I don’t get how anyone can look at last season’s offense and think they way to fix things is to play guys at DH who can’t hit but have a good a glove, but there it is.

I still have some hope they’ll sign someone, because playing good fielders at DH is possibly the stupidest roster construction decision I have ever heard of. Ever.

And if he can be had for cheaper compared to someone like Delgado, all the better.

Hard to give the Red Sox too much credit.
They signed a $100M pitcher sight unseen, and brought in Okajima as a Spring Training caddy to help Dice-K adjust.
They got lucky that Okajima figured out that his change up is more effective using MLB balls than it had been using the ones from the Japanese league.

lucky? counting on the craft and guile of a japanese pitcher doesn’t strike me as lucky.

I do not understand, but I hope it means that USC football will suck for the next 10 years.

Andruw Jones gets a roster spot, but not Jim friggin Thome.

SHOW yourself now! Damn, caps are much harder to pull off on an iPhone.

what more do they need?!?

and the division is ours

“Oh, steroids. Oh yeah, okay. See, I misheard you. Thought you said something totally different. Oh yeah, I did those.”

Not sure which is more shocking: Palin at Fox or McGwire on steroids.

He’s better then Teahan, who he would replace.

And yes, the CHONE system is named after Chone.

link

moneyquote:

“I’ve watched him for years and years and years work out and take care of himself, and if any of us do that, we get bigger and stronger,” La Russa said.

Has LaRussa addressed his claim now that he never knew about Mac’s roid use?

OK, maybe those aren’t apt analogies but here’s something worth thinking about: ballplayers are elite athletes, and one thing almost every elite athlete has in common is the ego-driven belief that they’re different. That they’re special. That everything they accomplish is because of their effort or their determination or that God chose them to do Great Things. To most elite athletes, things like luck, random chance, genetics and accident of birth have nothing to do with it. To admit otherwise is to allow doubt of one’s own abilities to creep in, and with those doubts come the possibility of failure.

We almost always give athletes a free pass on this sort of stuff. We don’t question the wide receiver who thinks God helped him score the touchdown. We don’t challenge the seven foot tall center who thinks his domination of the key is purely a function of his work ethic. We don’t accuse the Fighting Irish of thinking that thoughts of the Gipper, as opposed to a superior game plan, beat Army in 1928. Athletes believe this stuff. They spend a lot of time in denial, actually, and it probably has a lot to do with why they’re so successful.

In light of this I find it totally plausible that Mark McGwire is in denial about what steroids did for him. That he truly thought — or over time convinced himself to believe — that they were only helping him “get back to normal,” as opposed to giving him a chemical advantage. Sure, he’s deluded about this, but it strikes me that he’s no more deluded about it than any other athlete is deluded about his place in the world and how he got there.

http://bases.nbcsports.com/2010/01/why-do-we-care-if-mcgwire-doesnt-think-steroids-helped-him-hit.html.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Former Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican, was the chairman of the House Government Reform Committee on March 17, 2005, when McGwire repeatedly testified that he would not “talk about the past” when lawmakers asked him about performance-enhancing drugs.

In a telephone interview Monday with The Associated Press, Davis said he met for three hours with McGwire behind closed doors the day before that hearing. During that private session, according to Davis, McGwire made clear he had used steroids and wanted to say so but was worried he would face legal trouble by admitting it then.

“He would have been a nice head to put on somebody’s mantel. So he basically took the Fifth (Amendment),” Davis said.

“It was very clear to everybody involved that he had taken steroids. Otherwise he would have gotten up there and denied it, but he couldn’t. … He looked ridiculous to most of the public, but he didn’t have many good options. We put him in a pretty tight spot. He was candid and honest in our interrogation of him. He said: ‘Some day, I’ll tell the story.”’

Davis added that he was turned down when he asked then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to grant McGwire immunity in exchange for honest testimony to Congress.

“I look back now, I wish I had got immunity,” McGwire told the AP earlier Monday.

One of his lawyers, Mark Bierbower, said: “He did make an effort to fully disclose the steroid issue and to do so, we sought immunity, but it wasn’t granted. It goes without saying that he walked out of the hearing knowing he had damaged his name, his reputation. But he did it to protect himself and his family, and we’re very pleased for Mark he can say now what he wanted to say then.”

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/baseball/mlb/01/11/mcgwire.congressman.ap/index.html?eref=sihp

if you say you’d have spilled your guts before congress and opened yourself up for criminal prosecution, you’re either lying or dumb.

“He’s kind of a beer league guy who just plays,” said a laughing Bell of Retherford

solid!

Pierre in center because Rios is hitting .100 and Jones is too busy eating Brown’s chicken that day. Damon is in left. They are warming up their arms between innings playing catch, standing approximately 30 feet from each other as they can throw the ball no farther.

Yay