near a cavern there’s a tavern
and a doctor so divine
he seduced her then he juiced her
she became his Clemenstine.
o my darling o my darling
o my darling Clemenstine
fastball humming, hear it coming
way back up to ninety nine
batters trembled, disassembled
they were shaking on the pine
couldn’t tussle with her muscle
all in awe of Clemenstine
o my darling o my darling
o my darling Clemenstine
fastball humming, hear it coming
way back up to ninety nine
light she’s not and rather hairy
now her jock is number nine
steroid rages filled the pages
tabloids doted Clemenstine
o my darling o my darling
o my darling Clemenstine
fastball humming, hear it coming
way back up to ninety nine
drove she rookies to the woodshed
she was always going nine
but they turned her and they burned her
every splitter on a line.
called the doctor now her proctor
no more juices he’d consign
she had maxed out he was taxed out
would she help him pay his fine?
o my darling o my darling
o my darling Clemenstine
fastball humming, hear it coming
way back up to ninety nine
poor old heater, all could beat her
is it too late to refine?
it has slowed and hangs forever
dreadful sorrow Clemenstine
o my darling o my darling
o my darling Clemenstine
she’s departed, brokenhearted
her excuses asinine.
…from the previous….
I am sure that Penn State thoroughly investigated the Vandy rape situation and felt beyond confident that Franklin isn’t going to be charged with anything related to a cover up.
You’d think, but after the farce at Rutgers you really can’t be sure of anything any more.
My favorite HoF ballot to date –
Lawrence Rocca – Morris Nomo Raines Trammell
“Anyone who played the bulk of his career during the Steroids Era, I am snubbing. Nomo gets a waiver because of his time in Japan, the trail he blazed, and my (possibly naive) belief that he did not use. Certainly, he could not have influenced MLBPA leadership to take a harder stance against steroids, whereas Maddux, Glavine et al had huge standing in the game and in the union. And there is no evidence, as far as I know, that they made any serious effort along those lines. GUILTY!”
Larry Rocca has not actively worked for a BBWAA employer in a number of years.
D. N. Nation @ 131, previous thread.
There is a recent specific on the Braves. I think it was the use of the “laughing Indian” (which I always thought was a “whooping Indian”, but should be called a Native American to be politically correct or a “descendant of Chukchi people to be anthropologically correct). I think they were going to use it on batting practice hats and national media jumped it from the catalog before they ever used the new hat.
Blazon,
You are a literary delight, but possibly a little twisted.
Long may you wave.
cliff…
thank you…
two excuses…
so is baseball…and,
my moral compass says – if it rhymes use it…
cheers!
@2, One wonders how our society functions at all.
From previous thread,
Nick (from the previous thread),
I know you are just giving me shit but I NEVER said I was becoming more of a Nats than a Braves fan. What I believe I said was that, living in DC, the Nats were my second favorite team. But I ALWAYS root for the Braves against the Nats. (I can barely watch the local telecasts here because the Nats announcers are such incredible homers-and Ray Knight, the post-game guy, is even worse.) In fact, I will only go to Braves/Nats games with other Braves fans (and there are a lot up here) because I would drive a non-Braves fan nuts. 🙂
@2,
And this is someone who presumably drives and is allowed to vote. So much for our species evolving.
@7
I didn’t mean to call your Braves fanhood into question. I just find your occasional “But guys…the Nats aren’t that bad, are they?” interludes amusing. No harm meant.
I do stand by my thought that if the two teams remain good for the next several years, staying a fan of both will be increasingly difficult. Though I’m sure there’s someone out there who’s currently managing to pull off being a fan of both the Saints and the Falcons or Auburn and Alabama or the Red Sox and the Yankees or whatever, I’m less sure that they’ll make it through the next five years without developing multiple personality disorder.
#8
Believe it or not, there are people I know in NYC who claim to like both the Yankees & the Mets. (“I’m a New York fan,” they’ll say.)
Usually, that means that they’re just Mets fans who start piping up when post-season rolls around.
@2, One wonders how our society functions at all.
Touche’ and no doubt! I will abandon the topic to allow the return to the truly important matters you were posting on before my rude interruption.
Do carry on.
@10, I was referring to the idiot writer, not you.
It does seriously intrigue me. You have to figure, in order to survive and keep an adult job, people’s brains have to be able to function at a certain level. What happens when it comes to making decisions about unrelated things, like who to vote for for the Hall of Fame? I’m not sure I want to know.
Speaking of keeping an adult job, anyone care to explain how it works that Lane Kiffin continues to get gigs in major college football programs?
(To say nothing of Bobby Petrino — I guess he just has to win. But Kiffin?)
