I’ll post something tonight and/or tomorrow (or the next day), so hang in there… topics might include The Mitchell Report, sports as entertainment (what else is it?) and how Brian Westbrook just might have destroyed fantasy football forever…
Or at least for one week.
The Mitchell Report (pdf)
Oh, I’m sorry… you just want the names. Here they are:
New names
Chad Allen
Mike Bell
Gary Bennett
Larry Bigbie
Kevin Brown
Alex Cabrera
Mark Carreon
Jason Christiansen
Howie Clark
Roger Clemens
Jack Cust
Brendan Donnelly
Chris Donnels
Matt Franco
Eric Gagne
Matt Herges
Phil Hiatt
Glenallen Hill
Todd Hundley
Mike Judd
David Justice
Chuck Knoblauch
Tim Laker
Mike Lansing
Paul Lo Duca
Nook Logan
Josias Manzanillo
Cody McKay
Kent Mercker
Bart Miadich
Hal Morris
Daniel Naulty
Denny Neagle
Jim Parque
Andy Pettitte
Adam Piatt
Todd Pratt
Stephen Randolph
Adam Riggs
Armando Rios
Brian Roberts
F.P. Santangelo
Mike Stanton
Ricky Stone
Miguel Tejada
Ismael Valdez
Mo Vaughn
Ron Villone
Fernando Vina
Rondell White
Jeff Williams
Todd Williams
Steve Woodard
Kevin Young
Gregg Zaun
Previously mentioned
Manny Alexander
Rick Ankiel
David Bell
Marvin Benard
Barry Bonds
Ricky Bones
Paul Byrd
Jose Canseco
Paxton Crawford
Lenny Dykstra
Bobby Estalella
Ryan Franklin
Jason Giambi
Jeremy Giambi
Jay Gibbons
Troy Glaus
Juan Gonzalez
Jason Grimsley
Jose Guillen
Jerry Hairston Jr.
Darren Holmes
Ryan Jorgensen
Gary Matthews Jr.
Rafael Palmeiro
John Rocker
Benito Santiago
Scott Schoeneweis
David Segui
Gary Sheffield
Randy Velarde
Matt Williams
Tune in at 6 p.m. when the MLBPA fires back.
As everyone (or at least baseball fans and media types with no lives) try to play the guessing game over which players and ex-players will be on The Mitchell Report, a handful of names are beginning to leak out.
According to a report on ESPN, Yankees Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte are reportedly on Mitchell’s list. Yet as the dangerous game of implicating people without any acknowledgment of the league’s collective bargaining agreement or due process continues, the speculation runs rampant.
That’s human nature, we suppose.
Around these parts folks are wondering which Phillies (or ex-Phillies) will be on Mitchell’s Report. We can’t get into that, but we know for a FACT that all-time favorite Phillie, Doug Glanville, WILL NOT be implicated on the Mitchell Report.
Former Senator George Mitchell will release his long-awaited report on his investigation into baseball’s alleged performance-enhancing drugs problem. Senator Mitchell will make an announcement at 2:30 p.m. in press conference from New York City.
At 2:32 p.m. tumbleweed will blow across Mitchell’s podium and one lone cricket will chirp. At 2:34 p.m. Major League Baseball will go back to business as usual.
By 2:40 p.m. all of the sports media and a few selected congressional-type bureaucrats will pontificate about something or other, and by 3 p.m. it will all be over.
However, at 4:30 p.m. at a seperate press conference, commissioner Bud Selig will announce that he is shocked — shocked! — at the Mitchell Report’s findings.
Then he will fly back to Milwaukee and have a hot dog and a coke at Gilles Frozen Custard stand.
Do you think that maybe they can get Sam Elliott to narrate the thing just to liven it up a bit?
Throughout the team’s history, the Phillies have always been attracted to those hitters that always seem to swing and miss a lot. Mike Schmidt was one of those guys. During his career he whiffed 1,883 times, which is the seventh-most in the history of the game.
Schmidt’s teammate Greg Luzinski averaged 133 strikeouts per 162 games. That duo of Schmidt and Luzinski led the National League in strikeouts five times.
