Los Angeles Dodgers Take Down Mannywood Banner
Gone
Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Manny Ramirez is effectively watching his career with the Dodgers coming to an end from the DL, his third stint this year. The 38-year-old could be also witnessing his time in Major League Baseball coming to an end as well.
The Dodgers currently 5 1/2 games back in the National League West entered Dodger Stadium on Monday to see that left-field section just next to the Dodgers bullpen “Mannywood” is no more. The “Mannywood” banner has been replaced with signs sold to John Hancock and 790 KABC.
The Dodgers, however, are still selling Mannywood seats, two tickets and two T-shirts for $99 however not that many fans are buying those seats right now. The two sections were almost completely deserted Monday night which is getting to be the norm without Ramirez in left field.
Jay-Z Suing Boston Red Sox David Ortiz For 40/40 Club Name In Dominican Republic
Empire State Of Mind
If this doesn’t endure Jay-Z to New Yorkers forever, I don’t know what will. That’s because ultimate New Yorker and New York Yankee fan Jay-Z is suing the Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz for naming his club in the Dominican Republic 40/40 which Hova already owns the naming rights to.
The lawsuit claims the Red Sox star Ortiz liked Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club so much that he stole the name calling the Santo Domingo hotspot Forty-Forty, hoping patrons would think his club was part of the rap star’s empire the suit filed Thursday in Manhattan Federal Court claims.
Since his friend and protector in the Red Sox lineup Manny Ramirez was traded things have been in a tailspin for the designated hitter as he’s been found guilty of using PEDs, his play has dropped off significantly that I don’t know if he warrants being called ‘Big Papi’ anymore and know The Empire is suing him.
Now you can insert joke about how Ortiz should have named his club after his batting average…..Club .154
Manny Ramirez Endorses Sum Poosie Energy Drink
There's So Many Flavors Of Sum Poosie
Manny being Manny. Manny Ramirez according to the Los Angeles Times is picking up checks wherever he can get them and is now endorsing Sum Poosie, an energy drink.
Manny’s not the first athlete to hop into bed with Sum Poosie. Santana Moss has also done some work for the energy drink in the past. But now they have an athlete that’s bigger in stature. Well at least in name that is.
Sum Poosie on their website even offers you the chance of becoming a distributor of theirs. That means you can have Sum Poosie whenever you want so that’s not a bad idea.
If your wondering what Sum Poosie taste likes, it’s just like strawberries.
120 MLB Players Opt For 2010 Free Agency
On the third day of Major League Baseball free agency a 120 players have elected to pursue Article XX B (2) of the Basic Agreement out of the 183 eligible. Bobby Abreu, Tim Hudson, Cliff Lee, Manny Ramirez, Brandon Webb, have had their 2010 options picked up bringing a total of 58 players still eligible but have yet to file. November 19 marks the last date in which players may give notice of their election of free agency. If that punk ass Matt Holliday decides to leave my St. Louis Cardinals, I do see suitable replacements…cough Jermaine Dye.
Est. 1869
|
1 |
Garret Anderson |
OF |
AT |
|
2 |
Mike Gonzalez |
RP |
AT |
|
3 |
Adam LaRoche |
1B |
AT |
|
4 |
Greg Norton |
1B/OF |
AT |
|
5 |
Rafael Soriano |
RP |
AT |
|
6 |
Doug Davis |
SP |
AZ |
|
7 |
Scott Schoeneweis |
RP |
AZ |
|
8 |
Chad Tracy |
1B |
AZ |
|
10 |
Danys Baez |
RP |
BA |
|
11 |
Mark Hendrickson |
SP/RP |
BA |
|
12 |
Chad Moeller |
C |
BA |
|
13 |
Melvin Mora |
3B |
BA |
|
14 |
Rocco Baldelli |
OF |
BO |
|
15 |
Jason Bay |
OF |
BO |
|
16 |
Billy Wagner |
RP |
BO |
|
17 |
Rich Harden |
SP |
CC |
|
18 |
