Manny Using Manny (Drugs) Getting (Suspended) Manny (Games)

The Los Angeles Times has broken the story that Dodgers superstar and "model citizen" Manny Ramirez will be suspended for 50 games beginning Thursday after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

...Hooray? ...Boo?

Eh, I don't care. As long as he's not on the Red Sox anymore or on my fantasy tea--ah, crap.

Who Told Selena Roberts I Have a Birthday Coming Up?

Beginning with his shift from would-be Yankees' savior to be playoff poison, I figured that, following the divorce, the Madonna mess and--of course--the steroid scandal, my Alex Rodriguez schadenfreude had reached its apex with the mirror-mirror smoochy-face gay porn photo spread. Little could I have imagined that the gift that is A-Rod's freefall had more to give.

It comes in the form of further revelations from Selena Roberts' upcoming biography of the manchild, A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez.

Not only did Roberts break the story that A-Rod tested positive for steroids in 2003 (when he was playing for the Texas Rangers), her book reportedly includes evidence that Rodriguez--despite orange-faced promises to the contrary--continued to use illegal performance-enhancing substances when he was a member of the New York Yankees. Part of this evidence--the best part, far and away--is that A-Rod's Yankees teammates called him "Bitch Tits" because of his "round pectorals, a condition called gynecomastia that can be caused by anabolic steroids".

My cup runneth over.

Rodriguez also, according to Roberts' book, has a gambling problem, is a bad tipper at Hooters and (speaking of tipping) is a fan of signaling opposing batters to let them know what pitch is coming with the expectation that his cheating will be reciprocated.

The latter practice is called "pitch tipping", which is similar to the nickname that will--god willing--haunt Alex Rodriguez for the rest of his life.

Then again...I don't want to be greedy.

[NY Daily News]

Look Upon Your Hero, Yankee Fans

If you're still a fan of Alex Rodriguez after the steroid scandal and his recent Details photoshoot (not to mention his general douchebaggery) and you're not interested in him sexually, you are absolutely lying about one of those two things.

[via Deadspin]

The Case of Roger Clemens' Buttocks

I've been watching the Congressional hearing on Roger Clemens' "alleged" steroid use for a little over half an hour, taking a drink every time a person mentions his posterior...and I am hammered.

Probably not a good idea to engage in drinking games before nine o'clock in the morning. On a Wednesday.

The Honeymoon Is Over

When Roger Clemens--the grizzled veteran, firmly set in his ways--first met Andy Pettitte--the eager, fresh-faced idealist--as playmates on the New York Yankees, most assumed that the passionate winter/late-fall romance that sparked between them would amount to no more than a passing fling. But when Andy coaxed Roger out of (his first or second) retirement to reunite with him on the Houston Astros, the world was given notice that the love between the two men was real (and a particularly brave thing to flaunt in Texas). And when Roger came out of retirement again, willing to completely embarrass himself at Yankee Stadium just so that he could be by the side of his one and only, you'd have been hard pressed to find anyone who didn't believe that the storybook romance of Roger & Andy would end with the pair riding bareback on a single white stallion along a picturesque shoreline, into the sunset and eternity.

But then came the Mitchell report--and with it, the ultimate test of the couple's bond. Both implicated as users of illegal performance-enhancing drugs, Roger & Andy needed one another more than ever before as the accusations flew and their individual legacies threatened to crumble around them. It seemed clear that the only way they were going to weather this storm was if they did it together.

Or maybe it only seemed that way to Roger, as Andy has agreed to rat him out in attempt to save his own reputation as an ostensibly honest person.

I guess there's a reason they call it a "storybook" ending...because, apparently, even a love as pure and true as that which existed between Roger & Andy can't last forever in the real world.

Mary J. Blige to Be Stripped of Home Run Record

Will the ripple effect of the Mitchell report never end?

The Times Union in Albany, NY has broken a locally-based story about a steroid investigation that goes well beyond sports and in the realm of hip-hop and R&B. Naturally.

Named as recipients of illegal performance-enhancing drugs are Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent, Timbaland, Wyclef Jean, and--my personal favorite--staggeringly untalented and inexplicably successful "filmmaker" Tyler Perry. (Sylvester Stallone is also listed for no apparent reason, as the report points out that he "has no known connection to the Albany steroids investigation." Perhaps the Times Union simply didn't want to appear racist.)

With the exception of 50 Cent--who looks like he might spend a sizable amount of time at the gym--what the hell are these people doing with their steroids? Using them as shampoo?

It's not unrealistic to suppose that some of them might need their goods to come with more detailed instructions, given that Blige's idea of a clever fake name under which to receive her illegal drugs is "Marlo Stanfield"--the name of a drug kingpin on HBO's "The Wire". There's a lot of parts in this story that are hard to believe...but the fact that Mary J. got caught is not at the top of the list.

Matthew Mitchell Would Like His Fucking Money

When all is said and done, history will likely not regard the first decade of the 21st century as the New York Yankees' glory days. First, there was spending 400 gabillion dollars for the honor of not winning a single World Series, then there was the Mitchell Report, which outed such prominent Yankees as Roger Clemens and Andy Pettite as steroid users (thus tainting the New York teams they played on that did win the occasional postseason series)...and now this:

A fan is suing the Yankees for $221, seeking reimbursement for the money he spent on tickets between 2002 and 2007.

Matthew Mitchell's (no relation to George, I presume) argument is that since the players he watched during the five games in question were using performance-enhancing drugs, it amounts to "consumer fraud" on the part of the organization. Though I certainly want him to win this lawsuit--if for no other reason than it would compound the indignity to the Yankees--I must admit that the team has a pretty easy defense: if Mitchell only spent $221 on five games, given how terrible his seat must have been each time, how could he be sure who the hell he was watching?

