No Mod Required

First there was the Mitchell Report and now there's the unquestionably sleazy accusation that he had an affair with country singer Mindy McCready that begain when McCready was 15. FIFTEEN! I don't have a high opinion of Clemens as a person or a great belief in his intellect, but this surprises me.

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.

Sources: Roger Clemens had 10-year fling with country star Mindy McCready

The David Ortiz jersey buried in the new Yankee Stadium is up for auction on eBay. There are 198 bids and the price is at more than $69,000 (as of this writing), with the proceeds going to The Jimmy Fund. I'll be interested to see where it ends up. It's a fantastic story and this is a great piece of oddball memorabilia related to one of the great rivalries in sports.

Ortiz "Yankees Curse" Jersey to benefit the Jimmy Fund

In the next ten or so days we have:

• The Boston Marathon One of the world's great sporting events takes place in my back yard I love the Marathon and this year my girlfriend and I are going to watch it from the course together, which is a first. We're heading to Heartbreak Hill to watch the elites and hopefully catch sight of Lance Armstrong before heading home for a little relaxation. Should be an awesome day.
• The Red Sox playthe Texas Rangers on the very same day. The annual Patriot's Day game has an early morning, 11:00 AM start time. Since the Marathon course goes right through Kenmore square the convergence of the two events is occasionally serendipitous- the game getting out just as the elite runners are hitting the square.
• The Boston Celtics, truly great again for the first time in twenty years, open the NBA playoffs against the Atlanta Hawks. I know the NBA is hoping for the return of the dream match up to end all dream match ups- a Celtics/Lakers NBA Final.

  I'd be pretty happy with that result too <- understatement.

• Over in Europe, the spring cycling calendar continues with The Amstel Gold Race on the 20th, La Flèche Wallonne 2008 on the 23rd and Liège-Bastogne-Liège on the 27th. While they don't possess the grand drama of the grand tours, the spring classics are dependably great racing and this week of back-to-back-to-back action is an annual highlight.
• Closer to home the top American riders will all be on the start line of the Tour de Georgia. Folks like George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer, Tom Danielson, Dave Zabriskie, Chris Horner, and Bobby Julich will be vying for top honors in this challenging race through the state of Georgia.

  Of special interest, as always, will be the premier stage in all of North American cycling, the mountaintop finish atop Brasstown Bald. The nearly mile high peak brings the best out of the American climbers and adding a win atop Brasstown Bald is one of the most impressive victories a cyclist can earn on North American roads.

• Women's Marathon 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials will be held in Boston the day before the Marathon (the 20th.) I'm not sure if I can make it out but it might be a lot of fun if I'm able. How often can one say they've seen two marathons live in two days?
• The Bruins? Heck, they might even be able to pull of an upset of Les Habitants. Not that I pay much attention to hockey anymore, but I know some people that do, so I've got to shout out the Bs
• Chelsea play Manchester United on April 26th. A game which could decide the Premier League. Fun times.

Did I miss anything? Even if I did that's enough to keep me entertained and my DVR in good shape for a while. Good times.

From the landing page:

The uproar over the use of what are generically known as "PEDs" (performance-enhancing drugs) has become so clamorous that it is drowning out those few sources seeking to convey the facts about these matters. Great numbers of assertions that are dubious or demonstrably wrong are being parroted by a seemingly endless parade of individuals and entities all of whom have manifestly done no actual research into the matters on which they so loudly, and usually savagely, declaim. This situation has been sorely exacerbated by the recent release of the so-called "Mitchell Report", in which most of those dubious and false assertions have been embalmed as they were self-evident axioms. The purpose of these pages is to methodically dissect those claims and assumptions and compare each with what is actually known about it.

Lest this degenerate into what lawyers call a "he said/she said" controversy, I have taken great care throughout to support each analysis made here with extensive citations, most or all of a scholarly nature. The vast majority of pontification on PEDs has consisted of the ignorant quoting the ignorant; here, nothing is cited as support unless it comes from a dispassionate, scientific examination. In each case, I give not only the citation and a relevant quotation, but a link direct to the source, so that the full context is clear.

