Bent Corner

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What do the TV ratings for the Washington Nationals have in common with steroids? Both are being investigated by Major League Baseball.

Speaking to members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, Commissioner Bud Selig said that MLB will be checking into the accuracy of published Nielsen ratings. The SportsBusiness Journal reported last week that the Nationals were pulling in an average of only 9,000 households in the Washington area.

That’s pretty bad.

It’s not as bad as the TV ratings the team was pulling when it was still in Montreal. They weren’t even televised the last few years was the Expos.

Tags: Baseball Writers' Association of America, Bud Selig, Major League Baseball, SportsBusiness Journal, Steroids, TV Ratings, Washington Nationals

Former Baltimore Orioles outfielder and human growth hormone (HGH) junkie Jay Gibbons has finally found a place in professional baseball. Too bad for Gibbons it’s with a team in the independent Atlantic League.

Evidently he sent a letter to 29 Major League Baseball teams asking for chance to play. No team was interested.

It’s not like he needs the money. Even though the O’s released him last year after he admitted to using HGH, they are still paying him. He is being paid a guaranteed $11.9 million by the Orioles until the end of the 2009 MLB season.

Far be it from me to ever criticize anything the Oriole front office do, but I wouldn’t have released him. I would have kept him around. They have to pay him no matter what. I would have made him sell beer or cotton candy at Camden Yards. I’m sure the MLBPA would have had something to say about it, but I would have at least tried.

I would never fire someone I had to still pay.

Gibbons to join Atlantic League [Baltimore Sun]

Tags: Atlantic League, Baltimore, Baseball Players That Suck, Camden Yards, Human Growth Hormone, Jay Gibbons, Major League Baseball, Orioles

From the New York Daily News:

Roger Clemens carried on a decade-long affair with country star Mindy McCready, a romance that began when McCready was a 15-year-old aspiring singer performing in a karaoke bar and Clemens was a 28-year-old Red Sox ace and married father of two, several sources have told the Daily News.

Well that’s certainly creepy. It’s not like Roger Clemens would be the first Major League Baseball player to have an extramarital affair. Why did he have to focus his attentions on a child? A 28-year old screwing a 15-year old is definitely creepy unless the 28-year old is a female teacher and the 15-year old is a boy. In that case, it’s just Florida.

Mindy McCready is the country singer that got into trouble with the law for trying to use a fake OxyContin prescriptions. I think she also tried to choke a boyfriend to death. Mindy McCready may very well be a flawed and troubled person because Roger Clemens was throwing her the high hard one when she was just a kid.

I always thought Roger Clemens was a dick.  I just never realized he was a sexual deviant.

Mindy McCready has since confirmed the story.

Tags: Major League Baseball, Mindy McCready, OxyContin, Red Sox, Roger Clemens

The only thing worse then somebody getting paid millions to play a game is someone getting paid millions to not pay a game. The Toronto Blue Jays have come to a “mutual agreement” with slugger Frank Thomas. They will continue paying him the remainder of his $8 million 2008 salary. He just won’t have to come to work any longer. In fact, they don’t want anything to do with him anymore. He has been released and he is now free to look for a job with another team.

Frank Thomas used to be a fantastic baseball player. He was the last player to win back-to-back MVP awards (1993 & 1994). Plus he was in that baseball movie with Tom Selleck. The one where he went to Japan to play baseball.

Derek Jeter’s never been in a Tom Selleck movie. Derek Jeter sucks.

Tags: Derek Jeter, Frank Thomas, Major League Baseball, Tom Selleck, Toronto Blue Jays

It turns out that when Miguel Tejada signed his first professional baseball contract in the Dominican Republic, he was 19 and not 17 as he claimed. He’s been lying about his age ever since.

At least to Major League Baseball. According to the Houston Astros — the team he plays for now — his green card, his driver’s license, and everything else that he uses in his personal life shows that he was born in 1974. Everything in baseball shows that he was born in 1976.

The thing I don’t understand is how his correct date of birth appears on his green card, yet none of the teams he has played for knew his correct age. Not only do they have to look at his green card, I believe they have to retain a copy of his green card.

Why didn’t anyone look at it?

If he has been lying about his age, what else could he be lying about? In 2005 Rafael Palmeiro was suspended for ten days after testing positive for steroids. Acording to ESPN, Palmeiro implicated Miguel Tejada to baseball’s arbitration panel saying that Tejada was responsible for his positive test. Palmeiro claimed the only thing he had ever injected himself with was vitamin B12 supplied by Tejada.

Could the B12 have really been the potent anabolic steroid stanozolol?

I’ll be totally honest and admit that I never liked Miguel Tejada. He always seemed too fat to be a shortstop. I thought he swung at the first pitch too much. He had decent numbers. I guess. I don’t think he was worth what the Orioles were paying him, but what else is new? I was glad when they traded him to the Astros.

Tags: B12, Baltimore Orioles, Dominican Republic, ESPN, Houston Astros, Major League Baseball, Miguel Tejada, Rafael Palmeiro, Stanozolol

If you’ve ever wanted a hot pretzel that looked remarkably like a piece of dog doodie, you need to get over to the new Washington Nationals ballpark. Whoever designed this piece of salted junk food never had a dog.

