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A photo before Game 1 of the Heat-Boston playoff series:
Oh, and there were some empty seats before Game Two last night:
(Credit)
Nice to see Sammy Sosa scoring courtside.
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Here’s a photo of Sammy Sosa taken last weekend at a club inside the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach:
(Miami Beach P.D. back on heightened alert?)
A firestorm of interested erupted about the Dominican Republic native last year after the skin on his face turned white. Sosa was photographed at several public events with the facial discoloration, which led to him revealing what caused the change. Read more…
On May 16 of last year, the PALM BEACH POST reported:
(Left: Holmes, Right: Watson)
Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. has known New York Yankees All-Star Alex Rodriguez for 16 years, but the two have not spoken since Rodriguez admitted to taking performance-enhancing drugs while playing for the Texas Rangers.
But when they do, he has one question.
“I really want to know why,” Ripken told the audience at the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County’s Men’s Night Out banquet Thursday.
”I’m going to make it my business to find out.”
Like you, I’m certain we’ll soon know what Ripken found out during his six month investigation. Probably right around the time Furman Bisher breaks the news that Tiger Woods has re-emerged from a sex addiction clinic in southern Mississippi.
In 2007, (gumshoe) Ripken and Mark McGwire were both eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame for the first time. Ripken was voted in while McGwire was not only embargoed by the BBWAA that year, but in two subsequent elections.
BBWAA member and Baseball Hall of Fame voter Mel Antonen in a 2007 USA TODAY web chat after voting concluded:
Oyster Bay: How do we know that other Hall of Famers never took steriods? How do we know 100% that Cal and Tony never did it? Please tell us, the American baseball fan how we can trust the media to give us the truth, when this was going on for years? Charlie from Oyster Bay
Mel Antonen: Cal and Tony were never accused of steroids by any legitimate source. There was no drug testing in place when they played.Elon, NC: Some writers said they won’t vote for anyone in the steroid era. Ripken got 98.5% Can he really be considered from the steroid era? Aren’t his numbers/accomplishments enough from 1981 to 1998?
Mel Antonen: I agree. It doesn’t make sense to link Ripken to any kind of steroids use.
With steroids primarily used by the population to recover from injury, “it doesn’t make sense” that Ripken partook during his run of 2,131 consecutive games played?
On the same day as Antonen’s chat, Jack Curry of the NEW YORK TIMES reported this quote from Baseball Hall of Fame voter Phil Rogers of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE on McGwire:
“I can’t imagine ever voting for him. He’s been linked too directly to steroid use.”
At the time of those quotes, an accusation by Jose Canseco in his first book was the only anecdotal link between McGwire and steroids. There was no direct evidence of any kind.
So the same guy MLB blackballed and BBWAA writers looked down their noses at, Canseco, had enough credility at that time to ruin McGwire’s Hall of Fame chances?
If that’s the case Mr. BBWAA, then what about Canseco’s 2009 clear implication that Ripken did steroids? Where’s the follow on that?
The sports world was taken aback - or at least had a good chuckle - when recent photos of a very whitened Sammy Sosa appeared. Was he sick? Was he suffering some kind of terrible disease? Was this the final result of too much steroid use? Was he undergoing a blackendectomy a la Michael Jackson?
Sosa finally came out and said it was the results of using a skin bleaching cream. And now that he has everyone’s attention, he’s ready to offer the same miracle medical results to you.
Sammy Sosa’s ridiculous skin-bleaching got amazingly tame treatment from George Lopez on his night time talkshow on TBS - considering it was right in Lopez’ wheelhouse:
In watching a bit of the show, Lopez really doesn’t seem much into it. When he’s performing off anything but cue cards, he’s previously performed really blue. The everynight, fake-smile talk show format doesn’t suit him. He comes off as the guy who wants to be interviewed, which is more than a tiny detail when you’re hosting a late night interview show.
Before his TV sitcom hit, he was a failed morning radio guy for the same reason: he just wasn’t into it enough. I remember listening to Lopez do his radio show here in L.A. He eventually was let go, and later crowed about how he’d made it big in teevee and how wrong the radio people (Clear Channel management) were about him.
From what I’m seeing on Lopez’s talk show, they weren’t.
Video of the spot after the jump. Read more…
Jerrod at MidwestSportsFan.com tipped me to this recent photo of Sammy Sosa:
Looks like a case of Vitiligo to me, but I’m no expert. More pics after the jump. Read more…
The NBA Finals are over. The Stanley Cup’s been handed out. The US Open is already forgotten. So now what? Baseball? There’s still four months of that. The NBA Draft? That’s going to dominate the headlines tomorrow. A drunk guy trying to drive 40 miles home in his golf cart because his family left him behind at the course? Now we’re talkin’!
The MILWAUKEE JOURNAL-SENTINEL has the tale of a 47-year-old man (who for some reason has been unidentified) who was abandoned at the Kettle Hills Golf Course in suburban Milwaukee by a group of people he referred to as his “uncles.” And when you’re 10 beers into your day, taking the cart home seems like a great idea, even if would take you a week and a half to get there. Luckily the guy was run down by the cops in an extremely low speed chase about a mile from the course. Here’s a map of the 2009 “Tour de Beast Light”:
(In the guy’s defense, he thought he was playing “Tron”)
Originally, when the cop car blew his horn and flashed his lights at the guy, he just pulled over to the shoulder and kept right on driving, as if the only thing he was doing wrong was driving in a lane instead of the shoulder. He eventually pulled over and was charged with operating a vehicle under the influence and for blowing a stop sign on the corner of Route 167 and Route 175.