Kiffin is a terrible head coach but has a great offensive mind. From a character standpoint I can’t stand the guy. As an Alabama fan I’m not happy about his hiring (even though it may work well for us offensively), but I will grin and bear it. I don’t defend it in any way, but won’t stop rooting for Bama because of Kiffin unless he becomes head coach.
BEAUTIFUL ! A modern day Ambrose Bierce, with a baseball slant! (or would Mencken be a more appropriate comparison?)
@2
I think what is also noteworthy is Larry Rocca worked in business operations for a Japanese baseball team for 5 years.
After all, who else would vote for Hideo Nomo than someone who is loyal to Japanese baseball?
Nomo was a legitimate phenomenon, even though he’s no more a Hall of Famer than Fernando Valenzuela, Mark Fidrych, or Sidd Finch.
What really annoys me is his notion that he wouldn’t vote for anyone unless they worked hard to eliminate steroids — despite the fact that no one within the business was willing to permit that. It’s a Catch-22.
Now, Jennie Finch, that’s a Hall of Famer in my book.
A-Rod suspended for 162 games, including post-season.
Think he’ll continue to fight it, ububba?
He claims he’ll try to appeal to a Federal Court. But, from what I understand, courts don’t generally overturn arbitrators’ rulings.
His suspension was “reduced” from 211 games, so I suppose it’s some kind of small victory. But, at this point, A-Rod is starting to look like Wile E. Coyote.
Roasted, Toasted and Burnt to a Crisp.
http://www.nick.com/videos/clip/salute-your-shorts-roast-and-toasted-clip.html
1. Rocca is an idiot. That ballot is absurd.
2. Roger Clemens is so obviously a hall of gamer it defies reason to pretend otherwise.
3. Arod should sue. Nothing to lose there.
4. No matter how talented they may get, the Nats suck. If you root for the Nats you’re a traitor and we will eventually have to duel to the death.
5. Bobby Petrino is an ass stain of a human being but he’s a successful college coach. Lane Kiffin hasn’t won anything but the be born into a football family lottery.
Nothing to lose but yet more time and money. At a certain point, he will need to realize that there’s no victory in this. He’s getting blackballed by the sport that he grew up wanting to play and by the team that controls his rights, and his historical legacy is in tatters.
There ain’t a court in the world that can change that.
Pony boy got lots of money to burn.
No doubt. But what can he win?
He can drag mlb and Selig thru court. That’s a win.
Bonds and Clemens should be in.
I can see folks point of view that Arod was treated unfairly but the guy is such a prick its impossible for me to sympathize with him any at all.
Being a prick does not give MLB the right to act unilaterally outside of the legal framework of the Joint Drug Agreement with the Players’ Union. Arod may be a prick but he’s no more of a prick than Bud Selig.
MLB needed to hang a hefty ban on someone to show that they are “serious” about PED use. That they could pin one on a huge star who doesn’t garner much sympathy is about as much as they could hope for.
Acting outside of the agreement just to keep arod out of the record books is bullshit.
When did they act outside the agreement? The MLBPA agreed to all this.
@32, Can you explain how this penalty is by the book? Because it looks to me like we don’t even know what the basis of the decision is. The scary thing, for players, is that we have no idea how — or if — it relates to the CBA at all.
And MLBPA doesn’t have a leg to stand on as long as the vast majority of people treat the broader issue like Lawrence Rocca treats his HOF vote.
The joint drug agreement states a player will receive 50 games for a positive test. 100 games for a second positive test. Alex Rodriguez has failed no drug test. He is being suspended using murky documents mlb bought from a guy who stole them from biogenesis (while obstructing a police investigation.) even if we accept mlb and the “positive test by proxy” bullshit this would still be arods first offense. So 50 games.
This is bud Selig being a tyrant in order to say he kept arod out of the mlb record books.
@Sam
I think he’s going to have a very difficult time finding a judge who will throw out an independent arbiter’s ruling in a case like this. I don’t even think a federal judge will agree to hear the case. A-Rod’s quotes today continue to make it seem like he has no idea what the hell is going on and is just throwing stuff against the wall. He is not entitled to a hearing in front of a jury or whatever BS he was prattling on about today. He’s entitled to an arbitration hearing, which he got, and it went more-or-less in his favor, despite the fact that he walked out on it like a petulant child when it was going on because Selig wouldn’t “face him like a man,” never mind that Selig never presents MLB’s case in these hearings.
If MLB has significant proof that he obstructed investigations in the way they claim, they absolutely have the right to suspend him severely for that under the CBA, in addition to the drug suspension. And if the proof is ironclad enough, it really doesn’t matter where it came from. This isn’t a criminal proceeding.
