The name might have changed but the person behind it has remained the same. Yeah, right. So without further ado, let’s get on with…..

Melky Cabrera, suspended for 50 games for elevated level of testosterone, has asked the MLBPA to remove his name from consideration for the batting title. Bud Selig agreed and suspended Rule 10.22 (a).

For those that don’t know the rule, here it is:

Rule 10.22 (a) allows players who failed to accumulate the minimum plate appearances to win the batting crown provided that their average would lead the league even if they went hitless through their 502nd plate appearance.

Who says you can’t get a 2^nd chance? Adam Greenberg says you can. Yesterday, after seven years and three months, after getting beaned in the head on the first pitch he faced on July 5, 2005, against de Valerio de los Santos, Adam faced R.A. Dickey and struck out. He really isn’t about the strikeout, its that fact that it too so long to return to the major leagues. After the incident, with Santos, Adam had severe headaches, double vision, post-concussion syndrome and nausea. The Marlins had offered Greenberg a one-day contract which Adam donated to the Marlins Foundation, which in-turn donated it to the Sports Legacy Institute, an organization that advances study, treatment and prevention of the effects of brain trauma in athletes and other at-risk groups.

Congratulations to Cincinnati Reds pitcher Homer Bailey who pitched a no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

What has happened to the Pirates? On August 8^th, they were 63-47, and playing the best baseball Pittsburgh has played in 15 years, then boom, 13-36, and another disappointing season for the fans.

Let’s pray for Chuck Pagano, the Indianapolis Colt’s coach who was diagnosed with a treatable form of leukemia. Chuck has acute myeloid leukemia, where the bone marrow is producing abnormal white blood cells that interfere with healthy blood cells.

Let me get this straight. The United States is up 10-6 with one day left to play in the Ryder Cup. Oh its in the bag right?? WRONG!!! The US loses to Europe in the greatest comeback ever for the visitors by winning 14½ - 13½. No words could describe what happened as it was happening. Couldn’t someone have a black cat run across the hole as one of the Europeans putted (kind of like the black cat that did the Mets in a long time ago). Oh well, better luck next time.

Congrats to Miguel Cabrera on winning the AL Triple Crown. It is an awesome achievement.

Congrats to the Yankees, Tigers, Athletics, Nationals, Reds, and Giants on winning their Division and the Orioles, Rangers, Braves and Cardinals on making the playoffs.

This most disappointing team in baseball is the Angel’s. I am surprised they haven’t big ripped a new asshole by the sports writers. If it was the Yankees they would have pounced on them months ago. Just stating the facts.

Til Next time

Scott

Everywhere, there were sounds of praise after it was announced that Melky Cabrera would no longer be eligible to win the 2012 National League batting title. The people stood and applauded louder when it became known that Cabrera himself asked Major League Baseball and the Players' Association to waive a rule that would have granted him one additional hit-less at-bat, and thus the batting title.

I stayed in my seat.

Certainly, the request by Cabrera came as a surprise to most fans. Most of us had resigned ourselves to the fact that a convicted cheater would take home the NL batting crown. After all, he had the advantage of being able to sit on his .346 average while the competition behind him, Andrew McCutchen (.338) and Buster Posey (.335) would need a huge surge in order to catch him. Instead, Cabrera and his agent requested that rule 10.22a be waived in this circumstance. And then everything could be flowers and rainbows again in the world of Major League Baseball.

But did you catch that one piece that makes me doubt Cabrera's contrition?

That's right, Cabrera made the request, with his agent through the Players' Association. Contrition aside, I smell a rat.

Let's look at the evidence of the past here, just for a minute. Cabrera was suspended for 50-games on August 15th after a positive test for synthetic testosterone. He initially appealed the suspension and tried to build a case for himself by having an associate set-up a fake website and supplement product that he could attribute his positive test to. When his plan started to fall through, he removed his appeal before anything went public and then announced he was accepting his punishment by admitting to making a poor decision.

So pardon me if I am a bit skeptical that everything is on the up and up here.

Here we have a player in Cabrera that has two strikes against him; one for testing positive for a banned substance and one for trying to circumvent the appeals process by fabricating evidence. He fouled off strike three by dropping his appeal and admitting to his crime, but he was still in the hole 0-2 without a clue on how to stay alive on the next pitch.

By forfeiting the batting title, Cabrera is trying to put the ball into play. Even if it makes an out, he's hoping it is enough that his actions during the case are not so damning that they impact his appeal as a free agent this winter.

That's right, I'm coming right out and saying that this maneuver is simply a marketing campaign. Melky wants to rebuild his image so that he is not left out in the cold this winter. Even though he has likely forfeited $50+ million in salary, Cabrera still needs to give teams a glimpse that they should take a flyer on him and hope he is a changed man. This move is nothing more than playing politics.

