing is done about it.

While something may yet be done is really immaterial. After all, no matter what the NCAA and the Big Ten may say about Michigan's tainted records with the Fab Five, we all saw freshmen play in the NCAA Championship Game. All the money that any boosters might have given them didn't make them better players, only richer. We saw them. They existed. Their deeds occurred in real life. We have chosen to ignore their deeds because of off-court malfeasance, but that's really it, isn't it?

We choose to ignore what really happened.

In other words, we're trying to edit reality.

Barry Bonds, most certainly chemically-enhanced, really hit his 756th career home run.

I will not recount the evidence against him, mountainous though it is.

All I can say is that, whatever we may choose to do with his record, it is now finally his, now and forever.

Any future discussion of home run kings will inevitably have to mention him, because, love him or hate him, he still had to face major league pitching and hit the baseball out of the yard 756 times, more than anyone else.

An asterisk only tempts us to alter reality, just like the asterisk that haunted Roger Maris to his death. The fact is that Maris hit more home runs than Babe Ruth in a season, number of games be damned. Maris didn't make the schedule, any more than Ruth did. Maris actually stood in and hit 61 home runs in a single season, more than any man before him and any man up to the benighted Mark McGwire.

When that asterisk was finally removed, we admitted what we already knew all along: Maris had really done what we had all seen him do.

Just as Pete Rose has done what we have all seen him do, some 4256 times. Rose's eligibility for the National Baseball Hall of Fame really doesn't matter, because the record he posted is unlikely to ever be broken. We can make him persona non grata at official baseball events, we can keep him from ever darkening the Hall's door, but his presence looms over the Hall because his record stands.

He actually hit a baseball safely 4256 times. There's only one other guy that has as many as 4000 career hits, and only one other guy after him that has as many as 3700 career hits.

This is where we are with Barry Bonds. We can choose not to put his records in the books, just like we do for Sadaharu Oh and Josh Gibson. In Gibson's case, we choose not to acknowledge his records because the white, er, right people didn't see them...never mind ample eyewitness testimony to the contrary. In Oh's case, his were only hit in Japan...as though hitting 800+ home runs in Japan is somehow easier than hitting 714 against competition that didn't include black pitchers.

I mean, it's too late for any recriminations now. It's too late to take anything back.

What? Are we going to go back through every one of Barry Bonds' home runs and magically erase them from the box score? Are we going to change the scores of the games in which those home runs occurred?

Let's not forget that all of those home runs did not occur in a vacuum, but within the context of a major league baseball season, which usually ends with a champion, absent Bud Selig's thumb-fingered interference. Bonds' teams haven't always been as bad as the current edition. What do we do to some deserving team that got cheated out of a victory because of a Bonds blast?

Send them roses? Offer an apology? Do some fantasy league crap and retroactively award them the playoff spot they didn't get because Bonds was hitting out of his mind for a chemically-enhanced season or two?

No, these 756 home runs really happened, because baseball let them happen.

And baseball let them happen because we let baseball let them happen.

Had we stood up and been counted, had we spoken with our wallets instead of our handwritten signs, this might have been averted.

Instead, we supported this charade. The more he hit, the more of us came to the yard and bought his jersey and signed up for the baseball package on our local cable providers and bought products advertised on baseball broadcasts...and Major League Baseball took note.

So they gave him a pass.

Instead of keeping him from the pinnacle of baseball records, they paved the way for him. Baseball drug its heels at ever investigating steroids, despite growing evidence that the drug was everywhere, then appointed a toothless investigator with no subpoena power to "look into the matter."

All that was a sham. All that was for our benefit.

Baseball only gave us what we wanted...then, and now.

Then, we wanted commercials that said "Chicks dig the long ball."

Now, we'll want asterisks...or expunged records...or some other equally faux punishment for things that really happened.

Barry Bonds has really hit 756 home runs.

This ain't the Matrix. We can't alter reality.

He really did it.

And it is our fault.

