Hammer of the PEDS

Baseball’s long anticipated hammer finally slammed down on Monday. Alex Rodriguez has been in Major League Baseball’s cross hairs ever since the Yankees begged them to investigate the crap out of their bizarre $252 million investment in A-Fraud. In addition to A-Rod and Ryan Braun, thirteen others were outed. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig showed the iron fist that he has ruled with since after he was an owner. The Dominican Republic was well represented in the Dirty 13. It is disappointing but at the end of the day the Dodgers are in 1st Place NL West and the Giants are in last! Really, how upset can one be? It is day watch number 13 for the San Francisco hopeful that their team is in last place. The Giants even made the pilgrimage to the Oval Office for a séance with Barry O. That did not stem the tide. It was so painful at the Yard to watch this two out of the last three champions fade away like Tiger Woods at any major, not really. We just hope that they keep chanting about the 49ers who will be playing in Santa Clara soon enough. The Giants picked a bad time to win 13 out of 39 games while the Dodgers were winning 32 out of 40. Once again, it is painful new math for our well-heeled compadres from the north. Giant fan better keep the newspapers, the tee shirts and the pakalolo. There is a new sheriff in town and he has sicker money than the Yankees. If you want to get past all of the PED suspensions that are rocking baseball, please do. The Yard has not allocated any of our interns to research the cause and effect. We get the cause and the effect is indeterminate. Who is the perceived victim? The baseball fan who thought they were observing “pure” skill without the taint of a steroid or some other supplement? In the history of baseball have players not taken every angle available to them to perform to the dollars paid? Baseball rewards statistics because they were rewarded at the turnstiles. Baseball has always turned a blind eye when it benefits baseball. Bud Selig fancies himself as J. Edgar Hoover to the rescue now because he cashed out at the height of the PED era as an owner. Again, Bud makes $20 freaking million a year to do what he does after selling the Brewers for a $100 million profit during the PED era. Eight out of thirteen PED offenders were from the Dominican Republic. All of the accused were from south of the border except A-Rod. We are with the Yankees in trying to deport him back to somewhere off the payroll. With MLB up and coming stars like Bryce Harper, Mike Trout and Buster Posey, US baseball is on the uptick. A sport that was launched in the US and exported to the world still comes home every year to Williamsport, PA. The US is the founder but the rest of the world-ROW- has caught on quickly. Latin America players now make up 28% of the rosters of Major League Baseball. For US athletes, baseball is an option. For Latin athletes, it is the only option. Years back, I went to a baseball game with a rocket scientist; yes a real one. It was proffered that night that baseball players were not real athletes because baseball was such a pedestrian sport. Real athletes were well more athletic and could leap over tall buildings in a single bound and stuff like that. Baseball has a special place in the Yard’s foundation. Attempts to diminish the core are met with stiff resistance. Yard retorts were quick and not well received. In the US, the star baseball player at any high school In America does not only play baseball. He is a sports icon at that school. The baseball guy can play any sport size permitting. Hitting a pitched ball is the most difficult of all professional skills. Success can be highly rewarded. Hand eye coordination is God given and enhanced by practice. A ML player who can hit a pitched ball three times out of ten will never starve. Does anyone reading these musings max their comp plan while being successful 33.33% of the time? Being a six foot three inch lefthander is also highly valued. In the Dominican Republic, there are not those options. Soccer is not even an option. If a Dominican baseball player makes the show, they will make more money for one game than their family will make in their lives. PED’s are a huge risk for these players but the reward is so ridiculous who would not take the chance with the same opportunity. Many of the suspended offenders will still be owed money when their suspension ends. The Yankees will still owe A-Rod $68 million. Ryan Braun will be owed $100 million. All of this being said, my good friend Brian pointed out to me an interesting fact. He suggested that is there really only one PED clinic in the entire US that broke the code and that these 13 players found it and that they are the only ones? Bud wants us to believe that scenario, hammer the Latin’s and get past it. In a country built on free enterprise illicit or otherwise, is it plausible that this is an isolated incident for these rouge players? Did they out Braun first so they could hammer the Latin’s solo? Baseball is near and dear to the Yard. The PED era does not diminish that. It was a fun era. Balls were flying out of the park, records were broken, pitchers were performing super human miracles and the turnstiles were flowing. Who suffered besides the abuser’s bodies? We came for the game and the games were good. Purists suggest that records were tainted and children could no longer look up to their heroes. We would suggest that children with professional athletes as their role models are in trouble. Following athletes is our passion but it will never bypass responsible parenting. Responsible parents will never let their children experiment with PED’s. It is not something that can be hidden on School Street. Records will always be tainted over the decades. All of the records that are and will ever be are distilled by their era. Every major league record holders set a record that is indigent to that era. Ty Cobb was an absolute racist who never played a night game. Cobb is part of the inaugural Hall of Fame Five. Babe Ruth never had exposure to PED’s and he never faced an African American pitcher? He is part of the same class. Which issue is bigger in the history of baseball? The color line or PED’s? Both issues are huge and neither can be ignored in their time and place and the resulting statistics. Bob Gibson readily admits that he was so competitive that he would have used PED’s. He did not have the chance and he was glad he did not. Barry Bonds did and where is he now in our collective history of baseball? Baseball is our Nation’s seminal sport. It is revered because of this history and the ridiculous statistics that have been kept since its gestation. We have not only followed baseball’s course, we have recorded it. The history cannot be changed even by those who wish to change the accounting. Barry, Roger, Mark and the rest of the PED poster boys should be in the Hall. They have the HOF statistics regardless of the circumstances. They were not rouge athletes. They were competitive for their era. They played by the rules they were handed not the moral compass the media portends now.

