Kuzul

They’re all living the life every single sports-loving kid across the country hopes to experience one day, but is it worth the price?  Kobe Bryant is back in the national spotlight for reasons unrelated to his superhuman abilities on the basketball court.  Barry Bonds is portrayed as a baseball villain, despite beating federal prosecutors on all of its most serious charges and walked out of a United States Courthouse flashing the victory sign.  Fastballer Roger Clemens is currently visiting his tailor for nice suits as he prepares to walk in and out of a federal courtroom for several weeks later this spring.

They’re three of the world’s biggest sports stars, yet we’re talking about everything but their athletic accomplishments.  Did they create the situations currently facing them?  Is the media chomping at the bit to chew them up and spit them out?   Have these three superstars made poor decisions?  Whatever the case, Kobe, Bonds, Clemens and other sports celebrities can’t breathe these days without gossip websites shoving a small camera in their faces.  But perhaps some of these troubles can be avoided with better decision making and advisers.

Kobe should have known better.  He’s my favorite basketball player, but when he uttered the gay slur, I knew the worst was yet to come.  I was watching the game and could clearly read his lips.  Although Kobe’s slur wasn’t directed at a gay person, it doesn’t make it any better.  It’s still wrong and offensive.  I don’t want to hear him say it.  I want to see him pulling up for a long three in the playoffs.  That’s the Kobe I want.

No. 24 uttered the word out of frustration with a referee.  But nevertheless it’s a word that’s very hurtful to the gay community, and he knows that.  In fact, he’s been through enough personal issues in his life.  I’m sure some women across the country have never forgiven him for the sexual assault charges in Denver a few years back.  The charges were dropped, but Bryant’s image took a huge hit, and it took him a while to recover.  He was finally back to being the NBA‘s coverboy and now this.

In fact, I was just watching one of Kobe’s NBC public service announcements.  He is the face of the NBA.  Don’t believe the hype about LeBron being the man.  In time, perhaps, but Kobe is still the King.  Furthermore, he’s too old to make those kinds of mistakes.

Big time sports legends like Kobe have to understand the camera is always rolling.  It never blinks, and there’s always one trained on you unless you’re in the privacy of your home.  From the moment he drives out of his estate in Los Angeles, Kobe is being photographed and tracked by the paparazzi and mainstream media awaiting his arrival at the arena.

If you’re Kobe, you can’t afford to do what you did the other night in front of a national TV audience.  Someone who loves him should tell him that.  Someone who cares about him.  Not someone with his hand in Kobe’s pocket waiting for another handout.

Right or wrong, the media jumped on the Kobe gay slur and ran with it.  ESPN was running the same video and soundbites for three days, and counting.  Did it deserve that kind of coverage?  Doesn’t matter.  He’s a big star and the sports world is always looking for the big story.  Why?  Because that’s what they do.  Ratings. Viewership.  Target audience.  Demographics.  Revenue.  You get the picture.

As for Barry Bonds, he might as well be dressed as Darth Vader, right?  Some believe he helped create the negative persona that forms a black cloud around him whenever he leaves the San Francisco Bay area.  Who knows if that is true, but one thing is for sure: He ain’t gonna win any popularity contests.  He did however win his court case against a group of blood thirsty federal prosecutors, so to speak.

Baseball’s all-time home runs leader was found guilty of one count of obstruction of justice, and likely won’t do any jail time.  The government couldn’t nail him on lying about whether he took human growth supplements, and looked quite silly at the end of the day.  They’ve been chasing this guy for years.  They’ve spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars prosecuting this case, and couldn’t get the verdict.  I guess we won’t see any new federal prosecutors being promoted in San Francisco any time soon, right?

Bonds doesn’t care for the media, and that’s putting it lightly.  He snarls before the TV cameras.  He looks downright miserable most of the time.  It all makes Bond look kind of suspicious and shifty.  If anyone could use an image makeover, it’s Bonds.  How can the all-time home run leader not be a likable and lovable guy?

When I was a kid, the all time home run leader was loved and respected.  You’d never hear a bad thing about Hank Aaron.  He was very laid back, but everyone liked him.  He didn’t have a TV commercial on the air every sixty seconds, but he was a popular figure.  Carried himself well.  Very respectful and classy.  Humble.  America likes humble.