A Moment Of Perspective

With all that has gone on recently in sports, I'd like to pause to reflect upon something truly nice:

Tony Gwynn is a Hall-Of-Famer.

Those words bear repeating.

Tony Gwynn is a Hall-Of-Famer.

As the old saying goes, he may not be in a class by himself, but it doesn't take long to call roll.

To wit:

Cobb.

Williams.

Oliva.

Carew.

Rose.

Boggs.

Gwynn.

That's about it.

This guy could do the most difficult thing in sports better than 99% of anyone who has ever been paid to do it, and he did it with a genuine smile on his face.

Gwynn proved that one doesn't have to be some chemically-enhanced hulk to hit a baseball; in fact, for most of his career, he looked like some beer league softball guy, or some throwback from the Seventies, before players fell in love with the weight room and forgot about the batting cage.

He looked like us.

His waist expanded in accordance with his age, just like us mortals. He got older, he got a little...rounder.

Just like us.

But a bulging waistline did not detract from the discipline that made him an all-time great. He saw the ball. He kept his weight back and his hands high. He took what the pitcher gave him and he hit the ball where someone was not standing.

He did that 3,141 times, for a lifetime batting average of .338.

Were a man to hit .338 for a season, he would stand to make millions.

Gwynn just like wearing out pitchers because he could.

Consider: Against Greg Maddux, arguably the greatest pitcher of his era (and a guy who is still pretty darned effective), Gwynn hit .429 for his career.

That bears repeating: Gwynn hit .429 against a pitcher with four consecutive Cy Young awards and 340 (and counting) career victories.

See, he didn't just wear out roster fodder like Zachary Taylor. He wore all of 'em out.

He was perhaps the one man who could argue with Ted Williams about hitting that Ted Williams would listen to and not dismiss outright...and that list is even shorter than the one I posted above. He also respected Ted Williams so much that, as a veteran of double-digit seasons, he took Williams' advice and changed his stroke on inside pitches...and posted his career high in home runs (17).

He coaches baseball for his alma mater, San Diego State, not because he needs the money, but because he gets to pass on the encyclopedic knowledge of hitting that he has gained from a lifetime of spanking the ball the other way.

Tony Gwynn is a Hall-Of-Famer.

Of course he is.

Coincidence and Baseball

I'm not a terribly old man (43), but I have been privileged to witness the fall of some significant sports hallmarks: the NFL all-time rushing mark, the NBA all-time scoring mark, the NHL all-time scoring mark, and anything belonging to Tiger Woods and scores relative to par in a major championship (not to mention the unofficial but never-to-be-duplicated Tiger Slam).

Why is it, then, that only baseball seems to suffer from such a vile cloud of infamy where its hallowed marks are concerned?

Think about it: the all-time hits mark belongs to Peter Edward Rose, a guy that most of us wouldn't want to be in the same room with...and he took it from Ty Cobb, a guy that would gleefully spike his own grandmother at second base.

Then there's the all-time home run record.

While Babe Ruth was hardly a paragon of virtue, he never broke the unwritten rules of baseball. He played hard and he lived hard and we loved him for it.

Henry Aaron, on the other hand, is everything a mother could want in a son, and a manager could want in a baseball player. While enduring segregation of the vilest sort, and living under the black shadow of death threats, like the John Henry myth from which he picked up his name, he simply picked up his hammer and went to work.

No record was won more honorably.

Which brings us to the lamentable Barry Lamar Bonds.

Up to his 35th birthday, there was no finer player in baseball, perhaps in baseball history. The numbers he put up were much like Aaron's in their metronome consistency. He'd already won three MVP awards and was suffering from Michael Jordan syndrome: sure, you're really the best player, but we really oughtta give it to some other guy.

That was then.

Now, a mammoth imposter wearing Bonds' jersey sits five home runs away from baseball's most hallowed record. Implausibly, his hat size has grown even as he has shaved his head, his jersey size has grown a mere 10 sizes since his first MVP award, and he has managed some 257 home runs since the age of 36, including a single-season record of 73.