I think whoever took this pic has the pretzel backwards. It would look much more like the “W” shown on the napkin if it was flipped the other way.

(Pic: Nats 320)

Tags: Dog Doodie, Major League Baseball, Pretzels

Today was Opening Day in Major League Baseball. That is, if you don’t count the game that took place last night in Washington D.C. between the Nationals and the Braves or the two games that happened last week in Japan between The A’s and the Red Sox.

Those two games counted as regular season games. Go figure.

The Red Sox then came back to the land of the Big BX and played the Dodgers this past weekend in Los Angeles in a “spring training” exhibition game in the Los Angeles Coliseum in front of 115,300 fans. The last time I sat in the Coliseum to watch a Raiders game there was only about 45,000 people there and a good many of them for Browns fans.

When I got off work I turned on the Orioles game on my XM Radio. They were beating the Rays 2 - 0. By the time I got home, the Orioles were losing 6 - 2. Good to see that O’s are back in true Oriole form.

They haven’t racked up 10 losing seasons in a row by accident. Could this year make eleven? Only time will tell.

Tags: Baltimore Orioles, Los Angeles Dodgers, Major League Baseball, Opening Day, Red Sox, Tampa Rays

Thanks to the fact that I felt like dog poo today and called off work, I was able to sit at home in my recliner and watch Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee testify before Congress about performancing enhancing drug use. I would have listened to the hearing if I was at work, but I would have missed out on a lot of the details if I had only listened to it on XM.

I’m not even sure why Congress is investigating this. From what I can tell, Clemens either used or didn’t use steroids and human growth hormones before they were even banned by Major League Baseball. Plus, at least some of his supposed performance enhancing drug use happened when Clemons was in Toronto. The last time I checked, Toronto was in a different country.

I don’t know what a strength and conditioning coach is supposed to look like, but I’m pretty sure they are not supposed to look like this guy. Could Roger Clemens have found a bigger nerd then McNamee to be his strength coach?

I have no idea if Roger Clemens used steroids or human growth hormones or B-12 shots or egg white omelettes or skinless chicken breasts. I really don’t care. I do think he should be kept out of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The reason? For hiring an Ichabod Crane lookalike to help him lift weights.

For that, he should be forever banned from Cooperstown.

Tags: Baseball Hall of Fame, Brian McNamee, Major League Baseball, Roger Clemens

Wondering what Congress is doing about ending the war in Iraq? They are too busy investigating Major League Baseball. Specifically, they are looking into steroid and human growth hormone use by players before such substances were banned by Major League Baseball.

Not only are they sniffing around to find out what former players such as Roger Clemons were taking, they are evidently investigating baseball player wives.

From the New York Daily News:

Brian McNamee told congressional investigators Thursday that Roger Clemens’ wife took human growth hormone before she appeared with the pitcher in Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue in 2003, according to a Washington source.

I understand why Congress is looking into steroid and human growth hormone use by baseball players. The Constitution is quite specific that Congress is to provide oversight over professional sports leagues.* It doesn’t say anything about their wives.

* No it doesn’t. I was being sarcastic. I do that sometimes.

Tags: Brian McNamee, Congress, Human Growth Hormone, Major League Baseball, Roger Clemons, Steroids, The Constitution

The Oscars are in four days. The movies up for awards are all from this past year. I think that’s a mistake. We ought to wait a while before bestowing awards to movies and the people that make them. Let the dust settle so we can reflect on what is truly award worthy. It’s not like any of the movies up for awards this year were actually made in the last 12 months.

In baseball, a player must be retired from Major League Baseball for five (5) years before he is eligible for the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. The Oscars are sort of like the Hall of Fame. They are both very prestigious and considered to be the crowning achievement of one’s carrier. The following movies are up for Best Picture this year:

• Babel
• The Departed
• Letters from Iwo Jima
• Little Miss Sunshine
• The Queen

Are we going to feel the same way about any of these movies in 2012? Granted, when I was a kid I figured that I would be too busy riding around in my flying car to be watching movies. For some reason I now don’t see myself in a flying car in 2012.

Here is a list of the movies nominated five (5) years ago for Best Picture:

• A Beautiful Mind
• Gosford Park
• In the Bedroom
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• Moulin Rouge

The winner was A Beautiful Mind. It featured Russell Crowe as a mathematical genius who also had schizophrenia. I never saw it. I thought it sounded both boring and depressing. I also never watched Moulin Rouge or Gosford Park.

Did anyone watch Gosford Park?

I did see In the Bedroom and thought it was a great movie. I might even be willing to say that it was the best movie I watched that year if I hadn’t watched The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

It’s a movie I’ve watched over and over and over again. I own it on DVD. Both the theatrical version and the extended boxed set. It’s a fantastic movie. There is no way I believe that Russell Crowe acting like a crazy guy who is good with numbers is better then Gandalf fighting a Balrog in the mines of Moria.

I cannot help but believe that five years later, the voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would have realized that.

Tags: Cooperstown, Major League Baseball, The Oscars