The Ides of Nebraska

The Yard has always taken great pride in tackling the issues of the day. Distilling the topics out of the daily excretions is no easy feat and rarely fulfilled. Regardless, our cynical self was outraged by the slight leveled against our new city. This egregious action that draws our ire was brought on by no other than Yard icon and sports commentator of the day-Dan Patrick. We love Patrick. His humor, banter and sidekicks are good radio at many places that we travel. We were looking for information on stations carrying his signals in Nevada. One of the interns was tasked to go to the website and find the stations in Las Vegas. The index was listed by state and Mr. Patrick has some major following nationally based on the breadth of the list. To our shock and dismay, Nevada did not even have a listing in the rolodex of states. We scoffed at the notion that the intern proffered about Nevada not making the DP Web Site. How could that be? The Dan Patrick show is carried in Nevada on the Fox Sports affiliate. The issue was escalated to senior staff for further investigation. Upon deeper review of the Dan Patrick website, we found Las Vegas and Reno both listed as being located in Nebraska. This is not just a slight it is an outrage. We suspect a potential conspiracy. We have seen many Nebraska types frequenting the Las Vegas strip. With their clever tee shirts, Wrangler Jeans and waist lines, they have gotten our notice. These cornhuskers might have planted a mole in the DP Web Services department with some crafty geography. We hope it is not the Dan Patrick show coming up with their own geographical alignments and it was NE came before NV? It is a slight of geographic proportions. Anyone reading this except Dr. Jay aka Spuddy, would be outraged. Spuddy might be in on the fix as well. He is a Yard legend for winning the basketball pool but a cornhusker nonetheless. You should voice this opinion to the Dan Patrick Show and make sure your state is not similarly betrayed. Thank you for your prompt attention-www.danpatrick.com. In related news, the baseball meander that the Dodgers are navigating in the west was not unforeseen. Too many players signed to fat contracts by other teams traded to a new team run by management on fat salaries. Everyone is getting plump before a ticket is sold. The passion to compete is more ego driven and not an inner fire. After a particularly bad stretch, the alpha male getting paid $85,000 a game will get his head on straight and come up with a clutch hit. There has not a collective effort to succeed. There are just these bursts of pride for a game or two that peek at the potential but highlight the demise. It is the Guggenheim vortex of financial gain regardless of Dodger ruin. All of these big names and salaries are the cast that they need next year when they launch their new network with Time Warner. Fans hope to see Champions play Dodger baseball. Guggenheim is just filling in reality programming time without Kardashians. Don Mattingly is not the issue but he is probably not the answer either. The group he started with three seasons ago is far different than the team he is failing to manage today. Ned Colletti and Joe Torre had built the franchise back up even with the cash flow issues of McCourt. Donnie Baseball worked under Joe Torre during his three years apprenticeship. Mattingly was handed a young team that had been to the playoffs two of those years. The 2008 team lead by Chad Billingsley, Matt Kemp and an emerging Clayton Kershaw won the city’s second playoff game in nineteen years. In 2013, Kershaw has emerged as a leader but he in the land of misfit children. He will be lucky to win ten games this year and he is going to be paid like the best in baseball. Kershaw is doing his part with a 2.03 ERA despite a 5-5 record in his sixteen starts. Billingsley and his $11 million salary are done for the season and most likely his Dodger career. Matt Kemp and his $20 million salary are on the DL for the 3rd or 4th time since signing to earn his financial largess. He had the longest active games played streak at that time. Not so much now. The Dodgers added three more $20 million a year players who were gleefully dumped on the Dodgers while other teams shed payroll. The Dodgers have $82.5 million dollar payroll of their $220 million annual payroll on the disabled list. The $82 million that is not playing is more payroll than ten team’s total payrolls. The salary math is even more ridiculous when computing the cost per win. All is not lost. No team is running away with the NL West but there will probably not be a Wild Card from the west either. It is win the NL West or go home. A sudden surge by the team is not inconceivable. The pieces exist today. It looks more like a Picasso than a Rembrandt but the pieces are on or near the canvas. The brush strokes are forced and erratic. The Dodgers longest winning streak all season is three games. That was first and last accomplished in the first week of the season. They have never strung more than two victories together since April 7. They have lost six in a row and eight in a row since their