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Going to see Strasburg pitch tonight. The Reds definitely have the best offense he's faced so far this season and Great American is the first hitter's park he's pitched in, so hopefully they can get to him. But the Reds hitters usually tank against big name pitchers so he'll probably dominate.

Why can't the Jays beat the Royals?

I blame it on your fantasy baseball team names.

The umps strike AGAIN:

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=10176593

What the fuck is going on here? It's at the point where the players and coaches should all just strike until replay challenges are implemented.

He also tossed out the pitching coach for yelling from the dugout, and the manager. Worst of all, the umps look like they don't give a shit that they clearly fucked up again. They really do think they are above the game.

The Umps are crooked

You think there should be instant replay on that play?

Can HGH testing salvage Selig’s legacy?

No matter how Major League Baseball tried to frame its implementation of a human growth hormone blood test for minor leaguers, the upshot was very simple: This is an attempt by Bud Selig to rescue his legacy.

Selig cares deeply about how people view him. Friends and contemporaries said he still sees himself as much a fan as the man who has run MLB for nearly 20 years. And the thought of retiring on Dec. 31, 2012, as baseball’s great steroid enabler terrorizes him.

So came a shot across the bow Thursday, when minor leaguers were stuck and drawn for the first time. Superficially, Selig played this perfectly. No longer does the silliness of banning HGH without a test in place exist in the minors. The anti-doping blowhards who regularly flay MLB greeted the move with huzzahs. Baseball beat the NFL to the HGH-testing punch. And by foisting the tests upon minor leaguers, Selig essentially said to the MLB Players Association: go ahead and try to wiggle out of this during collective-bargaining negotiations next year.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_yl...htesting072210

Unfortunately, he ignored one important fact: The test has caught one person in the world in six years. One out of thousands of tests. Doping experts can vouch for the test’s efficacy all they want. In baseball, no one considers a .0001 batting average much of a success.

And about that one positive: It came when British doping officials last year targeted a rugby player named Terry Newton after intelligence led them to believe he was using. This was no random test, like the ones baseball will use in the minor leagues. It used outside evidence, and MLB already suspends players for such non-analytical positives.

Selig never lets such details get in the way of his plan to rid baseball of performance-enhancing drugs. He has used a particular word: “eradicate,” like they’re some sort of a pest capable of extermination. It’s in such moments, confidants say, that Selig overcompensates. The leftover guilt from cheering Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, from watching Barry Bonds beat his friend Henry Aaron’s home run record, from seeing star after shamed star define the last two decades of baseball more than any other person or event could – all of that compounds and turns Selig single-minded.

“He’s so intent on making this right,” one associate said. “He doesn’t realize that it never can be.”

However good Selig’s intentions, the damage done is irreversible, even with baseball now boasting the strongest drug program in American sports, far superior to the NFL’s self-proclaimed “gold standard” that’s more like pyrite. While Selig can celebrate the next generation of players seeing blood testing as the norm, he cannot disassociate himself from the previous generation, not when he and the rest of baseball wore blinders as players created their own pharmacological test center.

HGH somehow was lumped in with steroids by the anti-doping leeches who proselytize about the necessity of ethics in sports while they profit from the very tests they demand. HGH doesn’t build musclebound Neanderthals, it promotes quicker healing, a moral and ethical gray area. Toss aside legality for a moment – HGH is banned by the United States government except in cases of growth hormone deficiency, AIDS wasting and undersized children – and answer: If a doctor were able to remedy a player’s injury more quickly, shouldn’t he?

It’s more complicated than that, of course. Some doctors do believe HGH serves a larger purpose than fast recovery and that its place among performance enhancers is warranted. Like so much science, the opinions vary, and Selig chose instead to let public backlash shape his response.

HGH is baseball’s Shirley Sherrod, the anti-doping clowns its Andrew Breitbart and Selig the Obama administration. Selig’s initial response when the steroid hysteria cropped up – “eradicate” – shaped his policies thereon, and his eagerness to realize HGH blood testing comes with a price.

Surely Selig can’t say, with a straight face, that the Newton positive convinced him and the rest of MLB’s brain trust the HGH test that for so long they had laughed off was now fair game. One MLB official last year, when asked about the possibility of blood testing for HGH, said: “Maybe they’ll use all this money we’re giving them and figure out a test that actually works.”

The test from last year is the same test they’re using today.

Selig wouldn’t dare let that get in the way of his futile reclamation project. For all the good he has done – the expanded playoffs and the massive revenue growth and 15 years of labor peace and MLB.com – indelible is his holy trinity of flubs: the All-Star Game tie, the World Series cancellation and the Steroid Era.

The last haunts him the most. Selig, as usual, will use minor leaguers as guinea pigs, hope like mad a bonus baby is taking HGH and needles up within 24 hours of a random test – most minor leaguers can’t afford the stuff – and show the world that baseball means business. The union, sources say, is nearly resigned to blood testing for HGH; the fight will be over the frequency of those tests, and if no player in the minor leagues tests positive and all Selig can stand on is the Terry Newton case, it’s a shaky bargaining position.

Then again, Selig’s previous steroid policies have made enough hay. Positives are, for the most part, limited to teenagers from Latin America, an issue MLB executive Sandy Alderson is trying to clean up. Loopholes remain – Edinson Volquez(notes) serving his 50-game suspension while on the disabled list was a particularly embarrassing one – but everything from Selig’s 50-game suspension for first-time violators to the league’s Department of Investigations ensures rampant steroid abuse will no longer exist. All that’s left, then, is the HGH issue, and Selig wasn’t going to retire without addressing it.

