Baseball certainly still has the Midas touch, don’t they? On the day they hand out their most prestigious individual award (well one of two, anyway), they manage to overshadow the news almost immediately by announcing their new steroid penalties.
Maybe it was a subtle message to the winner of the award? Hmm?
OK, probably not. It’s likely the only drugs Albert Pujols is on are Dulcolax and Premarin.
In baseball, if you test positive for steroids once you get a 50 game suspension. Twice, you get 100 days. Three times you get a lifetime ban (with an appeal for reinstatement after two years). Gotta love the lifetime ban that goes away in two years. That’ll teach them. Then again, maybe the guys will be so hopped up on ‘roids that they’ll go Eddie Gurerro in a hotel room before the two years are up?
They also came up with actual penalties for amphetamine use, which is kind of a shock, considering baseball players have been popping “greenies” like M and Ms for fifty years. The first positive test gets you tested more frequently. Your second offense is a 25 game suspension, the third is 80 games and your fourth one gets you an audience with Interim Commissioner for Life Bud Selig in which he’ll scold you, try to sell you a Cadillac and tell you to switch to coffee.
One thing we know. Given the lethargic nature of the Dusty Baker Cubs, none of them are going to be testing positive for any stimulants. If they do, I’d hate to see how lazy these guys are going to be without them.
So now baseball is all proud of themselves. They have a tough steroid penalty in place. Now all they need to do is actually test the players in a way that might…you know…catch the ones who use them.
In the ESPN the Magazine report on steroids this week they have stories about how lax the testing procedures are. Players get advanced warning, sometimes as much as two hours before the test. Some players aren’t supervised when they pee in the cup. Hell, you could have anybody pee for you then. Unless the bat boy is on Winstrol, chances are you’re not going to get caught doing anything.
It also doesn’t address Human Growth Hormone, the designer steroids that show up in blood but not urine and all kinds of stuff. In other words, as tough as the penalties may be, only the really dumb guys (like former Cubs Matt Lawton, Felix Heredia, Jorge Piedra and our buddy Raffy Palmeiro) are ever going to get caught.
ESPN the Magazine pretty much straight accused Jason Giambi of going back on HGH this summer to revive his career. Even if he did, the test would never prove it.
But now Congress thinks they accomplished something, and Bud thinks he did, and creepy, lipstick wearing Don Fehr can go back to whichever one of the Galapagoses he lives on and we’re supposed to think baseball’s back to being legit.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, Sammy Sosa’s going to pick up the east half of my house while I fix the basement door.
My guess is that the prinicpal drug used by Albert is Metamucil
Metamucil doesn’t work nearly as well as me.
Do you know how many doses of Metamucil you’d need to equal the power of one bowl of Colon Blow?
30,000!
Word is I’m a great clubhouse presence too, bitch. Sign me.
I’m great in the clubhoose too, eh. I clean the toilets and everything. Like, I oughta get big money for that, eh!
Yeah, that’s right. I believe everything Jim Hendry says. Just ask Jim. (Oh, that’s right, you don’t have to deal with the people you call names.) Jim sure liked my question last week about giving $5 million to a backup player like Neifi Perez. He also likes my references to the Cubs’ undervaluing such trivial offensive stats as OBP. Your resident “dope” here also pointed out recently that Jacque Jones’ numbers weren’t much different from those of Jeromy Burnitz, which is to say they weren’t very good. And of all the beat writers and reporters who cover the Cubs, I’d say exactly one of them (this dope, but I’d never call myself an “expert”) has been tough on Dusty Baker.
Got to run. Jim Hendry is calling to tell me what to believe.
Fun site you got here, though.
That was cool.
I never thought Bruce was that angry or insecure.
We should really go away. If we don’t want to read the stuff here, we shouldn’t. If we must, we should stop annoying everyone else with our retarded comments and obnoxious criticisms. Maybe we could just go and open a blogspot account and make our own web pages!
We should really go away. If we don’t want to read the stuff here, we shouldn’t. If we must, we should stop annoying everyone else with our retarded comments and obnoxious criticisms. Maybe we could just go and open a blogspot account and make our own web pages!
What Bruce doesn’t seem to know is that this sentence “By all accounts, Bruce is pretty good, but you just know he believes everything Jim Hendry tells him.”
Is about as close to a compliment as gets thrown out around here.
Anyway, as our favorite Channel 4 co-anchor said to Wes Mantooth, “Try not to lose any more hair over it.”
Ain’t much more hair to lose. Thanks for the “compliment.” I did notice that part of it. And I did say this was a fun site.
I think when they make fun of you here it means they like you. Kind of like 7th grade.
Unless they insinuate you have your dead mother preserved in your home or they run a ticker to keep of track of when you have to leave.
And yes, I’m still bitter that ESPN wouldn’t let me out of my deal to come to the Cubs so I could play here with the lunatics.
Tap tap tap
Taaaaap taaaap taaaaap
tap tap tap
Tap tap tap
Taaaaap taaaap taaaaap
tap tap tap
Tap tap tap
Taaaaap taaaap taaaaap
tap tap tap
Tap tap tap
Taaaaap taaaap taaaaap
tap tap tap
Someone’s pining for my return to the air? What are the hours and would I have to live in Durango, IL?
Anybody have “that was really Bruce Miles” on their radar?
Oh, and keep an eye on Pat Gillick in Philadelphia this week. No, really, keep an eye on him, he owes me for a Penthouse Forum he said he was “borrowing.”
Julie, sweetie! Long time, no see. Wanna come over and play hide the World Series ring?