Reed Johnson |
OF |
CC |
|
19 |
Jamey Carroll |
2B/3B/0F |
CL |
|
20 |
Tomokazu Ohka |
SP/RP |
CL |
|
21 |
Alan Embree |
RP |
CO |
|
22 |
Jason Giambi |
1B |
CO |
|
22 |
Jason Marquis |
SP |
CO |
|
23 |
Yorvit Torrealba |
C |
CO |
|
24 |
Ramon Castro |
C |
CWS |
|
25 |
Jermaine Dye |
OF |
CWS |
|
26 |
Scott Podsednik |
OF |
CWS |
|
27 |
Adam Everett |
SS |
DE |
|
28 |
Aubrey Huff |
1B/3B |
DE |
|
29 |
Placido Polanco |
2B |
DE |
|
30 |
Fernando Rodney |
RP |
DE |
|
31 |
Jarrod Washburn |
SP |
DE |
|
32 |
Kiko Calero |
RP |
FL |
|
33 |
Brendan Donnelly |
RP |
FL |
|
34 |
Ross Gload |
1B/OF |
FL |
|
35 |
Nick Johnson |
1B |
FL |
|
36 |
Aaron Boone |
1B/3B |
HO |
|
37 |
Darin Erstad |
1B/OF |
HO |
|
38 |
Mike Hampton |
SP |
HO |
|
39 |
LaTroy Hawkins |
RP |
HO |
|
40 |
Jason Michaels |
OF |
HO |
|
41 |
Miguel Tejada |
SS |
HO |
|
42 |
Bruce Chen |
SP/RP |
KC |
|
43 |
Miguel Olivo |
C |
KC |
|
44 |
Jamey Wright |
RP |
KC |
|
45 |
Kelvim Escobar |
SP |
LAA |
|
46 |
Chone Figgins |
3B |
LAA |
|
47 |
Vladimir Guerrero |
OF/DH |
LAA |
|
48 |
John Lackey |
SP |
LAA |
|
49 |
Darren Oliver |
RP |
LAA |
|
50 |
Robb Quinlan |
1B/3B/OF |
LAA |
|
51 |
Brad Ausmus |
C |
LAD |
|
52 |
Ron Belliard |
2B |
LAD |
|
53 |
Jon Garland |
SP |
LAD |
|
54 |
Orlando Hudson |
2B |
LAD |
|
55 |
Doug Mientkiewicz |
1B |
LAD |
|
56 |
Eric Milton |
SP |
LAD |
|
57 |
Guillermo Mota |
RP |
LAD |
|
58 |
Vicente Padilla |
SP |
LAD |
|
59 |
Jim Thome |
DH/1B |
LAD |
|
60 |
Jeff Weaver |
SP |
LAD |
|
61 |
Randy Wolf |
SP |
LAD |
|
62 |
Michael Cameron |
OF |
MI |
|
63 |
Frank Catalanotto |
OF |
MI |
|
64 |
Jason Kendall |
C |
MI |
|
65 |
Felipe Lopez |
2B/3B/SS/OF |
MI |
|
66 |
Corey Patterson |
OF |
MI |
|
67 |
Joe Crede |
3B |
MN |
|
68 |
Ron Mahay |
RP |
MN |
|
69 |
Carl Pavano |
SP |
MN |
|
70 |
Mike Redmond |
C |
MN |
|
71 |
Alex Cora |
2B/SS |
NYM |
|
72 |
Carlos Delgado |
1B |
NYM |
|
73 |
Ramon Martinez |
2B/SS |
NYM |
|
74 |
J.J. Putz |
RP |
NYM |
|
75 |
Brian Schneider |
C |
NYM |
|
76 |
Bobby Crosby |
SS |
OA |
|
77 |
Justin Duchscherer |
SP |
OA |
|
78 |
Nomar Garciaparra |
1B |
OA |
|
79 |
Adam Kennedy |
2B |
OA |
|
80 |
Miguel Cairo |
IF |
PH |
|
81 |
Pedro Martinez |
SP |
PH |
|
82 |
Brett Myers |
SP |
PH |
|
83 |
Henry Blanco |
C |
SD |
|
84 |
Brian Giles |
OF |
SD |
|
85 |
Miguel Batista |
SP/RP |
SE |
|
86 |
Erik Bedard |
SP |
SE |
|
87 |
Adrian Beltre |
3B |
SE |
|
88 |
Endy Chavez |
OF |
SE |
|
89 |
Mike Sweeney |
1B/DH |
SE |
|
90 |
Bob Howry |
RP |
SF |
|
91 |
Bengie Molina |
C |
SF |
|
92 |
Brad Penny |
SP |
SF |
|
93 |
Juan Uribe |
2B/3B/SS |
SF |
|
94 |
Randy Winn |
OF |
SF |
|
95 |
Rick Ankiel |
OF |
SL |
|
96 |
Mark De Rosa |
3B |
SL |
|
97 |
Troy Glaus |
3B |
SL |
|
98 |
Khalil Greene |
SS/3B |
SL |
|
99 |
Matt Holliday |
OF |
SL |
|
100 |
Jason LaRue |
C |
SL |
|
101 |
Joel Pineiro |
SP |
SL |
|
102 |
John Smoltz |
SP |
SL |
|
103 |
Chad Bradford |
RP |
TB |
|
104 |
Troy Percival |
RP |
TB |
|
105 |
Russ Springer |
RP |
TB |
|
106 |
Joaquin Benoit |
RP |
TE |
|
107 |
Hank Blalock |
3B |
TE |
|
108 |
Marlon Byrd |
OF |
TE |
|
109 |
Eddie Guardado |
RP |
TE |
|
110 |
Andruw Jones |
OF |
TE |
|
111 |
Ivan Rodriguez |
C |
TE |
| 112 |
Omar Vizquel |
SS |
TE |
|
113 |
John McDonald |
3B/SS |
TO |
|
114 |
Kevin Millar |
OF178 |
TO |
|
115 |
Marco Scutaro |
2B/SS |
TO |
|
116 |
Josh Bard |
C |
WA |
|
117 |
Livan Hernandez |
SP |
WA |
|
118 |
Austin Kearns |
OF |
WA |
|
119 |
Ron Villone |
RP |
WA |
|
120 |
Dmitri Young |
1B |
WA |
Manny Ramirez Exercises $20 Milli Option & Will Return To Dodgers
I'm Back
Manny Ramirez has canceled all the off season drama this year after a down year in production and one that was marred by steroid use has exercised his $20 million contract option for 2010 and will return to the Dodgers. His agent Scott Boras informed Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti of the decision.
