The Cheater Is Not Guilty

. . . in the courtroom, that is. He is in every other way. Roger Clemens, former major league star pitcher, was found not guilty in what appears to be the last in a string of trials that arose out of the steroid scandal in baseball. The government had even less luck with Clemens than it did with the other marquee cheater Barry Bonds. This trial was about lying to Congress during testimony in 2005, but everybody knows the trial was really about steroid use in baseball. And looks like we're at the end of that road.

There are a billion news stories out there about the verdict. This one makes the points I would underscore. "Count Roger Clemens lucky for many reasons. First, he can afford a good attorney or attorneys. Second, the star witness was a clown. Third, Andy Pettitte’s recent amnesia. [First time around he heard his buddy Clemens say he used HGH; this time he said "he might have misunderstood" that. Yeah, right.] Lastly, the Government, or more specifically Attorney General Eric Holder, had inept lawyers." Surely all of this is true. The main witness against Clemens was a low-life character who claimed to have shot Clemens up numerous times. He was doubtless telling the truth, but he was easy to destroy in the hands of Clemens' smart, expensive lawyers.

I don't for one microsecond believe that Clemens didn't juice up like half of baseball was doing during the steroid era (roughly 1990 to 2005). The numbers he put up between the ages of 35-44 (1998-2007) defy belief, unless a guy is on the juice. But he walks, and now the papers are full of all these testimonials from other players about how somehow after this Clemens has a clean slate and calling for "moving on" and --a lot of them Yankees, which was the team Clemens pitched for during most of those last years in the game.

Anyway. There's no doubt Clemens is a cheater, and I trust the baseball writers who vote for the Hall of
Fame members keep his cheating butt out. He doesn't deserve the honor.

Related articles

• Tom Verducci: Despite verdict, Clemens still on trial in court of public opinion

  ---

• Clemens juror: McNamee wasn't credible

  ---

I'm So Sorry

 Most Exciting Day in Baseball History

This is one of those nights when I'm so sorry for all those people out there who are not baseball fans. For this night brought to a close the 2011 season with an incredible array of games. I don't think I've ever seen a single season last day packed with so much drama. The division winners in all six divisions had been decided. But the wild card teams, the fourth team to get into the playoffs in each league, had not. One of the amazing things about this year is that the wild card spot at the beginning of September looked like it was no contest at all. Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves were both ahead of the immediate trailing team (Tampa Bay Rays and St Louis Cardinals, respectively) by about 9 games. This is like a horse being 9-10 lengths ahead down the stretch. In short, it's a huge lead. But, wonder of wonders, both those teams lost out on the final day of the season. The collapse of both these teams during September was epochal.

Boston and Atlanta collapses

Nobody knew who were the wild cards till the last minute. For the Rays to get in, Boston had to lose to Baltimore, a weak team. They did, but how they did was amazing. Boston went into the bottom of the 9th inning in Baltimore leading 3-2. And then they gave up two runs with nobody on and two outs. Amazing! (Box score and play-by-play)

And the Rays themselves had to beat the accursed New York Yankees. By the eighth inning in St Petersburg, it appeared this was a forlorn hope indeed. The Rays were down by 7 runs, 7-0. But here comes the miracle: the Rays score 6 runs in the bottom of the 8th. Trailing by a run in the bottom of the 9th, with two out, they tie the game on a home run by a guy named Dan Johnson. Who? This guy is a journeyman ballplayer, one of the worst hitters in baseball. He hit .119 for the year. Hit two homers, counting this one. Had an on-base percentage of .187. These are miserable numbers, trust me. He hits the ball out to tie and game goes into extra innings. Tampa goes on to win the game in the bottom of the 12th inning on a homer by a guy who had already hit one in the game. Box score and play-by-play of the game.

In the other league, St Louis had to win and Atlanta had to lose. St Louis, playing against the Houston Astros, the worst team in baseball, won handily. Everything depends on the Atlanta game, and Atlanta is leading by a run in the top of the 9th. But they cannot hold the lead against the best team in baseball, the Philadelphia Phillies. Their game goes into extra innings and the Braves lose it by a run in the 13th inning. Box score and play-by-play of the game.

Wow! I am just out of superlatives. I am so pumped for the post-season. Go Rangers! (who won a close one tonight and secured home field advantage for the beginning of the American League Divisional Series).

Post #700 -- GO RANGERS!!