Anyone remember Dale Murphy at 36? 2 home runs in 18 games, and none in 26 games the following season.

Mickey Mantle at 37? Retired.

To all this, add Barry Bonds' less-than-sparkling personality (somewhat south of Dave Kingman on a bad day), and we the perfect baseball storm.

Barry Bonds is at least an unrepentant narcissist, concerned only with those things that may happen to affect him on Barry-world, and dismissive of anything he deems beneath his attention...which is the rest of us.

However, given the anecdotal evidence that anyone can amass by doing a little Intergoogling, including what steroid usage will do to a person over time, it appears that Barry Bonds is also at least a criminal (as steroids are still against the law)...and he's about to break the all-time home run record belonging to a man whose class and reputation is beyond impeachment.

I guess my question is this: given that the all-time record holders in the other sports also seem to be exemplary characters in their private lives as well as their public lives, why is it that baseball seems to suffer from idiots at the top of their all-time charts?

No one has accused Dan Marino of anything more heinous than not winning a Super Bowl over his Hall-Of-Fame career, and certainly nothing since. Walter Payton lived and died with his reputation as a man, a father, and a hell of a football player intact. Emmitt Smith remains one of the few Cowboys of the Jimmie Johnson era whose face has not shown up on a police blotter. Wayne Gretzky has cast the kind of glare over his sport that only Tiger Woods has managed to duplicate, and neither of them has been guilty of anything but wanting to win all the time. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar remains the real pillar of the NBA, combining longevity with effectiveness in a way that escaped Wilt Chamberlain (due largely to Chamberlain's rather Ruthian excesses.)

Maybe I've answered my own question. Maybe these things are cyclical. After all, the previous all-time NFL rushing leader, Jim Brown, is a notorious woman beater, despite all of his community efforts. We've already mentioned Babe Ruth. Wilt Chamberlain was at least the narcissist that Barry Bonds currently is, even if Bonds hasn't quite slept with 10,000 women yet. Ty Cobb probably wasn't a serial murderer only because baseball payed better. Steve Carlton was a Fruit Loop escaped from the cereal box.

At any rate, here's hoping that Ichiro and A-Rod play for another twenty years...

Jason Giambi and The Truth

I saw an interesting piece in USA Today about Jason Giambi and steroids. If nothing else, while I can appreciate Giambi’s candor and honesty in discussing the great There/Not There of MLB, I still believe that he did not go far enough.

While talking to Bob Nightengale, the 2000 AL MVP offered what should be considered the only acceptable mea culpa of the steroids era: “I was wrong for doing that stuff…(w)hat we should have done a long time ago was stand up – players, ownership, everybody – and said: ‘We made a mistake.’ We should have apologized back then…”

Giambi deserves no small amount of credit for this statement, even as it does appear to restate the obvious. The fact is that MLB – “players, ownership, everybody” – has engaged in systematic collusion, obfuscation, and stony silence. Someone of his stature should have spoken up like this a long time ago, but various reasons have been given, and none of them wash. Managers pretend that they have no idea what’s going on in locker rooms; owners have no idea why their star slugger’s helmet size continues to change; and players both former and current cite the spurious “code of the locker room,” as though locker rooms are exempt from the law of the land.

Giambi, without naming names, without betraying confidences, still said what we, the public, have been wanting to hear for years: yes, they were doing it. Yes, they were wrong. And yes, something should have changed years ago. After all, isn’t sport supposed to exemplify outdated concepts like “fair play?” Don’t we teach our kids that cheating is wrong?

But an exchange near the end of the article between Nightengale and Giambi illustrates the great gulf between perception and reality that still exists with regard to steroids.

Giambi says, “That stuff didn’t help me hit home runs. I don’t care what people say, nothing is going to give you that gift of hitting a baseball.”

Nightengale asks, “So why did you take steroids?”

Giambi responds, “Maybe one day, I’ll talk about it, but not now.”

