Category: MLB General

All right, I can’t take it anymore. I get home from work and all I want to do is put on SportsCenter and catch up on the day in sports. But no, this can’t happen any more, not since Jose Canseco had to write his ridiculous book. I don’t care if it is true or not, the man has ruined my sports watching.

All I want to do is turn on ESPN or Fox Sports and be able to see an hour of what’s going on in the sports world. I sit behind a desk all day thinking of what I can do to prevent myself from going insane. Sports is my salvation, my equalizer — but ever since Canseco’s book and “60 Minutes” interview it seems that is all that is going to be on the sports shows. So now I often find myself watching a show like E! TV’s “101 Reasons why the 90’s ruled.” This is the best example I have that I am losing my sanity because of this steroid controversy.

        Let me just get this out of the way right now: I’m a big juice fan.  Always have been.  It started with apple juice when I was younger, then I later moved on to orange juice, and finally to cranberry.  So when I found out that my favorite baseball player of all-time was writing a book titled “Juiced”, I was thrilled.  I innocently assumed that Jose Canseco was joining the juice/health/low-carb/tofu/styrofoam craze that’s been sweeping the nation, coming at it from the creepy Jack LaLanne juice-and-smoothie angle.  Jose had always been careful about what he put in his body, so this book idea only made sense.  At least that’s what passed for my defense of him until recently.
 

For most, the implications of steroids in professional sports are a simple issue. They’re bad, those who use them are bad, those who produce them are bad, and it’s just that simple. They don’t know of any complications and, more importantly, they don’t want to; they’d rather just assume the worst. Unfortunately, in the world of sports (and incidentally, the world of drugs) there are no clear-cut issues.

As sports fans, we all have that memory of that one game we went to when we were kids.  We’ll tell the story a million times, and each time we’ll rememeber it as if it were yesterday

ESPN has been reporting for the past couple days that Sammy Sosa, the Chicago Cubs slugger, is on the verge of being traded to the Baltimore Orioles, pending Bud Selig’s approval and Sosa passing a physical. There was also mention that Sosa has a no-trade clause in his contract, but he was expected to waive that. One other condition was that the Cubs would have to pay $10 million of Sosa’s contract this season. A big reason why the O’s jumped on this trade.

Baseball, football, and basketball all have their similarities.  They are all team sports pitting one fierce rival against another.  The main objective in each of the sports is to outscore your opponents.  All three of the sports offers a chance for world class athletes to make their living playing the sport that they love and live for.

I can’t think of too many things that would be sweeter than being a professional baseball player, but one of them would definitely be being a professional baseball player and living in the Caribbean paradise of Aruba.

Then again, if you believe Baltimore Orioles pitcher Sidney Ponson, maybe it’s not so sweet at all.

by Trevor Freeman

He used to be one of my favorite baseball players.  The king of the three-run Jimmy Jack.  Leader of the Oakland clubhouse.

The last 8 champions of baseball’s World Series were the best team in baseball.

Write that down; cement it.

Whether it’s the Red Sox’s or the Cardinals’, one relatively lengthy World Series title drought is sure to end. This gives up to us in Chicago. And if not, there’s always college football.