SICK AND TIRED OF STEROIDS

He's left Deadspin, but Will Leitch still surfaces on occasion.

The latest sighting of the "former blogger" and one-time target for Buzz Bissinger came Friday morning, when he penned a piece for Sporting News Today.

(By the way, if you don't get Sporting News Today sent to your mailbox every morning, you're missing out. At least 30 pages of comprehensive sports coverage, including all the late-night scores you missed because your alarm goes off at 3am or 4am every morning. Wait, that's just me.)

Leitch absolutely nailed the Ramirez story. It's on page five of the 40-page Friday issue.

Seriously, it’s time to let it go. I’m tired of it, we’re all tired of it. We’ll never really know what happened during the “Steroid Era,” who was using, who wasn’t. Some of you—most of you will be media members—will be driven mad by this fact. Most of you will not. Most of you will recognize that baseball is a sport. It’s entertainment. It’s something that can move us, touch our hearts, inspire us, connect generations. But it’s still just a bunch of guys wearing funny outfits swinging a stick and running around a square.

One of the fun things about a story like Manny Ramirez is that people who don't like sports are talking about it. Of course, they end up asking questions like "Who else in baseball is using?" and "Are you surprised?".

I almost think people are put off when I tell them that I'm not surprised.

But I'm not.

I'd like to fake some outrage at a guy like Manny. He's got all the talent in the world, a God-given ability to smack a baseball that most of us can only marvel at. He needs to take steroids/PEDs like I need to eat a half-pound burger. Same goes for most major-league players. On the list of stuff they should be consuming to keep their bodies in optimum condition, "steroids" should rest at the bottom, right behind Ho-Hos, Big Texas Cinnamon Rolls, and fried lard.

Instead, I'm just inclined to stick him in the long line of cheaters and move on with my life. Frankly, I'm more concerned about a hockey player sneaking brass knuckles into a fight against a bigger guy. That's the kind of cheating that actually affects my ability to enjoy a competition.

I'm beyond the point of watching sporting events and wondering if the athletes are juicing.

It's not that it shouldn't matter. I don't want my son choosing to play a sport and then finding out that he has to stick a needle in his ass to keep up with everyone else who is. It absolutely matters that we stop it.

But I can't do anything about it. As Leitch says at the end of his column, the only thing that can stop us from enjoying baseball is us. Same is true of any other sport. It might not be for everyone, but I just don't care about this anymore.

We all had a hand in turning our awesome sports into big businesses. We can't turn away when the participants act accordingly.

THE CREDIBILITY OF CANSECO

It seems like a blasphemous idea.

A known criminal and a known liar actually has credibility.

But it's true.

Jose Canseco, who has only decided to speak out of a personal vendetta against baseball for not employing his overrated, no-longer-viable hide, continues to find baseball's cheaters long before baseball does. How does he do it?

Well, it no longer appears that the old theory -- that Canseco was simply throwing names at the wall until they started to stick -- applies. The guy knows what he's doing.

Obviously, he knows people who deal in this crap. He's been in locker rooms with some of them. He's aware of how athletes think.

Now that he no longer cares who he offends, he can let loose.

FanHouse colleague Matt Snyder has more.

We heard tales about Roger Clemens and shrugged them off. 'This idiot doesn't know how to quit when he's ahead,' we'd say.

Enter the Mitchell Report, and Rocket personally burying himself in a clinic on how to not clear your own name.

Next up? Canseco claimed he had some "stuff" on Alex Rodriguez and that he was 90 percent sure Manny Ramirez was a user.

I'd love to nail Canseco to a wall. The problem is that he's clearly not lying. He's not "throwing names at the wall". He is naming names that he knows.

All along, we should have taken Canseco seriously. It's not our fault that we in the media didn't, but the fact of the matter is that we all dropped the ball on that.

MANNY TO STOP BEING MANNY

Huge news out of baseball, as we have our first big-time casualty of the "new" drug policy.

Sure, Rafael Palmeiro got busted a few years back, but Manny Ramirez takes this thing to a whole new level.

It will be announced later Thursday that Ramirez will be suspended 50 games for a violation of baseball's drug policy. There will be no appeal of the suspension.

Obviously, Ramirez (or "Manny", as everyone calls him) has an excuse, since everyone seems to have an excuse.

"Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was okay to give me. Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility. I have been advised not to say anything more for now. I do want to say one other thing; I've taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons. "I want to apologize to Mr. McCourt, Mrs. McCourt, Mr. Torre, my teammates, the Dodger organization, and to the Dodger fans. LA is a special place to me and I know everybody is disappointed. So am I. I'm sorry about this whole situation." – Manny Ramirez

Why is it that no one seems to ever actually be taking PEDs to cheat? It's always a mistake, an oversight, or some malicious act that leads to a positive test.

