Jayson Stark let's forget about steroids and HGH for a moment and look back on all the wacky things from 2007 that still made baseball fun to watch.
I am about as disillusioned as it gets at the moment.
I'm not entirely surprised about Clemens, but Pettitte is unfortunate. I take solace in the fact that, apparently, it wasn't an ongoing, systematic effort to buck the system a la Clemens or Giambi, but a one-time lapse in judgment in 2002. He might be a cheater, but at least he's not on the same level as these other guys. That's something.
But I'm just as disappointed in the report itself, for a few reasons. For one thing, it's basically the McNamee and Randomski show. So they had the goods on a couple NY trainers and got them to roll. And that's it. No one from Chicago, or Boston, or Detroit, or St. Louis, or Florida, or California.
Predictably, the report is shallow and incomplete. As Pete Abraham says, issuing a report on steroids with one mention of Sammy Sosa is like writing a history of rock and roll with one mention of the Beatles.
And even many of the guys that ARE named are questionable, if you go through and actually read the report. Brian Roberts is one who comes to mind: the case against him is basically "a teammate of his, who never thought he did it before, said that he did once or twice, a year or two later." Come on, if you've got nothing better than that, do you really need to drag a guy's name into it?
But despite all that, you've got MLB and those idiots at ESPN treating it like it's the final word.
And I'm not even going to get into the conflict of interest side of it. I don't care if the guy is a former Senator or the goddamn Pope. There are COI rules that govern other bodies like federal advisory panels for a reason.
Baseball let the problem go on and on, and now this is what we get in the final tally? As a baseball fan I feel like they're insulting my intelligence, and speaking as a Yankee fan, we're definitely getting the short end of the stick.
Ultimately, though, I guess I have only myself to blame, for expecting the report to be halfway decent. What a friggin joke. I don't even know why I bother paying attention.
So are we ready to put an asterisk next to Clemens’ seven Cy Youngs, and the Yankees’ World Series championships in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000 which Pettitte (and in the last two, Clemens) played a major role in?
The Chronicle's Susan Schlusser is suggesting that the A's will sign Bonds. She makes a good argument, but I admit I also know nothing about her. For Chin Music's resident A's fan: is she credible, Dan? I suppose time will tell.
I think the Tigers just became the Scariest Team in the AL, on paper at least. It does please me to say that, as Detroit is one of those teams I've always liked despite my allegiances elsewhere.
Granderson
Polanco
Cabrera
Magglio
Sheffield
Followed by some mix of Pudge, Guillen, Renteria, and Jacque Jones. They were last year's #2 offense in the AL before they picked up Miguel Cabrera, who is reportedly working hard and losing weight this winter. Is that an All-Star at every position?
The rotation isn't as good, but still has a ton of potential, right? Verlander will be money. Bonderman is the key: he could top his 2006, or his elbow issues could continue to plague him. Willis is just a couple years removed from a near-Cy Young, but hard to say what to expect since he's been so unbelievably inconsistent from year-to-year.
I admit I don't know who will round out the Detroit rotation, as I haven't been paying much attention lately - Rogers? Robertson? Yair Yurr-yens, or whatever the hell that guy's name is? However it ends up shaking out, it's not hard to imagine a scenario where Detroit is downright nuclear. Scary.