Now it just comes down to who drinks the milk and gives him what he wants. Someone is bound to do it, but buyer beware, this product is sour.

In a three-legged race, the secret to victory is unison. All three components must work simultaneously in order for victory to be had. Otherwise, the racer(s) fall flat on their face. You also need to rely on your opponents to suffer a misstep or two.

A batting Triple Crown is not much different. For a hitter to achieve the glory of leading the league in batting average, home runs, and runs batted in, the stars have to align just right. The hitter cannot sacrifice power for average or vice-versa. The hitter must also be given ample opportunities to bat with runners on base ahead of him and do more than play situational baseball.

Every at-bat counts for something. It is either a cashed in chip or a wasted opportunity.

For Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers, this piece of baseball immortality is well within grasp. With two of the legs already in his command (batting average - .333, and RBI – 130), and the trailing Josh Hamilton of the Rangers by just 1 home run, Cabrera knows he cannot afford to slip up one bit. Mike Trout is fast on his heels in the batting race and his Detroit Tigers, who trail in the AL Central by 2 games and in the Wild Card by 5 games, will need his bat to stay hot throughout the final two weeks.

Of course, there should be no Triple Crown conversation without mentioning the man who was the last to perform the feat; Carl Yazstremski.

Now, talking about Yaz may just be my way of grasping at any positive way I can find to talk about the Red Sox, but it needs to be noted just how tough of a task it was for him.

Like Cabrera, Yaz found himself not only carrying the weight of the Triple Crown race on his shoulders, but also that of a division race. Then again, in 1967 Yaz and the Red Sox were not fighting for one of three division titles or one of two Wild Card slots. Rather, they were competing against the entire American League for the sole postseason spot from the AL, but I digress.

Also like Cabrera, Yaz had to fight off some solid competition to claim the three legs of the Triple Crown. Yazstremski hit a robust .417 in September to win the batting title, finishing at .326 with Frank Robinson, who won the Triple Crown in 1966, finishing with a .311 mark.

On the home run side, Yaz popped 9 home runs out during the final month of the season to finish with 44 home runs. However, Twins slugger Harmon Killebrew hit 10 of his own in the month of September, tying Yaz on the second to last day of the year. For the season, Carl’s consistent home run stroke was what allowed him to grab his share of the title. Outside of April, when he hit just 2 home runs out of the gate, Yaz hit 8 in each May, June, and July, and then hit 9 each in August and September. Killebrew’s 2 home runs in August likely cost him the chance to steal the title from Yazstremski.

For the final leg, Yaz again had to withstand Killebrew to win the RBI title. Yazstremski would finish with 121, buoyed by driving home 20 or more runs from May until September, including 10 in his last 5 games of the season. Again, the slump in August hurt Killebrew, who finished with a solid 113 RBI’s of his own.

It is of greater interest to see the names that Yazstremski had to best for his crown. The aforementioned Robinson and Killebrew were just the tip of the iceberg. Other greats like Al Kaline, Rod Carew, Tony Oliva, and Frank Howard also line the American League leader boards in 1967.

Of course, the final note of interest is the fact that Yazstremski was named Most Valuable Player at the end of the 1967 season. However, the Triple Crown was not enough to garner him a unanimous selection. Someone felt it necessary to give Cesar Tovar of the Twins a single MVP vote. Tovar of course put up the phenomenal batting line of .267 with 6 home runs and 47 RBI for a .691 OPS, which was obviously comparable to Yaz’s mark of 1.040.

But it is the fact that Yaz won the MVP as a reward for the Triple Crown that is truly important in this discussion. Will fate be as kind to Miguel Cabrera?

"No, I think it’s a blemish for them. They (Cabrera and Colon) didn’t honor the system. The system is there. There’s nothing wrong with the system. They didn’t honor the system. The blemish is theirs, not the system’s. That’s the way I look at it. I don’t feel sorry for anybody doing that stuff when you’ve been told. I mean, what do you want? What’s not self-explanatory about it?"

-          Jim Leyland

For those who have been living under a rock for the past week, Leyland is referring to Melky Cabrera and Bartolo Colon, both of whom received 50-game suspensions from Major League Baseball after testing positive for synthetic testosterone.  Both players will now miss the remainder of the regular season, plus any applicable post season games should their teams (San Francisco and Oakland) make the playoffs, and let’s face facts, both have a legitimate chance.

Of course, both have accepted their punishments, admitting to their wrong-doing. For Cabrera that admittance may have only come after his smoke and mirrors play was ultimately exposed, but I digress. Both players are out and both teams have to compensate for significant departures while in the heat of the postseason push.