And I’m no Selig fan, but you’re gonna have to explain to me how he would have anything to gain by “keeping A-Rod out of the record books.” The record books are already screwed. If he was gonna pull a stunt to keep somebody out of the record books, it would’ve been Bonds who was at the center of it. There’s no reason to give a shit now. And there was very little chance that A-Rod was gonna make the Hall of Fame before this mess, so it’s not that, either. If Bonds and Clemens can’t get in, there’s no way on this earth that A-Rod can.
A-Rod is doing nothing but continually tightening the noose around his own neck. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m thoroughly enjoying watching him figuratively hang himself, but that’s me. Dragging MLB and Selig through court is not “a win” for him, because he’s guaranteed to lose. If he had a freaking case, we’d have heard what the hell it was by now. Instead, all we continue to hear are vague proclamations of complete innocence (which aren’t believable) and borderline conspiracy theories. You might be entertained by looking at Selig’s clueless face in a courtroom proceeding, but it won’t get you or A-Rod to where you want to go. And in A-Rod’s case, he runs the risk of spending so much money “protecting his livelihood” that he goes bankrupt. He can’t win, man…he should probably accept the suspension and circle the wagons here. But if he doesn’t, whatever…all the more entertainment for me.
Bud Selig is appalled that his legacy is “tainted” by Barry Bonds holding the HR record. He’s obsessed with making sure he blackballs ARod before he gets two guys ahead of “the real HR king.” This is nothing more than Selig massaging his “legacy” message so when it comes to *his* election to the HOF that no one will ask “huh, where was the Commissioner during this so-called ‘steroid era?'”
If ARod accomplishes nothing more than getting a trial and putting Bud Selig’s sorry ass on a witness stand so he has to answer real questions honestly that would be a win.
If you want to suspend Alex Rodriquez for failing a drug test, show me the drug test he failed. If you do that, you can get 50 games for a first time test. There is no function in the JDA that calls for a 211 or 162 game suspension because a criminal sold you some shady docs about a guy.
I don’t mind the Nomo pick, but that ballot is insane.
All that bluster and he omits Thomas who took a very strong stance.
His philosophy of “Just say no, but also rat or you may as well have said yes” is pretty out there.
Morris just gets a pass, like Milton Berle.
@36
Again, that’s great, but it’s not your money, and secondly, you’re really gonna tell me that it’s illegal for the commissioner to a) suspend somebody who provably did steroids but never failed a test, and b) to suspend someone for obstructing a drug investigation? He can absolutely suspend someone for both those things, and though the provable doping suspension should be bound by the JDA guidelines, it’s entirely up to MLB how long the suspension for the other thing is (subject to an arbitration hearing), just like it’s entirely up to them how long you would get suspended for causing a fight on the field (subject to an arb hearing).
And if it’s unprecedented and no one seems to know what they’re doing, it’s probably because A-Rod is the first person who’s a big enough freaking sociopath to actually obstruct an investigation.
I want ARod to drag this through court not for ARod, but for every player who comes after him. If the precedent becomes that the commissioner can issue any arbitrary penalty he wants as long as he hooks it to the moral panic of the day, why bother collectively bargaining anything at that point?
Not quite fair for MLB to rely on the CBA to pay Mike Trout about 2% of his fair market wage, then turn around and refuse to pay ARod because drugs and because we said so.
ARod didn’t obstruct Justice. MLB did. By buying stolen docs during an active police investigation.
And no, the commissioner does not have the authority to randomly declare crimes and punishment at his whim. He’s a commish bound by the jointly negotiated JDA with the players union. He’s not a divinely installed monarch.
@39
There’s a far greater chance that Mike Trout would have his “fair market wage” if the players’ union wasn’t also in favor of the current system. They want young players to make pennies on the dollar, too. Can’t have them threatening the salaries of established veterans, after all. That situation has precisely squat to do with the A-Rod one.
The standard for overturning an arbitrator’s decision in Federal court is bias. That’s such a high standard (as opposed to, say, incompetence) that arbitrator’s rulings almost always stand. As I’ve said many times here, MLB’s actions in this case are far worse than anything Arod did, if he did. But there’s no way to punish MLB, other than to be disgusted by their actions.
ARod’s best case (and it’s a total Hail Mary) is to use the experience of the prior arbitrator who was canned after he defied baseball over Braun to argue that the new arbitrator isn’t “really” independent. But mere speculation about that won’t do, which is why it’s an unbelievable long shot.