I said once on the radio that the first athlete to come out and say they knowingly and willingly took a performance-enhancing drug, and did it to gain an advantage on fellow competitors (not to recover from an injury or prevent a future injury) should be automatically inducted into that sport's Hall of Fame.

As for the Dodgers, you have to feel for them. They spent all winter laboring over bringing Manny back, and this is what they get for it. Yeah, they're 13-0 at home, and they're still a really good team. But this puts a damper on what they've accomplished so far, and with Manny out until July 3, it will be very hard for Los Angeles to keep playing at their current pace.

Luckily for them, they already lead their pathetic division by six-and-a-half games, so their magic number is down to like 42. Shouldn't be a problem for them to hold on. Not only that, but they'll have a fresh and motivated Manny for the rest of the season.

It's not all bad.

UPDATE: TWINS DEMOTE CASILLA

You may have read my baseball post on Monday. If not, you should.

In it, I mentioned that the Twins couldn't afford to wait all spring for struggling infielder Alexi Casilla to start hitting.

They're done waiting.

The Twins today sent struggling second baseman Alexi Casilla to AAA Rochester and brought up infielder Matt Tolbert.

Casilla was batting .167 (14-for-84) with one double, one triple and four RBI in 24 games for the Twins this season. He emerged with the Twins last season, batting .281 in 98 games.

In 23 games with the Red Wings, Tolbert was hitting .260 (25-for-96) with four doubles, two triples, nine RBI and one home run. He was 7-for-12 in his previous two games.

It's a good move. Casilla tends to labor mentally when he strings together poor at-bats, and he's had a lot of them lately. It's only going to kill his confidence if he goes to the bench or continues starting virtually every day when he isn't hitting.

He showed last year he can swing it. We'll see if a trip to Rochester is going to cure what ails him.

A STUNNING DISPLAY OF INCOMPETENCE

Actually, since this is the NHL we're talking about, it's not all that stunning.



The league should be ashamed of itself after this. Instead, they'll make excuses about how the Ducks wear black breezers and the puck is black.

Oh, wait. You mean they already did that?

FAVRE GETS OUT THE KNIFE

And here we go again.

Minnesota Vikings head coach Brad Childress and quarterback Brett Favre plan to meet at an undisclosed location later this week to discuss the possibility of the former Packers and Jets quarterback renouncing his retirement from the NFL to play the 2009 season with the Vikings, according to a source with direct knowledge of discussions between the two parties.

There is a mutual understanding that sometime soon thereafter Favre will decide whether to sign with the Vikings. The team would expect him to participate fully in offseason minicamps and training camps, which he missed last year with the Jets.

Favre has not been working out and declined to have surgery to repair the torn biceps tendon that plagued him the final month of last season.

The never-ending saga will probably never end. Hence calling it "never-ending", I guess.

It's as if this is all been orchestrated from Day One. The Vikings get a quarterback who might be a passable starter, but not anyone capable of exciting more than immediate family or friends. All other free agents are set aside for the sake of keeping enough salary cap room to bring in Judas.

Sadly, the only people this helps are the Packers, Bears, and Lions, all of whom have to be salivating at the prospect of baiting the old man into countless bad interceptions. Could it help the Vikings? Sure, but only if Favre is great again. After the way he closed out 2008, it's doubtful anyone would bet real money on this happening.

(Especially when the above report mentions him declining the surgery. He'd better hope Adrian Peterson carries the ball 40 times a game.)

The only person potentially hurt by this is Favre. If he comes back and it doesn't work out, he's the one who looks like an idiot. Childress simply looks like a guy who did what he could to put together a championship team, while also trying to save his own hide. While making moves with the sole motivation of saving your job is hardly noble, you have to give the guy credit for making an effort.

Meanwhile, Favre looks like a complete jackass. Nothing beats a 40-year-old man holding a grudge like a 14-year-old girl. It's not exactly behavior to be proud of, no matter the end result.

I feel real sorry for Viking fans. They spent 16 years cursing the guy and finding his flaws so they wouldn't have to appreciate him from afar. Now that everyone on the planet can see his flaws, they're going to be stuck with him for a season.

A DESTINY OF MEDIOCRITY?

The Milwaukee Brewers had a clear and obvious problem entering the 2009 season. That's going to happen when you lose horselike pitchers from the top of your starting rotation. In the end, the Brewers decided to promote from within to replace CC Sabathia, and they took a flyer on free-agent Braden Looper, hoping he wouldn't be hurt all the time like Ben Sheets could suck up the innings Jeff Suppan can't pitch anymore could give them some quality innings as the fifth starter.

