A big thank you....

By Jon.

I would like to expand on the previous post written by Chris, specifically regarding Jason Giambi and his positive amphetamine test.

I would like to personally thank Mr. Giambi for making me look like a fool.

Just two days ago, I wrote this:

"One thing I do know, I support Jason Giambi. He sounds genuinely remorseful, and he is the only current player to be somewhat upfront about 'roids. He went through the motions in 2003, he got clean, he doesn't deserve to go through it again. The worst part about this whole thing is that the general baseball public agrees with him. MLB does owe it's fans an apology, especially older fans who lived through the dead-ball era and remembered a time where drugs didn't rule the sport."

I honestly feel like a significant other cheated on me. I mean, I stuck up for the guy. I fought for him, I even commented on how remorseful he sounded! And then he goes and fails an amphetamine test. Never have I been more personally offended by one athlete's actions. In fact, I can't remember a time where I was offended at all. Being a Buffalo sports fan, I usually approach sports with more cynicism than the average fan, but I truly believed that the Giambino cleaned up his act. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Thanks Jason, you've lost a fan.

Morning Musings: Porn, Drugs and Portis

By Chris

Just some quick thoughts on a beautiful Wednesday morning:

-Steeler’s offensive line coach Larry Zierlein reportedly sent what the Steelers are calling an “inappropriate e-mail” from his Pittsburgh office to “unintended recipients” throughout the NFL last Friday. Zierlein, as Buffalo fans may recall, was an assistant line coach for the Bills last season. Mike Florio’s blog, ProFootballTalk.com broke the story and it was finally confirmed yesterday. Apparently, according to Sports Illustrated’s rumor site FanNation, the porn message made its way up the ranks from important Steelers officials all the way up to commissioner Roger Goodell himself. It’s nice to know that the players aren’t the only ones who don’t know how to handle themselves in the NFL.

-Jason Giambi failed a test for amphetamines within the last year, according to the New York Daily News. So I guess when he said he was wrong for doing “that stuff,” amphetamines weren’t included. There’s also a rumor that the Angels would like to trade for him. Owner Arte Moreno always likes to look for a big move and Giambi would be an upgrade offensively over any of the first baseman currently on the Halos roster. Unfortunately, with all of the trouble Giambi was now dug himself into, who knows if he’ll even be in the game much longer. With the positive amphetamine test, Giambi subjected himself to six additional tests for one year, making his statement to USA Today about being “tested more than anyone” all the more true. The Daily News couldn’t have picked a hotter time to leak those test results and they couldn’t have done it at a worse time for Giambi.

-The Ducks advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals with a win over Detroit last night. Now I can have a rooting interest and I may be able to stomach watching this series. Ottawa has the ability to adapt to Anaheim’s defensive style from the blue line out, but it will ultimately be the goaltending that will keep Canada from its first championship since 1993. It’s very hard to see Ray Emery outplaying former Conn Smythe winner J.S. Giguere on the biggest stage of all. I see the Ducks taking advantage of all those juicy rebounds Emery will leave on the doorstep and taking the Cup in five.

-Clinton Portis makes me laugh. From his goofy disguises in post game interviews to his recent comments about Mike Vick and dog fighting not being a problem, I just can’t wait to see what he does next. I love how he couldn't even keep a straight face during that dog fighting interview. A reality show is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, such a series might jeopardize Goodell’s efforts to keep the image of the league clean. And those efforts are working out reeeeeeeeally well right now.

-The Spurs are up 2-0 against the Jazz already? Really? Does anyone even expect Utah to win a game? And notice that since Bill Simmons’ ESPN the Magazine column was published last week, everyone is now praising Tim Duncan as “the greatest player in the past decade.” Coinicdence? And also, is there is a reason as to why there needs to be a four day lay-off between games in that series? I blame Tom Bergeron.

-The University at Buffalo finally finished their new 12,000 square foot training facility last month. The old weight room inside Alumni was a joke for a Division I program and hopefully the new facility will help sway athletic recruits to the Bulls program. The Morris Sports Performance Center will actually be able to house whole teams! And it’s good to hear they’re not settling with just this new facility, as Rodney McKissic writes in The Buffalo News today: “The Morris Center is a precursor to a projected 200,000-square-foot indoor multipurpose field house that will include a 120-yard football field and an estimated 20,000-square-foot weight room, which would be one of the biggest in college athletics. The field house, nevertheless, is in the embryonic stages of planning.”

With an end, comes a new beginning....

As was the case last year, the extended Sabres playoff run severely cut into my time generally reserved for baseball in the summer months. Now that the Sabres season is over, I am proud to say that baseball season has finally started. Well..... for me, at least.

That's not to say that I won't watch the remainder of the NHL playoffs. There is no hockey like playoff hockey. There are some intriguing storylines that could play out. Many people forget that Dominik Hasek played his hockey up in Canada's capitol last season, before injuring that tissue paper groin of his at the Olympics. That thrust Ray Emery into the spotlight, and well...... that didn't work out so well (last year, at least).

The entire country of Canada seems to be behind the Sens at this point (if you believe Hockey Night in Canada coverage), and I seem to remember Chris Pronger betraying a Canadian team this past off-season after the city of Edmonton found themselves in a love affair with him. Granted, this story is a bit of a stretch, but you can be sure that all of Edmonton and the Canadian bandwagon fans will be pulling for an Anaheim exit.

On to baseball......