@42 – agreed. ARod has a near impossible legal task ahead of him. But that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t try. If nothing more than getting Selig’s sorry ass on the stand, that would be a win. I want Bud Selig under oath, in public. You guys who are hating on Firenze the Unicorn Pony are hating the wrong guy. And if there’s a strike/lockout in 2016 because the union finally stiffens up again in response to this latest broadside against the very idea of collectively bargained contracts, remember it was Bud Selig who did it. Not Alex Rodriguez.
@41, once you no longer have an ironclad agreement but rather one that means what it says until someone decides it doesn’t, you open the door to all kinds of interesting outcomes, is my point.
Does MLB want to be a league of laws or a league of whims? That’s the prism through which I read this case.
Has anyone heard what was the arbitrator’s rationale?
@43, 44- each of y’all have done a great job persuading me that there is a lot more to this than my more visceral reaction of basically writing A-Rod off. That said, I have the impression that the players (and thereby the union) seem to feel the same. While I am certainly not rooting for a strike now that you’ve caused me to think about this more I’d like to see the union do something that shows they are cognizant of the larger issues involved here.
It is unlikely, however, that a judge would give Rodriguez much relief. Legal experts say it is unusual for a judge to second-guess an arbitrator in a labor dispute — especially in a situation like this, in which the process was agreed upon by the employers and the employees’ union.
“They may be hoping they get an Alex Rodriguez fan, but even then, I’d be surprised if any state court judge would hear his case,” said Steven G. Eckhaus, an employment law expert with the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.
http://tinyurl.com/jvwtnyd
The only thing any Rodriguez lawsuits will produce is more ‘A-Rod Loses Again’ headlines. So I say: go for it, they never get old.
I wouldn’t be so sure about that Dan…
Blah, blah, blah; what do you expect the union to say? A court overturning a ruling under the rules both sides agreed upon is just not going to happen, no matter what frivolous reasons for the lawsuit and faux outrage over petty things (60 Minutes) Rodriguez’s lawyers can cook up.
I’ll say it again. When they strike/lockout in 2016, remember who caused it. It won’t be Alex Rodriguez’ fault.
So, the word is that tonight’s 60 Minutes will include interviews with Rob Manfred (who took time out from weighing evidence against Alex Rodriguez to testify against Alex Rodriguez, while declaring that Bud Selig didn’t have to testify to support his 211 game suspension) and Frederic Horowitz, the arbitrator who “reduced” the suspension from 211 to 162 games. The interviews were filmed prior to the decision being rendered. Horowitz then timed the release of his decision to maximize the ratings of the 60 Minutes hit piece on ARod.
While the charges of bias in the arb process are still long shots, the odds are getting shorter with every passing press release.
Man. 2016? That would be some poor timing for the Braves.
At this point, I’m waiting for A-Rod to retire so he can really let loose. I wouldn’t expect that he could come close to keeping his ego out of it completely, but there’s a void out there that he could fill. A true superstar with no hope of enshrinement and nothing else to lose, he could restart the conservation about PEDs in a way that advances our moral understanding of the era.
I agree with Dan, the legal challenge will go nowhere. Incorrect or poorly reasoned decisions, even if that’s what you believe this was, are not in themselves proof of bias. Neither is the threat of termination being cited since both the league and the union have that same power to dismiss an arbiter for any reason after a decision.
And I can’t say I get the anti-Selig hysteria. I’m not a fan of concentrated power much of anywhere, especially when it’s vaguely defined, but it’s hard to argue the Commissioner of baseball doesn’t have it. They have had it since Landis and have wielded it frequently throughout the history of the sport. The union can’t, or shouldn’t, now claim to be surprised by it when they again agreed to yet more of this discretionary authority in the CBA.
#51
Horowitz was not interviewed in the 60 Minutes episode, just Bosch, Selig, Manfred & A-Rod’s attorney.
And that 60 Minutes piece was never going to run until his decision was first rendered. If the decision had come out tomorrow, the 60 Minutes would’ve run the following Sunday.
BTW, this New York magazine piece is the definitive story on the A-Rod/MLB situation & it very well explains the issue of Bosch’s “extra evidence” that everyone wanted to get their hands on (and was eventually sold to MLB). It’s a keystone cops/keystone crooks kinda story:
http://nymag.com/news/sports/alex-rodriguez-2013-12/
Aside from the mountains of explicit and damning text messages from A-Rod to Bosch, the new takeaway from the 60 Minutes episode is that it expounded on the apparent physical threats that Bosch got from A-Rod’s people. If that’s to be believed (the water is certainly muddy, but at this point, IMO, Bosch is beginning to look like George Washington compared to A-Rod), then that’s a big part of what MLB is pointing to when it claims that A-Rod obstructed its investigation.
