Joe Torre, longtime manager of the New York Yankees, released a memoir last week discussing the ups and downs of his stint in the Big Apple.
His book, "The Yankee Years," chronicles the challenges of navigating baseball's most storied franchise while dealing with the egos of superstars Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, George Steinbrenner and the sport's most critical fans. He documented the trouble of team chemistry and the nicknames in the locker room. Rodriguez, who had been penned as A-Rod by the SportsCenter staff, earned the nickname A-Fraud from his teammates.
Sure, the sports world already knew about Giambi's doping, but not A-Rod's. Evidently, Torre wasn't aware, either.
In a story released Saturday morning on SI.com, 104 professional baseball players could see their names printed on a list of players who failed drug tests for anabolic steroids. According to the story, the anonymous tests were performed to evaluate A-Rod's failed test in 2003. The New York Times also broke the story.
Does it ever end? Twice in one week, two icons in American sports have had their reputations destroyed by drugs. The widely published photo of Michael Phelps taking a bong hit has resulted in a three-month suspension from the USA men's swim team, as well as losing several endorsement deals.
At least Phelps was accountable for his actions. Since the story's release, Rodriguez has appeared in front of Katie Couric to deny his usage of steroids.
He can't be serious. He also must not know what sports media sharks like ESPN do to doped players who have been ousted.
Look at Roger Clemens -- a surefire Hall-of-Famer until Sen. George Mitchell released his report on the probe into the prevalence of performance-enhancing substances in baseball. In the infamous Mitchell Report, Clemens' name was the third-most ubiquitous: a whopping 82 references. According to SI.com, Jose Canseco, author of "Juiced," and Barry Bonds were mentioned more frequently. Clemens has been on the interview circuit, trying to clear his name while just burying himself deeper in the public opinion.
A federal grand jury has reconvened to hear the allegations of perjury Clemens has against him.
Next, look at Barry Bonds -- the all-time leader who holds the single-season record for home runs. Bonds is also embroiled in a perjury trial after claiming he did not knowingly use performance-enhancing substances, and a public-relations nightmare. The day after Bonds hit his record-setting 756th home run of his career, sports writers around the country were obligated to declare the official end of baseball as America's pastime.
Bonds, Clemens and Rodriguez should summon the appropriate accountability to admit that even having their names uttered in the same breath as "steroids" is a damnable offense.
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Five, Mr. Woody says that after Bonds broke the home run record that sports writers were “obligated to declare the official end of baseball as America's pastime.†Kindly explain, then, why MLB set an attendance record the next year. Six, Selig cannot unilaterally set steroid policy. The player’s has to accede to it in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement. Seven, when A-Rod apparently took steroids, there was no formal testing regime and no sanctions against players. You can’t ban A-Rod or any other player retroactively. Mr. Woody should be embarrassed for writing this and the CT similarly embarrassed for publishing it. Stick with what you guys know – ridiculous attacks on anyone who isn’t two time zones to the left of Hawaii.
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This is one of the worst opinion pieces I think the CT has ever published in terms of accuracy. One, the NYT didn’t “also break†the A-Rod story. SI broke it; the NYT and other outlets reported it AFTER SI did. Two, I could only find that Kellogg’s failed to renew its endorsement deal with Michael Phelps. As far as I can see, he didn’t lose the “several endorsement deals†this article claims. Three, the Katie Couric interview to which this crap refers took place in December of 2007, not “since the story's release.†Four, A-Rod came clean at about 2:30 p.m. on Monday. Maybe this was after Mr. Woody wrote this column, but it was certainly well before the CT published it.
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First of all, Phelps didn't ruin his career by taking a bong rip. Pot isn't exactly performance enhancing, and all true sports fans realize and aknowledge this. As far as A-roid and the other 104 MLB players who tested positive in 03-04...Does that really suprise anyone? Have you seen the size of these atheletes today? Yes, we have enhanced training regimes, weights, diets, but also enhanced PEDs. Look around at the atheletes in MLB, NFL, and NBA...Just is not natural.
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I would go out on a limb and guess that 40-50% of all current NFL players have or are using PEDs (illegal ones). Also, have you seen the size of some NBA players, not height but physique....DWIGHT HOWARD? THe guy looks like he was carved outta stone. NATURAL? Doubt it. I'll give Lebron benefit that he's never doped just cause he's looked like a man since he was 17. On a last note, do you think this isn't happening at VT or other universities? You're crazy if you think not. Why would you not take PEDs when you're not testing nearly as vigourously as pro sports and increase your chances substantially of making it to the next level, and having the ability to retire when you're 34? Sounds crazy to me why you wouldn't.
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Photographic evidence was once considered to be proof positive of an event. However, the advent of digital image editing programs has made it harder to trust what you see in a picture. Photoshop, the leading image editor on the market, is often used to make sneaky edits or even outright fake images that can be difficult to detect. However, there are some online forensics tools that may help you on this, like: <a href="http://www.pskiller.com/">Photoshopped Image Killer</a>.
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