Month: February 2010
Reyes subpoenaed in case against HGH doctor
Apparently, Mets shortstop Jose Reyes was subpoenaed in the case of Canadian Dr Anthony Galea. Galea, who is not licensed to practice in the U.S. is under investigation for smuggling HGH into the country.
Reyes isnāt the only one to be subpoenaed. The list is long and the athletes on it are quite high-profile. At this point though, Reyes is the only baseball player whose name has come to light:
The doctor’s client list is elite; it includes Tiger Woods, U.S. Olympic swimmer Dara Torres, Broncos quarterback Chris Simms, former Browns running back Jamal Lewis, Mets shortstop Jose Reyes and Donovan Bailey of Canada, who won the 100 meters at the 1996 Olympics.
All the athletes, of course, deny using HGH or any performance enhancing substances provided by Galea.
What does this mean for Reyes? Assuming heās innocent (a prudent assumption until other evidence comes to light), it will be a distraction and depending how long this lasts, at a critical time in the pre-season. It can only delay his season development with the Mets.
Reyes has already met with the FBI who came to the Port St Lucie spring training grounds. And when federal officials start visiting ballparks, the media is right behind them. Not just the normal sports media but news media, too.
If youāre wondering, Reyes went on record denying any involvement with HGH:
"They asked me if he injected me with that. I say ‘No,’" Reyes said. "What we do there, basically, he took my blood out, put it in some machines, spin it out and put it back in my leg. So I explained to them that."
Now Tiger Woods, this is the kind of distraction he probably needs.
European ball parks
This is a rather unusual and interesting project by Mister Baseball, a blog that bills itself as āAll about Baseball and Softball in Europeā. Heās collecting photographs of baseball parks and fields in Europe.
Not surprisingly, Iām not finding too many huge stadiums save for the Neptunus Familiestadion in Rotterdam, Netherlands which hosted the 2005 World Cup. That one is comparable to a decent sized college field.
A nice collection of photos. Take a look.
Twitter’s not for ‘Prime Rib’ Lou
On the heels of the news that Ozzie Guillen is giving Twitter a try, Cubs skipper Lou Piniella is weighing in on his take on the micro-blogging tool.
Seems like Lou probably wonāt be using it anytime soon. When it comes down to it, Louās a pretty old-school, meat and potatoes kind of guy.
”No, no, no, no, no,” he said. ”First of all, I don’t know how to Twitter, and second of all I’m not going to learn how to Twitter.
”I’m really not a Facebook or Twitter guy. I’m a prime rib and baked potato.”
Errr. Lou must have been pretty hungry at the time.
Ozzie Guillen gone all Tweetin’ on us
At least thatās the rumor. You never know with celeb-types if these things are real but itās been picked up by the mainstream media so it HAS to be legit, RIGHT? <—— <sarcasm>
But seriously, this one appears to be the real thing. As to the content of Guillenās tweets, nothing too majorly earth-shattering. Things like:
Yessss nice day let’s go to work
and
I feel nice and relax today I don’t know why yeeessssssss carlos quentin and rios in camp b ready people
Guillen on twitter is appropriately, all the buzz on twitter right now. If you think of it, Twitter is just the thing for the outspoken Guillen. How MLB will moderate him will be the big internal issue, Iām sure.
Apparently, Kenny Williams is already unhappy with Guillenās idea of tweetinā.
If you twitter, you can find Guillen tweeting @ozzieguillen.
Astros fan goes to a better place
This story is a bit of a tear-jerker. Sister Damian Kuhn, a Catholic nun as well as a devout Astros fans, passed away at the age of 89.
She certainly did have a sense of humor:
āShe was our No. 1 fan, and she always took it personal,ā recalled (Astros owner Drayton) McLane. He told her it was time to start praying.
After a long sigh, she replied, āDrayton, my knees are bloodied. It’s going to take more than that!ā
Award named for Olerud; 2010 College HOF inductees chosen
John Olerud got an award named after him yesterday.
The College Baseball Foundation announced today the creation of the John Olerud Two-Way Player of the Year Award to be presented annually as part of the College Baseball Awards Show.
