Sports

Damn Dope Smokin' Cubs

2009-06-25T21:22:05Z

No wonder they can't hit the ball...

(per ESPN.com)

Chicago Cubs catcher Geovany Soto said he has been informed by the International Baseball Federation that he tested positive for marijuana at the World Baseball Classic.

"While I fully acknowledge my inappropriate behavior, I want to assure my fans and my family that this was an isolated incident," Soto said in a statement released by the Cubs. "I do not say this to minimize or deflect from my conduct and I fully understand the ramifications of my actions. I have and will accept any and all consequences.

"I am fully dedicated to the game of baseball and my teammates, and I apologize for any distraction and embarrassment this may cause them."

Neither the Cubs nor Major League Baseball will penalize Soto, according to sources contacted by ESPNChicago.com's Bruce Levine.

MLB does not regularly test for marijuana since it's not considered a performance-enhancing drug, according to a players association spokesman interviewed by Levine. But if MLB has suspicion that a player is involved with a drug like marijuana, it can ask for that player to be tested. This incident may open Soto to future testing. And if the result of the MLB test is positive, the league can fine and/or suspend the player.

The Cubs released a statement while playing the Tigers in Detroit.

"Geovany assured the organization this was an isolated incident and a misstep in judgment that will not be repeated," the statement read. "Though surprised and disappointed, the club supports Geovany as he takes responsibility for his actions and accepts the consequences."

Iranian Football Players: BANNED (For LIFE)

2009-06-24T16:17:56Z

Several Iranian football players who wore green wristbands to protest against the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinutjob have reportedly been banned from the team... for life. Yes, in the true sprit of deranged madness, many soccer stars are reportedly being forced from competition for stating their minds. At least seven players wore the wristbands in the 1st half of competition, before being forced to remove them at halftime.

A few players, including Iranian sports star Mehdi Mahdavikia, are getting thrown off the team for sporting the color green, the color that was adopted by the Mousavi's campaign and has been widely displayed in opposition street protests in Iran's post-election turmoil.

Yet Another Reason To Hate The Cubs

2009-06-17T12:22:55Z

From ESPN.com:

NEW YORK --Sammy Sosa tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003, The New York Times reported Tuesday on its Web site, the latest in a string of baseball stars implicated in the sport's steroids scandal of the past decade.

Sosa after and before HGHIn other news, the Pope's a Catholic, Liberace was gay and bears do indeed sh*t in the woods.

This revelation comes at an interesting time, considering Sosa himself was asked just three days ago about the controversy:

"I assure you that I will not answer nor listen to rumors," he (said). "If anything ugly comes up in the future, we will confront it immediately, but with all our strength because I will not allow anybody to tarnish what I did in the field."

How about a Grand Jury, Sammy? Think that'd tarnish it a little?

I Now Pray For Them To Lose

2009-06-13T20:01:23Z

It's official...

Not only am I now off the bandwagon for good, I am now actively petitioning the Almighty for this pathetic collection of lazy, overpaid, underachieving, petulant, gatorade machine-abusing chowderheads to lose every series they play for the rest of the season. I'd pray they lose every game, but just like the Bears in 1998 when all they had to do was lose just one more game to acquire Peyton Manning, these sorry idiots most likely couldn't even get THAT right if it meant following through on something.

Aside from the Cubs' starting rotation which has consistently performed far better than any other in the majors, this team deserves not a whit of the loyalty the city of Chicago has shown, lemming-like, since the first brick was laid at Clark & Addison. As long as the north side residents of this God-forsaken example of urban blight & decay insist upon ramming their collective heads up their asses and swallowing gallons of Old Style in order to justify having spent $75 on a bleacher seat and still respect themselves in the morning, these hipster doofuses deserve every single disappointment headed their way. After all, if you pick up a barfly at closing time, she's still gonna be a barfly in the morning, and you'll still be a loser, no matter how badly you try to convince yourself otherwise.

Therefore, in keeping with my tradition of exposing rank mediocrity when I see it, here's a list of 20 major events that have occurred since these colossal failures last won it all...