But this is not about Cabrera and Colon, the cheats that they are. This is about the system that is in place to catch these guys and how, as Leyland aptly implied above, that system is doing its job. Believe me, if there is a guy you want advocating for your cause, it is Jim Leyland.

That is not to say that Leyland is the utmost expert on the subject of steroid testing and its effectiveness, but he makes a good point. When players get backed into the corner and have either accept their guilt or try to swindle the system into believing they are, then something is being done correctly.

Let’s look at the evidence for a minute.

In all, five different players have tested positive and have received suspensions from Major League Baseball in 2012, more than the last two seasons combined.  The first was Guillermo Mota of the San Francisco Giants, who got a 100 game ban on May 7^th after violating the rule for the second time in his career. Then on June 19^th, Freddy Galvis of the Philadelphia Phillies received 50 games. Marlon Byrd, by then a free agent after being released by the Boston Red Sox, received his 50 games on June 25^th. Then the hammer dropped on Cabrera and Colon on August 15^th and 22^nd respectively.

Mota tested positive for Clenbuterol, the same drug that Alberto Contador tested positive for and ultimately cost him the Tour De France title in 2010. Galvis was suspended for using Clostebol, an anabolic steroid. Byrd was found to have used Tamoxifen, a drug used in hormone therapy related to estrogen.

That is a fairly wide variety of substances. From guys wanting to be manlier to wanting to be chicks, nothing is seemingly escaping the MLB testing program. Short of the Ryan Braun debacle and the slow movement on the HGH testing front, it is hard to find fault with the program in general.

Right?

Well, I guess that can’t be completely true. The sheer fact that these players, two of them somewhat prominent, still trying to fleece the system despite the increased testing may indicate that there is still more that can be done. Victor Conte, the mad implicated in the BALCO scandal that blew the doors off of the drug culture in baseball, indicates that a Carbon Isotope Ratio test is more conclusive than the current T/E Ratio test that Major League Baseball currently favors. The CIR test can pick up synthetic testosterone in the system up to two weeks after the last usage.

And of course, then there is HGH, which MLB will start testing for in the spring, but not during the regular season. Long the thorn in the side of professional sports, HGH will now join the other chemicals in the testing program, which will also now include offseason testing for the first time this season.

So, is it a fool-proof system? No, it is not. However, MLB has shown time and again that it has learned its lessons from its biggest mistake. It has the strongest testing program in professional sports and as it continues to get cooperation from the Players’ Union, it will continue to do so.

We may continue to see more names come up, but if things work out for the best, we shouldn’t.

The chase to 4,000 hits?? Melky stupid?? Women in Augusta?? Roger pitching?? All this and more in this “buring” edition of…..

Phyllis Diller passed away at the age of 95.

Its hot as hell outside (it was 101 degrees) and your going to sit on a black marble bench that is obviously hot. What do you think is going to happen? You guessed it. You burnt your butt. Jennelle Carrillo, two years after the incident, decided to sue the Dallas Cowboys and owner Jerry Jones because she suffered third-degree burns to her backside.

Your batting .346 with 11 home runs and 60 RBIs, the MVP of the All-Star game and then you test positive for testosterone. What else could go wrong?

It looks like Melky Cabrera paid $10,000 to have someone create a fake website that would show he had bought a substance and didn’t know it was banned to avoid his 50-game suspension. It was uncovered by MLB investigators.

Melky should be banned for 200 games.

In a move that was long overdue, Augusta National Golf Club, will admit Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore to the former all-male club in October.

Derek Jeter is now 1,000 hits away from Pete Rose. Jeter is 38 and has played for 18 years. He averages 207 hit’s a year. Do you think he has a chance to break Pete Rose’s record?

So Roger Clemens is going to pitch for the Sugar Land Skeeters, an independent Atlantic League team. What’s the motive? Does he want to make a comeback? IS he doing it for the $$$. Or, is he doing it because he is bored??? Only Roger knows what’s going on inside his brain. If he does pitch his name will be removed from next years Hall Of Fame Ballot with the likes of Sosa and Bonds on the ballot.

DeSean Jackson is telling everyone that he did not give it his all last year so that he wouldn’t get hurt before he could sign a new contract. Really! You sure it wasn’t just a shitty year for you so you needed an excuse? Now you have your new contract and your going to give it all you got. What happens, DeSean, when you miss a pass, or a pass is slightly overthrown. Will it be because you didn’t give it your all?

It made for interesting buzz around the NFL when cameras showed Andy Reid and defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins having a “friendly discussion, up close and personal” during a game against the New England Patriots. Is this a sign of things to come with the Eagles?

Congratulations go to Will Lucas who tossed a no-hitter in a Little League World Series game in South Williamsport, Pa.

All right. Tell the truth. How many of you tried this at home?? I know I did!!

Tell Next Time

Scott