This is exactly the problem. Giambi, on the one hand, appears to be honest, and within the space of the same interview, reverts to classic MLB disingenuousness. Nightengale’s question is THE question of the steroid problem: if they don’t help, as so many major leaguers aver, then why take them?

We are supposed to believe that being stronger doesn’t help one hit home runs? We’re supposed to believe that maintaining one’s strength throughout the marathon that is a baseball season doesn’t help one hit home runs? OF COURSE THEY HELP. No one is suggesting that steroids help eye-hand coordination. However, if strength is the issue, then steroids become a must for baseball players trying to make the big club, because strength is the difference between a seeing-eye single and a 6-3 put-out, or the difference between a fly ball at the warming track and a home run.

Let’s put it in even more practical terms: over 500 at-bats, the difference between a .300 hitter and a .250 hitter is only 25 hits. That’s it. Are we not supposed to believe that being a little bit stronger won’t make a visible difference over that crucial 25 at-bat window?

Steroids increase strength, which means that balls are hit harder, which means that guys on steroids have a clear advantage over guys that are clean. No competitor wants to go into a contest at a distinct disadvantage, which explains why steroids are so rampant in the big leagues. A guy at Triple A will not sit idly by while some wunderkind with a syringe gets a May call-up; he’s going to call Dr. Feelgood as well. The 23rd man on a major league bench is not going to let the wunderkind from the farm take his job, so he calls the dope man as well. The hotshot first baseman, in his walk year, is not going to give up a possible MVP and a New York Yankee payday because steroids don’t help one hit home runs.

Once again, when were you taking steroids, Jason Giambi? Oh, that’s right, it was during that magical 2000 season when, as a free agent-to-be, you won the AL MVP and then cashed one of George Steinbrenner’s immense checks.

But they don’t help.

Not much.

When Hitters Aren't Hitting

Remember all those wiseguys and talking heads making jokes about watching to see who would struggle at the plate this season as more steroid allegations became public? Remember sports columnists and observers wondering if the threat of federal prison time might affect the timing in a guy’s swing?

I present the following for your consideration. You’ll note that every statistic below is after Kirk J. Radomski’s arrest and subsequent spilling of guts went public.

Pop quiz, hotshot: which former batting champion is currently hitting 65 points below his career average?

If you said Manny Ramirez, you win.

Bar Bet Number 2: which former 40-home run sluggers are both currently well below the Mendoza line?

If you said Richie Sexson and Paul Konerko, you win again.

Double or nothing: of Sexson and Konerko, which man is hitting a cool 80 points below his career average?

Okay, it’s a trick question. They both are. Sexson is cooling the infield at .183, some 84 points below his career average, and Konerko couldn’t hit sand if he fell off a camel at .194, a mere 87 points below his career average.

It gets worse. Carlos Delgado, at .212, is hitting 69 points below his career average. Jim Edmonds, at .218, is hitting 70 points below. Bobby Abreu, at .236, is 65 points below. Jermaine Dye, at an anemic .203, is 72 below. Pudge Rodriguez, at .239, is 64 points in arrears. Scott Rolen, at .216, is beating the air at 67 points below his career average.

And Albert Pujols, the finest hitter in a Cardinal uniform since Mr. Musial, is hitting .239, an amazing 90 points below his career average.

What are we to make of this? Is this just some statistical anomaly found by a pajama-clad loony? Or is it evidence of something more?

I’m just going to say it out loud. At no point in BASEBALL HISTORY will you find ten of the games top sluggers scuffling this badly at the same time. Except for Ramirez, not a man among the aforementioned is hitting over .240, and we’re a quarter of the way through the season already. Just for funsies, I looked some stuff up. While it is true that one can find evidence of men like Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Al Kaline, Willie Mays, or Duke Snider hitting well below their career averages after 40 games, you will not find them all at minus 65 or worse at the same time in the same year.

Maybe they’re all just injured. At the same time. And no one has reported it. In this day of 24-hour sports reporting and up-to-the-minute fantasy baseball stats, that hardly seems likely. If nothing else, the wiseguys would put the injuries out there to get a better number. No, this is all just a little too cute for me. It makes me wonder.

