You know, now that you mention this, I’m not certain of that, even if it felt right when I wrote it this morning.  If anyone has any info on this I’ll post an update (I’m kinda slammed at the moment and can’t track it down).

I’m not a financial guru, but, if I’m reading the story right, the bonds in question were sold in 06 at a fixed 5%, maturity date 2046. I.E., the bonds’ status has absolutely no bearing on either the team or the City (unless they’re still trying to issue bonds for a project that’s already complete, which doesn’t make sense). The bad news is for the people who bought these bonds last month and are trying to sell now.

Hey, at least with Griffey, they’re leaving one black guy alone.  Usually, the formula dictates that black or Latin guys receive endless outrage and hysteria from pathetic Americans, whereas whities are, well, just ignored.

Brian Roberts?  Andy Pettitte?  Troy Glaus? 

Etc., etc., etc. 

Nobody gives a damn about them.

kranky—good point.  Worth watching. I have to think that the fact that this team and his manager thus far seem to be behind him will help.  Also, isn’t the grouchy Manny usually trumped by the something-to-prove Manny? He was public enemy #1 around the time of the trade last year and look how he responded. Isn’t there a chance he comes back with an “I’ll show them” attitude in July?

That’s a good one too Craig, you’re right about the “something to prove” Manny.

And hey, to be fair, if there’s a player who could be telling the truth about it being an accident, it’s Manny. We need affirmative evidence of that to believe it though, I think. Show me the RX, mannhy.

Anyway, one more thing. There is yet another side to Manny which arises from time to time,. and that’s the one to worry the most about. It’s the “I don’t need this aggravation” Manny. If the Dodgers are smart they find someone like Enrique Wilson to pay to hang out with Manny and keep him away from the TV. I would send him to Nepal, frankly.

I agree with PB’s post 100%. 

While here in America we’re dizzily working ourselves into this mania, in the Eastern countries (specifically China and India), man, it’s the Wild, Wild West!  They’re doing such mind-boggling things with drugs and germ-line engineering that, I mean, pretty soon we’re going to have a bunch of Easterners who run like Carl Lewis, think like Stephen Hawking, and work like Thomas Edison conquering us.

But we won’t mind because there are no “steroids” in baseball! 

Also, please don’t overlook my earlier post about how ESPN is running ads during ‘Baseball Tonight’ for pharmaceutical steroids.  The irony is just too damn rich!

Just like the day the Rangers took on the Giants to inaugurate interleague play, the baseball books as we know them have been changed forever. Although sad, it is something we will now have to live with.

Al Capone was a gangster in 1920’s Chicago. He owned every illicit business going on in the second city, centered around bootleg whiskey. Try as they did, the Feds couldn’t make any of the mob charges stick to him, and finally had to settle for busting him on tax evasion charges. He was sentenced to prison and now, nearly 100 years later we all think of him as an all around bad guy.

At about the same time, Mr. Capone had a counterpart in Boston by the name of Joseph Kennedy. Allegedly involved in many of the same illegal activities as Mr. Capone, he was able to completely evade the long arm of the law, and had a bunch of kids that got Ivy League educations and went on to change America. We have sort of come to think of him in a patriarchal way, to be admired for spawning such impressive offspring.

The point is, there will always be those that we suspected, but never caught. If their performance warrants it, we will consider them the heros of the era. Those that are caught, however, belong in the Hall of Shame, not the Hall of Fame, and if they are still active in the game should be removed from it in perpetuity.

@tadthebad

I assume you meant to direct your questions to me.  I agree that it paints a really cloudy picture to overlook what we’re fairly certain, but not absolutely certain, the two guys you mentioned have done.  In fairness to those we suspect who are actually innocent, we have to assume that a lack of hard evidence, combined with a lack of a conscience on the part of a player that makes them unwilling to fess up, means they are not guilty.  If they really did it, but get away with it, they have to live with it.  If you’ve ever read Edgar Allen Poe’s “A Telltale Heart”, you can get a feel for the guilt that will consume them unless and until they come clean, and withdraw their names from consideration for all accolades….

MJ:

I’m sorry if I linked to the wrong article.  There have been several studies showing that modern, pathetic American “men” are being assaulted by some entity - probably the government and the military, considering their joint love of eugenics and black ops - showing that testosterone has been being artificially lowered at a rate of 1% a year. 

The prominent medical review, ‘The New England Journal of Endocrinology’ probably performed the most comprehensive study of the creepy phenomenon.  If that article was the wrong one, then just read this one:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/44441

There is no difference between Joe Republican buying “pharmaceutical” steroids and a baseball player buying black market steroids.  It’s like Oxycontin and heroin: they have the exact same active ingredients.  The only difference between them is that rich Republicans use one with the approval of the government while poor folks use the latter and are chained and thrown in cages for it. 

If you think that the fact that the steroids advertised on ESPN’s ‘Baseball Tonight’ are valid because they’re being dealt by a big corporation, then I don’t recognize that distinction at all and so we’re at an impasse. 

I find the weak American “men” who are taking artificial testosterone from pharmaceutical companies more outrageous than pro athletes, because the latter are doing it for the sake of their careers and their teams whereas the former are simply doing it because, well, they’re pathetic. 

If you’d like, I can send you a lot more information on the government and the military’s assault on our biological integrity.  In short, our fertility, neurological precision, and metabolism are, indeed, being insidiously attacked.  If you don’t want to believe the New England Journal of Endocrinology and a slew of other studies….that’s your call, once again.

Tadthebad:

Funny you should mention Roger Clemens.  In a sense, his situation is, perhaps, the most egregious evidence of racism in this whole thing.

Roger Clemens perjured himself for sure.  Perjury is difficult to prosecute, but his is that very rare case where it’s open-and-shut.

Barry Bonds might have perjured himself if you interpret his testimony the way the government wants you to and if the government could prove that he was lying and if you can prove that his lie was of material importance to the case at hand.  (For the record, the government was poised to fail at every one of those “ifs”.) 

The Republicans in the DoJ have spent $100 million trying to prosecute Bonds.  The case is a clear-cut loser in every single way.  As easy as it is for prosecutors to even get indictments, it’s amazing that he was ever even indicted.  There was no possible way he would ever be found guilty.  It was a dogsh—case, from top to bottom.  (Greg Anderson’s courageous stance against the government only made the prosecution’s crap stink that much more.)

Conversely….we’re 15 months removed from Roger Clemens’s real perjury - on national TV in front of millions of people - and there are still no charges.  Odds are, there never will be. 

Explain that one to me.  I think that melatonin would play a part in any honest explanation.