Ever wonder why the United States Justice Department is even bothering to bring Roger Clemens to trial. Who really cares?
The guy is out of baseball; based on statistics alone, it’s obvious that steroids are out of baseball (can anybody hit anymore?); it’s an incredible waste of taxpayers’ money (just like the Barry Bonds trial was an incredible waste of time, money and effort); and when lying to Congress is all you have on a guy, then the Justice System is suspect. Congressmen lie to Congress every single day.
Here was AP’s lead on the jury selection process for the trial: “Prospective jurors screened Thursday for the Roger Clemens perjury trial were more critical of Congress for spending time investigating drugs in baseball than they were of the star pitcher on trial for lying to lawmakers about ever using them.
“The sports legend watched intently but didn’t speak as members of the jury pool faced intense questioning from the judge and lawyers from both sides for a second day. Nearly as many have been turned away as qualified to be considered for the panel that will eventually be seated, including two who were excused after they said they weren’t sure they could be fair because of their feelings about Congress.”
“‘Even members of Congress have lied to Congress and they have not been prosecuted,’ said one of the panelists who was excused.”
It’s a crazy summer. Here are 10 more things that are absolutely nuts…
10. Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland sid this week that players, managers and umpires needed a big league summit meeting because the tension between the participants in Major League Baseball and the people who call the games are “at an all-time high.”
Leyland had just been tossed out twice in two straight games at Angels Stadium which prompted a Minnesota Twins broadcaster to suggest that the problem isn’t tension between umpires and players/managers throughout baseball, it’s a problem with the California umpiring crews.
“There aren’t tensions in games when Detroit plays Cleveland or Minnesota or even the Yankees,” he said. “There are problems with everybody when they have to go west. Those west coast crews, well, they just don’t seem right to me.”
When people here in Winnipeg rip the umpiring in the independent American Association games as being “minor league,” they obviously don’t watch major league baseball. MLB umpires are horrendous (see Armando Galarraga’s umpire-destroyed perfect game) and as one observer has pointed out, the ones in California are even worse.
Baseball desperately needs instant replay.
9. The New Jersey Nets Deron Williams has decided that the NBA lockout just might go on forever, so he’s negotiating a contract with Besiktas in the Turkish League.
Don’t be surprised if Williams is just the first of many NBA players to consider moving to Europe while the billionaire owners fight with the millionaire players.
8. Dallas Cowboys wideout Roy Williams Jr. lived with former Miss Texas, Brooke Daniels (a legitimate hottie) for about a year. In February, he bought her a $76,000 ring. Then he proposed to her by recording his proposal and sending it to her via e-mail. With that he called himself “an old fashioned romantic.”
The two are no longer together (surprise, surprise) Daniels did not return the ring and Williams is suing her. Yep, that’s pretty romantic.
7. We see that Paige Duke, one of NASCAR’s three Miss Sprint Cups, has lost her sash. Nude photos of her showed up on the Internet. Ah, yes, the dreaded morality clause. She’s apparently upset about it — losing her job, I mean, not the fact the photos of her stark nekkid are showing up the e-mail in-boxes of high school boys.
6. Detroit Red Wings defenseman Mike Commodore is considering wearing No. 64 this year. Really, Seriously.
That would make him Commodore 64. Jersey sales would be through the roof.
5. Here’s an excerpt from Curt Schilling’s interview on 97.5 The Fanatic in Philadelphia on Wednesday. Schilling, always outspoken, was asked if he thought teammates on his 1993 Phillies club (the team that lost the World Series to Toronto) were using steroids.
“Oh, absolutely. Sure, sure. We all thought to some degree, some people did and didn’t here and there. But again, it wasn’t something you’d walk up to someone and talk about or ask them. So you had your ideas. I mean, when guys showed up with 25 extra pounds on them after three months and you’d seen them kind of during the winter time, you had an idea. And there were a lot of guys on a lot of teams. I would tell you, any fan of any team that goes ‘ohh, no..’ Because I hear a lot from the 2004 team with Ortiz and Manny and blah blah blah, and it’s usually from Yankees fans who had a roster full of them. There isn’t a team in the last 20 years that’s won clean.”
Thank you, Curt.
4. The Women’s World Cup Soccer Championship recorded a 0.01 television rating on two separate occasions last week. Nobody watched it. Apparently, not even the referees.
On a scoring chance by Australia in a round-robin match, the ball hit the post and was caught by an Equatorial Guinea defender, who took two or three steps with the ball in her hands and then casually dropped it on the pitch. While the Australians screamed at Hungarian referee Gyeongyi Gaal to call a penalty kick, she did nothing. Later Ms. Gaal apologized for missing the play. If a tree falls in the forest…
3. Former Montreal Alouettes president Larry Smith, now a Canadian Senator, has denied that the CFL team falsely announced sold-out games in order to guarantee the government funding that was used to expand Montreal’s Molson Stadium to 25,000 seats for the beginning of the 2010 season.
LaPresse reported that the sellouts were bogus and that the team wasn’t close to its claim of 105 consecutive sold out games. That streak ended this past week, in Week 1 of the 2011 season, when 2,700 seats went unsold.
That story is a classic case of turning mile hills into mountains. LaPresse couldn’t prove that games weren’t sold out if it wanted to. Another classic example of the media just making it up.
2. Gil Brandt reports at nfl.com that Brett Favre is getting the itch to return to the NFL if the lockout is somehow, someday negotiated away.
Why not? He’s better than anybody else the Vikings have right now.
1. The Nashville Predators are now offering a five-game mini-pack exclusively to Atlanta hockey fans. But it’s an even juicier deal than it sounds: An Atlanta fan picks five of eight offered games on the schedule — including a preseason game against the Winnipeg Jets — and they receive a March 24, Predators game against the Jets “free,” with tickets in the lower bowl, no less. What a terrific opprtunity to cheer on Andrew Ladd and Dustin Byfuglien one more time.
Atlanta is about four hours from Nashville.