Dick Allen, Lance Parrish, Bobby Abreu, Juan Samuel, Pat Burrell, Scott Rolen and Darren Daulton all routinely whiffed more than 100 times per season, though those guys were hardly in the same league as Jim Thome and Ryan Howard.
Thome, the heir to Schmidt, is third on the all-time strikeout list and set the club record for whiffs in a season with 182 in 2003. Like his time in Philadelphia, Thome’s reign on the top of that list was short when Howard racked up 181 strikeouts in 2006 before establishing the new Major League record in 2007 when he nearly became the first man to reach the 200-strikeout plateau with 199.
Just think what type of numbers Howard would have posted if he hadn’t missed nearly all of May.
But they wouldn’t be the Phillies if the strikeouts were exclusive to the batters’ box. Oh no. Actually, the entire franchise is kind of one big caught-looking enterprise. They do strikeouts well. After all, no professional team in the history of sports has surpassed 10,000 losses like the Phillies have and it seems as if there is no executive in league history to have been spurned more than Pat Gillick has this winter.
In terms of striking out on the free-agent market, Gillick and the Phillies have made Howard, Thome and Schmidt look like Wee Willie Keeler.
Yes, it happened again on Wednesday afternoon. In what has become a weekly rite during the winter the Phillies were told thanks but no thanks by a player that the team really could use in order to recapture the National League East. First it was Mike Lowell, who would have been the team’s answer at third base. Instead of signing on with the Phillies to play in cozy little Citizens Bank Park where he once slugged three homers in a game, Lowell took a lesser contract offer to remain with the Boston Red Sox.
Apparently, there was just something about all the money and the years that turned off Lowell about the Phillies.
Then there was Randy Wolf, the left-handed starting pitcher who came up through the Phillies system, pitched for the team for eight seasons and earned his first (and only) All-Star appearance with the club during the 2003 season. But after recovering from Tommy John surgery in 2006, Wolf took a lesser deal to pitch for the Dodgers in 2007. Two weeks ago the Phillies came knocking again and - once again - Wolf took a incentive-laden (in the parlance of the game) one-year deal to pitch for San Diego.
Gillick and Wolf’s negotiations went something like this:
Gillick: We really like you, Randy, and we really want to sign you to a multi-year deal. Is that something you would be interested in?
Wolf: Well, Pat, I grew up in Southern California and all my family is here and I would really like to be closer to them. Plus, the ballpark is a little more conducive to my style of pitching. It’s nothing personal and I really liked pitching for you guys for eight years, but I think I’m going to go to San Diego.
Gillick: Whore.*
No one wanted to sign with the Phillies. Not even Tadahito Iguchi, the second baseman who asked for his release and eschewed arbitration, passed up a chance to be the Phillies’ everyday third baseman by signing a one-year deal with San Diego, too.
So let’s add it up. Lowell to Boston; Wolf to San Diego; Iguchi to San Diego; Melvin Mora - no dice; Curt Schilling back to Boston; Geoff Jenkins, maybe; and Scott Rolen, anywhere but Philly or St. Louis.
What do the Phillies have to do? Move the franchise to San Diego? Configure a more pitcher-friendly ballpark on the parking lot where the Vet used to be? Give Kyle Lohse or Carlos Silva the worst contract in the history of Major League Baseball?
All of the above?
Really, though, the more interesting question is how does Aaron Rowand fit in here? If they just could have lured Rowand back into the fold it all would have been OK. Right…
Sigh!
By all accounts, Aaron Rowand, the fan and media favorite, really, really wanted to return to the Phillies for 2008 and beyond. It’s just that he didn’t want to do it for less than five years. Only the Phillies offered three and apparently there was no middle ground. They couldn’t split the difference and get together on four years.
And what’s four years in the scheme of things? Come on, really… Four years is a presidential term? It’s 80 percent of one’s collegiate work? It’s just four years! That’s it. It goes by in a heartbeat.
Instead, Rowand got his five years (and, he says, the cash he was expecting) from the San Francisco Giants - a team that came in last in the NL West last season at 71-91. With Barry Bonds gone and a young corps of pitchers still finding their way around in the unforgiving world of Major League Baseball, the Giants should be slated for the cellar again in 2008. But Rowand will be there, crashing into walls, charming the fans and doing what he can to help the Giants get better.
