MILWAUKEE, Wis. There have been ups and downs in the career of Guido, an Italian sausage who races during every game at Miller Park, but reporters who cover the Milwaukee Brewers say they've never seen him looking more dejected than he did this morning when team owner Bud Selig announced his suspension.
Guido, in the lead.
"Guys, I'd really rather not talk about it right now," Guido said as he turned towards his locker. "I'm not having a good day, okay?" he snapped at a particularly persistent reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times.
In happier times.
Guido's suspension came after he tested positive for sodium lactate, sodium diacetate and sodium erythorbate, three performance-enhancing substances that produce a traditional "hot dog" color and improved texture in sausages. "It's Guido's own fault," said Guy Randall, a sports reporter for the Milwaukee Sentinel. "He could have stuck to monosodium glutamate like the other sausages, but no--he always wanted that extra little edge."
"Say it ain't so, Guido."
The race, sponsored by Klement's Sausage Company, is held after the bottom of the sixth inning at every home game of the Milwaukee Brewers. Guido has consistently outpaced Bratt Wurst, Stosh, Frankie Further and Cinco over the years, leading some to suspect he was using drugs other than ketchup, mustard, relish and other approved condiments.
Selig: "What kind of trayfe junk is this--it's giving me heartburn!"
Selig has come under criticism for allowing the use of artificial ingredients in ballpark hot dogs to spread during his tenure, a fact that some attribute to the commissioner's dual role as baseball executive and Milwaukee-area auto dealer. "Bud brings a kosher hot dog from home for lunch every day," said Mel Warner, a reporter for Condiments Today, a trade journal that covers Major League Baseball's ketchup, mustard and relish dispensers. "He wouldn't know a nitrate if he fell over it."
COLUMBUS, Ohio. Twelve year-old Robbie Bennett has been a star for every baseball team he's ever been on, from T-ball to "Dad Pitch" to Little League. A pitcher, Robbie's walls are plastered with posters of Roger Clemens in the uniforms of the four major league clubs the seven-time Cy Young Award winner has played for. "He was my hero," Robbie sniffles. "Now I think he's a stupid Froot Loop," he says as he throws himself on his bed and sobs into his pillow.
Roger Clemens
The reason for Robbie's tears is the revelation by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell that Clemens received shots of anabolic steroids in the buttocks to maintain his overpowering physique and become perhaps the greatest starting pitcher in baseball history.
"I thought I could stay fat like Clemens just by eating Twinkies and French fries," Robbie says when he is asked why he's crying. "Now I find out I have to get shots in the butt."
Eric Gagne
For young Timmy Merlino, the announcement that his idol Eric Gagne had signed with the Milwaukee Brewers was the best news he'd heard in a long time. "He was the first autograph I ever got," Timmy says as he looks down at a plastic-wrapped baseball card of Gagne while with the Dodgers that bears the fireballing right-hander's signature.
But that trophy is tarnished now that it has been revealed Gagne took human growth hormone. "It appears," said Mitchell at yesterday's press conference, "that Eric Gagne's record-breaking string of blown saves in the summer of 2007 was fueled by illegal drugs."
George Mitchell
Young fans are baseball's future, and major league executives expressed fear that yesterday's revelations could depress attendance for years to come. "Once kids hear about the drugs, they'll want to stay home and smoke dope instead of coming out to the games," predicted Bob Hohler, Director of Baseball Operations for the Houston Astros. "Unless they're Cubs fans, in which case they'll come out to the park and get high."
Greater than any economic effect is the loss of innocence, as children begin to see players such as Josias Manzanillo, Kent Mercker and Steve Woodward, all former members of the Boston Red Sox, as something less than the immortals they were considered in their playing days. "You mean to tell me," says Bobby Hammond of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, "that I could take performance-enhancing drugs for years and still suck?"
MILWAUKEE. A crowd of angry male fans descended on Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig's car dealership here yesterday to protest the so-called "Francona Rule", named after Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona, which will prohibit managers from wearing pullover tops during games beginning with the 2008 season.
"Thanks, my wife likes my pajamas too."
"It's a slippery slope," said Milwaukee Brewers fan Rod Larkin. "Next time they'll come after fans in the park, then guys watching at home. Is this America or Iran?"
It could happen.
The rule was announced by Bob Watson, vice president of rules and on-field operations for Major League Baseball. "You can only wear your uniform top or jacket," Watson explained. "You can’t wear your nightshirt, or whatever it is. If we let guys get away with this, pretty soon Tony LaRussa will start showing up in Cardinal Slip-On Sneaker Slippers."
Selig: "Hey, I get dressed up to come to work every day--why can't Francona?"
