Whatever, the organization that continually strives for mediocrity continues to fall woefully short. Which is why we've decided to distract ourselves from the putridity by creating a roster of non-football-playing professional athletes who would immediately make the Browns better. That's not hyperbole.
David Ortiz used the "Risky Business" approach to turn his year around.
As in, "Sometimes, you've got to say, 'What the [heck]."
Ortiz, who at the end of May was hitting .185 with one homer for the Red Sox, finished the season with 28 home runs and 99 RBI. Still, he hit just .238 with his lowest OPS (.794 -- .332 on-base percentage and .462 slugging percentage) other than his 10-game callup with the 1999 Twins.
Big Papi is one of a number of players who can wipe out the memory of a disappointing regular season with a big October.
From the Windup is Matt Snyder's weekly, extended look at some aspect of America's pastime.
As I look ahead to the MLB playoffs, I'm faced with the fact that my beloved Cubbies aren't going to be competing. Being a devout baseball fan, though, there's no way I'm not watching the postseason. Without a horse in the race, I'm forced to focus instead on individuals, and there are always plenty of reasons to watch certain players. Thus, I'm going to list 10 players I'm looking forward to watching and five players I wish I could come October.
From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday -- it's running Friday this week.
Earlier this week, Brad Lidge's nightmare 2009 season continued, when he allowed a walk-off homer to Andrew McCutchen. Ed Price covered the outing the following morning. The abysmal performance by the Phillies' closer underlines the only weakness of the defending World Series Champions.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
While it was just one game, Cole Hamels sure looked like he was back in vintage form.
The Phillies ace, who is rocking a 4.52 ERA and 1.34 WHIP this season, threw eight shutout innings in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, striking out seven batters in all. Hamels actually has been better than his ERA and WHIP indicate, as he now has 126 Ks versus just 33 BBs this season. I'll take that K/BB ratio from my pitcher any day, as nine times out of ten, the ERA and WHIP will be sparkling.
Unfortunately for Hamels, the ninth inning ended up being the most dramatic frame of the game.
Kansas City Royals pitcher Zach Greinke started the season and could virtually do no wrong. He won his first six starts and by the end of May he was 8-1 through 11 starts with a tiny 1.10 ERA. That's exactly when you should have traded him, at the highest point of his yearly value. I only say this with the benefit of hindsight. It's easy to look back and decide which moves should have been made.
Since the beginning of June, Greinke has made 14 starts and has a record of 3-7. His ERA has ballooned to 2.44. His earned run average is still great, he's top-five in the league, but he's losing half of his starts. How's that happening with such a great ERA?
NEW YORK -- "I'm glad I have a clear head," David Ortiz told a few friends a couple of hours after he bellied up to baseball's confessional and bared a sliver of his soul. He was heading toward the Yankee Stadium cages, bat in hand, and the Red Sox slugger looked like a man who had just tossed aside a load of complications.
The rest of us should be so lucky. Because now baseball's steroid scandal is more convoluted than ever, the line muddled between the guilty cheaters who gained an unfair advantage by using hardcore steroids and naive players who did nothing worse than pop vitamins and guzzle protein drinks. Ortiz swears he falls in the latter category. Somewhere, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Sammy Sosa, Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte must have been screaming, "Hey, why didn't we think of that?"
So now, nine full days after his name was leaked as the latest villain of the Steroids Era, David Ortiz says he "never'' used or bought steroids. So now, after weeks and months and years of ugly revelations dripping into the public consciousness like poison from a syringe, Major League Baseball is asking media and fans to use "caution'' when judging certain players and whether they used steroids.
And we're supposed to absorb all of this and say, yeah, sure, absolutely, whatever you want, fellas?
NEW YORK (AP) -- David Ortiz thinks legal supplements and vitamins likely caused him to land on a list of alleged drug users circulated by the federal government, and Major League Baseball and the players' association said some of the names on it never tested positive for steroids.
MLB said in a statement Saturday that at most 96 urine samples tested positive in the 2003 survey‚ and the players' association said 13 of those were in dispute.
The government seized the samples and records the following year from baseball's drug-testing companies as part of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative investigation into Barry Bonds and others. The list of 104 players said to have tested positive, attached to a grand jury subpoena, is part of a five-year legal fight, with the union trying to force the government to return what federal agents took during raids.
David Ortiz is expected to address -- as much as he can, which isn't much -- his reported presence on "The List" later Saturday.
The players' union will participate in the news conference, and the MLBPA issued a statement Saturday morning making clear that it will make nothing clear regarding whether Ortiz is on the government-seized list of players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003.
The union argues that Ortiz: (a) may not have tested positive at all; (b) might have been the victim of faulty science; and (c) may have been using a legal supplement but still made the list.
David Ortiz
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
Kansas City Royals pitcher 
NEW YORK -- "I'm glad I have a clear head," 
So now, nine full days after his name was leaked as the latest villain of the Steroids Era, 
NEW YORK (AP) -- 