It makes me wonder if they have gotten subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in connection with Kirk J. Radomski’s testimony. It makes me wonder if they are already lawyered up in anticipation of a media firestorm the likes of which will make the O.J. trial look like something on C-SPAN. It makes me wonder what they know, and what they are afraid others might know.

I am not accusing any of the above players of having taken steroids, but, in this day and age, one cannot help but to be suspicious. I’m not taking anyone’s word about anything because the sweater is still unraveling, but faster now. Names have been named. Checks have been signed. Deposits have been made. Phone numbers have been collected. Radomski’s testimony, sung in four part harmony with the hope of a drastically-reduced federal sentence, will only give the investigators that many more doors to open with search warrants, and that many more bank accounts to examine, and that many more cell phone numbers to collect, which will lead to more names and numbers and bank accounts, because people will talk with a stretch in Club Fed facing them.

Yogi Berra once said that you can’t think and hit.

I wonder what these ten guys are thinking about.

Below The Radar

The NFL is still on everyone’s radar, what with the draft, Pacman, Michael Vick and his dogs, Brett Favre’s mouth, Donovan McNabb’s mouth, and, of course, T.O.’s mouth. And somehow Randy Moss ended up playing for the New England Belichicks. Allegedly, this is the NFL’s “off-season.”

We got Pistons-Bulls in the NBA playoffs, and if it’s not the bloodsport that it was in the Jordan Rules days, it’s still compelling basketball. The Spurs and the Suns are slapping each other around out West, and Jerry Sloan is getting some old school love from guys like J.A. Adande as his Jazz look to advance to the Western Conference finals. And we haven’t even mentioned the fact that the Cleveland LeBrons are one game from the Eastern Conference finals.

MLB? So many topics, so little time…let’s see: there’s Barry “The Vilest Human Alive” Bonds and his tainted pursuit of St. Henry’s home run record; there’s Kurt Radomski, hidden by Eraser Arnold Schwarzennegger, spilling his guts for every recording device known to man; there’s The Rajah, The Rocket, the best part-time pitcher in history, Roger Clemens, returning to the Yankees for a prorated salary that would pay every Devil Ray in history, Dice-K in Beantown, the Mets on top of the world, J.J. Friggin’ Hardy in Milwaukee…yup, the Grand Old Game is doing just fine, and I haven’t even insulted Tim McCarver yet.

What’s missing? Horse racing? Nope, some two-year-old just won the Derby, the first one since Spectacular Bid (and all you degenerates know that horse…). Boxing? Didn’t one of the Mayweathers fight Oscar De La Hoya, or did they all just whup each other in a Fatal Three-Way at Caesar’s Palace? Hell, we even had a Wrestlemania, with the Undertaker winning the World Heavyweight Championship after defeating Batista (and by the way, the Dead Man remains undefeated at Wrestlemania…not that I’m counting or anything…).

Something is missing…hey, didn’t Little E tell the Stepmonster where to put his dad’s sinking company? That’s right, Dale Earnhardt Jr. told Theresa (I Married Into Money) Earnhardt to take DEI and shove it. If he can’t have the company with his dad’s name, he’ll take his dad’s name and genes to a company that will actually build a competitive NASCAR racer, perhaps Richard Childress (ooohhh, the very thought of Little E running the Number 3 car for Richard Childress seems like scripture…).

What have I forgotten? No, the oven’s off. No, my keys are in my pocket. No, I paid that bill and I have the receipt in my barbecue-stained fingers. No, the doctor said that it wouldn’t spread if I kept putting the cream on it…er, never mind…

OHHHHH…now I remember. Somewhere, in agate type, amid the box scores and meaningless NFL transactions, somewhere on cable channels that only insomniacs, schizophrenics, and Republicans watch, the League Formerly Known As The NHL is having a little playoff. Something about a Cup…?

I’ve forgotten already. Besides, Ray Buchanan and Chris Landry are having a urinating contest about Michael Vick’s dogs…