This story puzzles me: Report: Yankees might try to void Giambi’s deal (ESPN.com)

Major League Baseball as a whole has dug themselves a hole. They knew something was going on during the great home run chase of 1998, but there was no steroid policy in place, so Bud Selig essentially batted a blind eye. Here we are, some nine years later, and the only current player who is acknowledging the problem and admitted he made a mistake might be ostracized from his team? What's even more mind boggling is that a struggling team like the Yanks would even consider getting rid of one of their best and most productive players. A team that is struggling to score runs ousting one of their best RBI men? Granted, he's not having an outstanding year, but still.... this makes very little sense.

I'm also aware that this is all based on a "report" from "unnamed sources." So this rumor could very well have been started by the hot dog vendor behind the right field bleachers in the Bronx.

Also, the Giambi USA Today interview is one of the most blown out of proportion stories I have ever heard. Jason Giambi took steroids. This isn't new. He apologized for it in 2003, though he never said what he was apologizing for. Anyone who thinks he was saying sorry for anything else needs to have their head checked. So here we are, four years later, and now he's getting heat for shooting 'roids (or taking the clear, or rubbing the cream, or whatever)? How does this make sense?

One thing I do know, I support Jason Giambi. He sounds genuinely remorseful, and he is the only current player to be somewhat upfront about 'roids. He went through the motions in 2003, he got clean, he doesn't deserve to go through it again. The worst part about this whole thing is that the general baseball public agrees with him. MLB does owe it's fans an apology, especially older fans who lived through the dead-ball era and remembered a time where drugs didn't rule the sport.

On pins and needles

By Chris

Last week, Sports Illustrated reminded me why baseball is such a great sport, because of players like Grady Sizemore. Average, hard-working guys with extraordinary talent going through the grind of a 162-game schedule in a game filled with strategy and skill. Guys like Sizemore appreciate what they’ve earned and author Tom Verducci reminded us in this feature that, unfortunately, these “throwback” players, who dig it out after every at-bat and run down every fly ball, the guys who are in it for love of the game above all else, are far and few between these days.

Verducci seems to be on a quest to move past the negatives of the steroid era, and has used his columns and features to focus on the good of the game. In the few years since the end of the Steroid Era, he’s talked about the reemergence of small ball, what it’s like to go through spring training through the eyes of both a major leaguer and an umpire and has been praising Daisuke Matsuzaka and the improving state of the game internationally.

So how does SI follow up that great Sizemore cover piece? By putting Barry Bonds’ head on the front page, which I now assume is as large as the actual Golden Gate Bridge:

Thanks for reminding me of everything I hate about the game, team salaries aside. This week’s issue also had a tremendous piece about Mike Tomlin (only the third Steelers coach in 38 years and a minority to boot), two articles on Detroit sports teams (the Pistons and the Red Wings, each now in the Conference Finals of their respective sports) and an another article about how Phil Mickelson isn’t a choker anymore (he won the Players Championship last week and was the cover boy for SI’s Masters issue). But who do they choose? The most hated man in America not in an elected office.

Granted the Great Home Run Chase is a legitimate story, but the focus of the article is to let people know that not even the people of San Francisco really care. They’d rather talk about the Warriors and worry about Bonds breaking the record whenever he gets closer. Many will defend Bonds, citing that if he juiced, then the pitching had to be juiced, too, so it's a wash. Others say that it’s just another home run until he comes within two or three of the record. They seem generally bored with him. The article even has little kids telling the world how much they despise Bonds and hope he gets banned from the game. There really is little local buzz surrounding Barry’s bat. If they don't care, why should I?

Bonds may say it’s because he’s black and everyone else is racist. Really, Barry? Could you please tell me whose record you’re really chasing? Henry Aaron, right? Isn’t he African-American, too? The racism cry is just a crutch because he doesn’t want anyone to talk about the problems he’s caused himself. Curt Schilling told us that much, but even that was uncalled for, and just threw more gasoline onto the Barry Bonds bonfire. The truth is that there’s so much baggage that comes with Bonds that people are generally just tired of him. From a possible indictment on allegations of perjury to the sacred record, it’s refreshing when SportsCenter doesn’t talk about him for a night.

Unfortunately, this won’t be the last time the steroid issue will be thrown in our faces, especially as Bonds inches closer to 756. This issue of SI came to my doorstep a week after David Ortiz admitted that he might have taken steroids. After all, who knows what they put in the water back in the Dominican Republic, and on the same day Jason Giambi decided to open his big yapper to USA Today about this topic, saying that Major League Baseball should have stepped up to the plate years ago to apologize for all of the problems that have resulted from the steroid scandal. Hopefully Giambi expects the apology to be more detailed and sincere than the "apology" he gave in 2005. Even at the end of that article, he still refused to talk about it. Way to step up, guys, now please just shut up.

ESPN the Magazine also continues to provide in-depth investigative reports from inside clubhouses about the steroid issue from nine years ago. The cover story of their current issue (another cover of the issue features Chuck Liddell...and UFC is clean, right?) tackles another such report, as the blurb promises to tell us, “how clubhouse gofer’s became baseball’s steroid connection.” It discusses how intimate some "clubbies" have gotten with players, but still no names are really named and it's all mainly still specualtion. I just don’t care anymore. It’s still far too early to judge the steroid era, anyways, and it will be as long as those central figures involved (Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Giambi, Miguel Tejada, and so on) are still in the game. For all we know, it may still be going on, since substances like HGH still aren’t being tested for by MLB. Way to be firm on that one, Bud.

So why burden the public about yesterday’s problems when we’re still not even sure how to feel about them? I still don’t know how to feel about Sosa. Should we be happy he’s made it back to the Show, or shower him with boo’s because he’s an alleged user? We just don’t know. Why not just enjoy today’s current crop of stars, like Sizemore and Jonathan Papelbon, Jose Reyes and Cole Hamels? Is it too hard to just sit back and enjoy sports anymore?