Weekend Summary

Interesting weekend for the most part. The NFL Playoffs didn't have too much drama minus the last game. The Saints and Jets came through for The Beard. The Cowboys and Ravens did not. The Jets-Chargers game was the most interesting of all the action. Norv Turner continued to show why he couldn't win a one person beauty contest, let alone a winnable home playoff game. Yeah Nick Kaeding decided to not make any field goals, but he wasn't responsible for 10 San Diego Penalties, particularly in key situations. As this blog has pointed out before, penalties are all about discipline, and discipline starts with the Head Coach, and that's not even getting into the "To Onside or Not To Onside" situation late in the 4th quarter. Not to grasp the obvious or seem to be ex post facto expert, but with 1 timeout left AND the two minute warning, you kick it deep, or at the very least squib kick, in that situation. Field position possibilities alone dictate kicking it deep, especially when you're counting on your defense to get the ball back regardless. Maybe this is bigger than a "Martyball" problem after all huh Bolts fans?


The Late Gaines Adams...26 years old is way too young to die, regardless of an enlarged heart or otherwise. Apparently, the Bears and everyone else had no idea he had this condition. Adams is hardly the first athlete to die of this condition, and he won't be the last unfortunately. While he seriously underperformed, and Jerry Angelo vastly overpaid for him with a 2nd round draft pick, it's still a damn shame to say the least that Gaines is no longer with us.


The NHL Killing Machine known as the Chicago Blackhawks, pulled out an exciting, physical, and intense to say the least win against the hated Detroit Red Wings. After jumping out to a 2-0 lead, the Hawks ended up besting the Chicken Wings in a shootout after one of the most up-for-grabs overtimes ever witnessed in a regular season hockey game. Antii Niemi tended a great game in goal with 35 saves, and Patrick Sharp ended up with the game winning shootout goal. The Hawks didn't do themselves any favors by committing more penalties than they needed to, thus allowing Detroit to climb back into the contest. The Hawks got plenty of chances to showcase their top 10 penalty killing however, and also showed that they are playoff ready, as this game definitely had a playoff feel to it. Here's to continuing to "Commit to the Indian!".


And yes Mark McGwire still is a liar, Tony LaRussa is still a liar, Jack Clark is awesome for speaking the truth, and the Cardinal fans seem plenty happy with being ostriches by burying their head in the sand. Nice standing ovation you Hawaiian shirt wearing freaks...

Fun

"I did this for health purposes. There's no way I did this for any type of strength purposes. I truly believe I was given the gifts from the man upstairs of being a home run hitter, ever since I would say birth."

Swing and a miss Mark...

More Mark McLiar

We'll keep this short and sweet since there's not too much new news going on today. The Bears interviewed Mike Tice and Ken Zampese. No clear cut candidate really emerging at this point. Greg Blache retired. Wonder if he ever found out that sacks aren't "overrated"? Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports excellently summarizes the Lane Kiffin (and his smoking hot wife Layla) bolting Rocky Top for the Men of Troy situation. And Haiti is a very dire, depressing situation, and serves as a reminder that yes indeed things can get worse.

With that in mind, the focus will continue to remain on the McGwire fallout. The New York Daily News has a fascinating story regarding the unnamed FBI Agent that sold McGwire steroids nearly 20 years ago. The Informant also states that McGwire was taking 4 very potent steroids including two veterinary steroids, for a substantial amount of time. This is a far cry from the "very low dose" McGwire tried to snowball past Bob Costas and the rest of the world on Monday. It's not out of the question, to wonder if this is one of several upcoming stories from all the dealers McGwire may have had. I'm sure there are several more people, that know and/or will suddenly remember with great detail exactly how many performance enhancers McGwire wanted, took, liked, and disliked over his career.

Another interesting column was written by Howard Bryant, author of the wonderful book "Juicing The Game", regarding McGwire's admission. Bryant has always been a very classy writer in terms of taking a shot at a guy, yet he has always been objectively balanced by calling things for what they are. He does so again with this column, and makes several great points, most astutely observing that Bonds and Clemens at the very least could have the argument attached to them of "They were Hall of Famers before they juiced". McGwire definitely cannot have that argument attached to him, and as a result, his omission from the Hall of Fame is much more certain.