I’ll say this about Bonds.  Every time something is printed about him, it’s usually negative.  We rarely see something in print, on the web, or on television that focuses on something positive about the guy.  He doesn’t help matters much with the way he carries himself sometimes, but when I see his face flash on the screen or on a web page, I know he did something wrong—or at least the media tells us that.

It’s gotta be tough growing up as the child of a celebrity.  Bobby Bonds was also a superstar when he starred for the San Francisco Giants.  He was one of the best players of his generation, or for any generation for that matter.  Barry was always at his side.  In the dugout.  In the outfield.  At the news conferences.  Maybe that determines how you act around people when you become a grownup.  I don’t know.  Steroids or not, Bonds has lived his entire life in a fishbowl.   From son of a famous major leaguer, to Arizona State, to the Giants and finally to the federal courthouse.

Roger Clemens has been hiding.  Cameras haven’t caught a picture of this guy in months.  He comes out of his cubby-hole when he wants to profess his innocence, but other than that he’s become invisible.  Like Kobe and Bonds, he isn’t helping himself in the eyes of the public.  We think of one thing these days when we see Clemens: Human growth.

I’ll say this about The Rocket: He’s fighting till the end and has steadfastly denied using ‘roids.  Like the others two, when you see his face or name these days it has nothing to do with a record-setting career.  I hope for his sake, the allegations are untrue, because he has spent tons of money defending himself and it isn’t over.

Clemens should be having the time of his life.  One of the greatest pitchers of all time according to the record books.  Instead, whenever you see him he’s walking away from the cameras and has little to say.  There was a time when he was the golden boy.  Now the gold is a little tarnished.  Has the media been unfair with Clemens?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

The Rocket doesn’t strike a sympathetic pose when you seen him.  He’s defiant and slightly argumentative when asked about steroid use.  He certainly doesn’t help his image by running away from the accusations.  But does he have a choice?  He knows whenever a reporter is present, they’ll ask him about one thing, and one thing only.  Perhaps he’s tired of addressing the subject.  His handlers however, should learn a thing or two about “spinning.”  Controlling the message might help him.  But maybe spinning is the least of their worries with a federal trial looming.

Kobe, Bonds, Clemens and all sports celebrities deserve a little privacy.  They also deserve the benefit of the doubt sometimes.  The only thing we really know about these superstars is what we see on the web and television.  That’s where we form our misguided opinions.  They deserve a little space and a little freedom.  But if a sports stud should find himself entangled in personal and legal problems, unfortunately a camera will always be waiting outside their door.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Mad Magazine should feature Manny Ramirez on their covers. He’s one of the original Boston Red Sox Idiots. And, now we have confirmation he is crazy as a Looney Toon.

Imagine having been banned once for 50 games for using a forbidden substance, and then to use the proverbial putative something again.

Imagine being so stupid that you are caught once more with hormones, steroids or the creeping crud inside you.

The threat of a 100-game suspension and humiliation is a great motivator toward retirement.

The motto of Manny Being Manny rivals only the other imbecile’s mantra: ”What, me worry?”

Don’t worry, Manny. Be happy. Your career is in the garbage dump and your miscue is now beyond rescue. You just flushed 500 home runs down the poop chute.

Some people get ulcers, and others give them. If Manny is ulcerated, it is only along his medulla oblongata.

If using drugs and steroids will fry your brain, Manny may have fricasseed frontal lobes. He is clearly out to lunch.

He’s sniffed too much pine tar resin, raising the count higher than 3 and 2. He makes the other former Red Sox brainiac, Roger Clemens, look like a rocket scientist.

Enablers took him in at the Los Angeles Dodger Disneyworld, and he took them in, though it’s doubtful they realize it.   After all, Los Angeles created Manny-wood, a fantasy home where he could live out his delusions for a few more years.

Manny has always belonged in Mudville, where his slime-riddled career can be appreciated.

Now, the reality show we call life may be intruding too much. There will be no return to Boston, giving fans a chance for their much-needed catharsis on Monday.

If you were to ask Manny about Cooperstown, his legacy or fan respect, he would look at you blankly. These are words that he never can define and are outside the drug user lexicon.

Words in his vocabulary are limited to vanity, and the rest of his meager, but benighted diction belongs in a rather thick-skinned dictionary he and Barry Bonds have compiled.

The first word that neither has comprehended may well be “comeuppance.” Guilty parties often get it sooner or later.

After being hit with a proverbial ton of steroid slime-balls, Manny will slide under the bombardment that would assault the ego of a lesser maroon idiot.