The Brewers also had to build a bullpen basically from scratch, and they had to survive the first couple weeks without closer Trevor Hoffman, who had a pulled muscle.

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Twins stood pat this past offseason, hoping their young starters would continue to improve, pitch enough innings to make up for a thin bullpen, and that the offense would blossom into one of the best in the American League.

Little did they know that they'd have to survive until May 1 without All-Star catcher and franchise face Joe Mauer, who had back problems that were slow to go away.

All in all, both teams have done quite nicely. Milwaukee is 13-12, having endured an early slump and rebounded with a nice 9-4 run as they play in Pittsburgh Monday night. The Brewers are hitting much more consistently, which hopefully foretells a strong offensive season, as opposed to recent years, where the Brewers have been notoriously all-or-nothing at the dish.

J.J. Hardy is at .160/.225/.284, but he's about the only one not performing to expectations (Jason Kendall notwithstanding, and he's so good at calling games that I'll take anything he can offer with the stick). Once Prince Fielder starts hitting (he's still drawing walks like crazy, carrying his OBP over .400), the team will really get going. But I like what I'm seeing. I don't mind guys making outs, but there was never really any value put on those outs under the old regime. They'd bunt for the hell of it, and guys would be up there hacking when they should have been working counts.

Now, they're gassing opposing starting pitchers early in games, and they're getting people on base even when the hits aren't falling.

The pitching has been respectable, outside of Suppan's early meltdown and major depth issues in the bullpen. Hoffman stabilizes the back end of the pen, and it allows guys like Carlos Villanueva, Todd Coffey, and Mitch Stetter to handle lower-leverage roles.

The big keys to this team are the secondary offensive guys (Mike Cameron, Bill Hall, etc.) and pitchers like Suppan and Manny Parra. You know Fielder and Ryan Braun can swing it, but that won't matter if no one else is. Suppan and Parra have developed an annoying tendency to nibble around the strike zone, hoping to catch guys looking at borderline pitches. When it works, it's a wonderful thing, as you can sometimes force hitters to be overaggressive and stretch the zone a bit.

When it doesn't work, you walk in four runs in one inning (hi, Soup!).

The Twins are in a similar spot with regard to their record after one month. Minnesota sits at 12-13, but just two games out of first place in what's been an average division so far.

What's been surprising about this Twins team is the spotty nature of their starting pitchers. I expected more out of the group, and I think we're going to see it before too long. Scott Baker, Francisco Liriano, and Kevin Slowey are all carrying ERAs over 5.00, and the team WHIP is an unacceptable 1.43. The good news is that the bullpen hasn't been nearly as terrible as I expected, plus they get Jesse Crain back.

Plus, Mauer's return should solidify the middle of the order. As long as Alexi Casilla and Carlos Gomez fail to hit, this is a necessity. The Twins just can't handle a full season of Gomez OPSing .549 and Casilla .432 (yikes!). With few reinforcements available in Triple-A, they have to ride out the poor hitting as long as they can stand it.

Joe Crede (.225/.304/.408) has been a disappointment, but the Twins didn't sell the farm to sign him, and he's bound to improve. That said, the improvement may not happen right away, as Crede is notoriously terrible in May, for some strange reason.

Hey, at least his back has held up.

Reality suggests that neither team is much better than their records show at this point. They're both full of major holes, and while both teams are capably managed, it's hard to imagine Ken Macha (Brewers) and Ron Gardenhire (Twins) spinning enough magic to turn their capable-but-flawed clubs into 95-game winners or big-time October contenders.

They'd both do well to stay in division and/or Wild Card races well into September. The Brewers have more great young minor-league talent to look forward to, and the Twins have a new ballpark to get ready for. Both teams should continue to be just good enough to make fans think they can be better than they are.

IS OMAHA THE 12th TEAM?

There has been much talk this week about the future of the WCHA. Not only did the league vote to seek another team to join Bemidji State on the "We Want In" list, but we may have found out who that will be.

On Wednesday, Nebraska-Omaha strangely named former Nebraska football star and television commentator Trev Alberts as its athletic director, despite his complete lack of any administrative experience.

How the university chooses to blow $150,000 is none of my business whatsoever, so I will refrain from making fun of them. At least they only gave him a two-year contract.

Award-winning UMD hockey reporter Kevin Pates tracked down a report from Omaha on the hire, and it sounds like Alberts is going to start learning him some hockey right away.

Alberts has the responsibility of deciding the status of coach Mike Kemp and of helping determine where UNO hockey will play. Also up for discussion is UNO's conference affiliation.

With the right decisions, Alberts and Omaha chancellor John Christensen hope, UNO hockey can become the revenue-producing machine it was in the early years of its existence.

