Draft Day Suit

Well, well, well, it seems that the  Major League Baseball association is trying to clean up it’s act. Or at least trying to prevent more embarrassing messes in the future.

How? No, they aren’t going to be breaking out the cleanser, though it would probably need a little lye to really clean those hard to reach spots. Instead commissioner Bud Selig just announced the MLB is going to start testing minor league players for human growth hormones.

“The implementation of blood testing in the Minor Leagues represents a significant step in the detection of the illegal use of human growth hormone. The Minor League Program employs state of the art testing procedures and the addition of HGH testing provides an example for all of our drug policies in the future.”

This isn’t your average pee test. The players will be submitted to random blood testing that will take place after games and the blood will be taken from the players non-dominant arms.

This makes me sad.

Why the heck do these athletes think they need to juice up? I hate it!

My dad was a baseball player all his life and could have gone pro, but my mom got knocked up in high school, so my dad married her and had to get a job to provide for his new family. He never would have used steroids, if just out of principle.

The fact that these guys think they have to use something to amp up their game is so disappointing.

Hopefully this type of testing will weed out the idiots and we’ll be able to get back to watching a game in which every player gives his all to the team. You know, they would actually use skill and finesse, play a little small ball and not just use power to hit the ball out of the park every at bat.

I hope this works, if only for the sake of our national pastime. It’s so sullied these days that it’s not the sport that parents want their kids to play anymore. That’s just sad.

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Photo Source- Patricia Honea

I was really sad to hear about the passing of Manute Bol yesterday. In my mind he was the epitome of what a professional athlete should strive to be off the court.

Bol died at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville. No cause of death has been reported, but he was reportedly being treated for severe kidney trouble.

At 7′7″ it comes as no surprise that he holds the record for career blocks per 48 minutes, (8.6), and blocked a record 2,086 shots, but scored only 1,599 points. He was the only player in NBA history to block more than he scored, but it was his actions off the court that really impressed me.

Throughout his career he was active in charitable causes related to his native Sudan. He visited refugee camps, and gave almost all of the money he earned in his NBA career to causes that supported the refugees of Sudan. He raised global awareness of the Sudanese with the Sudan Freedom Walk. The walk aimed at finding a solution to the genocide in Darfur.

He was a great example of what athletes, the “role models” of today’s youth, should be doing.

Manute, it is also rumored, may have started the phrase ‘my bad” that is so prevalent today.

Our thoughts go out to those who loved him and were loved by him.

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I didn’t know that Amare Stoudemire was such a greedy bastard. He is going to opt out of his $17 million final year with the Phoenix Suns, because he wants to go where he can get the most money.

I can understand the need for money, but I guess the $17 million he would receive next year isn’t enough. He wants more than $17 million.

As you can see I’m perplexed by the turning down of $17 million dollars.

Amare says that he deserves the maximum contract the NBA will allow and he wants a six-year deal worth $127 million.  And if the Suns don’t offer him riches beyond belief he is going to say buh-bye and head to the highest bidder.

I wish team loyalty was more the norm and money-grubbing was something to be looked down upon.

I will be sad to see Amare leave Phoenix. He’s  such a winner with his middle to high scoring average, his middle to high rebounds and his less than average assists. He must be forgetting that he isn’t  the league leader in any category and that his performance in the Western Conference finals  this year was below par, but yet he says this:

“The most important factor of playing for an organization is to be able to be totally comfortable and give them 100 percent. That’s what I’ve done my whole career, so it’s only right to look for a maximum contract.”

So I guess he was just half-assing it all this time so we could see what he’s really worth come contract time. He’s obviously not comfortable giving the Phoenix fans his all. Perhaps they should get someone who will.

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This basketball series is killing me.

I am a Phoenix Suns fan. Also, I am a “Laker hater.” I watch on pins and needles and with bated breath the games between the two teams. I  have to say, I am so excited for game 6 that I can’t even stand it. I really want Phoenix to win, if only so I can talk trash to my new friend from Massachusetts.

Who would’ve thought that the “old men” of Boston would make it to the finals for the 2nd time in three years? She did!

I watched Game 4 in a bar with her and found myself rooting for the Celtics. Not only was I commiserating with her over their loss, I was all bent out of shape with the lack of calls against Orlando and Dwight Howard’s Karl Malone-esque type of play. Also, I don’t think that Steve Nash’s face can take any more hard hits and since Dwight Howard,  of the Magic,  likes to throw his elbows it’s better to just avoid the whole meet up.

I don’t know though, if Boston will be able to defeat the Suns, which of course I don’t want. The Suns are just too fast of a team for the Celtics to try to beat.

The last time these two teams met, in 1976,  Boston won the series 4-2. I’m just hoping that Phoenix holds out against the Lakers and makes it to the Finals.

If the Celtics and the Lakers meet,  I just don’t think the Celtics can battle through Kobe and his compadres.

That’s just my opinion though.

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