A sure way to get us to appear is to take umbridge with Andy. Make sure you don’t have your own opinion or happen to disagree with the majority here. If you DO have a contrarian view, it should be stifled and not shared with anyone, except on your own blog. If anyone tries to offer their own take that doesn’t fit the Desipio company line (or its subsidiaries or devotees), they should strongly reconsider any thought of posting to an open messageboard. And, above all, you better not post annoymously, or us Police Cops will make sure you are branded a pussyâ€â€or worse, gay.
Aren’t we the same thing?
I look like Scotty Hamilton. I also skate like an angel, as well.
Saying I’m less af a moran than the rest of the writers in town, is like saying I finished 1st in the special olympics.
#15, if #5 and #11 weren’t actually me, it was somebody doing a bloody good impression of me.
It’s “umbrage”. Look it up.
Aren’t we the same thing?
All, I’ll say is that I had the Desipio Police Cops investigate it and they’re pretty sure Hugh Douglas, Matt Stairs, Butt-head, Paul Sullivan, Dave O’Brien, Bruce Levine’s mother, Julie Swieca and Paul Konerko didn’t really post here.
Oh man, the discussion is stuck in one of those loops again…
I’m pretty sure that was actually Bruce Levine’s mother, actually.
D’oh! Yeah, CT, it is “One of those days…” But the Police Cops bring up a good point: it’s treasonous to go against the grain. If Andy had such thin skin and bristled at the thought of people coming here and daring to disagree, he’d turn off the Comments section. Luckily, Andy has thick skin (pasty, but thick). It’s the notion that the Desipio Army shows up en masse when someone wants to pick nits.
(Throwing scarf over shoulder)
And that’s the end of that!
Have I annoyed the lot of you yet? Clearly, that’s what I’m here for.
I sound like one of Apex’s old posts.
Why is there always some crusader on the board that feels the need to put desipiots in their place? If we didn’t all generally agree, we wouldn’t come here. There are disagreements on this board, but this know-it-all b.s. is old. If the only reason you are gonna visit a site is to disagree with the content (or prove a “point”), stay away. This is Dolan’s site, he can write what he wants. Whether we all agree, or not, should be of no consequence to you.
Bruce,
I have a hot lead on a trade, e-mail me and we’ll talk.
Hoops
Well said, Gus.
Actually, my skin is not that pasty. Surprising for somebody as Irish as I am. Must be one of those black Irish.
And as it turns out, that really was Bruce Miles. Now everyone get back to avoiding work.
To continue the discussion from yesterday:
Andy’s interview I had to go through to get my (thankfully for some) occasional column was actually very difficult. I have had some easier tests of knowledge here at the U of I.
Maybe.
Thank you Mr. Vice President, now about those motorcades that always mess with traffic by my house…
:: There are disagreements on this board…
:: Whether we all agree, or not, should be of no consequence to you.
Gus, I think that’s the point. If someone disagrees, he/she should have that option, and be able to voice it here. Yeah, they’ll get flamed, and sometimes that’s warranted (such as claiming Pujols is under age 30, or the Urinal Cake smells fresh, or KD doesn’t need to shave his soul patch), but this is foolish to think someone will just slink away quietly if they have a bee in their bonnet. If they want to squash the bee that is annoying him and annoy the rest of us in the process, so be it. Whining about it is just that: whining.
I like the cut of your jib, Homercles.
True, it just doesn’t ever seem to be done constructively. It seems like whoever does it is trying to start a fight, which takes everyone off topic. Anyway, was that really Bruce Miles?
What’s a jib?
I heard Homercles cares not for beans.
I only care for the Erotic Adventures of Hercules, starring Norman Fell as Zeus.
Johnny Tightlips, what do you care for?
I care for a lot of things…
… but I ain’t sayin’.
Eh, c’mon, Gus… A little fight-starting is OK from time to time.
For you maybe…
Hey Miles, you want to trade beats?
Muhuhuhuhuhahaha!
I have to say that Andy’s paragraph about Bruce Miles was probably the nicest thing he’s ever written about a member of the media.
knock knock…
#29: Thank you.
What will it take for Mariotti to post here?
Somebody to read it to him.
Does anybody have Jon Liecester to Texas for a player to be named on their radar?
Hoops
If Jay posted, he’d probably just be plagarizing me again. Plagarizer.
Yeah, I know I’ve never spelled it right. That’s part of the bit.
Was that really Bruce Miles?
I’ve been traded??? Damn you Hendry.
Hi guys… Do you think maybe I can come back to Chicago and help the grounds crew next season?
Was there really a terred in the punch bowl?
Hey anyone wanna talk salad?
For the Eddie Guerrero comment.
That the journalism student BC will (tend to interrupt his own thoughts to) use a lot of phrases between parenthesis?
Yes (who doesn’t?), now pass the donuts.
What traverses two points.
I am a suicide bomber in training.
Some guy named HoopsCubs says the Cubs are in the race for me. Then he proceeds to name like ten other teams interested as well.
Is awfully fucking annoying.
got salad?
Does anyone have AJ Burnett to a big league team in North America on their radar?
If you want to see what blips are on the Hoops radar, quite obviously On-Hoops.com was launched in an attempt to harness this ever-changing landscape of insider knowledge.
Less credible information is available at On-Moops.com.
Fuck you, Dick Cheney.
Hey, where is dca-hole, I mean dcexile? I am writing a joke and I need the opinion of a bitter, snotty, unemployed, humorless nerd.
Hot stove report? More like a Dutch oven report so far. Good thing my wife balances the checkbook and keeps me away from the Amex. I love to spend money, and not just on bearclaws.
Sure Jim, you probably just spend all your time out getting drunk with your Laser Tag team.
And you’re divorced, Jim.
That’s right, ladies. I’m available and my only move is the Dutch Oven.