A 2004 survey revealed that a majority of American males watch baseball in t-shirts and undershorts until the post-season, at which point they switch to sweatshirts and undershorts. Most major league ball parks do not impose a dress code on male fans unless they enter the playing field, in which case they are required to wear undershorts.
A violation of the small print on the back of your ticket.
Protestors called the new rule a breach of baseball's covenant with American males. "If I wanted to get dressed up when there's a game on," said Lon Turkel, a Chicago White Sox fan, "I'd take my wife out to dinner, and that sure as hell ain't gonna happen."
MILWAUKEE. Major league baseball commissioner Bud Selig today announced a bold plan to revitalize ailing teams by converting them into "fantasy" franchises, thereby avoiding big payroll costs for weaker clubs.
Selig Pontiac-GMC
"We looked at the numbers and the fastest growing segment of our business is the fantasy leagues," Selig said from behind a metal desk at his car dealership. "Frankly, virtual baseball is a helluva lot more exciting than a September game between the Marlins and the Astros."
Bud Selig: "You know, Kansas City is no Milwaukee."
Under the plan, the Kansas City Royals and Tampa Bay Devil Rays would be the first underperforming franchises targeted for fantasy status. Each team's players would be released, and the league would track their stats at the Japanese, semipro, and company softball teams that picked them up. Fans would vote "American Idol"-style to select the teams' lineups going forward.
Milwaukee, the Venice of Wisconsin
"I don't see the Royals surviving in the real world," Selig said, his gaze wandering to a Pizza Hut on the horizon as he contemplated the future of the national pastime. "Kansas City isn't a world-class destination like Milwaukee."
"Mighty fine lookin' heifer."
"People think the Royals are named after kings or something, " he continued, "but it's actually just a livestock show--the American Royal. Last year they had 2,167 head of cattle, 583 hogs, 636 lambs and 156 goats at the damn thing," Selig said, a contemptuous smile forming across his lips. "Try to get the networks to cover a game in a city where Joe Buck has to breathe the smell of three thousand barnyard animals across town. It ain't gonna happen."
Prize-winning goat.
Evan Milken, a Tampa resident who admitted that he had once attended a Devil Rays' game, expressed surprise at the announcement. "That was major league baseball I was watching?" he asked. "Coulda fooled me."
MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin. A Portugese-American group today accused Major League Baseball of ethnic discrimination after league marketing officials banned Chorizo, a ####y sausage native to the westernmost country in Europe, from sausage races held at Milwaukee Brewers' home games.
"We have remained silent too long," said Gil Eanes, president of the Sociedad Para Queixa Pequeno de Portugal (Portugese Trivial Complaint Society). "Every other ethnic group gets cool stuff when they whine--porque nao nos?" (Why not us?)
Chorizo, known as "chourico" in Portugal, is a pork sausage seasoned with chili and paprika that is prepared in both picante (hot) and dulce (sweet) styles.
On July 27th a chorizo was added to the Klement's Sausage Race that is run after the sixth inning of every Brewers home games. The other contestants in the race are a hot dog, an Italian sausage, a Polish kielbasa and a German bratwurst.
MLB officials pulled the chorizo from the field just five days later, saying it had failed to obtain league approvals that are required for all new characters and promotions.
"We're not picking on him, and we're not discriminating," said MLB spokesperson Eve Adams. "We have no idea what he contains, because foreign sausage packages don't include nutrition information."
Other competitors applauded the league's move, saying they wanted to make sure the chorizo's ####y ingredients didn't include any performance-enhancing preservatives.
"You ever look at the back of the hot dog's pack?" asked the kielbasa. "I ain't sayin' I'm all natural, but he's got stuff in him that Barry Bonds won't eat."
This isn't the first time the Brewers' sausage race has been embroiled in controversy. In 2003 Pittsburgh first baseman Randall Simon swatted the Italian sausage with a bat as it headed past the Pirates' dugout. Simon was cited for disorderly conduct but ultimately not charged, as the ballplayer agreed to an out-of-court settlement. "Let's just say I won't have to worry about buns for the rest of my life," the Italian sausage said at the time.
MLB Commissioner Bud Selig declined to weigh in on the controversy, saying he needed more time to study the matter. "I want to make sure Portugal is a real country," he said. "I thought it was just a theme park, like Euro Disney."
But that wasn't good enough for Portugese activist Eanes, who screamed "Ouca va viver a sua vida com outro bem!" at Selig as the commissioner made his way through the Milwaukee Airport. Loosely translated, the traditional curse means "My parrot will never surrender the underpants he has taken from your sister!"
SEATTLE, Washington. Bowing to pressure from its Left Coast, slacker dude fan base, the Seattle Mariners today announced that the Nirvana song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" will replace "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the anthem played before the team's home games at Safeco Field.