The Mighty Manny has struck out, and we can only say good riddance.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Nicknames and baseball go together like peanut butter and jelly. 

There are literally thousands of different nicknames that baseball players have acquired though their careers, and we all have our favorites. 

Making a list of the top 50 nicknames is difficult, because there are some great players and nicknames that have to be left off the list.  So I guess I’m apologizing in advance if I left your favorite off the list.

Here are the top 50 nicknames in MLB history:

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The scars of MLB’s recent past are beginning to heal and fade. The Steroids Era is growing smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.

It’s been over six years since Major League Baseball was first embarrassed on Capitol Hill in the “steroids hearings” of March 2005. Over three years have passed since the release of the Mitchell Report.

Despite the march of time, there are still a handful of retired MLB stars who, well, we simply wish would just go away—Jose Canseco and Roger Clemens among them.

These players, whether we liked them or not, earned headlines during their playing days for just that—playing the game of baseball and playing it very well.

Now, in retirement, they grab headlines from time to time for all of the wrong reasons—not only adding further public embarrassment to their already tarnished images but, often, also bringing further shame to a sport that is increasingly gaining momentum in distancing itself from a checkered recent past.

Can’t these guys just go away?

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Performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) have tarnished the last twenty years of Major League Baseball, and that is sad.  After witnessing perhaps the greatest era of individual performance in the game’s history during the last twenty years or so, we are forced to live with the reality that a lot of those accomplishments are tainted.  The problem now faced by those who love and respect the game is their lack of full knowledge of which of those accomplishments, of the records attained, are tainted and which are clean.  And how do we rank the players involved?  Where will history judge them many years down the line?  Will history remember the steroid scandal and its participants in the same light as the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, or compare it more favorably to the rampant use of amphetamines by players of the 1970’s and 1980’s?

We all know who the primary suspects are.  Most fans can recite names of players implicated—or strongly suspected—of using PEDs.  Anyone with a computer and internet connected can pull up the Mitchell Report and read its findings.  The issue then becomes how does baseball, its fans and the media treat those players.  Do we choose to ignore their accomplishments, ban their entry into the Hall of Fame and scrape the record books of them, or do we look the other way and instead choose to ignore how they achieved their accomplishments?

More than likely players whose on-field accomplishments normally would have given them easy entrance to Cooperstown will be left on the outside looking in because of their link to PEDs.  In any other era players with 583 home runs or 3020 hits and tenth in career total bases would be no-brainer first-ballot Hall of Famers.  However, Mark McGwire’s name appeared on barely a quarter of the ballots his first year and has been losing ground since, and Rafael Palmeiro’s initial time on the ballot resulted in a showing that was nothing short of embarrassing for a player with his statistical resume.  At this point he will be lucky to reach the ballot a third time.

McGwire and Palmeiro are not likely to ever gain entrance into the Hall of Fame without purchasing a ticket.  Neither are Sammy Sosa, Gary Sheffield, Andy Pettite and countless others who at least made a case for induction with their on-field play.  While Sosa ranks seventh all-time in home runs and is the only player in history with three seasons of 60 or more home runs, his case for the Hall of Fame is tainted.  Prior to the magical 1998 season, Sosa was a very good major league player.  He had four seasons of at least 30 home runs and was a force in the Cubs lineup.  But that wasn’t enough to get him to Cooperstown.  Even if he doubled his career accomplishments pre-1998 and added a couple of MVP trophies it still wouldn’t have been enough—just ask Dale Murphy.  Were the PEDs Sosa is suspected of using able to take him out of Dale Murphy’s stratosphere and push him squarely into Willie Mays’?  The baseball world will never know for sure, but the Hall of Fame is not ever going to raise a plaque honoring Sammy Sosa either.

But what about Barry Bonds?  Or Roger Clemens?  Do either—or both—deserve entry into baseball immortality?  The Baseball Writers Association of America has clearly shown it will draw a line for players they feel only achieved Hall of Fame worthy careers through natural methods.  McGwire was a one-dimensional player whose career could have ended without his admitted use of steroids; Palmeiro was a very good player who was never truly great; even with the use of PEDs, Pettite is at best a borderline case to make the Hall of Fame.  But what about players who had Hall of Fame careers before entering the world of PEDs?