There’s no word on the whereabouts of the “uncles,” who clearly were not pleased with their nephew for some reason. It appears as if things might have gotten well out of hand before he decided to flee, as the police were called to the course before the crew even finished up their round.
Speaking of deluded men under the influence, it’s not exactly news that Sammy Sosa was juicing all those years, and still not news that Ryne Sandberg says he doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame. Personally, I think so many guys were ‘roiding it up that the now-sullied stars of the era were still the best players of their generation even if they were artificially enhanced (and pitchers were doing it too). So I’d probably be OK with guys like McGwire, Bonds, and Sosa getting into the Hall someday. But I might be changing my mind on Sosa now that Darren Rovell has discovered that Sammy had his jersey sleeves tapered so that his arms would look bigger:
Courtesy of Rovell’s article:
CNBC confirmed through a source that Sosa did indeed ask for the elastic arm tapering for at least the 2002 season. The source said that he could not remember another player that asked for this specification.
“I don’t know why it would be tapered like that other than it being a purely cosmetic change so that people could see his muscles,” said David Hunt, president of Hunt Auctions. “There doesn’t seem to be any other reason why he’d do it.”
Oh man, that’s just kinda sad. At least Bonds and Big Mac had the courtesy to just take some drugs and mash. Who knows what all Sosa was doing. We now know that he was willing to not only shoot up, but also cork bats AND make his jersey tighter. I wouldn’t be shocked if he somehow found a way to sneak some sort of springy superball into play during his at-bats.
And now for some links for you to peruse while Ricky Rubio looks for someone in Sacramento to throw the ball to:
• Texas won Game 2 of the College World Series final to force a deciding game tonight.
• The DELAWARE COUNTY DAILY TIMES’ Anthony Sanfilippo says that NBC has nixed the idea of putting Alex Ovechkin and the Caps in one of the Winter Classic games next year because the Caps-Rangers series drew poor ratings this year.
• The Red Sox beat the Nationals 11-3 last night in D.C. in front of the usual 5,000 or so Nats fans. And, oh yeah, about 36,000 Sox fans.
• This might be the classiest video you see all day — a Yankee fan getting in a fistfight with a Marlin fan in front of his young daughter, who is now scarred for life (thanks BBTF):
• The Bills are mired in a decade of futility, but the people of Buffalo are still snapping up season tickets in near-record numbers.
• ESPN doesn’t televise every Manny Ramirez at-bat when he’s playing for the Dodgers, so why are they doing it every time he hits for Albuquerque? Are they really going to do this every day?
• The 76ers have become the latest team to try and forget about the last few years by bringing back their old-school logo. If this is the first step toward the rebirth of the Bullets, I’m all for it.
• The Spurs’ deal for Richard Jefferson may seem like a steal, but BASKETBALL VALUE (courtesy of TRUE HOOP) notes that the Bucks were actually a better team when Jefferson wasn’t on the floor.
• Swimming’s governing body, FINA (where’s the “s”?), is alarmed that world records have been getting crushed lately by swimmers wearing polyurethane-covered suits. Their solution to the problem? Just keep allowing the suits at the world championships.
• Hey, if Tony La Russa’s “done a lot of research on it,” it’s good enough for the Royals’ Trey Hillman to try out. That would of course be batting your pitcher eighth, which Zack Greinke did last night. The problem is that #9 hitter Mitch Maier hit like a pitcher, going 0-for-3 with 3 Ks.
• YOU BEEN BLINDED has video of ESPN’s fantasy guy Matthew Berry f-bombing it up in a faux-interview with a sports comedy duo called 12 ANGRY MASCOTS. He tries waaaaay too hard, but delivers a few decent lines. Not sure how ESPN feels about Berry dropping the phrase “Kosher C***block” on YouTube.
• Did you think last August that Michael Phelps was going to be rendered mostly irrelevant already, while Shawn Johnson would be the one going to every big film premiere? Here’s Shawn at the Transformers premiere:
• The Lakers win the NBA title, and many Angelenos celebrate accordingly - if “Angeleno” is Spanish for “a$$hole“.
• Baseball phenom Bryce Harper don’t need no education, plans to skip final two years of high school to become eligible for next year’s MLB draft.
• Posing for a new photoshoot, Anna Kournikova shows she’s still A-OK.
• “Joe Buck Live” makes its long-awaited(?) debut, and Artie Lange insures that it’s a memorable one.
• The mom of porn star Catalina Cruz used to work as a secretary for former Cleveland Browns coach Sam Rutigliano.
Eleven years ago, the world of sports was a very different place. Internet usage was in its relative infancy, ESPN cared more about televising sports news than people shouting at each other, and steroids were something that old-timey football players like Lyle Alzado used. That summer, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa would capture the nation’s attention and “save baseball” with their epic home run battle. It was truly a simpler time.
The lone voice of cynicism that summer was AP writer Steve Wilstein, who introduced the world to the bottle of androstenedione in Mark McGwire’s locker. By doing so, he opened the floodgates to the controversy over steroids, and opened himself up to much controversy. Fast forward eleven years. That summer’s heroes - McGwire and Sosa - are disgraced shells of their former selves…and Wilstein? He might be headed to the Hall of Fame.
• Kevin Love is the first one to tell, er, Tweet the world that Kevin McHale would be leaving the Timberwolves.
• Now that’s what you call a road test fiesta! Thanks, Top Gear!
• Could Coach K depart Duke to land as head honcho for the Lakers?
• Eddie Van Halen is very hot at Nike for ripping off his guitar to design their new shoes.
• The Stanley Cup takes a dip in Mario Lemieux’s pool.
