It was actually Luis Castillo’s wife who gave birth. He missed the first game and came back for the second

Someone besides Shatner sings that song?

You never closed your parentheses on the Braves story.  Just sayin’.

The Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan had the most idiotic argument: release the whole list of players assured of anonymity, because four players have been leaked, and it’s unfair that they should be the only ones. Yes, the old “they screwed four players, so the fair thing is to screw all of them” principle. He must be on the New Haven City Council….

I’m surprised you never mentioned the Bill Hohn story between yesterday and today. Fist-bumping John Baker after the Marlins win yesterday, calling a strike to Brian McCann on a pitch that would have hit a right-handed batter in the shin, and then calling time during an at-bat to go over and throw out Bobby Cox, even though it was clear Cox was trying to just get on with the game. I guess a bunch of people are calling for Hohn’s head.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090730&content_id=6156730&vkey=news_mlb&fext;=.jsp&c_id=mlb

I’m with Jack Marshall—I want to know if the players who tested positive in 2003 were informed.  I feel like I’ve heard conflicting stories about that.  I found this in a letter from Don Fehr to Congress dated July 2, 2008… he says players weren’t told they tested positive, but that they were told their names were on a list the government was seeking (how many of those lists are floating around baseball?).  Craig, maybe you can help interpret the lawyer-speak.

Q4: Were players who tested positive in 2003 informed at any point that they had tested positive? How many of these players were informed,
when were they informed, and what individuals with the MLBPA informed them of the positive results? Were these players also informed
of the end of the program suspension?

Answer: Players were not told that they had tested positive. The MLBPA attorneys who spoke in 2004 with players on the government list had not
seen test results and did not know who had tested positive. Privileged conversations with these individuals were conducted by MLBPA attorneys
Michael Weiner, Gene Orza, and Steven Fehr. Our records indicate these conversations took place with 65 players between September 4 and 16.6
The players were told (because we believed that as their legal representative we were obligated to tell them) that they were named on a
list of individuals whose records the government was targeting. Players were not told that the program had been suspended; nor were they told a
suspension had ended. During these conversations, players were told that if they had not yet been tested in 2004, that they would be tested before
the season ended, but that was something the players already knew before the conversations took place, because the agreement required that each player be tested once during the year. They were not told (and no one knew) specifically when any test would be conducted.

If Ortiz WASN’T told, then it makes his unequivocal statements against steroids more plausible, and leaves open the possibility, at least, that he had a Romero-like situation and was not, in fact, a steroid user. The flood of anti-Papi articles and “I told you so” blog posts do not allow for that possibility.