(FUN FACT 'A': Freshman year of college, Metroville was in an English Lit class with the guy who played the paperboy in Better Off Dead. You know what he doesn't really like talking about? How he played the paperboy in Better Off Dead.)

(FUN FACT 'B': 200th post! Where are my balloons?)

Andy Pettitte Wants You To Love Him Again

Choosing a tactic opposite that of some Major League Baseball players who were outed as performance-enhancing-drug users in the Mitchell Report released Thursday, a mere two days later, New York Yankees pitcher (and author of a book that encourages kids not to do drugs) Andy Pettitte fessed up to using Human Growth Hormone.

That general admission of fact is where the Integrity & Purity end for Pettitte, however, as trailing it was a freight train of rationalizations: "it happened five years ago", "I only did it twice," "I did it because I was injured", "it wasn't against the rules", "HGH isn't steroids", "I didn't inhale", "Jesus is my co-pilot"...etc.

Maybe some people will buy Pettitte's sob story that "two days of perhaps bad judgment should not ruin a lifetime of hard work and dedication", but I am not among them. The way I see it, Bruce Banner only exposed himself to about two minutes of perhaps gamma radiation...but that doesn't make him any less of the Hulk.

Boys and Girls, Your Baseball Heroes

The Mitchell Report--a.k.a. the Baseball Hall of Fame Bucket List--was announced on Thursday, tarnishing forever the reputation of many current and former Major League players, activating armies of lawyers and public relations personnel, and, most significantly, befouling the innocent souls of confused and weeping children throughout the world.

Confirming rumors that circulated beforehand, New York Yankees Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte are two of the biggest names revealed to be steroids users (the inclusion of Barry Bonds on the list is about as surprising as if he were not voted "World's Most Pleasant Sports Personality")--which is just about all I, as a devout Boston Red Sox fan, could have asked for this Christmas (although that's not to say it wouldn't have been nice to see A-Rod's name, too); another relative bombshell is Miguel Tejada.

Given that George Mitchell sits on the Red Sox' board of directors, many had been curious as to whether that fact would influence his investigate panel's findings. Though it had been rumored that the report would name undead burn victim Julian Tavarez and team captain Jason Varitek (my dismay at the latter possibility was worsened by the fear that I may have unknowingly predicted it [first photo caption]), the only recent Red Sox players on the list are pitchers Brendan Donnelly and Eric Gagne...neither inclusion representing any skin off Sox fans' backs because (1) Gagne is on the Brewers now, (2) he was terrible during his one partial season in Boston, and (3) nobody cares about Brendan Donnelly.

The Red Sox win again!

[To save you the trouble of slogging through the full, 409-page report, Deadspin has helpfully compiled the list of named names.]

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

...OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Boooooooooooooo...

...oooooooooooooooo.

John Rocker Hates the Jews but Loves the Juice

Former major league relief pitcher (and current, uh...streaming video entrepreneur?) John Rocker might not like homosexuals, Hispanics, Asians, women, black people, the overweight, Jews, hair dye, the 7 train, or batteries, but one shouldn't take that to mean that there's nothing the all-purpose bigot doesn't not like--or at least doesn't hate. For example, he's allegedly been known to enjoy the occasional illegal performance-enhancing substance.

According to an SI.com exclusive report on an ongoing steroid sting in Florida, between April and July of 2003 Rocker received two prescriptions for somatropin (the human growth hormone). Rocker--who is named among several other athletes in the SI.com story--has denied this allegation, but I don't know why he's even bothering when the evidence speaks for him: during the aforementioned time period, John Rocker was limping to the end of his major league career with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Nothing about that situation says "enhanced" to me.

Even if there's merit to the claim against Rocker, the SI.com article points out that "the clients [of the Palm Beach Rejuvenation Center and other clinics suspected to be suppliers of performance-enhancing drugs] appearing on invoices and customer lists are unlikely to face prosecution, because the targets of the raids and investigations are the members of the network of suppliers". So any way you slice it, Rocker's in the clear...and he can keep his focus on his burgeoning career selling racist t-shirts alongside Ms. Bikini Universe 2004. You really can't keep a good man down.

That Lawyer's in Trouble if Barry Bonds Ever Gets His All-Naturally Grotesquely Enlarged Hands on Him

The lawyer did it.

That's the word out of San Francisco, where today defense attorney Troy Ellerman--who has represented both the Bay Area Laboratory Co-op (BALCO) founder Victor Conte and its vice president, James Valente, in the investigation into the company's illegal activities as part of a federal steroid probe--agreed to plead guilty to leaking secret transcripts of grand jury testimony from an earlier phase of the investigation to San Francisco Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada. Apparently, Ellerman wasn't satisfied with the fact that he'd already guided both of the aforementioned clients to guilty pleas (the same plea that pretty much anyone who's ever been associated with BALCO has made...with one notable, bloated-skulled exception), so he decided to go the extra mile by falling on his sword. That guy must really hate Barry Bonds.

Williams and Fainaru-Wada, who used the information they found in the documents--such as the fact that baseball star Jason Giambi and sprinter Tim Montgomery openly admitted to having used steroids--to write a number of stories for the paper in 2004 and later the book Game of Shadows, which offered highly incriminating evidence against MLB-record-thief and all-around a-hole Bonds regarding his unbelievably obvious use of illegal performance-enhancing substances (it was also, surprisingly, kind of boring), had been facing jail time for refusing to divulge their source. Now they're off the hook while the finally-revealed man behind the curtain, Ellerman, will be going to prison for two years.

Personally, I think he should be getting a parade--but NOT one for "Most Reliable Lawyer Ever". I presume Victor Conte would agree with the latter condition.