Rumors for Cheating
Barry Bonds sentenced
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Today Barry Bonds, the MLB home run leader was sentenced to two years of probation for obstructing a U.S. probe of steroid use in professional sports. Almost forgot, he also received 30 days of mansion arrest (house arrest in his 15,00 square foot Beverly Hills house).
The prosecution had asked the judge to sentence Bonds to 15 months in prison while the US probation department had recommended no jail time.
Bonds and his team of attorney’s are appealing the ruling.
A jury convicted Bonds in April of purposely answering questions about steroids with rambling responses in an attempt to mislead a grand jury.
Bonds’ trial jury failed to reach a verdict on three other charges accusing Bonds of lying when he denied taking performance-enhancing drugs and when he denied receiving injections from someone other than his doctor.
Image taken by kevinrushforth and used under the Creative Commons License Agreement.
Rockies release Mike Jacobs
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Major league Baseball suspended Rockies’ Minor leaguer, Mike Jacobs, for 50 games after he tested positive for HGH reports Ken Davidoff of New York’s Newsday. Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated adds that the Rockies released the infielder as a result of his suspension.
Jacobs later apologized stating that he took HGH to help his knees and back.
Jacobs was hitting .298/.376/.534 with 23 HR’s and 97 RBI’s in 429 AB’s for the Rockies’ Triple-A in 2011. He last played in the Majors in 2010 with the Mets. That year, he hit .208/.296/.375 with 1 HR and 2 RBI’s in 24 AB’s.
Image by Keith Allison under the Creative Commons License.
Does Pete Rose deserve a second chance?
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Former Cincinnati Reds player and manager Pete Rose, was banned for life in 1989 for betting on baseball games, including Reds games. The all time hit king (4,256) has admitted his mistakes and has petitioned MLB and commissioner Bud Selig to reinstate him but has not had any success.
In his second autobiography in 2004, Rose admitted that he bet on baseball, something he had adamantly denied until then. “I’ve taken responsibility for my life,” Rose said. “Baseball isn’t good for second chances — not for gamblers. They are for people who take drugs. They are for people who beat up their wives. They are for people who drink a lot of alcohol. I screwed up. I wish I could change it.”
Rose was recently the keynote speaker at a gala of the Ohio Justice & Policy Center. There, he said he did not care about being inducted into the Hall of Fame but only wanted to manage again to share his knowledge with the younger generation of ball players.
“It’s a like a singer getting caught running a red light and not being able to sing again,” Rose said. “That’s not America. I’m a baseball player. I can go on every talk show and say I’m sorry and some people don’t want to hear you. That’s not fair.”
One of the guests at the banquet was the federal judge who sentenced him to five months in jail in 1990 for failing to report income from gambling on his taxes. Rose made light of it but blamed only himself for the situation that he put himself in.
If you take a step back and look at the big picture with everything else that is going on in baseball, Rose does have a small compliant. Manny Ramirez was caught cheating as he was using PEDs and received a 50-game suspension and was rightfully suspended once and then for a second time. But if he served his now 100-game suspension, he would be able to come back and play again or manage like Rose wants to.
DUIs have become a dime a dozen. It’s now easier to ask who hasn’t had a DUI than who has. Baseball needs to address this issue and will hopefully in the next collective bargaining agreement but in some regards they are no different than Rose as they all broke the law. If anything, what they did was worse as they put innocent people in danger as they (DUI boys) got behind the wheel and made the decision to drive impaired.
Lets not forget Alfredo Simon of the Orioles who on January 1st, killed an innocent human being as he recklessly discharged a firearm into the air. Whether it was an accident or not, Simon’s actions resulted in a life being lost. Baseball has not taken any action against him as he is back in the States pitching in the minor leagues.
Though, the big difference in the situations is that Rose gave baseball a black eye by betting on the games that he was involved in (kinda like referee Tim Donaghy of the NBA). He violated the trust factor and the honesty factor of the game. But with that said, Rose has come forward and admitted that he did gamble on baseball games, just not ones that he was involved in like he was alleged to have done.
Almost 22-years later and nothing has changed for Rose as he sits on the outside looking in. So if you were the commissioner, would you reinstate Rose?
Information from the Associated Press was used in this article?
Image by Pvsbond under the Creative Commons license.
The Roger Clemens Soap Opera Continues…
Posted by: | CommentsIn the last episode of “Days of Roger Clemens’ lives”, we heard his ex-fling Mindy McCready describe lift off problems that Clemens suffered from.
The newest piece of mud to be thrown his way is that he paid his former personal trainer Brian McNamee for his training/injection services out of money from the Roger Clemens Foundation. McNamee told authorities investigating Clemens for perjury that the payments were made from the Roger Clemens Foundation from 1998-2001, according to several people briefed on the investigation. McNamee, who claims he routinely injected Clemens with steroids during that time, said he was also paid in cash and personal checks.
Clemens’ lawyer, Rusty Hardin disputed McNamee’s claims, telling the newspaper the former trainer had again lied to federal authorities.
“Obviously, Roger never paid him for any drugs anytime and he never paid him out of the foundation for his training services at any time,” Hardin said. “The foundation’s records will show that.”
McNamee reportedly tried to find documents to support his accusations about the payments but couldn’t produce them.
Information from ESPN.com was used in this article.
Update – Photographic evidence that Pete Rose used a corked bat?
Posted by: | Comments6/10 01:27: On a side note, the bat that Rose used for his final hit, number 4,256, is being auctioned by Lelands.com, and according to the Associated Press, it has not been checked for cork.
The final hit occurred off of San Francisco Giant’s Greg Minton on August 14, 1986.
Lelands.com president Mike Heffner believes the bat could be sold for close to $1.3 million – the price that was paid for a bat that Babe Ruth used to hit his first home run.
6/8 10:43: Deadspin has an x-ray of what appears to be a Pete Rose Mizuno PR4192 bat used in his 1985 campaign to become the MLB all-time hits leader. The x-ray is a picture of a bat with a foreign material, about 6 inches long and a diameter of a nickel.
The article goes on to talk about Rose selling much of his memorabilia during the season to pay off his gambling debt. The bat in the picture is the not bat used to break Ty Cobb’s record of 4191 hits, but it is believed to be the one used during a series in July 1985 against the Philadelphia Phillies (he went 1-for-8).
The article says that rumors of Rose using corked bats date back nearly a decade, and he has denied such cheating methods, however he denied for years that he bet on baseball, and we all know where that went. On a side note, MythBusters said that a ball coming off a corked bat is slower, so cheaters have only been cheating themselves.