"We're in the entertainment business, and Francis Scott Key peaked on the Billboard Jingoistic Singles Chart around 1950," said M's general manager Bill Bavasi. "Frankly, the Star-Spangled Banner is not depressing enough for Seattlians, or Seattlites, or whatever you call them."
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the first track and first single from Nirvana's 1991 debut album "Nevermind", and is generally credited with bringing the musical genre known as "grunge" to the attention of the world beyond Seattle. Rolling Stone Magazine ranks "Teen Spirit" ninth on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences places it ahead of Herman Melville's "Moby ####", Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" and "The New Hollywood Squares" as a cultural achievement.
Conservative groups were quick to criticize the shift as indicative of the decline of patriotism in liberal "blue" states such as Washington. "This is just more evidence, in case anybody needed it, that espresso drinks are poisoning the minds of America's youth," said Wendy Davis, President of Concerned Women for America. Seattle is the headquarters of Starbucks and Seattle's Best Coffee, and leads the nation in the consumption of lattes and cappucinos.
Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said he would take no action against the team for the time being. "Most of the day-to-day problems I face running major league baseball are like teenage acne," he said in response to a reporter's question. "Ignore them and eventually they go away."
Selig said if the Mariners' experiment is a success, he would consider using the 1953 Patti Page hit "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?" as part of opening ceremonies at Miller Park before Brewers' games. "That's my all-time favorite," he said with a wistful smile.
Mariners fans, historically a free-thinking, non-conformist group, were generally in favor of the change. "Ten years ago all cell phones sounded the same," said Evan Martin, a graduate student at the University of Washington. "Now everybody's got their own ring tone, so why shouldn't we all have different anthems?"
When it was pointed out that an anthem is intended to bind Americans together as a nation of states under a federal government headquartered in Washington, D.C., Martin was unfazed. "Dude, you're wrong. That is like a totally different Washington."
KEOKUK, Iowa. Elwood "Bud" Zaremba, pioneering knuckle-ball pitcher, died in his sleep in a nursing home here Sunday night after a brief illness.
Zaremba played with five major league teams over a 17-year career during which he gained a reputation as a solid middle-reliever and a practical joker par excellence.
"Bud was always up to something," said Red Rodney, his manager when Zaremba was with the AA Sault Ste. Marie Frost Heaves. "One time he beat me home from the ballpark and got into bed with my wife to pretend they were having an affair. I had to stop for gas and a quart of milk and got back a little late and, well, let's just say nature took its course." Rodney's wife had twins as a result of the gag gone awry, but his manager never begrudged Zaremba the indulgence. "I raised those kids like they were my own--Bud was such a fun guy to be with."
On another occasion Zaremba gave umpire Jim Barnes a "hotfoot", a trick that involved sticking a wooden match between the sole and leather of someone's shoe, and then lighting it. Barnes' pants caught on fire, causing third degree burns over most of his right leg and an end to his career as an umpire.
"That was just Bud being Bud as they'd say nowadays," Barnes said from his wheelchair. "Some people thought he was mean, but he was really just a cut-up."
Zaremba's career paralleled that of Moe Drabowsky, another pitcher of his era who liked to pull zany pranks on his teammates. "If Drabowsky was the Bob Hope of baseball practical jokes, Bud Zaremba was the Lenny Bruce, because his jokes would really sting you," said baseball historian Peter Arsdale of Iowa State University. "Moe would put a snake in your shoes, but Bud once put a live alligator in the back seat of an opposing pitcher's car. The guy lost half his hand, and was subsequently referred to as Leonard 'Two Fingers' Curley."
Zaremba didn't leave his sense of whimsy in the dugout either. "One time I went out to the mound and called for an intentional walk," Red Rodney recalled. "Bud said 'Why waste my energy on three extra pitches? I'll just hit him.'" Zaremba eventually perfected a pitch he called a knuckle "slurve", a fast-dipping pitch that didn't sting but rarely missed, and he often used it in lieu of an intentional walk.
Zaremba holds one major league record that is unlikely to be broken. Every team he played on subsequently moved to another city, changed its name or both. He spent his rookie year with the St. Louis Browns, now the Baltimore Orioles; four years with the Milwaukee Braves, who moved to Atlanta; four with the Kansas City Athletics, who moved to Oakland, and seven with the second coming of the Washington Senators, who became the Texas Rangers. In his final season, 1969, he appeared in 23 games for the Seattle Pilots, who a year later became the Milwaukee Brewers.
"I don't know that Bud had anything to do with it," Arsdale notes, "but after you'd played with him for awhile, most people wanted to get out of town."
Funeral arrangements will be private. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Institute for the Study of BIHT, beanball-induced head trauma.
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