Olerud (right) who is now a member of the College Baseball Hall of Fame, was a pitcher and first baseman, and a pretty good one at that, with Washington State University in the years 1987-1989.
Speaking of the College Baseball HOF, the 2010 inductees have been chosen. Leading the way was former Met Dave Magadan who hit .525 as a senior for the Crimson Tide. That was 1983, the year he was Baseball Americaās Player of the Year.
Also on the list:
Alan Bannister from Arizona State. He was a .355 career hitter.
George Sisler (you might have heard of him): He hit .445 his sophomore year and .451 his senior year for Michigan.
B.J. Surhoff who played for North Carolina from 1983-1985. Career BA of .392.
Others include: Bob Bennett (Fresno State, coach 1977-2002), Eddy Furniss (LSU, 1995-1998), Don Heinkel (Wichita State, 1979-1982), Charles Teague (Wake Forest, 1947-1950) and Richard Wortham (Texas, 1973-1976).
The induction ceremony will take place on July 1.
The effect of International MLB players
Thereās a new study out confirming that Major League Baseball teams increase their fan base and their ticket revenue by having international players on their rosters.
Perhaps itās a no-brainer but this study from the University of Michigan spells it out and does the math for us. The research was done over the years 1985-2005. While there was initial prejudice at first, fans warmed up to international players and by end, there was shift to the polar opposite, that is, a slight prejudice towards teams without international players.
To put numbers on it, each international player added to an MLB team could mean over a half million in ticket sales based on 2000 data.
The preference peaked in 2000 when each international player added approximately $595,632 to ticket sales, the study showed. The average MLB team that season showed 10.8 foreign-born players on its roster and garnered an average of $6 million in additional revenue, the paper said.
Of course, if these numbers just reflect ticket sales, I can only imagine what kind of effect they may have on media such as television, cable, and online advertising.
Brent Mayne getting the facts wrong and getting all the attention
If you hadnāt heard, one-time catcher and current blogger Brent Mayne has had quite a day on the Internet. Everyoneās a-Twitter about the catcher who was pretty much unknown outside hardcore baseball circles.
The story goes like this (now pay attention because the details are important in this story. Baseball fans wonāt let you get away with anything). Mayne went out on a limb and admitted that when JT Snow came up for his very first at-bat in the majors, Mayne told him what pitch was coming. Mayne tells us that after he told Snow that a āfastball outsideā was on its way, he smoked a double to left.
What controversial thing to say. And good for him for coming clean, right?
Except it didnāt happen.
Mayne should know better (and probably does) than to get one by baseball fans. It didnāt take long before someone posted the boxscore of JT Snowās first game. How strange that Snow was 0 for 5 in his appearance.
So either:
A) Mayne is clueless about the all-encompassing expansiveness of the Internet. Heās a former ballplayer just talking about the old days and didnāt realize that he JUST MIGHT be fact-checked.
or
B) Just the oppositeā¦ Mayne is shrewd businessman who knows how to drive traffic to his website which in turn will increase sales of his books and other products.
Iāll just give him the benefit of the doubt and say itās (A) though Iām jealous of all his web traffic for a stupid story that wasnāt true.
To be fair, Mayne has issued a correction/retraction. The article rambles and is all over the place (youāve read my stuff so you know what Iām talking about). JT Snow was āplaying for the Yanksā and he knows for sure it was ātowards the end of the seasonā. Heās even āsure it was JTā.
Heās not so sure about the double thing, though. Might have been an out or something.
Iām ready to let this thing die. Iāve given it more room on this blog than it probably deserves.
BDD’s Top Prospect Compilation
For those who want to keep up on baseball prospects, you might want to head on over to Baseball Digest Daily.
Theyāve done the tedious work of compiling the top prospect lists from many (yes, many) blogs and media outlets for each MLB division and put into one spreadsheet for to peruse.
Nice work, BDD.
If you want check it out, you can download the Excel spreadsheet from Baseball Digest Dailyās site.
Check BDD later for updates, too.