It’s doesn’t seem as though Rowand will duplicate the offensive statistics he posted for the Phillies during the 2008 season at whatever corporation currently owns the naming rights for the Giants’ ballpark these days. But does that really matter? All that matters is that he won’t be doing anything for the Phillies anymore and that’s the really big whiff.
One thing is for certain - the “sources” were only off by a year and $25 million. But, again, that doesn’t help the Phillies much.
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* Actually, Gillick said: “Maybe it was a blessing in disguise. We went after him a couple times, and it didn’t work out last year and this year. So, it’s pretty evident that he doesn’t want to play for our team. If someone doesn’t want to be part of the team, it’s better if he plays somewhere else.”
Is everyone ready for The Mitchell Report? Oh, I’m sure it will make all the papers. If not, here’s what to expect.
According to a story in The New York Times, approximately 50 players will be named in the report. That number jibes with the report from last year that at least two players from each team tested positive for performance-enhancing substances.
Will (or which) Phillies will be named in the report?
There have been a few comebacks recently. Of course there was Sly Stone a few weeks ago playing a gig in New York, and the rumor is the big music festival set for Vineland, N.J. (it was originally going to be held in Philly, but red tape, government and local agency interference, etc., etc., etc. ruined that idea) is that the newly reunited Rage Against the Machine[1] (and corporate shills Sony recording artists) will headline.
That’s cool, I guess. People seem to like Sony’s Rage Against the Machine.
But the biggest and most anticipated comeback was Monday night’s big Led Zeppelin reunion gig in London. Mythologized and held at an otherworldly status for four decades, Led Zeppelin had not played as a so-called full unit since drummer John Bonham drank himself to death in 1980. Sure, there have been half-hearted attempts at a “reunion,” such as the 1985 Live Aid show at JFK Stadium, which was largely panned by critics. Then, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page teamed up for a tour in the mid-1990s (I think) that people generally seemed to enjoy. I missed the mid-90s thing (I guess I was too busy to notice), but I remember watching the Live Aid performance and being very underwhelmed. As I recall, Queen stole the show. But that’s just what Queen always did.
I also remember that it was hot in Philadelphia that day.
But as far as a full group show with the original three members (Plant, Page and John Paul Jones) and Bonham’s son, Jason, playing the drums, well, people have been waiting for a long, long time.
At least that’s the way it seemed from reading the breathless dispatches from London. And it’s all so damned interesting.
Perhaps the fact that I find a Led Zeppelin reunion interesting is the interesting part. Because frankly I always consciously went out of my way to ignore Led Zeppelin and believe that (in nine times out of 10) all self-respecting rock bands that break up should stay broken up. To me, that’s the rock and roll thing to do. Just break up and leave people asking for more. After all, most bands (in nine times out of 10) will never be able to duplicate the urgency or majesty of the first go through.
But then again it’s that way with a lot of things.
Besides, there just seems to be nothing worthwhile appealing or “Rock and Roll” about those highly corporatized and overwrought reunion tours that groups like the Rolling Stones, The Eagles and the Police insist on staging. In this day and age those tours seem so bloated, impractical and non-spontaneous and that’s exactly what they don’t want to be.
Look, I’m all for doing what it is one does for as long as possible. In fact, I hope I can still run marathons when I’m 60 and 70. I also hope that I give a rat’s ass about new ideas and trends and whatever else at that age, too. I hope it never gets to the point where I’m told I should go hang ‘em up, though I don’t have any delusions. Frankly, I’ll probably rust rather than burn out.
I don’t suspect I’ll be smart enough to know when to stop, which is just the way it is sometimes. People always want to reach back to see if they can recapture the magic from their youth. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just that - to paraphrase a Lou Reed quote from 1989 - when someone is doing teenaged party music when they are 60 it’s stupid.
For instance, take the ongoing tour by the Police - according to most open-minded observers and even Stewart Copeland, the band just doesn’t have it any more. Sure, they’re all still playing well as individual musicians and still get excited about playing music. It’s just that nearly 30 years after the fact; “Message in a Bottle” just doesn’t mean the same thing.