Barry Bonds was a five-tool player from the start of his career.  Before turning 30 years old he was already a home run champion, an All-Star, a three-time MVP and multiple gold glove winner.  He was the game’s best and highest paid player, and that continued throughout the 1990’s.  He consistently batted near .300, slugged 35 or more home runs and drove in better than 100 runs yearly.  He was a five-time member of the 30/30 (home runs and stolen bases) club and once reached the 40/40 plateau.

Bonds’ suspected PED usage began around 1999, when McGwire and Sosa were getting all the accolades for passing Roger Maris’ single season home run record.  Bonds’ numbers post-1999 are nothing short of ridiculous, and rivaled only in baseball history by Babe Ruth.  Including those numbers in his overall career statistics and Bonds is second greatest offensive player to ever wear the uniform.  However are his 14 years prior—1986-1999—enough to justify induction into the Hall of Fame?

Yes, they are.

Bonds may not have reached the 500 home run club, stolen 500 bases and wasn’t knocking on the doors of 3000 hits or 2000 RBIs but he was a Hall of Fame player.  He was a .288 career hitter, the only member of the 400/400 club, had an on-base-plus slugging percentage (OPS) higher than Mel Ott, Ralph Kiner, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson and Ken Griffey Jr., and was the all-time leader in intentional walks.

Bonds was a feared hitter, a great defender and the game’s best all-around player.  Even without the help of PEDs he surely would have reached 500 home runs and been a no doubt Hall of Fame player.  But he did not need to get there, just as Sandy Koufax did not need 300 victories for his entrance.  Bonds was a Hall of Fame player had his career ended in 1999 and he avoided all the PED talk and speculation that his career was tainted.

Roger Clemens’ case for the Hall of Fame is more questionable, however.  After leaving Boston for Toronto following the 1996 season he experienced a career rebirth.  In the next 11 seasons with Toronto, New York and Houston Clemens nearly doubled his win total, added four more Cy Young’s to his mantel and reached the top 10 in wins, strikeouts and WAR.

Was the offseason of 1996, after being spurned by the Red Sox and criticized by their general manager, Dan Duquette, the point in Clemens’ career when he began his involvement with PEDs?  If so, were his 13 years in Boston enough to justify his entrance into the Hall of Fame?

It is close, but not likely.

He won 192 games, struck out better than 2500 hundred batters and was a three-time Cy Young winner with an MVP to boot.  He was a feared and dominant pitcher, suffering only two losing seasons and constantly was among the league leaders in wins, ERA and opponents batting.  But it still wasn’t enough.  He was not as dominant as Sandy Koufax or Pedro Martinez, and did not reach the career totals of Bert Blyleven or Robin Roberts.  Without his second wind the career of Roger Clemens is only slightly better than that of David Cone or Orel Hershiser, neither of whom is a Hall of Fame player.

Both Roger Clemens’ and Barry Bonds’ careers would have gone on without their involvement with PED’s.  They would have played more years and games and added to their resumes.  But Clemens clearly needed that brilliance of the second half of his career to get to the Hall of Fame, and if those years were tainted by PED usage, then Clemens does not deserve his plaque.  Remember at one point Dwight Gooden was considered the better pitcher of the two early in their careers.

Very few players involved with performance enhancing drugs will be enshrined in the Cooperstown Museum, and most do not deserve it.  If they were good enough players to get into the Hall of Fame than they would not have needed extra, illegal help to get there; the statistics that would get them there are tainted and they do not belong.  However, as with every rule in existence there is always an exception, and the only one I can find in baseball is Barry Bonds.  He was a jerk, a suspected cheater and a lot of other things that shouldn’t be mentioned, but he was also a Hall of Fame player before performance enhancing drugs, and thereby should still be honored in Cooperstown.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Beginning with Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro we have seen that the Hall of Fame voters are not looking fondly on nominees that have their pasts tied to performance enhancing drugs.

Looking back to the stars that emerged in the late 1980’s and through into the early 2000’s, an alarming number of our favorite players were implicated in the steroids scandal.

Baseball saw some of the most hallowed and revered records in our national past time broken by the games modern athletes. Home run records fell, pitchers seemed ageless, and mediocre players became great.

Of course the scandal spread well beyond the game’s elite. Minor League players were implicated in taking steroids, their motivation to make it to The Show. Fringe players took steroids in hopes of holding onto their roster positions or improving their numbers in hopes of a bigger payday down the road.

Now that we are seeing these players reach Hall of Fame eligibility for the first times, the baseball voters will decide how these once immortals of the game will be remembered for all time.

