Manny suspended for steroids… are we there yet?

As a kid you ask your parents on a long, arduous ride: “Are we there yet?”  Well, this baseball steroids thing is a long arduous ride, and since baseball is supposed to make you feel like a kid, I’m asking “Are we there yet”?  Every week there’s a new player that we look up to who is found to be juicing.

The homerun king – Barry Bonds – juiced (albeit allegedly)
The homerun king heir apparent – Alex Rodriguez – juiced
One of the best pitchers ever – Roger Clemens – juiced
Guys you loved to watch play – Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Sammy Sosa(?), Rafael Palmiero – juiced
Widely regarded as the best pure right-handed hitter in the last 50 years – Manny Ramirez – juiced

By the way, if you want a history with all the sordid details, from the Mitchell report to the new book about A-Rod, this site does a phenomenal job of it. 

It’s getting to the point where you have to question everything and everybody.  Sure, the vast majority of players don’t take performance enhancing drugs, but enough of the “good” ones do that the line between good performance and good performance-enhancers is so blurred right now, we can’t tell if we’re enjoying the game anymore or these guys’ physicians.

We root for players (in addition to our teams) beacuse they have a good story.  We get behind them, we root for them.  Sometimes, when they’re doing something remarkable, we tune in just because we want to witness history (see: the McGwire/Sosa single season home run record race, which may or may not have saved baseball after the 1994 strike).  And then we witness history, and we tell our friends about it… then 31 months later, we find out the whole thing was tainted because the stories we fell in love with were missing a key ingredient: the juice.  Remember Floyd Landis, anyone?

At this point, would anybody be surprised if Michael Phelps were shown to have been juicing?

Slop and Scare: the Swine Flu gets messy

The Swine Flu is making news all over the world.  A strain of influenza that started in Mexico has claimed over 100 Mexican lives since April 13th.  40 cases have been reported in the US, and 8 localized in a high school in NY, but no deaths (see here for a “tracker“).  Like SARS, pervasive global travel makes a local epidemic global very quickly, and authorities now suggest not bothering to try to contain the spread of the virus.   The world has responded as such:

Miss California v. The Philadelphia Eagles

“Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.” - William Ellery Channing

This week, 2 challenges in 2 very different arenas were met with unusual fortitude for the circumstance.  One, a Miss America contestant, stood up for her beliefs against gay marriage (video here).  The other, an NFL team, spoke openly against a disgruntled player with unusual directness and strength.

Perez Hilton, noted and openly gay gossip blogger, asked Miss California if all states should allow gay marriage. [Though she didn't directly answer the question,] this is what she said:

John Madden isn’t Harry Kalas, or is he?

Harry Kalas, 73, long time Phillies color announcer and voice talent extraordinairre, passed away this week.  Tribute videos, memoria, and respects have been paid from all corners of the sporting world.  Baseball has lost a legend.

John Madden, also 73, Hall of Fame Raiders coach, color man and face of the Maddden video game franchise, retired yesterday.  Though still living, football has certainly lost a legend here too.

Quick side-by-side:

 

	Harry Kalas	John Madden
First major gig	Called first game in 1963 with Houson Astros	Named youngest ever head coach in NFL by Raiders in 1969
Notable	Coins “Outta here” as homerun call	Youngest coach to win 100 victories, won Super Bowl XI in 1976
Little-known fact	Called all of Mike Schmidt’s 548 career home runs	Drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1958 but never played due to a knee injury
Emotional tidbit	Grieved over friend Richie Ashburn’s death until his own	Fear of flying
Honors	Received Ford Frick Award from Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002	Inducted into NFL Hall of Fame in 2006
Branching out	Called for Inside the NFL and Westwood One, lent voice to Campbell’s Chunky Soup (and other) commercials	Face of most popular sports video game franchise in history: Madden NFL series

 

So, who will be missed in their respective sport more?

Who polices the lawless pirates?

Somali pirates seized an American ship, took the captain hostage for ransom, and then were gunned down by Navy SEAL snipers.  In this case, American resources (our Navy SEALs) were instrumental in recovering our ransomed countryman.  But there are still over 280 captives from other countries in the Somali pirates’ hands, many of which are there because their countries lack the resources to overcome the pirates with force, or to pay the ransom (which typically doesn’t work anyway).  And, in response to the takedown, pirates are promising more attacks, and have even attempted one already.

Excerpt to put this all in perspective (read: maybe pirates aren’t a rare thing):

In all, Somali pirates are holding more than 280 sailors on 15 ships – at least 76 of those sailors captured in the past few days. Pirates have attacked 79 ships this year and hijacked 19 of them, according to the International Maritime Bureau, a piracy watchdog.

Pirates can extort $1 million or more for each ship and crew seized off the Horn of Africa; Kenya estimates they raked in $150 million last year.

So here’s the question.  There are 2 parts: 1. How do you police these pirates, and 2. If the US did such a good job in thwarting them, should we intervene for these other captives?