Big Papi to Play "The Babe" at Yankee Stadium

Left, National Baseball Archives via Associated Press; Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
In a nod to Babe Ruth’s famed called home run, the All-Star home run derby at Yankee Stadium is planning a contest in which a fan will try to call a shot for David Ortiz.
NYTimes: Who’s Calling the Shots, the Yankees or Ortiz?

The Yankees were upset when they found out about a promotion that would cast David Ortiz of the Red Sox as a modern-day Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium during the All-Star Game festivities.

Who better to play the rotund home run hitter with a giant personality? Who would the Yankees have play the Babe? Jason Giambi, the juicer? (Maybe before he calls his shot, he could reenact his grand jury testimony and show the boys and girls how he shot his testosterone "in the ass". That would be heart-warming.) A-Rod, the pretty loser? (A-Rod's unfortunate habit of caving under pressure might affect the TV schedule; it could take him days to hit a home run on command).

No, Ortiz as the Babe is perfect. Babe did start off as a Red Sock, after all. And like Ortiz, Babe was renowned for his larger-than-life personality. While Babe did not own a Bedazzler and is not known for rhinestine-studded sportcoats, you can imagine him wearing one with Ortiz in some Red Sox-Yankees promotion for MLB.

The Sultan of Smack

One of the Juice Boys is back in the headlines:



















On the left is Jason Giambi in 2006; to the right is his rookie card.

Boston Globe: Report: Giambi failed amphetamines test

NYDailyNews: Exclusive
Giambi meets with MLB officials

Red Sox Nation will never forget Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series, (aka the Bronx Robbery) where long before Grady left Pedro in too long, long before Aaron Boone put himself into history with his walkoff homer against Tim Wakefield in the 11th inning, juiced Jason Giambi hit two solo homeruns. No juice, no comeback, no win. I repeat my call for the tiny hypodermic needle to be placed next to the stats of every one of these cheaters.

Ban Rafi

He used the same steroid Ben Johnson used in 1988, and we're supposed to believe it was an accident? Ban the cheater and all his cheating friends.

Popular Steroid Is at the Center of Palmeiro's Case

The positive drug test that has left Rafael Palmeiro's legacy in doubt involved the potent anabolic steroid stanozolol, a person in baseball with direct knowledge of the sport's drug-testing program said yesterday.

Stanozolol, known by its brand name, Winstrol, was most notably linked to the Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson of Canada, who was stripped of a gold medal in 1988 after testing positive for that steroid.

Stupidity and Steroids Come in Many Forms

Listening to Palmeiro, one could have got the impression that he had unwittingly used something, maybe given to him by another player, that turned out to be laced with a steroid. But yesterday two people in baseball with knowledge of the testing program questioned that impression.

The steroid Palmeiro was found to have in his system was, one of them said, a heavy-duty steroid, a substance often injected, not ingested. It has one of those strange steroid names: stanozolol. It is No. 24 on the list of anabolic androgenic steroids, covered by Schedule III of the Code of Federal Regulations, that appears on Page 160 of the collective bargaining agreement.

George Vecsey:
Orioles' Palmeiro Has Thrown Away His Credibility. Period.

WITH his Wayne Newton mustache and his expensive suit, Rafael Palmeiro oozed sincerity, under oath. He claimed he wanted to distance himself from the accusations of Jose Canseco, sitting right there, who had written that Palmeiro had used steroids when they were teammates in Texas in 1992 and '93.

"I have never used steroids. Period," Palmeiro testified March 17, in front of Congress. "I don't know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never."

Now a new word has crept, and I do mean crept, into Palmeiro's vocabulary. The word is "intentionally." Because Rafael Palmeiro, with his 3,018 hits and 569 home runs, has tested positive for steroids and must sit out a 10-day suspension that sounds more like lifetime suspicion.

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Good grief. Given the current suspension, the brazen Canseco now comes off as the most forthright of that sorry lot.

Palmeiro wants us to believe he has no idea how the foreign substance got into his system. But something good will come out of this, he insisted yesterday. From this shameful day onward, Rafael Palmeiro is volunteering to be an object lesson to children.

"You have to be careful what you're taking," he said, adding that children had to be careful about accepting "supplements" and "vitamins."

Of course they must. Children must also be careful not to stuff beans up their noses or stick their tongues against frozen playground poles in winter. But they probably already know that. Only a ballplayer with 20 years in the major leagues is dumb enough to swallow a bunch of stuff without getting it cleared by a doctor or a pharmacist.

Tom Boswell: A Big Star Plays A Bad Hand

[I]n one of the most unexpected announcements ever made in baseball, Palmeiro has been caught, suspended and has actually admitted to using steroids this season. Palmeiro simply claims that he has no idea how they got in his body.

Abducted by aliens? Sat too close to Canseco at the hearing? Got a package in the mail that was intended for Jason Giambi?

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Palmeiro and his agent, as well as the Orioles, repeated many times that they could not go into details about Palmeiro's steroid blunder because of some "confidentiality" issues. "I would love to tell what happened to me so that everyone would understand," said Palmeiro, "but under this confidentiality agreement, I cannot get specific."

Unfortunately, what we may have here is a Stupidity Test. As in: How stupid are we? Whose "confidentiality" is being protected? Palmeiro's, of course. If he wanted to explain more, who could stop him from defending his good name? The union and baseball have a confidentiality agreement that prevents them from releasing information. But that doesn't put masking tape over the player's mouth. If Palmeiro had a compelling story, who could force him to stay silent?

Replace the asterisk with a tiny hypodermic needle

Barry Bonds is a fraud. Jason Giambi (who by the way hit two home runs in Game 7 of the Yankees-Red Sox series in 2003 -- should the Sox be celebrating their SECOND STRAIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP?) is a fraud. Gary Sheffield is a fraud. Jeff Bagwell is a fraud. Sammy Sosa is a fraud. They and all their steroid friends should be kicked out of the game.

The Baseball Encyclopedia should adopt a new asterisk for the current generation of law-breaking cheaters: a tiny hypodermic needle next to all of their statistics in the record book.

And if Shoeless Joe Jackson & Pete Rose can be banned from baseball & the Hall of Fame for betting on baseball games (the sin is cheating, right?), all these fakers should be barred from the game & the Hall for cheating to obtain their fraudulent individual stats.

It pains me to say it, but Marian Jones is a fraud. I watched the interview with Kelli White last night. The feds confiscated the same type of calendar for her illegal steroid use as for Marian. So we know that Marian was shooting up for her 2000 Olympics triumph. So sad. I watched her win the Women's Basketball Championship game with North Carolina in 1994 & always loved her. But she's a cheater, & I've lost all respect for her.

I used to be up on all the major professional sports in this country, but now I stick to women's college sports and international soccer.

Here's the best article on the steroid scandal, by the incomparable Tom Boswell in the Washington Post: The Truth Lies in the Numbers