Steroids we can't fix.  People cheat.

The DH we can't rid of.  The MLBPA wants to maintain it and what Don Fehr wants....

The economy is going down the drain and we're counting on the collective economic wisdom of the Congress that caused the mess to save us from their Frankenstein's monster.

But can't we at least get rid of the Mets black caps?

I know, it's my own private annoyance.  There may even be misguided souls who think this cap looks good.  And it is in poor taste to point out that most of them are in street gangs.

But still.

This has to be the ugliest baseball cap in the history of ugly baseball caps.  Altogether now.  BLACK AND BLUE DO NOT MATCH!



Call the people on that show "What Not To Wear" for a ruling.   (And yes, for reasons I don't understand I watch it.)  I know there's a rule about this.  You don't wear white before Easter, and you don't match orange and blue and black. 

And don't get me started on the Carolina Panthers. 

Where was I?  The cap.  The gosh awful caps that have nothing to do with the New York Mets. 

The Mets uniform was created to stand for something.  It was supposed to represent the blue of the old Brooklyn Dodgers and the orange of the New York Giants.  A tip of the cap, if you will, from the newest New York team to the two who made history and ran for the coast.

What is the black and blue supposed to represent?  The great electrical blackout of 1965?  Elliot Spitzer ducking into five star hotels to meet hookers under cover of darkness?

They've even messed up the sleeve logo.  This year the Mets uniform sleeve includes not only the traditional logo representing the burroughs of New York and the city's landmarks, but an inaugural season logo for the new Citi Field.  Which might not be that bad except.....



The logo looks like something from a Domino's Pizza box.  If they were going to honor the Citi Group, why not at least a neat representation of an unscrupulous derivitatives salesman wiring money to an off shore account in the Cayman Islands?

The time has come for the cap to go.  Get me Al Sharpton's number.  Tell Keith Olbermann a Republican designed the logo.  Call the CDC and report that the cap has been proven to carry the swine flu virus.

Take it back to Flushing Meadowns.

And flush it.

The Washington Redskins won a big court victory this week over a group which said the name Redskins was racially offensive.  I'm not the brightest guy blogging on the internet, but I think I've figured out why they felt that way.

Because it is.

As much as I enjoy seeing the Political Correctness police lose one I know, you know, and everyone else in North America knows that Redskins is not a term of respect.  It's not a tribute to Native Americans.  Not a testament to their ferocity in battle.  And it has nothing to do with Washington D.C.

It's just a stupid name for a football team.

It was a dumb thing to name a team back in 1933.  The team played in Boston back them and was called the Boston Braves.  The Boston National League baseball team had that name so there you go.  St. Louis had a football and baseball Cardinals.  New York had the football and baseball Giants.  The Bears of Chicago were the counterpart to the Cubs.

Then in thirty-three the Braves moved to Fenway Park and it all just got too confusing.  Nobody wanted a football RedSox.  So the name got switched to Redskins.  Nobody objected, perhaps because most native Americans left Massachusetts back when the pilgrims arrived and property values started going down.

You would have thought with the team in Washington someone from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (as it was called back then) might have mentioned how offensive the name was.  But it was a such a minor department in government that they didn't even get free tickets to Senators games, let alone football, so nothing was said.

Then along came the lawyers.

In one of those blinding bits of logic you see when courts become involved in matters of common sense, the Court of Appeals ruled that since the youngest of the plaintiffs waited eight years after being old enough to sue over the offensiveness of the copyright term "Redskins" (when it was awarded in 1967) they had no standing. 

What with billable hours and all, it took the court a mere eighteen years to figure that out.  Now the group which sued has found plaintiffs who are just the right age to refile the suit.  Maybe twenty years from now they'll get a ruling.

There is an easier way.

Drop the stupid name.  Not because of a lawsuit.  Not because it is politically correct.  Simply because it is the right thing to do.

If you were Jewish, would you want a NFL team to be named after a derogatory name for Jews.  If you were an African-American would you think it was OK to name a team using a racial slur?  How about a team named after a slang term for the Irish or Polish or Italians? 

How about (drum roll please).  The Washington Honkies.