The point of these pages is not to advocate this or that policy or point of view, but to provide a comprehensive look at the facts in these issues, so that those who want to decide policies or adopt points of view can at least do so from a sound basis. The house whose foundation timbers are wormy is not safe to stand in. These pages are vermicide.

Read more:

Steroids, Other "Drugs", and Baseball

I'm especially warmed by the idea of Paris-Nice and Boston Red Sox spring training in Fort Myers.

One (spring training) I've been to and completely love. Sitting in the hot Florida sun surrounded by a field of green and the giant palms in the outfield is where it's at.

Speaking of which, here are some photos from 2004:

Jason Varitek

City of Palms Park

The other- I'd simply love to witness. Especially in a year like this when the winter has already beaten me down with frigid temperatures and feet of snow. Just thinking back to Contador's attack last year in that clear southern French sun warms my winter assaulted heart

Yeah!

It was kind of inevitable given the season he had, but it's still cool to see the award, er, awarded. He was so solid from May on and his 12 pitch at bat against Gagne was one of the really memorable moments from a magical season.

Watching Jacoby Ellsbury(next year's ROY?) and Pedroia bat 1-2 in the Red Sox lineup should be fun for years to come.

BOSTON — Back on May 1, when Dustin Pedroia was hitting .182, it would have been hard to imagine that just a few months later that he'd be taking home an award for his excellence.

But Pedroia never lost confidence in himself, and neither did Red Sox manager Terry Francona.

The diminutive second baseman just kept swinging, and his determined approach culminated in the American League Rookie of the Year Award on Monday. Pedroia became the first Red Sox player to win the trophy since Nomar Garciaparra did so in 1997.

The Official Site of Boston Red Sox: News: Boston Red Sox News

Let some other team take him and his empty numbers.

While I'm happy as hell that they won last night I've got the ph34r in me that they will be tempted by the gaudy numbers of one Alex Rodriguez.

Red Stockings, please don't buy into it.

Please!

Just re-sign Mike Lowell and let the can't win*, stat hound, baby go play somewhere else. Seriously! Who would you rather have, a guy whose biggest playoff moment is slapping a ball out of Bronson Arroyo's hand out of spite because he failed to do anything with his bat or a World Series MVP like Mike Lowell? I swear to god I will take the next couple of summers off if they sign A-Rod. I'm serious. I can do it now that they've won a couple of times. I've got cycling to watch for a sporting fix and I can just enjoy the outdoors a little more. I'd rather have that than to sit through them pandering to the bloated stats of the heartless wonder. What did he do down the stretch? 1-infinity? He was mad cold when it counted. Theo, keep that in mind when you look at those fancy numbers.

Fuck that guy.

Buster Olney knows:

The way this played out could not have been more apropos, because A-Rod needs to be bigger than the game; he needs to be more important than the Red Sox or the Rockies or any other team, or any other player. He is one of the greatest players in history at compiling statistics, the greatest ever at compiling wealth, and his next employer will have to buy into that. The World Series can't matter as much as A-Rod.

…

Somebody will buy into A-Rod, of course. He's an extraordinary player. The cost will be hundreds of millions, and the heart and soul, of his next franchise.

A-Rod upstages the World Series

*Lowell has two rings.

For the time being at least:

Twitter / rob_react

(I'm home watching the game alone and IMing with my girfriend who is lucky enough to be at the game, so I figure I might try twittering a live event. Just to see what the stream looks like when/if I give up.)

[edited to add]

And I never gave up. That was fun for me and now I've got a fine little log of my thoughts.

As in:

• Mike Lowell
• Bob Tewksbury
• Tim Wakefield
• Fred Lynn*
• Carl Everett
• Tom Bolton
• Reggie Jefferson
• Wes Gardner

I thank you, oh wise and wonderful internet, for your time.

*Lynn is actually a city, not a town. But, I'm not being crazy picky on this point. Cities. Towns. Villages? All the same in terms of my query.