2007 NHL Free Agent List Presented By Pabst Blue Ribbon

My summer project will be tracking the free agent player movement in the NHL. Follow along at http://therealstoney.googlepages.com/home

Sportscenter is.... for retarded people

Just a few things for my Tuesday morning. I watched the season finale of Heroes last night, and I was very pleased. People died, there was a nice cliffhanger, and overall, it brought volume 1 of the show to a nice close, and left me wanting the next season to start next week. I tried watching the 1st half hour of the 24 season finale and couldn't get through 10 minutes. That show has become absolutely brutal, and I think they are still planning to do another few years. Ugh. The Rockies lost a close one last night, again. There are 39 days until the Free Agent rush begins in the NHL.
I watched Sportscenter Sunday night for the first time in about 5 months, and I remembered why I don't watch any more. The show has become a complete parody of itself. I was flipping back and forth between Sporstscenter and some other uninteresting program, it was like a car wreck I couldn't avert my eyes. I'm pretty sure Neil Everett was one of the anchors, but I'm not sure who he was working with. Growing up, I watched Sportscenter every night. I loved it, it was fun, I got to see highlights of my favorite athletes, it was perfect. I don't know what happened, was it me that changed? Watching the show the other night, the only emotion I could muster was embarrassment. What happened to the days when people tuned in to the show to catch highlights of their favorite teams and players? I swear to god, I watched a three minute stretch of highlights where every line uttered by the anchors contained some bullshit attempt at a hip catch phrase. It's not about you douchebag! I know Everett has garnered some acclaim recently by getting suspended for calling out an alleged Chris Berman pick up line during a highlight. I didn't see it, I read about it, and honestly, it was stupid. Remember some of those old SNL skits where they parodied Sportscenter? The stuff I saw the other night was even more over the top. Words were being made up and guys names were being pronounced wrong, it was a clusterfuck. Pippity poppity scoopity slopity. That was a throw to first in the dirt. The saddest thing is these guys think it's cool and they are making a social impact. They're only about 10 years too late.

It Could Have Happened to a Better Guy, But Oh Well

Earlier this afternoon I read an article on ESPN.com in which David Ortiz showed support for Barry Bonds and his pursuit of Hank Aaron’s home run record. I started thinking about what Ortiz had to say about the situation and the numerous other articles on the internet, on TV and in print that have crucified Barry Bonds for the last few years, and felt it was my turn to chime in on the subject. A majority of the sports media has officially labeled Bonds as a steroid using cheater that has tainted the game. Granted, everyone has the right to have their own opinion, but isn’t there some form of journalistic integrity and fairness that should still be involved? You can assume and speculate all you want, but Barry Bonds has never officially tested positive for steroids, and has never been suspended by Major League Baseball. I don’t like Barry Bonds as a person. He’s arrogant, difficult, and hasn’t been the world’s best teammate, but he’s one of the greatest hitters and baseball players of all time and you have to respect that.

If you look at a picture or video footage of Bonds in his days with the Pirates compared to footage now, it’s almost like looking at two different people. Just by the physical difference people are going to say “look how much bigger he is, he definitely juiced”. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, like I said before, it hasn’t been officially proven. But if you look at a lot of different players that started playing in the 80s and look at them now, you will notice strikingly similar changes. Look at Roger Clemens. There are a lot of reasons players look a lot different today than they did 20 years ago let alone 50 years ago. The world is a different place inside and out of the ballpark, and a lot of people don’t want to look at some of the positive reasons for these changes, they just want to focus on the negatives like steroids and other so-called performance enhancing drugs. I’m not naïve, I know that steroids have played their part in not only baseball but in basically every sport known to man. Athletes have admitted using and have tested positive. As much as I feel steroids and other drugs don’t belong in the game, I don’t feel baseball players are truly enhanced by juicing as much as other athletes in other sports. Drugs that make you stronger aren’t going to make you a better baseball player. You can’t pull a guy out of a weight room that can bench 400 pounds and expect him to be able to hit a baseball. At the same time, drugs that make you stronger will give you an unfair advantage in a weightlifting competition. Why is Barry Bonds going to break Hank Aaron’s record this year? Because he has one of the best baseball swings you will ever see. He has unbelievably quick hands. He has become one of the most selective hitters in the game. In the year Bonds hit 72 home runs, there were games when he only saw one pitch in the strike zone, and he was able to square it up and drive it out of the park. That is talent. Talent that I feel doesn’t come in a syringe. Why hasn’t Bonds been able to hit homeruns at the same pace as he did 5 years ago? Because he’s getting old, and he has been hampered by leg injuries the last few years. Talk to baseball people all over the world and they will tell you the most important part of any good swing starts with the legs and a solid foundation. What happens when a player has a bad knee and isn’t able to shift his weight or plant a solid front leg? He won’t get the same power and consistency as a healthy player. Bonds is as healthy as he’s been in three years and it’s showing in his power numbers.

Even though I never saw Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle or Babe Ruth play, I know that they were great players. They were able to do things other players weren’t and put up some of the greatest stats of all time. Baseball like many sports relies on stats to measure the greatness of a player and their place in history. It seems that many people, especially those in the media have a feeling that if records that have stood for decades are broken, the reputations and honor of players that have held those records for decades would be forgotten or diminished. Even though Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruths’ career home run record, people who know baseball, who follow it, who love the game and its history are still going to associate Babe Ruth with home runs and acknowledge him as one of the greatest power hitters of all time. The same thing will reign true when Bonds breaks Aaron’s record. To say that Bonds doesn’t deserve to break Aaron’s record is ridiculous, and most of that comes from his trouble relationship with the sports media. You may not want him to break the record, but tough shit, it’s going to happen.

The game of baseball has evolved through the years, and so have the players. The days of major league players having to find off-season jobs to supplement their income are over. These days, you can have a utility infielder making over a million dollars a year. Playing a professional sport has turned into a year round job. Players have learned that to keep their job and sign that next big contract, they have to continue to work and improve after the season ends. Training programs, eating programs, and an all around focus on health are not things players in the 50s thought about. If you spend 3 months working out for 3 hours a day, you are going to see changes in your body, you are going to get stronger. You supplement that with practice for your sport, and you are going to see improvements in your abilities in your sport. You want to know why baseball players are bigger and stronger and faster than they were in the past? That’s it. They put in the work throughout the year and after the season to look that way. Sure some guys get help from a pill or a bottle, but more often than not, it’s all natural. The thing that sucks is you have sports writers who never played past little league or throw a ball like a five year old girl throwing out accusations on a whim whenever someone does something impressive. A 350 lb mess who has never worked out in his life is going to think guys who improve their physique did it with drugs because he doesn’t realize while he sits at his desk every morning pounding his Krispy Kreme’s and super bug gulps, athletes are busting their ass in the gym.

The bottom line is later this summer, Barry Bonds will become the new all-time home run leader. He still hasn’t tested positive for a banned substance. Even if he did, no amount of steroids in the world is going to make you a better hitter or teach you how to square up a 96mph fastball on the inside corner. Natural ability and skill are always going to be necessary to play baseball. It makes you wonder if Bonds was as personable and upfront as a guy like David Ortiz, would we be reading a new story every morning about how Bonds in the devil and the worst thing to come along since AIDS? Records are made to be broken, and they are not always going to be broken by the best person in the game.