I'm white and I'm actually OK with that.  We're honkies because African-Americans, when they first heard our lovely speaking voices (often under rather unfortunate circumstances) thought we sounded rather much like honking geese.

This isn't a big deal.  It isn't a great moral question.  It's just common courtesy and good manners.  Native American children shouldn't have to turn on the TV and watch the Washington Redskins, no matter how you try to tone down the imagery.

Truth be told, if you changed the name it wouldn't matter to any of the people who want to keep it.  Does anyone in Baltimore want to switch back to the Colts?  Most are happy with the Ravens.  It's a cool name and it ties in with the city by way of Edgar Allen Poe.

There was a time for the Washington football team to be the Redskins.  Enjoy the tradition.  Collect as much of the old logo stuff as you want.

Hail to the Redskins.  And hopefully one day farewell.

I'm a blogger not a lawyer.

All I remember from the business law course I took in college is our instructor (a not unattractive woman) and that it always seemed to be raining outside.  I know this, having spent a considerable portion of my college career staring out windows.

Thinking about baseball. 

Which brings me to a legal question with baseball implications.  Can the Dodgers sue Manny Ramirez for contract fraud and void his $45 million contract.  And could his agent, Scott Boras, be sanctioned as well?

Ramirez and Boras represented the free agent as healthy and able to perform under terms of the contract.  If Ramirez is telling the truth and he was taking the female fertility drug HcG for a medical condition, was this condition disclosed to the Dodgers? 

Picture the conversation.  Boras is about to close the deal and tells the Dodger GM, "Incidentally, Manny is taking a substance which prevents the corpus luteum of the ovary from disintegrating during pregnancy.  You guys OK with that?"  I suspect the conversation didn't take place.

I would argue we now have element number one of fraud.  A mispresentation or concealment of fact.  Was it material?  Something relating to a matter of importance.

The Dodgers just lost their cleanup hitter for fifty games because it wasn't disclosed.   Put a check by element two.

Now the tricky part.  Fraud also involves an "existing fact".  What did Ramirez know at the time?  DId he intend to perform his services with or without the use of performance enhancing drugs?  When did he acquire and use HcG?  This is probably where our case is weakest. 

The fourth element in contract fraud (according to the internet, where everything you read is entirely true and accurate)  is the misrepresentation was made knowingly and intentionally.  Certainly, if Ramirez had an existing condition requiring HcG and was under a doctor's care, he would have known he potentially would have availability issues either when this mystery condition flared up or he was caught in random testing.  That test is easily met.

Finally, did the Dodgers rely on a misrepresentation or concealment?  You bet. Just like the teams which signed nine other Scott Boras clients who have been linked to performance enhancing drugs did. 

Did Boras know the stats he so voluminously documented to argue for mega contracts where obtained through violations of the rules of baseball and the player's standard major league contract?  Should he be a party to a suit against Ramirez?  Professional sanctions?

Going after Boras would be difficult.  The MLBPA would be behind him and he would have deep pockets to defend himself.  Legally Boras is probably clear, morally is a different matter.

The fraud case against Ramirez is shaky at best.  Good attorneys could punch holes in it.  But sometimes a case is brought to court not just to obtain an outcome, but as a statement.  The Dodgers, with the support of Major League Baseball, should go to court to terminate Ramirez' contract.  Think of the message it would send.

Players and agents would see a consequence of cheating alot worse than a fifty game suspension, public disapproval, and a little bad press.  They would see real money dissolve into thin air.  It would be a clear message in a language universally understood by players and agents.  Money talks.

If the Dodgers don't sue to void Ramirez contract, they send an equal and opposite signal.  Go ahead and cheat.  You'll lose money, we'll be inconvenienced, but we stand ready to make excuses for your behavior as long as you produce.  There is much we don't know about you, and we're not in any hurry to find out.  Next time, and we don't want to know, use something that can't be traced so easily.

Alex Rodriquez is known as "AFraud".  That doesn't stop players using.  Suing a fraud, and his agent, might.

I also believe:

The NBA cares about all it's teams and their fans equally.  If it turns out Cleveland and Lakers go to the finals, that will be OK.  But really, any matchup will satisfy the league and referees will be under no pressure whatsoever to treat LeBron and Kobe differently than any other player.