premature rally. The eight game skid started with Los Doyers losing two of three at homes to the Rockies. Their futile whine and cheese tour got swept for three by the Giants in SF. They hustled home to get swept by the D’Backs and losing to the woeful Marlins before rallying to win the last two. The Dodgers can beat the crap but not the cream in baseball. The Dodgers are tied for the league lead in errors. Kershaw has been the most victimized by the shoddy defense. The Houston Astro’s are trying to hold the Dodgers off for the error title. It is their only title hope this year with their $21 million team payroll. The Astro’s are a scrappy bunch while committing sixty errors in their first 77 games. The Dodgers are hanging tough with 56 in their 74. The Angels and Cubs are also in the mix for this title of fielding futility. The Dodgers will have a tough time catching the Astro’s for the error title. It is one race we will follow as the season progresses because the Dodgers might not be included in any other of the loftier races that will be occurring this fall. Deadlines: This will be the big free agent week in the NBA. It is always amazing how the NBA has this no tampering or discussions until 7/1/XX or any NBA free agent signing period. After the NBA Finals and 7/1, there is a litany of deals that are leaked to the news. None of these deals can be officially consummated until 7/1 but there is not even supposed to be a discussion going on at this time. Then suddenly, these complex deals involving millions of dollars and hundreds of terms and conditions are announced by 12:01 AM on 7/1. It is remarkable the hours these people work in the minutes before this important NBA deadline. Overtime: There has not been much for LA fan to root for since our last cell phone upgrade. The Lakers, Dodgers, Angels have been miserable. The Clippers were enchanting until game three of the first round. If I was Chris Paul, I would worry more about the owner than the axed coach. The Trojans and Bruins are middling in the income sports. UCLA baseball is a surprise and a wonder. They were the lowest hitting team in the College World Series in Las Vegas home state of Nebraska. They still have the lowest BA but they are 4-0 and in the finals. UCLA has never won a baseball title. The team is not exciting to watch if you want heat and homeruns. It is a fun team to want to watch if you want to watch how baseball is supposed to be played. Good pitching, sound defense, timely hitting with a rock star in the bullpen. The Dodger should pay attention to that model.

A Shark's Tale

The Yard did not endorse Barack Obama for President but we do expect our leader in chief to hit at least one out of thirteen jump shots that he took on this past Easter Monday. Barry wanted to show his game for the national media and the Washington Wizards who were there for some reason. The Prez rolled up his sleeves, as he does often, and missed every shot. With all due respect, his campaign promise was not his ability to hit the three but come on 0 for 13? In a related story, North Korean President Kim Jong-un stated that he hit 11 of 13 three pointers and beat Dennis Rodman in a game of horse. In breaking news, The Yard has a scoop on reported abuse of players by Rutgers Head basketball Mike Rice. We also are chasing down a story about a Louisville player apparently breaking his leg on national television but have not been able to confirm through normal channels. In the Rutgers story, administration was aware of the abuse when the existence of the incriminating tape was revealed last November. School President Robert Barchi saved his own job by forcing Athletic Director Tim Pernetti to resign from his in the lack of oversight in the aftermath. College administration turning a blind eye to college sports running off the rails is becoming too common in these days of regional television money and imploding conference alignments. It seems like the only winners in this particular situation is Penn State who was pleased to hand off the College’s running amok baton to Rutgers for now. College Presidents spending the athletic department’s largess is a common as the sacking of the AD to save their own skins. College basketball is dominating the Yard-scape these days. March Madness is not just Yard madness it is a pleasant psychosis that infiltrates the heartland and the mainland. The communities of Syracuse, Ann Arbor, Wichita, and Louisville will be joined by the rest of the nation rooting for their student athletes this weekend. Those cities will not just root harder than most of us next weekend; they root harder than us every weekend throughout the college season. These are not NFL cities; these are communities who generate the passion on which we tailgate. Their fans will be in cheap seats in Atlanta while the sterile corporate fans take over the best seats. The Yard has watched from our luxury sofa box suite. Kentucky Fan is not embracing this NCAA playoff season so much. The Wildcat nation expected to be in the finals every year after John Calipari took them back to the title last year. They never expected to miss the whole dance this