Michael Jackson believes Manny Ramirez should be in the All-Star Game. So does Bud Selig, Roger Clemens, Ted Kennedy and Ramirez himself.
I know because they all voted for Manny. I actually cast their ballots, but that doesn't make a difference to Major League Baseball.
Dead or alive, animal or vegetable, saint or sinner, MLB just wants your vote. In keeping with baseball tradition, it is now allowing fans to cheat like their real-life heroes.
Had Donald Fehr played the game from which he announced Monday he was walking from after 30 years, we'd marvel at his accomplishments like a 700- or 600-plateau home run hitter during that span or a pitcher who managed 4,500 strikeouts. We'd talk about him like a multiple MVP winner and as being one of the greatest ever at his position or any position. We'd talk about him as a surefire first ballot Hall of Fame inductee.
Then we'd throw it all in the nearest trash bin. We'd chuck it all for the same reasons we do the accomplishments of so many of those sluggers and strikeout artists and MVP winners during Fehr's reign.
When it comes to surprises, last week's revelation was like finding out Iran's elections were juiced for the incumbent. If you want shocking news, however, you've come to the right place.
We are ready to reveal all the players who failed baseball's 2003 drug test. The results were supposed to be kept confidential, but Alex Rodriguez's name was leaked to Sports Illustrated and Sosa was outed last week in the New York Times.
There are 102 names to go. This drip-drip-drip could go on for years, but we're not going to let it.
This morning, things just seemed different. I could tell. I had a little more spring in my step. The air tasted just a little more sweet. Little did I know that we'd be finding out Sammy Sosa had tested positive for banned substances in 2003! It was closure. Like figuring out the ending to a movie in the first five minutes, then having it last for 15 years.
Stories this obvious need an esoteric approach, and until the Roto Rush starts contemplating Heaven as a series of interlocking plane terminals and hotel suites, that's our job.
He is retiring from baseball -- was he still here? -- and he says he's just going to "calmly wait for my induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Don't I have the numbers to be inducted?"
Well, of course he has the numbers. Everyone knows that. But this one is going to be interesting because not one person believes he did it clean, without steroids.
Yet not one has actually made an accusation. It's just one of those things you think you know.
The most inane drug-related rule in my sportswriting life? Back in the old, wacky Continental Basketball Association, naturally. Upon walking through a hallway of weed fumes at the Holiday Inn in Bangor, Maine, where I was doing a feature on a traveling minor-league team obviously participating in cannabis exploration, I checked out my trusty CBA handbook. It confirmed that players were forbidden to use recreational drugs, all right.
On the "day of a game."
Otherwise, smoke and snort away.
Now, years later, I've found a more absurd rule. According to baseball's drug agreement, "A player shall be deemed to have been eligible to play in the All-Star Game if he was elected or selected to play; the commissioner's office shall not exclude a player from eligibility for election or selection because he is suspended under the program." Meaning, Manny Ramirez -- villain of the Scammywood steroids suspension that continues to rock the sport -- is eligible to play in the All-Star Game next month if enough fans vote for his inclusion in the National League starting lineup.
Lackey's piece on Major League Baseball's blackout policy makes it even more difficult to understand the league's logic. I'm not sure exactly how the powers that be determined which areas should and should not be blacked out from a given broadcast, but I have a theory. Every time you attempt to watch a game, all the MLB executives gather together in a sequestered conclave. They take a vote amongst themselves and burn the ballot cards in a furnace. If white smoke plumes out of the smokestack outside, you can watch the game. If black smoke comes out, you are out of luck.
A conversation between you, the consumer, and commissioner Bud Selig is after the jump.
Every Sunday, MLB FanHouse empties out its notebook in Baseball Brunch.
When Willy Aybar's home run Thursday in Cleveland was upheld by a video review, it marked the sixth time in six days umpires made use of baseball's instant-replay rule.
So the natural question to ask Jimmie Lee Solomon, Major League Baseball's executive vice president of baseball operations, is why the flurry of trips to the secret chamber to watch replays? Are the umps more willing to consult the tape than in the past?
"These things come in bunches," Solomon told FanHouse.
When the news hit this morning that President Barack Obama was about to nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, sports fans around the country probably thought, "Why do I know that name?"
The answer is because Sotomayor has gained a little bit of fame over the past decade and a half for her involvement in sports-related court decisions.
In 1995, she issued the injunction that ended the Major League Baseball players' strike hours before replacement players were to take the field in official regular-season games. And when Maurice Clarett challenged the NFL's draft-eligibility rules and tried to enter the 2004 draft, Sotomayor was part of a three-judge panel on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled against Clarett, and upheld the NFL's minimum age requirement.
Michael Jackson believes Manny Ramirez should be in the All-Star Game. So does Bud Selig, Roger Clemens, Ted Kennedy and Ramirez himself.
Had Donald Fehr played the game from which he announced Monday he was walking from after 30 years, we'd marvel at his accomplishments like a 700- or 600-plateau home run hitter during that span or a pitcher who managed 4,500 strikeouts. We'd talk about him like a multiple MVP winner and as being one of the greatest ever at his position or any position. We'd talk about him as a surefire first ballot Hall of Fame inductee.
So it turns out Sammy Sosa was a steroid freak.
This morning, things just seemed different. I could tell. I had a little more spring in my step. The air tasted just a little more sweet. Little did I know that we'd be finding out Sammy Sosa had tested positive for banned substances in 2003! It was closure. Like figuring out the ending to a movie in the first five minutes, then having it last for 15 years. 
SECAUCUS, N.J. – Mike Trout was the star of MLB Network's coverage of Tuesday's draft.
Just try to leave him out. Sammy Sosa dares you.
The most inane drug-related rule in my sportswriting life? Back in the old, wacky Continental Basketball Association, naturally. Upon walking through a hallway of weed fumes at the Holiday Inn in Bangor, Maine, where I was doing a feature on a traveling minor-league team obviously participating in cannabis exploration, I checked out my trusty CBA handbook. It confirmed that players were forbidden to use recreational drugs, all right.
Lackey's piece on Major League Baseball's blackout policy makes it even more difficult to understand the league's logic. I'm not sure exactly how the powers that be determined which areas should and should not be blacked out from a given broadcast, but I have a theory. Every time you attempt to watch a game, all the MLB executives gather together in a sequestered conclave. They take a vote amongst themselves and burn the ballot cards in a furnace. If white smoke plumes out of the smokestack outside, you can watch the game. If black smoke comes out, you are out of luck.
Every Sunday, MLB FanHouse empties out its notebook in Baseball Brunch.
When the news hit this morning that President Barack Obama was about to nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, sports fans around the country probably thought, "Why do I know that name?"