"It's non-negotiable, from my perspective, that hockey is successful," Alberts said. "It is a Division I sport that we must leverage. I'm committed . . . to finding and giving the necessary resources to make UNO hockey as strong as it can be."

Alberts said he wouldn't be quick to judge Kemp, the only coach in the program's 12-year history. Christensen issued a challenge for Kemp before last season, declaring that UNO should finish in the top four of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association every year.

UNO went 15-17-8 overall, including 9-13-7 in the CCHA to finish tied for seventh, and endured a program-record 14-game winless streak late in the season.

"I've told Mike Kemp that he is the hockey coach and I look forward to helping him be successful," Alberts said. "I told him to go out and recruit and tell recruits that he is the hockey coach at UNO.

"But the reality is, if you do understand how important hockey is, you can't just say it - you've got to take tangible steps to making sure that's in place. I'm not coming in here as athletic director and in two weeks firing a hockey coach. That would be disingenuous."

This all makes sense.

One of the arguments against UNO changing conferences is that the fans there respond to opponents like Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, and Notre Dame, and the response wouldn't be as great when North Dakota and Denver come to town.

However, all of this may be moot.

What people have to remember is that hockey is the only Division I sport at Nebraska-Omaha. That means the program has to be a cash cow for the athletic department. Sports like baseball, softball, and tennis aren't going to bring in enough revenue to be self-sufficient, in all likelihood. They need hockey to turn a solid profit to help everyone else stay afloat.

If the decision is made that UNO can't do better than the 6,300 or so they averaged in 2008-2009, the revenue has to come from other sources. There may be no better way of boosting hockey revenue than moving to the WCHA. The CCHA just doesn't bring in the kind of cash for their league tournament that the WCHA does, and the difference in that revenue could make all the difference for the Mavericks.

Did the WCHA ignore UNO when the program was just getting started? Yes.

Should that be held against the WCHA now? No.

UNO has proven they can play hockey at a competitive level, and they make geographic sense (certainly more than Alabama-Huntsville does). The WCHA seems committed to moving to 12 teams, and UNO is the right fit at this point in time.

With a new administration in place, this might be the perfect time to make it happen. If it works out, it could turn out to be the smartest thing Alberts could possibly do as UNO athletic director.

The WCHA will go to a pod system for conference schedule. There would be three groups of four teams, and the rotation system would take five years to complete one cycle (it takes four years for the current WCHA schedule to go through a full rotation).

The perfectly-drawn geographic pods would look as follows:

EAST
UMD
Michigan Tech
Minnesota
Wisconsin

WEST
UAA
Bemidji State
North Dakota
St. Cloud State

SOUTH
Denver
Colorado College
Minnesota State
UNO

Hopefully, Alberts, Bruce McLeod, and all the other important parties can come together quickly and hammer out a deal. It's for the good of all of college hockey.

TRIPLE OVERTIME GOODNESS

Not a hockey game, unfortunately.

Even 24 hours after its start, the Bulls-Celtics game still reverberates. The triple-overtime thriller will be long remembered as one of the best NBA playoff games in eons.

The obvious issues with the NBA, including the assinine number of timeouts that are taken late in games and then in overtime. Officiating is inconsistent to the point that it makes the NHL look consistent.

None of that mattered on Thursday. The crowd in Chicago was as much a part of it as the players were, at least for this observer. Every great game needs a great crowd, and the 22,000 or whatever at the United Center did more than their share of the work.

Via TrueHoop, here's Rick Telander's awesome take on the game.

If the NBA could produce more drama on a wooden floor, it would have to use gasoline and gunpowder.

''Whatever overtime it was,'' Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro said afterward. He was trying to describe some key play, some key shot, but it was all a blur.

There was constant seesaw basketball, yes. But there was also the adrenaline-pumping mayhem of a near-brawl, with tempers flaring so badly at the start, it seemed poor little Celtics guard Rajon Rondo might have to be escorted from the building with full Blackwater security.

Rondo is without question the most despised small man in Chicago since, hmm, Eddie Gaedel's evil twin?

The raucous chant from the fiery crowd, ''Rondo sucks!'' pretty much never stopped. Indeed, the noise was such each time the 6-1, 171-pound playmaker touched the ball that one was moved to notice a moderately clever sign in the mezzanine: ''RONDO SUCKSO.''

Game Seven is Saturday night in Boston. You'd be an idiot not to watch, even if you don't like the NBA.

Sometimes, teams meet that are just a perfect match for one another. This is one of those cases. This is awesome theater, and will probably not be repeated at any point in the playoffs.

MAY DAY!

Yes, hockey nuts, I'm fully aware that this goal didn't happen on May Day.

That said, Rick Jeanneret's call of Brad May's overtime game winner in the 1993 Adams Division semifinals against Boston (this game was on April 24) reminds me of this day.