Ramirez hit .290 with 19 home runs and 63 RBIs in 104 regular season games. He missed 50 games while suspended for violating baseball’s drug policy. In the NL division series against St. Louis, Ramirez batted .308 with no homers and two RBI. Against Philadelphia in the NL championship series, he hit .263 with one homer and two RBI.
Even if Ramirez gets back to his 2008 numbers, I personally don’t see the Dodgers or another National League team offering the $20 million range for a guy that plays a shotty left field and will be 39 years old that season.
I wanna know who had the crystal ball when making this deal last year?
Finally
Highland Park In The House
The Los Angeles Dodgers finally popped the corks, clinching the National League West and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs with a 5-0 win over the Rockies.
They celebrated in the clubhouse by spraying sparkling wine and beer that had been hauled all over the country the past week while the magic number was stuck on one. They took the celebration out to the field to share with a sellout crowd that wouldn’t leave Dodger Stadium. Then they retreated back into the clubhouse to keep the party going.
The Dodgers will open the best-of-five Division Series by hosting the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday and Thursday. The Dodgers haven’t opened a postseason series at home since 1996. The Dodgers can’t open the playoffs against Colorado, because a team cannot open the playoffs against a Wild Card team from its division.
The Dodgers have back-to-back first-place finishes for the first time since 1977-78 after already qualifying for postseason play three of the four years that Ned Colletti has been general manager. The last time they advanced three times in a four-year span was 1963-66. Their 94 wins are the most for a Dodgers team since 1988, the last time they won the World Series.
“This is a huge step for the franchise,” owner Frank McCourt said. “I think we have the franchise back to a place where the fans know and can expect us to compete every year. I’m so grateful to the fans for their support. You could feel the energy tonight. They willed the team to victory in that seventh inning. To be leading baseball in attendance in this economy, it says a lot about our fans. This is for them.”
The Dodgers have played in 18 World Series, 8 League Championship Series and this is their 11th division title since the current format began in 1969.
“It never gets old,” said Joe Torre, who will manage in the postseason for the 14th consecutive season, tying Bobby Cox’s all-time record. “You do it with different people all the time, just to see all these men turn into little boys — it’s like what Roy Campanella said, you have to have some little boy in you to play this game and we certainly showed that tonight.”
Torre conceded that watching clinching opportunities slip away all week had become an ordeal.
“We were tight, but there’s tight, and then there’s tight,” he said. “Don Mattingly and I were talking about how tough it is to win in September with something at stake. But all year we played so well when we needed to play well. I was uptight, but they played well tonight.”
This season for the Dodgers has been about the emergence into stardom of outfielders Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, and All-Star closer Jonathan Broxton more than the name we all are familiar with Manny Ramirez.
Investigators Wrong To Seize MLB Drug List
Est. 1869
An appeals court ruled Wednesday that federal agents were wrong to seize the infamous drug list and samples of 104 Major League Baseball players who allegedly tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003.
In a 9-2 vote, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with three lower court judges who chastised investigators who had a warrant for only 10 drug test results as part of the BALCO investigation into Barry Bonds and others. The panel said federal agents trampled on players’ protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski said the players’ union had good reason to want to keep the list under wraps, citing leaks of players purportedly on the list.
“The risk to the players associated with disclosure, and with that the ability of the Players Association to obtain voluntary compliance with drug testing from its members in the future, is very high,” the judge wrote. “Indeed, some players appear to have already suffered this very harm as a result of the government’s seizure.”
