Man, I don't even know what to make of this.
It mighta made more sense if Barry Bonds was still on the Giants. OR if they used any other current baseball player who has been linked to 'roids (LoDuca, Pettitte, Giambi, Guillen...I could go on if you'd like).
However, I can't pass up the opportunity to post random Youtube vids that remotely mention any Pittsburgh sports team.
So enjoy. If you can.
Massive news in the 'Burgh today.
Despite a double-digit run total in last night's opening day win over the Braves, the Pirates decided to upgrade their offense.
Knowing the team made little movement in the offseason free agent-market, the Pirates front office went out and signed Barry Bonds. A move like this should quiet down the constant bitching in the Pirates fanbase. We got a big name free agent! Whoopie!
Barry's agent was able to negotiate a quiet little deal with the Pirates, now that Roger Clemens is taking the worst of the steroids accusations. With the negative spotlight shifted, Barry was able to get back in playing shape and impress the team.
Bonds said he was excited to be back with his original MLB team, and wants to change the landscape that was altered when he left.
The NL Central is about to get good.
Hit tip to Eddy Spaghetti for emailing me this story over the weekend.
Could Barry Bonds be making a return to the Pirates? If a certain black-opinion online magazine has its way, the pariah would finish his career in Pittsburgh for the veteran-minimum salary.
Now, the article was written by Martin Johnson, a man I can find no online information about, so I can only assume he's a random freelancer. However he does make some valid points. Bonds has made $188 million+ in the MLB throughout his career. A drastic pay-cut from the $15 mil he made last year would certainly cause the public to think differently about him (if that's even on his mind...which I doubt it is).
And Johnson has this to say as well:
In returning to Pittsburgh, Bonds would be honoring a tradition of home run champions. Hank Aaron rather famously broke Babe Ruth's record playing for the Atlanta Braves, but Hammerin' Hank spent the final two years of his career back where it began, in Milwaukee. Babe Ruth may have built Yankee Stadium as the saying goes, and he started his career with the Boston Red Sox, but he hit the last six of his 714 home runs as a member of the Boston Braves in 1935.
Well said. Yes, he's always been a Cali kid, watching his dad and uncle play, going to high school at Serra, leaving his first major-league team for serious cash in San Fran. However, with the steroids eye now firmly planted on Roger Clemens, Bonds could easily reclaim the love lost when the steroids issues started circling around his name by returning to Pittsburgh. Yeah, the Steel City isn't as forgiving as 'Frisco, but Bonds would be playing on a team that hasn't won since he last put on said team's uniform. As Ed Spags said in his email:
...honestly, at his point, I would root for Bonds in a second. I want to see a .500 season before I die...
I'm sure a number of Pirates fans feel the same...or at least share a smidgen of those thoughts. Johnson explains that a Bonds signing could set our young player development back a year or two, but its not like our development practices have been foolproof since Bonds left. What harm could another year do?
And last I checked...he's available.
Sorry. My PSaMP-time has been shaky these past few days. I'll be back in full action in a bit. Until then, posting will be irregular at best. Please accept my meager offerings for the time being.
My sister sent me this picture. I have no idea what it is, where it came from or how I can erase the image from my mind, but I needed to share it.
I don't even know what it means. Honestly, I don't understand what its referencing.
Drugs?
I'm lost.
Here's a short list of former Pirates named in George Mitchell's steroids list.
Kevin Young, Denny Neagle, Ron Villone, Jose Guillen, Jason Christiansen, Tim Laker, Josias Manzanillo and Barry Bonds.
Wow.
UPDATE: Earlier in the day, Will at Deadspin offered a possible list of players mentioned (before the actual list came out). It turned out to be false, but included a few other former Pirates...like Wil Cordero and Julian Tavarez. I knew it had to be false when Wil Cordero's name was popping up in association with steroids.
However, Deadspin commenter Get Him A Body Bag, Yeah offered up a solid reasoning as to why Tavarez couldn't possibly be mentioned as well:
Julian Tavarez? I knew steroids shrunk your balls, but I didn't know they made you look like someone put out a fire on your face with a screwdriver.
I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.
End of UPDATE.
-
ANOTHER UPDATE: Several other former Pirates were mentioned, either in the bulk of the report or in the BALCO section. Other Pirates include:
Matt Herges, Benito Santiago, Armando Rios and Gary Matthews Jr.
Sorry for leaving you out, buds.
End of UPDATE #2.
In case you hadn't heard, Barry Bonds was just indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.
This could seriously damage his Washington Wild Things career...
Control the anger. Control the anger.