1. Radio was invented; Cubs fans get to hear their team lose.
2. TV was invented; Cubs fans get to see their team lose.
3. Baseball adds 14 teams; Cubs fans get to see and hear their team lose to more clubs.
4. George Burns celebrates his 10th, 20th, 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th, 70th, 80th, 90th and 100th birthdays.
5. Haley's comet passes Earth – twice.
6. Harry Cary is born….and dies. Incredible, but true.
7. The NBA, NHL and NFL are formed, and Chicago teams win championships in each league.
8. Man lands on the moon, as do several home runs given up by Cubs pitchers.
9. Sixteen U.S. presidents are elected.
10. There are 11 amendments added to the Constitution.
11. Prohibition is created and repealed.
12. The Titanic is built, set sail, sank, is discovered and became the subject of major motion pictures, the latest giving Cubs fans hope that something that finishes on the bottom can come out on top.
13. Wrigley Field is built and becomes the oldest park in the national League.
14. Flag poles are erected on Wrigley Field roof to hold all of the team's future World Series pennants. Those flag poles have since rusted and been taken down.
15. A combination of 40 Summer and Winter Olympics are held.
16. Thirteen baseball players win the Triple Crown; several graciously thank Cubs pitchers.
17. Bell-bottoms and mini-skirts come into style, go out of style and came back in style; same with disco.
18. The Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox and Florida Marlins all win the World Series.
19. The Cubs play over 14,153 regular-season games; they lose the majority of them.
20. Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Oklahoma and New Mexico are admitted to the Union.

"Go Cubs, Go," my big white ass. Yours truly is flipping over to the St. Jude Classic to watch John Daly continue to try to redeem himself. He may fail, but at least he's always been aware of what hole he was playing, no matter HOW drunk or strung-out he may have been. What's Bradley's excuse, hmmm?

Let's Play the Counting Game

2009-06-12T21:48:12Z

One... two... NO! Don't throw the ball to the crowd! BOOOOooooo!! Just one of 3 errors made by Milton Bradley in a game he soon hopes gets forgotten about.

Bradley knocked in two runs in the game on an off-the-wall double, but also made a baserunning mishap, lost the ball in the sun and was charged with an error, and then apparently lost track of how many outs there were in an inning... throwing the ball to the fans after making the 2nd out of the inning, thinking it was the 3rd and final out.

After the game Lou Pinella was asked if he'd spoken to Bradley about the error, to which he responded "what do you want me to talk about? Math? It goes 1... 2... 3." Priceless.

OH my GOSH! We Lost in HOUSTON?

2009-06-11T12:57:16Z

I only say it that way because for a while there we couldn't lose. I was happy to see us heading off to Texas for another 3-game series against the Astros. I mean, who really doesn't like playing a last place team? However in Houston this year the Cubs had been pretty much having their way at the plate, that was until last night.

The Cubbies couldnt' seem to muster up any runs past the solo shot by Geovany Soto. In the end it wasnt' enought to starve off the Astros who pulled out the 9th inning rally with a walk-off single off of Angel Guzman, who'd been looking pretty good on the mound up until last night.

Walk it off... today's another day:

TEAM	W	L	%	GB
Milwaukee	33	26	.559	-
Cincinnati	31	27	.534	1.5
St. Louis	32	28	.533	1.5
Chicago	29	27	.518	2.5
Pittsburgh	27	32	.458	6.0
Houston	26	31	.456	6.0

Failure to Flatter

2009-06-06T14:44:30Z

Okay, so you're Svetlana Kuznetsova and you've been training for over a decade, sweating your way up through the ranks, working hard on every shot, and you finally get to defeat No. 1 ranked tennis player Dinara Safina to win you're first French Open, and this is the picture they throw up at ESPN.com.....

I'm not sure what she did to the editors of ESPN.com to deserve this but it must have been pretty bad.

NASCAR Suspension Blues

2009-06-04T02:30:27Z

If you follow NASCAR you'll know that two teams have recently hit with massive penalties for cheating. The first and most notirious at present is the suspension of Jeremey Mayfield for use of amphetamines. Mayfield is the first Winst...uh I mean Sprint Cup driver supended by NASCAR under their new drug testing policy. Mayfield isn't the first to be suspended for drug use though, I believe that honor is held by the late Tim Richmond who succomed to AIDs in the late 80s.