Balls Deep

Lots of sports news making the rounds the past 48 hours. Here are some that seem to be the most interesting:

Plenty of Mark McLiar fallout stories (a ton from this link alone) taking place, post his supposed confession. From Jose Canseco calling LaRussa and McGwire liars. A supposed FBI informant telling the NY Daily News that McGwire was using "super-potent anabolic steroids for about a decade", and not nearly the "very low" amount McGwire suggested he took during his interview with Bob Costas last night. Goose Gossage drawing the line in the sand for all the juicers' Hall of Fame eligibility. Ari Fleischer apparently bizarrely coordinating McGwire's entire confession from start to finish. Bud Selig continuing to try and save his legacy by calling the steroid era "...a thing of the past..." , and justifiably getting destroyed for saying such a ridiculous thing by both the USADA, and WADA. Phil Rogers and Chris DeLuca finally realizing what the rest of us with 3 digit I.Q.'s and common sense have known all along. Imagine that, juicers should not be allowed into the Hall of Fame because it's cheating? Better late than never huh fellas? DeLuca btw, thinks that Greg Maddux is the only player that will be Hall of Fame eligible that won't have any questions about steroid use. Apparently Chris hasn't heard of guys named Frank Thomas and Ken Griffey Jr. Bottom Line-if McGwire thought that his admission last night, and subsequent fudging of the facts of his steroid use would be enough to settle things once and for all, he obviously was mistaken. His Pandora's Box is getting swung open in a major way, and the damage could be way more substantial than anything he might have imagined.

How do you replace a successful scumbag, dirtball head coach? You get a young scumbag, dirtball head coach to replace him, although what he has in youth/arrogance, he lacks in success. With the random and conspicuous departure of Pete Carroll aka "Captain Happy" to the Seattle Seahawks, Lane Kiffin has been named the head coach of USC after one tumultuous season at the University of Tennessee. To call this randomly surprising would be an understatement. In some ways, Lane is perfect for the USC job. He's an arrogant, immature, young punk who runs his mouth way too much to the point of getting sanctioned by the NCAA. The only problem was, Lane already had a job and he made a commitment to UT's players, coaches, recruits, students, alumni, athletic director and university president that he would be their head coach. Now that USC has stolen him, what's to stop some NFL team from stealing him from USC down the road? Why would USC put themselves in a position to trust Lane, when he's already proven that he can't be trusted? The initial opinion of The Beard is that Lane and USC deserve each other. It will be fun watching who will screw who over at the end of this movie, especially when all the inevitable sanctions will be handed down as punishment for the cheating that went on during Captain Happy's watch.

The Chicago Bears first two choices for the Offensive Coordinator position have been eliminated. Jeremy Bates would rather take his chances in Seattle, and the Packers understandably told the Bears "kiss my @ss" when the Bears asked to interview Tom Clements. Now it appears that Ken Zampese (Ernie's son) will interview first for the open job. OK, it appears that he might be qualified, and he's certainly got the dreaded "up and coming" label associated with him. He's as good a prospect as any, but it's anybody's guess who the Bears will end up hiring for both open positions. Whoever it is, the best chance for success will be their ability to immediately innovate with the pieces they have available on the roster, and it must translate into wins because this is not a rebuilding job, but rather a "win now" task at hand.

Complete Idiot or Duplicitous Liar?

There has been a TON of things happening since the last blog post. The NFL Playoffs are in full swing, plenty of upsets and a completely wild shootout in the Arizona desert took place. Pete Carroll has decided to jump ship from a soon to be sanctioned and penalized USC football program for the safety of the Seattle Seahawks. The Bears are ready to get serious about their open coaching positions. Jerry Wainright getting fired, etc.

Those of you familiar with me though, are aware that everything that has happened is taking a big backseat today, in light of the Mark McGwire news that he did in fact use steroids, HGH, and other performance enhancers throughout his career. So let's get to it!

Tony LaRussa, upon the heels of announcing McGwire would be his hitting coach in St. Louis this season, predicted that McGwire would address these long standing allegations, suspicions and finally "talk about the past" before spring training this year. Today apparently became that day as McGwire issued his 20 minute statement admitting steroid use throughout his playing career to set everything in motion. A good start for him in some ways. McGwire then went on MLB Network to be interviewed by Bob Costas, and erased any momentum or good will he might have established in completely liberating himself of the guilt he has been carrying for some time now.

After shedding a bunch of tears (much like he did in the beginning of his March 17, 2005 testimony in Congress) McGwire gave wishy-washy answers at best when it came to the specifics of his steroid use. He left out or claimed he didn't remember the names of steroids he used, only admitting he preferred pills not injectables. He gave vague terms of "very low doses" when asked how much did he take. McGwire gave inaccurate time tables of when/how long he was using steroids during his career. He claimed that the only reason he said he's "not hear to talk about the past" was because he wasn't given immunity. Then, in a final measure of delusion, he said "I did this for health purposes. There is no way I did this for any type of strength purposes." and "There's no way a pill or an injection will give you hand-eye coordination or the ability or the great mind that I've had as a baseball player..." Hmmmmmmmmmmm.....

