Last night on 60 Minutes, Jose Canseco sat down with Mike Wallace and talked about “injecting it into the gluteus maximus” enough times that I got confused and thought this was a Jim Edmonds interview. Somewhere, Edgar Renteria fell off his couch and went into convulsions, thinking the same thing.
But happily, what Jose was talking about, was some of the most prominent baseball players of the 1990s, shooting steroids into each other’s naked butts! Awww, that’s cute.
I’m sure, somewhere over there in Dogpatch, Missouri, the last moran who still thinks that Mark McGwire became a freakish, enormous, pock faced mutant because he did a lot of push ups, probably didn’t watch it. Oh, he didn’t watch it because he didn’t want to. He didn’t watch it because the hanger he uses a TV antenna couldn’t haul in a CBS affiliate…because he’s using a plastic hanger.
Are we supposed to believe that Mark McGwire, Ivan Rodriguez, Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez and the rest of the gang that Canseco outed, are all guilty?
Jose’s dumb, and he used these names to sell books, but he’s also probably right.
On Friday, we answered the big questions facing teams in the AL East and Central, today we’ll hit the AL and NL Wests. And if you’re wondering why we didn’t just do them all in one day, hey, nobody can milk three columns out of one bad idea like we can.
Oakland A’s
Former A’s manager Tony LaRussa says that former A’s slugger Mark McGwire never used steroids. LaRussa says McGwire just worked really, really hard and got big naturally. Should we believe him?
What you’ll see on Wednesday night’s 60 Minutes II is more of that interview with LaRussa during which time LaRussa joins forces with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Mark McGwires’ old, gigantic physique and the four of them neuter and spay stray dogs. It’s great TV. So yeah, go ahead and believe LaRussa. You dope.
Billy Beane traded Mark Mulder (Cardinals) and Tim Hudson (Braves), aren’t the A’s going to really suck?
They could possibly suck this year, yes. But Hudson was going to leave after the season and Mulder’s arm and hip are falling off, so in the long term, Billy Beane will be able to hide out in his office during games, holding that little white box he gets his scores on and yelling at the mirror, “Who’s the best looking GM in the game?” and “We’re not selling blue jeans here!” as much as he wants.
Settle a bet for me. Eric Byrnes, mildly insane, or mildly retarded?
Sorry. It’s a push.
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Is that the dumbest f@#$ing name for a team ever?
Yes.
They traded Jose Guillen because he’s a criminally insane, let Troy Glaus go to the Diamondbacks and basically called him a pussy on his way out the door, and didn’t bring back David Eckstein because he’s a dwarf, so will they go back to the playoffs this year, or what?
They’ve replaced Eckstein with Orlando Cabrera, Glaus with Dallas MacPherson and Guillen with Brian Downing, and yeah, I think they can get back. What? Not Downing? What are they going to do move Bobby Grich out to left? Huh? Yes, I’m confused.
When was the last time Mike Scioscia actually buttoned up his jersey? If you bet him a million dollars, could he do it right now?
For half a million he could button the top two, but the other five are hopeless, at this point he can’t even see the last two buttons.
Seattle Mariners
They were gawdawful last year and this year added Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre, so are they back in the hunt now in the AL West?
They lost 99 games last year and finished 29 games out of first place. It’s going to be tough for Sexson and Beltre to drive in runs from the DL. But you can’t fault the Mariners for trying.
Who’s their manager?
Apparently they hired Mike Hargrove when nobody was looking. I’m putting the odds at 7-2 that he doesn’t show up for the first day of spring training because even he will have forgotten he got the job.
Texas Rangers
They want Alfonso Soriano to play right field, but he wants to play second base. Why can’t they just make him do it?
I can answer this, but I’ll have to use the Dusty Baker voice to do it.
Come on, dude. It’s just not that easy, dude. Alfonso’s a proud dude, dude. Plus, he’s dark and he can handle the heat that bounces up off the infield dirt, dude. If they move Michael Young over there can he handle that, dude? Everybody knows there’s more shade at shortstop. I think Alfonso’s got to go to Buck, dude, and if he wants to move to right then he can dude, but until then, dude, you know, if an elephant eats bananas every day and then eats a melon, you know, dude, it’s like that.
See, that clears that up.
Speaking of Alfonso, how’s he look?
Small.
Have they improved their pitching?
Last year the most impressive toss by any Rangers pitcher was when Frank Francisco bounced that chair off the A’s fan. They didn’t really add anybody this year. So…no.
Los Angeles Dodgers
They’ve added JD Drew, Jose Valentin, Jeff Kent and Derek Lowe, but lost Adrian Beltre, Steve Finley, Alex Cora and Shawn Green. Is it a net gain?
Even if it were, the addition of Gabor Paul Bako II to the catching corps would negate any such productivity increase. In fact, Baseball Reference has come up a new stat called GABOR.
It means Games Almost Blown Or Ruined. It’s a stat that measures how one horrific position player can either almost cost you games you would have won handily, or actually cost you by his play.
Here were last year’s GABOR leaders in the National League.