“This was really important to him,” one MLB official said, and it was important because Selig wants to believe the vigor with which he went after performance-enhancing drugs – the Mitchell Report, the strong plan and now the first American sport to blood test – will at very least erase some of his misdeeds and perhaps eradicate them.

Deep down, he must know better. The sin never goes away. The stain is permanent. This legacy cannot be rewritten.

Quote:

Originally Posted by YOUR Hero (Post 3171198)

You think there should be instant replay on that play?

Under a challenge system, it'd be up to the manager on whether or not he wanted to use a challenge on it. I mean, the run DID end up scoring, but they got shutout anyway.

It's really not hard to do. Like the NFL, each manager gets 2 challenges with the possibility of a 3rd if they get the first 2 right. Hell, you can even make it 1 challenge with the possibility of a 2nd if you're REALLY worried about the time of the game. Either way, the manager would have to be careful with using his challenge.

Balls and strikes are uncontestable as per usual, but ump errors pretty much everywhere else could be corrected. Fuck the "human element".

Pretty sure CTS and Miotch are the only Twins fans around here, but it needs to be said. Carl Pavano is having a great season. He has 12 wins now and 4 of his last 7 starts have been complete games. If he keeps it up he deserves some Cy Young mention.

Hard to fathom how he does it in small cities so well while shitting the bed in New York.

it's all in his glorious mustache

Quote:

Originally Posted by Triple Naitch (Post 3171680)

And the New York Yankees are still waiting for a refund. :foc:

"Ken Rosenthal" is apparently reporting the Yankees are close to acquiring DAN HAREN.

DANNY f*cking HAREN is seriously one of my 5 favorite players in all of baseball even though he has ben pretty off this year.

Not really a big fan of the firing of Milt Thompson.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Droford (Post 3171701)

180 days in prison

Quote:

Originally Posted by Droford (Post 3171701)

moron fans

can't believe the amount of cheering he was getting.

Thursday was the most excitement at Camden Yards in a while even though they lost in a 5-0 shutout, so its not surprising.

You want to make a trade (fantasy baseball) for Weiters?

hes off the DL tomorrow so..no

Diamondbacks-Yankees trade discussion over Dan Haren in serious doubt since neither side can agree on a deal. Yankees want to trade mostly prospects but nothing huge and no cash while Dbacks want a few MLB-ready players and cash and a few prospects.

Since Jose DeJesus is out for rest of the year, Red Sox-Royals rumored trade for him ended badly for the Royals. Royals wanted cash and a decent amount of prospects.

Ubaldo Jimenez has a 7.64 ERA in his last 6 starts.

He is who we thought he was!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smelly Meatball (Post 3172688)

No need for Haren, really. Pettitte thinks he can get back much sooner than expected. Ssssssssssssergio is trying to hold down a job and today wasn't a good start.

Jays VS Tigers.... ah the first great rivals of Toronto

Brooks Conrad is becoming an Atlanta folk hero. Two pinch-hit grand slams and a game-winning squeeze bunt on the year.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Vito 22 (Post 3172730)

Ubaldo Jimenez has a 7.64 ERA in his last 6 starts.

He is who we thought he was!

he's walking everyone lately

it's bizarre

TYLER MUTHAFUCKEN COLVIN!

Can't believe the Yankees didn't want to give up Justin Chamberlain for Daniel Day Haren. Retarded.

watching the pirates lose again right now...glorious :(

Diamondbacks get: LHP Joe Saunders, LHP Patrick Corbin, RHP Rafael Rodriguez, PTBNL

Angels get: RHP Dan Haren

Wow, WTF are the Diamondbacks doing? They could have gotten so much more than that from other teams.

D-Backs gave up Aaron Cunningham, Brett Anderson, Carlos Gonzalez, Chris Carter, Greg Smith, and Dana Eveland for Haren, then traded him after two years of being a terrible baseball team for three guys that have probably a 2% chance of making the majors and a mediocre at best SP. Awful.

Can't believe Joe Saunders is the main piece in a package to get Haren. Apparently Corbin was their #12 prospect and Rodriguez was their #22 prospect in their system. Unless the PTBNL is Mike Trout that seems like a huge failure.

No #600 today.

But The Grandyman hitting 2 homers was quite the surprise. And, the 2 hour rain delay was a bunch of bullshit. Probably be sitting in traffic right now if I hadn't left early.

Sunday Night Baseball - On ESPN

Chicago Cubs vs St. Louis Cardinals

Cubs have won the first 2 games. Can the Cubbies bring out the brooms for a clean sweep? Tune in RIGHT NOW to find out on ESPN1.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Vito 22 (Post 3174079)

I bet they were really hoping the Yankees would take the bait and trade their players since D'backs kept saying they had other teams who could match what they wanted from the Yankees. Assuming Angels keep him for the long term, they won that deal easily.

Wouldn't be surprised if the reason Yankees didn't want to pay his whole salary was because they are going to try very hard to get him in free agency. Might as well save a few millions to use to sign him than have to trade and then pay part of his contract.

Haren's under contract through 2012 and has a team option for 2013 so the Yankees won't be getting him any time soon.

The deal is pretty much a salary dump, they should have been able to get a lot more than that.