The thing about that is the Police can tour around the world and charge $250 for one ticket. That’s good work if you can get it, but it seems to me that it might be like watching a losing team play out the string during the final month of the season. I also suspect that the money was the reason why the Police decided to get back together after all those years apart, which makes the whole act so unseemly, completely uninspiring and totally not worth the money.
In art, perception is everything. OK, maybe it’s not everything, but it’s a lot of it. Look at Britney Spears (how can you not… she gets more coverage on the TV news than Iraq), though her once fledgling musical career was always regarded as… well… crap, how are we to know that she isn’t the one playing her public like a pre-recorded vocal track? Are we to categorize her a certain way just because we have pre-conceived ideas about her audience and the machinations in place to put her in the public forum to begin with? Yeah, Britney is probably a bad example, but you get the point. In the case of Led Zeppelin I looked at them as a certain product based on the machinery and the audience. I’m sure some of it had to do with the fact that I was in the third grade when Bonham died and the group disbanded, but the real reason was much more superficial.
Led Zeppelin was the establishment. They were the mainstream. They were Plant was singing lyrics to songs that made imagery from Henry Miller look deep. Page was the template for every wannabe, big-haired guitar god and Bonham (with Keith Moon) was exhibit A of what happens when Rock and Roll goes along unchecked.
Plus, when I was beginning to find my identity and follow my own artistic path, Led Zeppelin just didn’t seem to fit. After all, this was the 1980s and even though I didn’t know it at the time, I was worried about Ronald Reagan. What was he going to do to the middle class in America? Was he just crazy enough to “start the bombing in five minutes…” Certainly Robert Plant wasn’t singing about this world and the guys in the Zeppelin midriffs smoking Marlboros while blasting “Kashmir” from their Firebird weren’t too concerned about any of those questions either.
But Joe Strummer and The Clash were concerned. So too were The Ramones and that gang in D.C. with Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins. Led Zeppelin, by that point, was ubiquitous. It was elevator music and I had heard it crackling through the cheap plastic speakers of the family station wagon way too many times. Led Zeppelin, I rationalized, was what they wanted us to hear.
Better yet, think of how much money and waste went into the production of those records and tours. Think of the budget that went into the photography for the album covers for something like Physical Graffiti. Meanwhile, just around the corner from where that photo was taken on New York’s lower east side, the Bad Brains were recording the famed ROIR cassette in a broom closet. It may have cost $50 to make and no one can tell me that the opening bars of “Attitude” don’t kick ass and aren’t as strong as anything the scores of production techs tweaked and tuned out of Page’s guitar. Give the Bad Brains $50 more and they could have melted the tape.
Based on that thinking the choice was easy. I went with Joe Strummer, Joey Ramone and Ian and Hank. Actually, it really wasn’t much of a decision at all.
As time passes and people get older, they notice certain things. Like why aren’t Led Zeppelin songs in movies or commercials? When every other one of their contemporaries has staged those saccharine sweet trips down amnesia lane tours, Led Zeppelin remained on the sidelines. Plant joined the Honeydrippers and sang “Sea of Love.” He has also released 15 albums with various projects, which is nearly double the output of Led Zeppelin.
Page has been equally as prolific, while Jones has worked with more modern groups like R.E.M., the Foo Fighters and Ben Harper.
None of them, to their credit, have sold out. In interviews, when pressed about the band’s reluctance to cash in on a tour or licensing their songs to movies or commercials, Plant just scoffs. “What do we need more money for? Why should we destroy a piece of art” is the essence of his answer.
Now, after playing the show in London, the clamor is for more. Is Led Zeppelin going to tour again? What kind of box-office records would they set if that happens?
The answer to all of that is, “Who knows?” Personally, I like the idea of one-and-done. It makes the show mean that much more. Besides, I don’t want to have to go and see Led Zeppelin and have my image of the band ruined. I don’t want to see 60-year old men shimmying all over a ridiculously large stage with laser-light shows and smoke and fire that befits the Norse mythology of some of the songs. Other people can go, but after all this time I’d like to think that Zeppelin will stick to their ethics.
Besides, at 59 there’s no way Plant can climb to the roof of a hotel and announce, “I am a golden God.” He might slip off and break a hip.