1. Paul Bako, Cubs — 17 games GABOR’ed
2. Rey Ordonez, Cubs — 9 games GABOR’ed
3. Alex Gonzalez, Cubs — 8 games GABOR’ed
Ray Lankford, Cardinals — 8 games GABOR’ed
Craig Biggio, Astros — 8 games GABOR’ed
Not a pretty picture.
The Dodgers recently halted “seismic improvements” to Dodger Stadium, saying they were unnecessary. Should that make Dodger fans feel safe?
The reason they felt they were unnecessary is because GM Paul DePodesta is already busy tearing everything down anyway, he might as well just keep going and gut the stadium while he’s at it.
San Francisco Giants
Barry Bonds’ mistress says he admitted to her that he was using steroids. Why would he have done that?
Because how else was he going to explain the fact that his testicles had shriveled up to the size of raisins?
The average age of their projected opening day lineup is 36 and they won’t have a regular who’s younger than 32. What are they trying to prove?
That drinking milk can prevent the elderly from breaking a hip? I have no idea.
Felipe Alou actually bragged that he didn’t fall asleep once in the dugout during a game, is that really an accomplishment?
No, but it would have been a convienient excuse every time he left Matt Herges in to get lit up out of the bullpen.
San Diego Padres
They traded three actual players for Dave Roberts. What the hell were they thinking?
Apparently that Joe Buck was right and that Roberts’ stolen base in game five of the ALCS was the greatest play in baseball history. Besides, two of the actual players were Jay Payton and Ramon Vazquez, it’s not like they gave up anybody good.
What was the most memorable moment in the first season at Petco Park?
Sammy Sosa sneezing in the locker room on May 15, hurting his back and putting the pissing away of his Cubs’ career into the express lane.
If Sean Burroughs hadn’t won a Little League World Series live on ABC-TV, wouldn’t we all just think he was the next Kevin Orie?
More like the next Steve Buchele.
Arizona Diamondbacks
In the past 14 months they’ve traded both Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson and have nothing but a bag of dirty baseballs and Javier Vazquez to show for it. How does Joe Garagiola, Jr. keep his job?
Nude photos of Governor Janet Napolitano with a syphillitic panda?
They were so broke they asked baseball for debt relief and then went out and signed Russ Ortiz, Troy Glaus, Craig Counsell, Shawn Estes, Tony Clark and Royce Clayton and traded for Jose Cruz and Shawn Green? What the f@#$?
Apparently they are cash and brain poor, both.
Mark Grace is back for another year in the booth, what does that mean for Diamondbacks fans?
More bloody eardrums.
Colorado Rockies
They’ve been around for 12 years now and have had one playoff appearance and three good seasons. What conclusions can we come to about high altitude baseball?
If you’re dumb enough to hire Don Baylor, you deserve to suck, and suck hard for a long time. This is not good news for the Cubs, either.
Don’t you think Todd Helton looks around the locker room now, sees all the bad players and cries?
Yeah, and then he dries his eyes and blows his nose with $1000 dollar bills.
Shawn Estes won 15 games for them and they let him go. What does that say?
It says even they knew that a 15-game winner with a 9.50 ERA is still lousy.
It saddens me that Phil took such a serious tumble off the wagon last fall.
When he wasn’t trying to swat imaginary “bugs” off of his forearm or clearing out his medicine cabinet of rubbing alcohol to drink, poor Phil actually thinks he saw San Francsico in last year’s playoffs, as he wrote a month ago.
Today? He must have blacked out during Jose Lima’s Game #3 shutout in last year’s NLDS, because he seems to remember L.A. getting swept, as he writes in his hatchet job on DePodesta in the today’s Tribune’s Back Page.
Evidently, Phil’s fact checker is also on the sauce, or perhaps just merely disgruntled, because nobody has as many published factual errors as Phil does.
What a shame.
Classic quote in the new Sporting News from Deion Sanders: “I hit a ball deep in the gap, and I heard Dusty on the top step yelling, ‘Pimp him’- meaning, running around the bases with one flap down in my home run trot. Dusty’s a brother’s brother! How could you not get along with Dusty Baker? That’s the problem I have with Sammy Sosa.”
Dave,
You got a link to that article? I find it hard to believe Deion hit the ball in the gap off anybody.
Who the hell was he facing? William Van Landingham?
You forgot we rid ourselves of Todd Hundley…we’re now the favorites to win the west.
Is Sammy, technically, a “brother”?
Technically, I’d say both Deion and Sammy have problems.
The quote was in a small snippet on Page 5 of the Feb. 18 issue of The Sporting News. Apparently, Deion said this gem while as a guest host on Sporting News Radio recently.
Didn’t Janet Napolitano sing lead for Concrete Blonde?
You got it right about Mark Grace giving Diamondbacks fans bleeding eardrums. I’m sure my eardrums will bleed by the third inning of Opening Day, when Gracie proclaims his undying love for Troy Glaus. Also, nobody here in Arizona would be the least bit surprised if anybody had compromising pictures of Janet Napolitano with a syphilitic panda-or, more likely, Rosie O’Donnell.
Hey Dolan, we resent that inference.
There’s no such thing in Missouri as a trailer that doesn’t have a satellite dish.
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