You may remember back in 2001 when Barry Bonds was in the midst of his chase of the single-season home run record, there was a lot of talk about his possible steroid use. (If you don't remember, then how was your trip to Antarctica, anyway?) There was also a quote from Bonds at the time in which he said that baseball could test him every day and he'd never test positive. Of course, considering that we sit here eight years later and there still isn't a reliable test for HGH, that doesn't exactly say much.
What does say something is a report that appeared in the New York Times early Thursday morning. In what could be an incredibly big blow to his defense in his upcoming perjury trial, the paper is saying that authorities have some urine samples from Bonds that tested positive for steroids.
The New York Times has mixed up a Molotov cocktail of a hockey story this morning: Chronicling the complaints of gay fans about a "a toxic atmosphere during Rangers games" that features unregulated homophobic slurs; and attacking some of the well-worn, vulgar traditions of hockey fans in the cheap seats. From "When Tradition and Taunts Collide":
Kevin Jennings, a Rangers fan who is gay, said he stopped attending home games for about a month this season because he felt so uncomfortable with the homophobic epithets that are shouted to the players. Ray Stankes, 50, of Bayside, Queens, said he canceled season tickets he had had for 25 years in part because of the antigay environment. "This is a place where I grew up, and I never really felt uncomfortable at the Garden," Stankes said. "I didn't wear it on my sleeve that I'm gay. If I take a friend who is also gay who, for lack of a better term, is not as masculine, I'm always sitting there a little tense. Like, is somebody going to say something to us? And it's made it not quite as fun as it used to be."
A Rangers spokesperson in the article said the offensive parties are (ironically) a minority, and some have been ejected from the arena for anti-gay remarks. Jennings, who is the executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, offered to create PSAs to be shown in the arena "urging fans to be more respectful." The Rangers smartly declined, understanding that the same fans that booed when the New York City Gay Hockey Association's name was flashed on the scoreboard will do the same, and worse, for a video like that. Heck, they'll jeer a guy who gets the in-game trivia question wrong.
This is a problem no PSA or arena policy can solve. I grew up in the cheap seats in New York and Jersey, and I've been hearing about teams and players sucking or swallowing for as far back as I can recall. Sure, some media attention and pressure from advocacy groups could end chants of "Homo Larry" during dance routines at the Garden. But it'll take generations before using sexual orientation for public degradation is considered a cultural taboo at a hockey game.
This could be a huge blow to the reputation of Michigan, a university that fancies itself as a model for both academics and athletics. On the surface, this appears to be significantly worse than what Auburn did ...
... It doesn't help things here that both the president and athletic director refused to comment. For N.C.A.A. sanctions to occur here, one of the big things that would have to be proven is lack of institutional control. The college twice investigated the professor, John Hagen, and didn't find anything.
The details shouldn't shock, even for an august academic institution like Michigan. We're more than comfortable with the notion that BCS grade college football is at its core a professional sport operating under the aegis of academic institutions. What is–oh, just piquant, we tell you!–is that we get to tell Jim Delany to dine on poo, because his conference's flagship athletic/academic titan, doing it "the right way," has to resort to the kind of academic funneling done at legendarily accomodating schools like Auburn or USF.
For some, "balanced reporting" and "The New York Times" are mutually exclusive terms. Last weekend's notebook item titled "Enthusiasm Cools for Hockey's Foray Into the South" did little to dispel that notion; here was a doom and gloom report on the NHL in non-traditional markets -- an indictment of Tampa Bay, Phoenix, Nashville, Atlanta, Washington, Florida and Carolina -- that contained not a single interview with any of the defamed. Instead we have two financial consultants, a crackpot Marcel Dionne and NHLPA president Paul Kelly, keeping that Canadian wet dream of the NHL's return to Winnipeg alive.
There are some basic misconceptions and ingrained hypocrisy throughout the piece. Let's explore them together, shall we?
In an amazing display of willful ignorance of his trade, New York Times writer Murray Chass penned a condescending take on those who take the study of baseball a little more seriously than simply knowing a guy's ERA and batting average:
I receive a daily e-mail message from Baseball Prospectus, an electronic publication filled with articles and information about statistics, mostly statistics that only stats mongers can love.
To me, VORP epitomized the new-age nonsense. For the longest time, I had no idea what VORP meant and didn't care enough to go to any great lengths to find out. I asked some colleagues whose work I respect, and they didn't know what it meant either.
Finally, not long ago, I came across VORP spelled out. It stands for value over replacement player. How thrilling. How absurd. Value over replacement player. Don't ask what it means. I don't know.
I suppose that if stats mongers want to sit at their computers and play with these things all day long, that's their prerogative. But their attempt to introduce these new-age statistics into the game threatens to undermine most fans' enjoyment of baseball and the human factor therein.
People play baseball. Numbers don't.
I'm actually impressed at the level of public disdain Chass shows to not only his readers but also his profession. Chass is paid to think about baseball, yet he's seemingly proud of the fact that his understanding of the game hasn't advanced past what he learned by the third grade. Imagine a writer in the business section outright refusing to acknowledge a new economic theory, or someone in the health section not giving creedence to the latest medical breakthrough simply because he doesn't want to learn anything new.
Signing Day came and went almost a week ago but recruiting is still a hot topic in college football. The FanHouse has been all over the issue this week. As always, USC leads the headlines with Joe McKnight's communications with Reggie Bush and the limo sent to a recruit. Both are obscure no-no's. But there's also a storm brewing at Clemson between the divergent missions of the university and the football team. And then this morning came news of Urban Meyer's near-violation of yet another obscure rule.
In the years I've followed recruiting I don't recall this much carryover of issues a week after signing day. Perhaps this is because of the rise of the recruiting websites, perhaps it's because of the game's tremendous popularity right now. Perhaps a million other things but this may be the proverbial bubbling before cauldron's lid bursts off.
And perhaps it's because a Midwestern school with great pull managed to register their complaints against lowly Illinois and its big recruiting class all the way into the pages of the New York Times.
Look no further than Brian's entry today about NCAA President Myles Brand forming a committee to review recruiting practices to see that things are definitely heating up.
As for remedies, Brian suggests getting rid of the idea of singing day. Eh. I'd rather they just simplify and reduce the rules and ask that the NCAA spend the necessary dollars to credibly enforce them. Of course the NCAA has earned the reputation of a bad lover over the years, all take and no give so my suggestion is probably pie in the sky but you never know.
You may remember back in 2001 when Barry Bonds was in the midst of his chase of the single-season home run record, there was a lot of talk about his possible steroid use. (If you don't remember, then how was your trip to Antarctica, anyway?) There was also a quote from Bonds at the time in which he said that baseball could test him every day and he'd never test positive. Of course, considering that we sit here eight years later and there still isn't a reliable test for HGH, that doesn't exactly say much.
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In an amazing display of willful ignorance of his trade, 
Signing Day came and went almost a week ago but recruiting is still a hot topic in college football. The FanHouse has been all 