Anyway, here’s the set list from the return:
Good Times Bad Times
Ramble On (live debut)
Black Dog
In My Time of Dying
For Your Life (live debut)
Trampled Under Foot
Nobody’s Fault but Mine
No Quarter
Since I’ve Been Loving You
Dazed and Confused
Stairway to Heaven
The Song Remains the Same
Misty Mountain Hop
Kashmir
Encore:
Whole Lotta Love
Rock and Roll
What? No “Immigrant Song?” How can that be? If it were me I’d come out firing with “Immigrant Song” right out of the gate. We’re at war, after all, and the folks need to know that the band is playing for keeps. Just come out swinging from the jump…
Phew! It was a rather eventful weekend what with the big fight in Las Vegas and putting up the Christmas decorations and all of that.
But aside from the Bonnie & Clyde kids or “Rittenhouse Swindlers[1]” as they could be called, and the Eagles loss to the Giants, not much happened in these parts. In fact, it seems as if the Philly folks were looking to get their names in the papers they had to leave town this weekend.
Yes, it seems that not only was Bernard Hopkins making the scene at Oscar de la Hoya’s party before Floyd Mayweather dropped Ricky Hatton in 10 in Las Vegas, but also Ryan Howard was on the prowl, too. According to the gossip columnist in Vegas, the Phillies’ slugger was at the Tryst nightclub [2]inside the Wynn resort with ex-Phillie Kenny Lofton. Charles Barkley was there, too, the paper reported.
Apparently, Sir Chuck was spotted at a lot of places in Vegas during the weekend before the fight. So too were Will Ferrell, Lennox Lewis and Sylvester Stallone.
Who knows, maybe Howard also hit Vegas to try and lure back local resident Aaron Rowand to the Phillies. That seems doubtful, though. Maybe Ryan was too busy in the hotel gym getting in shape for spring training?
Around these parts we got the ol’ tree up and all of that mess. Ever the traditionalists, a few years ago we bought a tree that appears to be made from the old turf they used to have at the Vet. I walked by it this morning and strained my anterior cruciate ligament.
If only it came in martini blue…
Aside from that I went in for a little A.R.T. on my tight-as-a-drum hip flexor. It’s a funny thing… I can run, walk and stand just like anyone else, but if I sit on a soft chair or the couch, the hip tightens up so much that I can’t get up and I’m left to sit there like a Buddha or Bill Conlin. It’s pretty damn frustrating.
What’s that about? I can run 90 miles per week but I can’t sit on a recliner?
Such a mess…
Finally, Ted Leo and his outfit, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, wrapped up a seemingly never-ending tour in with shows in New York City and Philly last week and a pair over the weekend in Washington, D.C. After playing and touring the United States and Europe quite continuously since 2005, Ted and the gang say they are going to take a bit of break to recover, rest and make another record.
The rest of us are left to ponder a world where the Pharmacists aren’t out there plotting and scheming their moves and walking that line for us. Yes, it’s a well-deserved and needed break, but we are weaker as a culture when Ted isn’t out there in the night on some stage playing as hard as he can. The Pharmacists go to work every time — it’s just so inspirational and so beautiful.
***
Michael Vick got 23 months! What’s that line from D.L. Hughley: Somewhere O.J. is watching and saying, “Man, I’m glad I didn’t mess with any dogs…”
***
Happy birthday to Meg White, Michael Clarke Duncan, Bobby Flay, Nia Peeples, J Mascis, Susan Dey, Emily Dickinson and Mark Aguirre.
[2]
Is it me or does a nightclub named Tryst sound like something out of George Carlin bit?
Guess what? Alex Rodriguez dabbles in real estate. He’s also… what’s that term… a slumlord? Elsewhere, all-time home run king* Barry Bonds was arraigned in federal court for perjury and obstruction of justice charges stemming from his allegedly untruthful grand jury testimony in BALCO investigation.
Bonds pleaded not guilty.
Meanwhile, two players (Jay Gibbons of the Orioles and Jose Guillen of the Royals) were suspended 15 days at the start of the 2008 season for being linked to the acquisition of human growth hormone.
In other words, it was just a normal day for Major League Baseball.
***
It’s good to see The Onion had something to offer on the Winter Meetings.