I'm sure you've heard this already, tnaks to some other guys, but 2 days ago, October 14th, was the 15-year anniversary of that Fransisco Cabrera hit. It was also the 15-year anniversary of the Barry Bonds throw. That also makes it the 15-year anniversary of the Sid Bream run/slide. What, did you think I'd forget that part?
I still get sick when I flip through my old baseball cards and see Bream in a Pirates uni. I think I'm mad because I haven't burned those things in the past 15 years.
15 years!
I know you remember that day like it was yesterday. I do. Did we really know what we were in for when Bond's throw came in wide right? Did we even imagine being a sub-.500 club for the next 15 years? Thanks, Sid.
So Mr. Bream, Where'd Yinz Go?
Sid has benefitted greatly from that slide (Wikipedia even refers to it as The Slide) 15 years ago. This picture above is from the 2004 GOP rally in Saxonberg, PA. Sid Bream was the Mster of Ceremonies. Sid Bream. The Master of Ceremonies. I think I know what's wrong with the Republican party.
Bream had 90 career home runs and a career batting average of .264. But out of all celebrities, he was picked to emcee a GOP rally for the presidency. What, Dick Cheney couldn't find Kordell Stewart or Kent Graham, or maybe Derek Bell? The best they could do was Sid Bream. In Pennsylvania.
He's also a motivational speaker. Really. Maybe he motivates slow runners to beat throws home by Barry Bonds. Maybe he motivates kids to beat their former teams. Maybe he motivates others to deflate a major league baseball team for a decade and a half. That seemed to work for him rather well.
I'm done with this. I need to forget all of this immediately.
Here is your semi-mandatory blogger reaction to Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron's career home run record last night.
For all you who say that Barry's record is tainted...shut up. Your excuses are annoying and recycled.
By basing your argument around allegations and accusations from newspaper writers and, of all people, Jose Canseco, you refuse to look at the facts and create your reasoning through sheer emotion. You want Barry 's record to include an asterisk, because he's an unlikeable guy who seems solely interested in himself. And why shouldn't he be? I don't want to live in a world where everyone is the same shade of gray, continually following a politically correct standard that doesn't convey the true feelings of the person inside. Barry shows everyone how he really is on the inside, even though it is a self-centered, aloof megalomaniac.
You think Game of Shadows and Juiced are the baseball equivalents to the Bible. Since when did Jose Canseco become a certified source? Look at the root of Canseco's evidence. He is a self-proclaimed cheater who decided to rat out fellow players to make a buck. Don't give me that b.s. excuse that Canseco can be trusted because he is just trying to come clean. The man was obviously strapped for cash prior to Juiced hitting the market. If he wasn't he wouldn't be selling his World Series ring for $40,000, or he wouldn't whore himself out to the VH1 crowd by appearing on that horrible excuse for a realty show. Celebreality can bite me. The best entrepreneurs know when to strike the market while the iron is hot. The steroids issue does not seem to be ending in the foreseeable future, and Canseco sold a book to millions of people who wanted to believe what Canseco was alleging, and he reeled them in by giving them exactly what they wanted. And now he claims to have dirt on A-Rod, as if he's the one-stop source for everything steroids-related. Being a cheater doesn't qualify you as the ultimate mind on cheaters. I don't believe a word he says.
And how have we gotten to the point in this world where we don't believe what a person says, but rather believe in what other people have to say about them. Barry says he didn't knowingly take steroids. Why is that not good enough? Now, listen to Dale Murphy's recent comments about Bonds. Here's his underlying message as to why Bonds cheated:
He's a hard guy to like. He's a hard teammate to have and, you know, he's set a terrible example for our kids.
Thank you, Dale. I'm going to go criticize Barry because you think he's hard to like. Just because you involve yourself in the Mormon religion, that doesn't mean you are the definitive source on how Barry should live his life. I'm strong in my own faith, but I don't criticize people for living their life a certain way.
Did Barry use steroids? Possibly. However, Matt Lawton used steroids. Neifi Perez was recently suspended for 80 games following successive drug-test failures regarding performance-enhancing drugs. These are bubble athletes who needed an advantage to stay in the bigs. Barry won 3 MVPs prior to the season that Game of Shadows says he involved himself in BALCO and that whole mess. He's a tremendous talent. But we crucify him because he put on a great show while most athletes' on-field statistics begin to decline. Barry isn't the other athletes. If so many athletes were on steroids, why is Barry the only one to hit 73 dingers in a season? Steroids might have helped (key word, might), but the hand-eye coordination in Bonds is unrivaled in the sport. And the Steroids Era isn't confined to hitters. Pitchers have gotten off way too easy in this whole witch hunt.