I cannot believe that I've actually posted 700 times to this blog. It doesn't feel like that. What is does feel lis is as if I've been gone a year without posting to Powderfinger, whereas it's only been about two-and-a-half weeks. At this point all I can report is what's on my mind . . . and that's my Rangers and the fact they are a game up in the ALCS (American League Championship Series) after crushing the hated Yankees tonight 8-0. They now lead the best of seven series, 2 games to 1, and that one they should not have lost. My boys must get two more wins before they earn the right to go to their first World Series ever. But I do firmly believe that this is the year and the Rangers are a team of destiny. I am so excited, I almost can't stand it. Which makes me wonder once again what it is about a sports team that so captures the affections and grabs the emotions of people. When it comes to the Rangers, I have to confess, I'm a little bit loco.

Check this out. The game is still going on. The Rangers will score another run to make it 8-0. But Yankee Stadium is well-nigh EMPTY! All those lovable Yankee fans have left. How sweet it is.

We've Met the Suckers: It's a Mirror

Several articles on the dismal--yes, I said dismal--financial straits we're in. We're still in. Here's one that says "Bank bailouts move forward at warp speed while regulatory reform sputters along in the slow lane. Which is just the way Wall Street wants it. Its motto is: if it's broke (but you keep bailing us out), why fix it?" Indeed. Isn't anybody else getting fed up with this? I'm beginning to think we're the biggest suckers in the universe. P. T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute." I don't think he ever imagined an entire country could be composed of nothing but.

And then there's this, from Salon: " If there is a single act showing how kleptocracy and let-them-eat-cake-ism are systemic and local rather than momentary and exclusively federal, Bloomberg turning the House that Ruth Built into the House That Taxpayers Built is it." All about how billionaire Big Apple mayor Michael Bloomberg "used various public agencies to extract between $1 billion and $4 billion from taxpayers and then spent the cash on a new stadium for the Yankees, the wealthiest corporation in sports." Read all about it, sports fans. Try to wrap your head around this, the bottom line being, the damn Yankees aren't paying a penny for the $1.3 billion stadium: " . . . the city owns the stadium, leases it to an agency, which then leases it to a corporate subsidiary, which then leases it to the Yankees. At the end of the Ponzi scheme, the team is permitted to use the taxes it already owes to pay off the mortgage on its new chateau." Where's the outrage? Nowhere to be seen. Gone fishing. On vacation. Who knows?

Here's the gist of another piece reporting how thoroughly we're getting screwed by Wall Street and the banks: "The strength of the financial sector and its interlocking allies in insurance and real estate has been repeatedly demonstrated over the past year: Despite near universal agreement that actions of the industry inflicted untold harm on the American and global economies, the Bush and Obama administrations have treated captains of finance with velvet gloves, and Congress, especially the Senate, has consistently deferred to the powerful financial lobby." It's called "crony capitalism."

Heads they win, tails we lose. It's the ongoing theme.

A-Rod Spiked Up Too (Juice cont'd)

Odd how these things happen. I do a little piece yesterday on steroid users in baseball, and this morning Sports Illustrated breaks the news that Alex Rodriguez ("A-Rod"), who owns the most lucrative contract in major league baseball--the Yankees are paying him something like $300 million for the next ten years--tested positive for steroids in a 2003 drug test. That's the year he won the first of his three most valuable player awards and hit a league-leading 47 home runs. For none other than my very own Texas Rangers. (Who traded him to New York in 2004.)

Update: Although I'm loathe to say it, the Rangers have had a whole slew of steroid cheaters over the years. Several of them were apparently introduced (if that's the right word) to this brand of cheating by Jose Canseco, a fairly despicable human being, who nonetheless has till now proven truthful in his revelations about steroid use in baseball. Another USA Today article about the Rangers and steroids is here.

What can one say about this? I agree with commentators who have pointed out something obvious that I thought immediately when I read the news. Every achievement by this guy--and he's had many--is now tainted. Doubly tainted, maybe, because after it was disclosed how pervasive steroid and HGH use was among ballplayers, Rodriguez, who had not (yet) been fingered by any tests and who several times flatly denied using the drugs, appeared to be the straight-arrow player who would rescue all the tainted power records from discredited players like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa. He was hailed by many as the greatest player in the game today. And now? Rodriguez is just another ballplayer who cheated and whose numbers are dirty because of it. The only upside to this sorry news is that A-Rod is only 32. This means he'll be around to embarrass the Yankees for quite a few more years.

And, more's the pity to notice that he's now joined the ranks of other over-achieving cheaters and probably jeopardized his election to the Hall of Fame--at least until this generation of baseball writers has died, and the future forgets what a great wound these dopers have inflicted on baseball. And that's a long way off.