Overall NASCAR has probably the best drug policy in sports as far as punishment goes. Indefinite supension for any driver until such time as they've proven to the sanctioning body that the person is drug free and on the right path. I will say though that I believe that since NASCAR's punishment rightfully holds its drivers to such a high standard that they should hold themselves to the same high standard. Mayfield is challenging his punishment because NASCAR doesn't send their A and B samples to separate labs to be tested.

I'd have to agree with this. Testing labs have a conflict of interest when testing both an A and B sample since if the results for both samples don't match then it is a tremendous PR blow to the testing lab. Not to mention if there is a problem with the testing, such as a false positive for any reason, the exact same methodology will be used to test the second sample. Definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get a different result.

Mayfield is an owner/driver and this positive result could very well cost him is career and his team. When the stakes are that high you need to make sure what your doing is beyond suspicion.

There was another suspension recently that was really over the top I think. Carl Long, another independent owner/driver was suspended for using an engine that was too large. If you follow NASCAR you'll know Long as one of those guys who shows up week in and week out on a shoe string budget just trying to make the show. He wasn't a Morgan Shepard type who simply did everyting he could to qualify and then drove 6 laps in the race before 'having engine issues' and going to the pay window.

That sad part about this according to ESPN.com..

Long was penalized two weeks ago after NASCAR discovered the engine in his Dodge to be 0.17 of an inch larger than the maximum-allowed 358.000 cubic inch displacement during pre-race inspection for the Sprint Showdown.

Basically Long was suspended for 12 races and fined $200,000 and docked 200 owners points for using an engine that was 0.17 cubic inches too big. That is ridiculous. Not only that, but if you follow NASCAR you know that the Sprint Showdown is an exhibition race. Even more ridiculous that he would be fined such an amount and docked championship points for a pre-race inspection for an exhibition race. To me it gets even crazier in that this wasn't an engine Long had thrown together in his garage. He bought the engine from legendary engine builder Ernie Elliot, who in turn had bought it when Chip Ganassi liquidated his inventory in preparation for the merger with DEI.

For big time drivers like Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhart Jr. or owners like Jack Roush and Rick Hendrick, $200,000 is a drop in the bucket. But for a small independent operator like Long, $200,000 is a killer blow. NASCAR really needs to examine itself and get back to its roots. No sport is bleeding fans like NASCAR is right now, and a lot of it is because the sport has become too homogonized and too dominated by a few very wealthy team owners.

I've Had It...

2009-06-03T15:50:30Z

... I can't bear to watch another blown game from the bullpen.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	R	H	E
Chi Cubs	1	1	0	0	0	2	0	1	0	0	0	0	5	10	1
Atlanta	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	2	0	0	1	6	7	1

Here's my plan from now on for all Cubs games... ready? I'm going to TURN OFF my television after the 6th inning. I figure this will add years to my life and keep my hair full of color. It may also save my lungs and kidneys from substance abuse.

That's the plan anyway... I'll let you know how it goes.

Cubs vs Dodgers Open Fighting Thread

2009-05-29T20:46:31Z

Z's out... suspended 6 games, Freel gets placed on the DL, and Bobby Scales comes back en route to Iowa to make a big homer last night (which panned out to be in vain, but ah thee well). Just another day as a Cubs fan.

So here we are. A whole weekend left of Cubs / Dodgers action, as I'm typing this at the bottom of the 8th, praying for the Cubs to hold on. A one run lead, with our bullpen... isn't exactly my comfort zone. Goes down smoother with beer... lots and lots of beer.

Here's to winning some games and closing that gap in the NL Central race.

:: cheers ::

TEAM	W	L	%	GB
St. Louis	28	19	.596	-
Milwaukee	27	20	.574	1.0
Cincinnati	26	20	.565	1.5
Chicago	23	23	.500	4.5
Pittsburgh	21	26	.447	7.0
Houston	18	27	.400	9.0