Active players who have ties to the steroid era will have the chance to prove they are able to produce Hall worthy statistics under the assumption that they are now performing clean of any chemical-aid. Will it be enough though? Or will they too find their list of accomplishments not quite good enough when compared to the true immortals of the game.

After all, in most fans’ minds, 73 is not important as 61, nor is 762 as important as 755. 300 Wins does not have the same magical aura to it, nor do the 3000 hit or 500 home run plateaus. 

At one point these players were all considered locks for induction in Cooperstown, now only history will tell if their accomplishments reside with the best that have ever worn a uniform, the accomplishments we can safely assume were accomplished without any artificial aid.

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Andy Pettitte is that soft spoken lefty with the slow Texas drawl. A man dedicated to his faith and his family, tenacious, unflappable in the moment.

He may be among the best pitchers the New York Yankees have ever seen. But he’s also a confessed cheater.

People find it easy to forget that. After all he’s ‘Andy Pettitte’, a good old boy just as likely to read a bible as a scouting report but it is a fact nonetheless. The most shocking revelation to come out of the Mitchell Report, the most easily excused and dismissed of all the PED indiscretions in an era marred by them.

The apologists sang that it was merely HGH and not steroids. They said he was only trying to heal faster in an effort to help his team win games. Sportswriters weakly jabbed when they could have gone in for the kill and his teammates stood beside him without exception.

No player before or after has ever received the public support of the fans and other players more than Andy Pettitte on the day of his repentant press conference, not Alex Rodriguez, and certainly not Jason Giambi. A press conference that felt more like a wake and a rally to help him get through the hard times.

The championships, the post season dominance, a two time 21 game winner, and three time all-star, the first word that comes to mind when I think of Andy Pettitte isn’t “cheater” and I wonder why. I wonder why that isn’t the case with Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Palmeiro, and Roger Clemens. I wonder why they don’t get to hide from their tarnished legacies the way Andy Pettitte does.

Andy Pettitte may never make it to the Hall of Fame and his PED use may play a part in that. Exceptionally good but not great, Pettitte wasn’t a baseball God like the others. He was hardly ever featured on the cover of magazines, never the story, never “the guy”. He was a grinder, not a star beyond our reach.

Even now we understand Pettittes decision to leave the game at a relatively young age. We understand that the man doesn’t want to be away from his family anymore and we empathize in a way that we never do with pro athletes. Andy Pettitte was authentic even when he wasn’t; he was never presented as the perfect player, or the perfect guy, never packaged.

No the first word I think of when I think of Andy Pettitte isn’t “cheater” its “throwback”, and that’s why his cheating stings a little more.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The title of the article says it all, Red Sox Nation.  Let’s do this.  But first, a few quick ground rules:

Some of the players on this list played part of their careers for other teams, but only accomplishments in a Red Sox uniform will be considered.

The era a player played in will be factored in when considering all statistics.  Players’ numbers will be compared to their contemporaries, not just to players from other eras who played the same position.

Longevity counts, but the biggest factor will be how much a player stood out from the pack during the years they played in Boston.

A player must have played the majority of their career at a position (more games there than anywhere else) to be considered the best player at that position.

This list is meant to depict the best overall player at each position, not to build a functional baseball team.  There will be no attempt made to balance power and speed in the lineup, etc.

That should just about cover it.  It’s time to put together the Boston Red Sox All-Time Team.

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The Houston Astros have always had a team that was based on strong pitching. From the 1980s with Mike Scott, J.R. Richard and Nolan Ryan to their most recent World Series run with Roy Oswalt, Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte.

When the Astros have had success, you can bet they had one or more superb pitcher behind it. The Astros have used strong pitching to secure six division titles, two wild card berths and one National League pennant. I have compiled a list of who I think are the top 15 starting pitchers in the history of the Houston Astros.

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The Steroid Era has been one of the most exciting movements in all of sports.  It provided baseball fans like me growing up as a kid in the 1990’s with life-changing home runs to watch.

These unbelievable seasons of home runs, delivered by a lot of our favorite players, seems surreal in 2011. It’s almost like it never happened.

When I was a youngster, I didn’t understand the magnitude of what McGwire and Sosa, and Canseco did. Now in 2011, people are shocked by a 50-homer season.  

Looking back, my top ten memories of notorious athletes as a baseball fan are as follows…

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