Baseball Roundup

Bronx to host '08 All-Star Game in old Yankee Stadium's last year

Unnamed sources within Major League Baseball have unofficially announced that Yankee Stadium will host the 2008 All-Star Game. You'd think I would be excited about it.

I'm not.

I'm actually a little pissed off. The last time the Bronx had an All-Star Game was in 1977, the year after the Stadium was remodeled. Venues for the Midsummer Classic were picked by alternating AL and NL parks, and cities with new ballparks got preference. Now that the Yankees and New York City have finally reached an agreement on a new stadium, MLB decides that they'd rather have one last look at the old park. It's like having an old relative who doesn't keep in touch suddenly wanting to visit you when you're about to move to a better place.

And then the question becomes, "When do the Mets get to show off the new pad?"

The same story that announced MLB's plans for the '08 All-Stars has the 2009 edition earmarked for St. Louis. This leaves Queens's earliest possibility at 2011. Would the Commissioner's office really vouch for two All-Stars to be held in New York City in such close proximity? Given its contempt for large markets, the answer is most likely "No."

A rookie or not?

This week, Baseball America and ESPN's Alan Schwarz wrote an article for ESPN outlining his predictions for potential Rookies of the Year. First he offered a definition (actually the definition as defined by voting guidelines) of a rookie:

Like it or not, Daisuke Matsuzaka, eight-year veteran and 108-game winner in the Japanese Leagues, has officially pressed the reset button, kicked out the cord, and is rebooting as far as the major leagues are concerned. It doesn't matter that Hideo Nomo, Kazuhiro Sasaki and Ichiro Suzuki made mockeries of the official Rookie of the Year awards in their first seasons after coming west.

That's all well and good, but let's not forget that Hideki Matsui was left off some Rookie of the Year ballots completely in his "rookie" year of 2003. The writers who declined to vote for "Godzilla" claimed that he wasn't a pure rookie, being a seasoned veteran from the Japan Leagues.

Will Daisuke Matsuzaka be held to the same standard? Will he be good enough to put this potential hypocrisy to the test? I'm not so curious as to wish Matsuzaka well to find out.

Prosecutor investigating BALCO forced to resign

U.S. attorney Kevin Ryan, who has headed the investigation on the BALCO steroid distribution ring, was among a group of federal prosecutors who announced their resignations. There has been talk that the White House is pressuring these prosecutors to resign so Washington can appoint "interim" attorneys without Senate confirmation and no term limits, thanks to last year's USA Patriot Act reauthorization.

The provision in the Patriot Act was a last-minute addition by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA). What a schmuck.

Un-American to cheer for the Bears?

Rush Limbaugh took issue with Illinois Senator and potential presidential candidate Barack Obama for saying that New Orleans's football season was all but over. This is a reference to the upcoming Conference Championship between the New Orleans Saints and the Chicago Bears. The Saints have become something of a feel-good story given New Orleans's plight with Hurricane Katrina. Rush Limbaugh feels that Obama's comments are insensitive given that the Saints are "America's team."

Limbaugh thinks that it was politically incorrect to trash talk the Saints. Really, Rush? You mean like suggesting that Donovan McNabb's fame was due to the media overcrediting him for his team's success to fuel the media's own desire for an African-American quarterback to do well? I was just waiting to hear in the news that some right-wing asshole suggested McNabb an affirmative action hire.

Umm, so does this mean that it was un-American to root against the Yankees throughout the playoffs and World Series in 2001? Is Luís González an asshole for daring to get a bloop hit off Mo Rivera over a drawn-in infield? Or is this just Limbaugh's pathetic attempt to lead his audience away from the fact that the Bush administration was slow to provide relief to the citizens of the Gulf Coast, FEMA was incompetent in their efforts to do the same, and Sen. Joe Lieberman is backing down from his vow to use his position as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee to investigate the administration's handling of the situation.

The conservatives are cringing at the very idea that a brown man might be President. Play the clip below to hear Rush spin this non-story.

Details inside...

The Twilight Zone: No Time Like the Past

This clip is timeless.

The most ignorant statement in this dialogue: "The virility of a nation is in direct proportion to its fight qualities." This declaration ignores the simple truth that power corrupts. Any person, corporation, institution, government or global power who gains or is granted too much power will abuse it. Yes, that goes for the United States, too, flag-wavers.

Details inside...

Hoping for a Better World in '07

Happy New Year, world. At this time every year, we hope that a new calendar offers us new beginnings, the opportunity to right the wrongs of our past and accomplish the goals we fell short of last year. Que Dios nos dé la fuerza y la voluntad para cumplir nuestras metas y mucho más.

Despite our wishes to start anew, we know that our actions in the past will have an impact on the future, and we must deal with them accordingly.

"Iraq" ended last year by hanging Saddam Hussein for killing 148 Iraqis in 1982. Somehow, a portion of the United States believes this is some kind of victory in the "War on Terror," despite no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, no link to Al-Qaeda, no real attempt to obtain yellowcake uranium from Niger and no credible imminent threat from Hussein's regime.

The following is a crude video of Saddam Hussein's hanging being carried out. It was taken by an eyewitness with his or her camera phone.



Dead or alive, Saddam had been irrelevant since his capture at the end of 2003. It took a mere three weeks to overtake Baghdad and after that, Hussein's only realistic goal was to make it out alive. While it's true that much of the violence in Iraq was being made in hopes of bringing him back to power, he had no influence over those warriors, and we would imagine that under American custody he would not be able to issue orders to anyone.

At the end of the day, history will look back at December 30, 2006 (Iraq date) as the day Some Guy Who's Not Osama Bin Laden Was Hanged. Now our supposed mission in Iraq is to establish democracy out there. See, that's the new plan after we couldn't find any WMD. And the capture of Saddam Hussein? Well, that was kinda like a bonus, since he wasn't a nice guy anyway. It's true that he was a harsh dictator, as dictators tend to be almost by definition.

And exactly how "established" does this democracy have to be before we pull out? Didn't Iraq have elections already? I remember it well since right wing media outlets wouldn't shut the fuck up about how there was a 90% voter turnout and how they were risking their lives to be free. Supposedly Iraq doesn't have a trained army to keep the peace. No shit, is that why the U.S. took it over in less than a month? Even military leaders were surprised at how quickly and easily coalition troops seized Baghdad, which speaks volumes about our intelligence gathering agencies.

If the goal of the United States in the 21st century is to eradicate dictatorships and monarchies, I expect to be alive when America falls on its ass from the weight of a massive national debt.

America scored a victory last November when the Democratic Party took over both houses of Congress, putting a leash on Bush for the first time since he took office. But at the end of the day he's still Commander-in-Chief of the military. So unless Dubya grows a brain or a conscience, it's a countdown to January 20, 2009.

Details inside...