Let's start with some establishment of facts. I'm not here to argue that steroids should be banned in all sports, or that they're worse than doing crack cocaine, or any of the other histrionic debates that are associated with Performance Enhancing Drugs. That's another argument for another time. I AM of the mindset however that Steroids, HGH, PED's should not be in Major League Baseball, and we'll just leave it at that for today. I've read many books, and studied the Steroid Era very carefully over the years, I've heard varying accounts of McGwire's and other ballplayers drug use, as well as the owners and fans tacit approval of it. Here is the timeline of all the important developments of the Steroid Era. The most important entry I'd ask people to pay attention to is what happened on June 7, 1991. Even though you will see, read, and hear everyone in the media say that there were "no rules" against taking steroids, Fay Vincent issued a memo to every club saying that steroids have been added to the Banned Substance List. Meaning that even though they hadn't agreed to testing, taking steroids was against the rules of MLB going all the way back to 1991.

That being said, let's now get into the meat of McGwire's "admission"and it's relation to the title of this post. Either McGwire is a complete idiot, or a duplicitous liar based on his comments today. For him to say he doesn't remember the names of the drugs he took, and his attempt to pass it off as a low doses is very weak on his part. Every steroid user I've known, seen, talked to, or read about knows exactly the name of the steroids they're taking, how much of it they're taking, and what else they can cocktail it with during use, and what drugs they need to take after they cycle off of them. The know and remember simply because they need to know all of this to get the best results possible. So either McGwire is a complete idiot for not bothering to know about these things, or he is lying right through his tears in the hopes of fooling people into believing that steroids really didn't help him that much.

McGwire said he first tried steroids between 1989 and 1990, went off them, and then went back on them in 1993. However, when looking at the numbers there was very little, to no change in either his body type, or his production during 1989-1990. In 1991 though, there was a significant drop in both Batting Average, Home Runs, OBP, and RBI's to the point where Tony LaRussa benched him for the last game of the season so he could keep his batting average above the Mendoza Line. In 1992 however, his production returned, complete with mullet, goatee, and 30 lbs of added muscle, to take the American League by storm until a heel injury sidelined him in August that season. People covering McGwire at the time were aware, or at the very least heard rumblings that he first started taking steroids in 1992, and it's long been accepted as truth among the beat writers covering him at that time. So either he's a complete idiot for not being able to read a calendar, or he's a duplicitous liar for trying to fool people into believing that one of his most productive years was not responsible because of steroid use.

The main point he made that really leaves a big hole in his armor is McGwire's belief and conviction, that steroids did not help him become a better ball player, that he wasn't taking them to become bigger and stronger but rather for "health benefits", and that steroids in general don't make baseball players better than what their natural ability allows them to do. First of all if that's the case, then why is he so sorry that he took them? Secondly, what "health benefits" did he take them for? Steroids don't treat injuries. If anything, they cause more injuries, than anything else. Did he have anemia? Was he a burn victim? Maybe it was for other side effect purposes, which could be maybe his back didn't have enough acne on it? Maybe his testicles were too big, and they needed to shrink? Other than that, there's not too many actual health reasons to take steroids. The only other benefit left to gain from them is abnormal levels of muscle mass and strength. Third, if steroids don't make you a better player, then why did all those home run records shatter so quickly during the Steroid Era? Obviously because they DO make you a better ballplayer. They're Performance Enhancing Drugs, and by definition they help you play better than your natural ability. So once again, either McGwire is a complete idiot for not being logical, or he is a liar because he wants people to believe that steroids were not responsible for his success in his career.

Oh but it continues. Don't think I'm going to give Tony LaRussa a free pass. LaRussa has said on at least two separate occasions that he believes McGwire was clean, here and here. LaRussa has taken every opportunity to bully people and be as stand off-ish as possible whenever the subject of McGwire or steroid use on his teams has come up. He has made so many outlandish comments over the years, including his bitching about Steve Wilstein invading McGwire's privacy when Wilstein saw that bottle of Andro in McGwire's locker in 1998. LaRussa has shown the class and maturity of a spoiled brat when it comes to this subject because it becomes clear with each passing day that no manager benefited more from the Steroid Era than him, which leads to the repeated question. Is LaRussa a complete idiot for being totally ignorant for not knowing about the steroid use on his teams, or is he a duplicitous liar for trying to get people to believe that there is no such thing as steroids, McGwire's achievements were all natural, and that he really is a great manager and not just a guy who fills out a lineup card and hopes for 2 three run homers to win games 8-6?

The bottom line is, McGwire is only confessing halfway. He blew another chance to really cleanse his conscience and set the record straight. By only admitting he juiced, but shying away from specifics, and expressing his naive beliefs that steroids didn't make him the player he was, he only made things worse. Maybe now we can understand why he really wasn't there to talk about the past in 2005....because now it seems he doesn't to want to remember any of it, or more importantly doesn't want us to remember it.