Yankees star Alex Rodriguez and Red Sox slugger David Ortiz both have acknowledged being on the list, and The New York Times has reported the Dodgers’ Manny Ramirez and Sammy Sosa also could be found on it.Said Atlanta star Chipper Jones:
“It doesn’t matter now. The names are already out there in the general public. We’ve already got a number out there. It’s not going to be over until it’s all out there.”
The government seized the samples and records in April 2004. The list of 104 players said to have tested positive, attached to a grand jury subpoena, has been part of a five-year legal fight, with the players’ union trying to force the government to return what federal agents took during raids.
“This was an obvious case of deliberate overreaching by the government in an effort to seize data as to which it lacked probable cause,” Kozinski wrote.
He said the case was a significant test of the government’s search and seizure powers in the digital age, and issued guidelines for investigators to follow in future raids that included submitting computers to independent computer experts for sorting of data. Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative founder Victor Conte has long been critical of the actions of the government, especially then lead investigator Jeff Novitzky.
“I have said that Novitzky has been using illegal tactics and not following the law since the day of the BALCO raid,” Conte said. “He seems to just make up his own rules as he goes along.”
U.S. attorney spokesman Jack Gillund in San Francisco said the government was reviewing its options, which could include an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Players’ association lawyer Elliot Peters said the union was happy with the ruling but still angry that names of several players allegedly on the list have been leaked to journalists.
“The leaks were crimes,” Peters said. “The people who committed the crimes should be investigated and punished.”
Peters declined to say whether he asked a federal judge to look into leaks from the list.
“If the government hadn’t unconstitutionally seized this in the first place, there wouldn’t have been any leaks,” Peters said.
The list’s genesis goes back six years, to the time when an agreement between MLB and the players’ association on drug policing was just being implemented.In 2003, baseball conducted survey drug testing — without penalties. Each player provided a urine sample and an additional follow-up five-to-seven days later. Up to 240 players could be selected randomly for additional testing.Two companies were involved, Comprehensive Drug Testing Inc. of Long Beach, Calif., and of Teterboro, N.J., and samples were marked with codes to keep track as they were processed.
The players’ association said it first received the results of the initial round of drug testing on Nov. 11, 2003, and sent a memo on the subject to its members on Nov. 14. Promptly thereafter, union head Donald Fehr has said the first steps to begin destroying the testing materials and records were taken.
But on Nov. 19, the union learned a federal grand jury subpoena had been issued for some of the test results and records as part of the BALCO investigation and the destruction steps halted.Months of wrangling followed but federal agents finally got a search warrant and seized samples from a Quest lab in Las Vegas and records from CDT in Long Beach on April 8, 2004.
Records the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals now says the government never should have taken.
“We are very gratified by this decision, and hope that this will finally bring this long litigation to a close,” said Fehr and union general counsel Michael Weiner in a statement.
Are You Surprised Anymore??
Dirty, Dirty
The list has reawakened today on Commissioner Bud Selig’s birthday .”The list” is the names of 104 players who tested positive for steroids in 2003 has again been compromised, this time with Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz outed as users. Back in 2003, Baseball first tested for steroids and the results from that season were supposed to remain anonymous but some results have been leaked. As part of the drug agreement between the union and MLB, the results of the testing of 1,198 players also were meant to be anonymous but that has not been the case.
According to the New York Times:
The information about Ramirez and Ortiz emerged through interviews with multiple lawyers and others connected to the pending litigation. The lawyers spoke anonymously because the testing information is under seal by a court order. The lawyers did not identify which drugs were detected.
But this means more star players have been outed as cheats. Ramirez, now with the Dodgers, has already been tainted, of course, with this year’s 50-game suspension for a violation of Major League Baseball’s drug policy (he took a banned substance that masks performance-enhancing drugs). But Ortiz is another story.
Immensely popular in Boston for his clutch homers and large personality, Ortiz once said that those caught using PEDs should be suspended for a year under the current testing policy.
Ortiz said that he believes players are clean because testing is quite invasive, and if they test positive now, they should be thrown out of the game for the rest of the year. He said that players and whole teams should be tested “three or four times a year, that’s it” which he thinks would give a good reading on who is or who isn’t on steroids.
“I think you clean up the game by the testing. I test you, you test positive, you’re going to be out. Period,” Ortiz said. “If I test positive using any kind of banned substance I’m going to disrespect the game, my family, my fans and everybody. And I don’t want to face the situation so I won’t use it. I’m sure everybody is on the same page.”
As of now Ortiz, Ramirez, and Scott Boras are declining comment.
To those that want the rest of the 100 name “list” to be released, its not likely to happen. The power of the players union and the job of agents to protect the players will work to keep the rest of “the list” sealed but will actually hurt the game more in the long run than do it any good. They will have done their job with there clients best interest in mind, that is until his name is revealed.
Surprised? No. Disappointed? Yes.