Again, if this part of the story is to be believed (and one guesses MLB believed it), then that would shed more light on why MLB went to such lengths to deal with A-Rod.
@54: That’s all well and good, but there is still no evidence that Arod took drugs. There’s pretty good evidence that he thought he was taking drugs, but unless Bosch supplied receipts for his (Bosch’s) purchases, we still have no idea what he actually gave Arod. There are two possible explanations as to why none of Bosch’s customers tested positive… one is that Bosch is a pharmaceutical savant; the other is that he gave them placebos. Did he look to you like a guy who was a pharmaceutical savant?
@54 – thanks for the link. God, what a cluster fuck. MLB and Bud Selig are worse rat bastards than Alex Rodriguez.
Go Braves.
Anyone understand the fascination with expanding the ballot? Being in the top 10 of 75% doesn’t seem overly exclusive to me.
@55
Again, this is not a criminal proceeding. There is not a “reasonable doubt” burden of proof. It’s more like the burden of proof of a civil case, which is 51 percent. Bosch providing A-Rod placebos when he had numerous other people test positive may be 11 percent believable, but it’s not 50 percent believable.
And I don’t think it takes a pharmaceutical genius to avoid positive tests, but even if it did, Bosch had several clients test positive, as I said above.
After reading that NY Mag link, I’m now convinced the A-Rod story is American Hustle by other means.
I hope a Think Progress link doesn’t qualify as being too political.
http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2014/01/12/3151681/problem-60-minutes-report-alex-rodriguez-drugs-baseball/
People are acting as if Selig simply makes these decisions without consulting counsel or anyone else. I guarantee MLB has very expensive legal counsel. That doesn’t make what they are doing right-that’s a matter of opinion-but I highly doubt that Selig would take these steps unless he believed he was on very solid legal ground. All the blustering about A-Rod getting his day in court seems dubious to me. With all the talk about how people would like to see Selig on the stand, how about A-Rod? Whatever the problems with the MLB process, I seriously doubt that it just made up everything to just get rid of A-Rod. I would bet they have some stuff that A-Rod would just as soon not come out.
I don’t like anybody very much, but I like Mr. Selig less than most. Whatever the actuality may be, Marc, it does SEEM that good old Bud and MLB believe the end justifies the means and that ARod was singled out as a target of opportunity.
This discussion is boiling down to:
–MLB very wrong! MLB very bad!
–But MLB legally defensible! A-Rod also bad — almost certainly! A-Rod ALSO unlikeable — very certainly!
–Yes, but MLB VERY wrong! MLB VERY bad!
etc
I don’t think anyone views A-Rod as some kind of paragon of virtue by any means. It’s that MLB is behaving so much worse in this instance that it’s kind of hard to get around the hypocrisy/strong-arm tactics/pro-owner and anti-player trifecta.
What Adam R said.
I think that it’s very possible that MLB will get away with its tactics, precisely because of who Rodriguez is — not only is he guilty, but he is also unsympathetic, and has few friends either on the Players Union (he’s a cheater who kept cheating long after many other players actually did stop) or on the Yankees, the team that cuts his checks.
But what MLB is doing is extremely worrisome. There is a collectively bargained process for dealing with drug testing, but it doesn’t say much about drug offenses unconnected with drug testing, except to imply that the commissioner has wide latitude. For his part, in this case, the commissioner has interpreted that as being essentially unlimited latitude. That is problematic.
For my money, the best writer on this has been Fangraphs’ Wendy Thurm. She’s a former lawyer (like Craig Calcaterra), and she writes about the business and law of baseball more intelligently than anyone I know.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-alex-rodriguez-legal-morass-flowchart/
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/a-rod-storms-out-of-arbitration-but-relief-in-court-unlikely/
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/arbitrators-decision-on-rodriguez-suspension-leaves-bad-taste/
Happy Monday, y’all.
February, pitchers and catchers report
March, Spring Training
April-September, real baseball
October, playoff baseball
November, GM Meetings and Hot Stove
December, Winter Meetings and Hot Stove
January…
January is A-Rod on a hot stove.
For data visualization/baseball geeks: http://benschmidt.org/mvp/
let’s visualize some data please
for some of us a painful tease
some skills obtained at birth
these then unknown on earth
as was the geek, thus our unease.
http://www.ajc.com/news/sports/baseball/hursh-la-stella-headline-braves-non-roster-invitee/ncmgJ/
Above is link to non roster invitee story on ajc.
Bethancourt is not listed, but I guess that is because he IS on roster, meaning “40 man” roster.
whaddy’a make of A-Rod’s lawyer last night?
Jeez, what a performer…
that’ll do for me…guilty!
New thread.