year let alone lose in the first round of the frigging NIT. All was good as long as Louisville went out early. With the Cardinals looking like the favorite to win the title this year, the state of Kentucky is looking ahead to the Derby not a Louisville title. Coach Rick Pitino is making his redemption tour for his family, the Cardinals, and the family restaurant he had sex in with someone other than his wife in August 2003. We are not sure if his wife had wanted to bang him in that diner but she was not consulted prior to the incursion. She has stayed by her man but they are eating elsewhere these days. Rick did get voted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as well. It is a mean season in Lexington, KY for sure. With the announcements of the 2013 inductees into the Basketball Hall of Fame, the proud city of Las Vegas applauded their three local residents who got into the Hall. One was a first ballot; one was a wrong ballot and one maybe on his last ballot. The Glove Gary Payton was defensive specialist who learned to score. He had a Ray Allen snark before Ray Allen was in the NBA. Spencer Haywood was the poster boy for fighting the establishment. He fought the NCAA, the NBA and the ABA at different times early in his career. He ended up having a championship career but the establishment that acquiesced to let him play kept him out him out of the hall in the twenty plus years he has been eligible. He was elated as it was widely reported on Friday that he would be inducted. In a sad bit of irony from a city paved with broken dreams, Haywood was informed Saturday that he was not inducted. Old grudges do not die easy. Just ask Jerry Tarkanian! Tark finally made the Hall what might be the last chance of his lifetime. Jerry Tarkanian, like Spencer Haywood took on the big bad NCAA who doggedly pursued him throughout the last 20 years of his coaching career. The NCAA looked with disdain on Tarkanian's style and recruits. Constantly, harassed by the NCAA over any questionable new athlete and investigating the program constantly finally forced Shark to resign following the 1991-92 season. Tarkanian was victimized for taking chances with troubled youth. The recruitment of Lloyd Daniels was the tipping point when Daniels was arrested buying crack cocaine before enrolling at UNLV. Daniels had been seen cavorting with known gamblers in Las Vegas. Apparently, there are gamblers that live in this town! These were not Mafia and gambling is legal in Nevada. And these gamblers followed the talented local team with gusto…go figure! Tarkanian resigned and sued the NCAA for their two decades of harassment. It was uncovered that NCAA “due process” was no process at all with the deck stacked heavily in the favor of the NCAA investigators. Tark was awarded a $2.4 million out of court settlement in 1998 before the case would go to trial and the NCAA’s draconian measures exposed. Jerry Tarkanian hopefully finally receives the recognition that he deserves. Tarkanian not only changed the face and pace of college basketball, he was a Hall of Fame coach. He was not a pariah that needed to be investigated. He was a Father Flanagan at a Boys Town for basketball. He brought in “at-risk” athletes and gave them an environment where they could not just win basketball games but maybe create a chance to win at life. For every Lloyd Daniels that he took a chance on and failed there were 50 other players who succeeded. You cannot always take the hood out of the kid but he took many out of theirs and out to the desert to play hoops for him. And play they did, they all became the Tark’s Running Rebels. He took a school that had only been playing D1 basketball for two years in 1973 when he arrived, to a Final Four in 1977 and three more in the years that followed. Tarkanian has the highest winning percentage of any coach with more than 600 wins. He is ahead of both coaches in the Final Four who are part of that club. He is ahead of the Saint who coaches Duke. He is still revered in this town and hopefully Monday night, the rest of the nation. The Basketball Hall of Fame maintains a shadowy voting process for election. It is for all of basketball, not the NBA, College or International. It is everything basketball. There are 24 votes cast each year by unnamed voters. Potential inductees have to survive preliminary elimination that are as invisible and unknown as the final ballots. The winners must get 18 votes to be elected. Then the winning names are dribbled out to the public over the week prior to the College Basketball National Championship game. At halftime, this year’s inductees will be trotted out a halftime. Inductee Pitino will be coaching his most important basketball game in 20 years. He may not come out for the ceremony but the rest will share in the spotlight. The Yard wishes there was more spotlight on how the Basketball Hall votes or does not vote. How Rick Pitino with his 621 wins and one national title gets voted in at the height of his career and The Tark of the 729 wins and one national championship has to wait until he is 81 year old broken down shell of his former Sharkness is insidious.