More blame falls on Bud Selig rather than Barry Bonds. He needed 1998 to happen to help baseball re-gain fan likability. Without McGwire and Sosa, the MLB would be begging the Versus channel to air its games, much like the NHL is doing now. No one watched baseball after the strike, and 1998 was the first time since the lockout that fans were talking about the sport. Bud knew what was going on. McGwire had his creatine out in the open. He regularly defended that it wasn't steroids, yet it was eventually placed in the banned performance-enhancing drugs category. Bud looked the other way so that his sport could rebound from a near-fatal strike and owners could begin to pad their pockets again. Placing sole blame on Barry is immature.
Will my opinion change? Almost certainly, if hard evidence comes out linking Bonds to steroids. However, at this point in time, there is no hard evidence. There is only speculation. I will not base my opinions of another human being on pure speculation.
Congratulations on becoming the new home run king, Barry.
Junior moved past Frank Robinson and into sole possession of 6th place of the all-time home runs list last night with his 24 homer of the season and 587th of his career. Also, since Sammy Sosa recently hit his 600th, Junior is only 15 away from claiming his spot in the top 5. Oh what might have been...
His Mariners teams were a close second to the Buccos in my mind. I wore my aquamarine Mariners hat everywhere (aquamarine on top with a dark brim and the compass logo. I can't find a picture. Reverse of this). And this one looked exactly like my t-ball hats.
I get mad thinking about Griffey's tenure in Cincinnati. Without the injuries year after year, us baseball fans could have been witnessing something truly remarkable. Barry Bonds and Junior Griffey could have been fighting each other for the home run crown right now. Wouldn't that be something to see.
Griffey was always one of my favorite players when I was a kid. I'd open every pack of baseball cards just hoping that Junior would be in there.
Plus, he was born in Donora, Pa, which is only about 20 minutes or so from my house. Weird thing is, Junior was born on the very same day as Donora's other famous baseball-playing resident, Stan Musial. I'd always use that as a fun fact when I was growing up.
So a slow clap goes to Griffey, as he makes his way towards 600. If it wasn't for the knees and ankles and achilles and whatever else he blew out in Cincy, we could be watching a replay of the '98 home run assault. However, instead of McGwire and Sosa charging for the season record, we would've had Bonds and Griffey going after the all-time record.
Damn you again, Cincinnati...
Several important happenings from last night's Pirate's travesty. The Giants, who many experts picked to finish last in the NL West, beat the Pirates 8-5 behind the longball(s) of a former hometown hero. First off, the Pirates wore their new sleeveless red unis.
Also memorable, was Barry Bonds. In what could be his final professional trip to the city where he started his career, Bonds hit career home runs number 736 and 737. it was the 70th multiple homer game for BB, moving him within 2 of Babe Ruth's record of 72 such games (pretty good for a pitcher). Bonds also moved into 5th place on the all-time total bases list with 5,802, passing Ruth yet again.
Zach Duke, who matched the shortest outing of his career, became the 436th different pitcher to allow Bonds to go yard. By comparison, only 35 players have ever hit 436 home runs in a career. For all the Bonds-haters in the world, read that last sentence again. That could be one of the most impressive stats of Bonds' career.
The Buccos dropped their 4th game in a row, and now sit at 4-6. Oh, and Russ Ortiz (remember him?) won his first game since 2005, after going a combined 0-8 last year with the Diamondbacks and the Orioles.
Enough Bonds-banter, its time to look at tonight's playoff game between the Pens and the Sens. After game 1, I agree with Coach Therrien that the Pens can't possibly play any worse than they did in the series opener. Honestly, while watching game 1, I was having flashbacks of Kris Beech, Aleksey Morozov, Hans Jonsson, and any other former Penguins underachiever. Today's game 2 starts at 3 P.M., and the Pens need to come out with way more energy than they did in game 1. This is no longer the playoff debut for the bulk of the team, and Pittsburgh cannot afford to let the Senators set the tone during the opening shifts again, or the team will be back at the igloo staring up at a 0-2 deficit.
I've been impressed with Ottawa's first line all year, but it was their role players who did the most damage against the Pens in game 1. Pittsburgh's defense needs to play a lot more physical against the Ottawa role players before anything can be done against their superstars. I think the Pens will come out with more energy and life in game 2, and will even up the series with a 3-1 win. (However, if the Pens are backpedaling like they did in the opening moments of game 1, this could easily be another Ottawa blowout.) I'm going to stay positive, and expect the Pens to take a tied series back to the igloo.