ARod is having a deep and meaningful relationship with Madonna, using her gentle and nuturing personality to inspire his own growth and development as a human being.

Brett Favre is really retired.

Soccer is the next big thing in American sports.  TV ratings are about to skyrocket.  Basketball courts will be plowed under to make room for the pitch.  Inner city kids will be mugged for their David Beckham jerseys.  John Madden will come back as an analyst.

The Yankees will decide to fill their empty seats with children from orphanages and give refunds and discounts to the fans in the upper decks who had to move up above the known atmosphere in order to afford season tickets.

Congress can straighten out the BCS mess and will then move on to disarm Iran, figure out how to stop Chinese hackers from penetrating the electric power grid, and make every unemployed factory worker into a computer programmer.  There will be spandex jackets for everyone and we'll soon travel from New York to Paris undersea by rail (name that tune).

All those college football players majoring in sociology decided on that course of study because of a childhood passion for the works of Auguste Comte.

All cars at NASCAR races will be equipped with left turn signals which will be continuously in use throughout each race.

The Kentucky Derby was rigged.  By the horses.  In a deep, far reaching conspiracy which goes all the way back to an evil genius.   Mister Ed.

Jim Rome actually talks like that.              At home.        To his family.           Dude.

Joe Girardi doesn't understand the new book about Alex Rodriquez.

"I don't understand why someone would write a book like this anyway, and some people may not care to hear that, but I don't understand."

Which is hard to imagine.

Girardi knows exactly why people write books about famous athletes.  Years in major league clubhouses, being interviewed by reporters, hanging out with millionaires should have given him a clue.

Whatever else Joe Girardi is, he isn't clueless.

He knows Alex Rodriquez is baseball's highest paid player.  Knows what it means to play baseball in New York.  Girardi can read a stat sheet, knows Rodriquez may someday threaten Barry Bonds home run record.  Knows how much 50 home runs is worth in dollars and what the Yankees cut is in wins and losses.

Girardi also knows, what we all know as a matter of public record, that Rodriquez is a confessed steroid user who initially lied about it and attempted to smear the reputation of Selena Roberts, the Sports Illustrated journalist who wrote the book. 

Now Girardi joins in the attack on Roberts, questioning why publication of the book has been moved up a month.  Tries to claim the high road by making the book and not the egregious behavior it documents the issue.

"This man wants to be a father too."

Well, that makes all the difference in the world.  Let's just say that everyone who breaks the rules gets a free ride if they have children.  Think of all the good that will accomplish.

The ARod's of the world can walk out onto major league fields, dig in at the plate, and launch all the performance enhanced home runs they want.  And nobody gets to say anything.

Not the pitcher who was cheated.  Not the team that lost to the Yankees.  Not the other players who feel pressured to keep up and risk their health.  Not the Texas Rangers who blew up their team paying for an illusion.  Not the fans who don't know what is real anymore and what isn't.  Not the reputation of all the players who played by the rules and come under suspicion because they suddenly figured the game out and started hitting home runs.

Why?  Because Joe Girardi, whose best interests are served by having Alex Rodriquez back in his lineup and free of distractions says so.

Is the amount of publicity Rodriquez gets for steroid use out of proportion to what other players whose test results have been publicized received?  You bet.  His salary is also out of proportion to theirs.  His fame is out of proportion, his opportunity to get to the World Series is out of proportion, and chance to break records is out of proportion.  So was the risk Rodriquez took every time he used steroids.

We know what Girardi's response to the book is.  What we don't know is what he intends to say to Rodriquez when he returns.  What he intends to ask him about the reports of HGH use.  How he intends to hold ARod to account for bringing this awful circus to town.

Sportswriters won't ask that.  Most go along to get along.  Some will take up Girardi's position in print.  Others will say nothing much.  The majority will accept whatever numbers Rodriquez puts up on his return without question.

Roberts doesn't.  She is an heir to Howard Cosell.  A fan.  But first a journalist.  Someone who thinks about sports as something more than what goes on between the lines.  Who asks inconvenient questions.

If Alex Rodriquez locked into the sights of the toughest journalist in sports there is a reason.

All he has to do is look in the mirror.