Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Manny Ramirez will reportedly be suspended 50 games for using performance enhancing drugs. According to Bill Shankin and Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times, Ramirez will begin his suspension tonight and it will end on July 3, 2009.

Already you say? Well, actually you’re tardy on this one. Voting has been open since April 22nd. So yes, you’re behind. So get off you’re lazy tail and get to voting.

What’s that you say? You don’t know who you’re voting for? Well, why the h*ll not? You’ve had an entire month of baseball to watch. That’s all you need to distinguish all stars, right? What do you mean; no? What else do you need? There are dudes tearing it up right now. Just vote for them. What if they start sucking? Well, that’s normal, but we only care about this first month. What’s that? You want to wait for A-Rod to come back? Ummmm, may I ask why? He’s you’re favorite and you want to see what kind of numbers he puts up? Dude, it’s your ballot. You can vote for anyone you want. No matter what they have or have not done in the first month of the season.

So all that is left for you to do is to vote and vote often. And try not to let that voting finger get too happy, you can only cast 25 ballots per email address. Happy voting!

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It’s kinda bad when most of the fight is in the stands and not on the field. But after getting swept by the Sox, that seems to be the reality for the Yankees these days. Not that I’m complaining, especially when flying kicks are involved.

H/T Total Pro Sports

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A couple of weeks ago, we were all over the Mets for their treatment of Dwight Gooden’s autograph on a wall in Citi Field. Well, the other team in New York will not be outdone by anyone, especially the Mets. During the weekend series against the Angels, former Yankee great and YES broadcaster, Paul O’Neil was booted by security from the indoor batting cages.

A security guard told O’Neill, the man George Steinbrenner called “warrior,” he could not loiter in the area. O’Neill had another reason to be perturbed. Security would not allow his wife, Nevalee, into the Stadium “wives room.” She was told by security it was for “current” wives only.

If you’re booting one of the most loved Yankees of the recent era, surely no one else is safe from the long arm of the law security officers. Especially broadcasters from the opposing team.

The Angels bring multiple announcers (including voices who work Spanish language broadcasts) on the road. The mouths rotate between radio and TV. At times, some of them are not on the air. During those breaks, they need a place to watch the game. There were two empty Stadium broadcast booths during the series. Angels voices, not on the air, used one of them to chill.
Until they were booted by security.

The Angels broadcasters were told they weren’t allowed to sit in the empty booth. When asked Monday if the voices had been mistaken and were sitting in a private box reserved for patrons, an Angels source said: “No, it was a broadcast booth.” When asked if security invited the broadcasters downstairs to sit in those empty seats behind the plate, the source laughed and said, “no.”

In the words of the immortal Snoop Dog:

New York New York big city of dreams
And everything in New York aint always what it seems.

That seems fitting here.

Yankees put squeeze play on media at the new Stadium (NY Daily News)

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A father-daughter outing to the ballpark became more than catching a ballgame for this father. It became a chance for some pimpin. I’m sure that he completely lost it once he saw Ellsbury do this.

* Image courtesy of Bugs & Cranks

That right there is the signature of Dwight “Doc” Gooden. During the opening day ceremonies, Gooden stopped by the Ebbets Club along the first base line at Citi where he kicked it a little with the fans. Then, someone came up with the brilliant idea that Gooden should sign a wall outside the bar. You know, for history’s sake. Gooden, of course abliged and with a black Sharpie inscribed his very thorough autograph:

Doc Gooden 84 R.O.Y., 85 Cy Young, 86 W.S. Champs

A piece of history that will live on forever, much like this Tebow piece, right? Wrong! Jay Horwitz aint having any writing on his walls. No matter who you are.

It’s a brand-new building,” said Jay Horwitz, the Mets‘ VP of media relations. “No one is supposed to write on the wall. It’s going to be erased

Of course, Mets‘ fans aren’t too thrilled with the push to keep Citi Field pristine.

Lou DiBella, a Manhattan-based boxing promoter and devoted Met fan, was in the Ebbets Club on Opening Day when Gooden signed the wall, and he was there yesterday as the Mets lost 4-2 to the Brewers in the final game of a three-game series.

He’s among a number of fans angry Gooden’s signature likely will be gone when the team returns from a short trip to St. Louis.

That’s the same spirit that caused them to build a new ballpark that doesn’t have any semblance of Mets history, DiBella said. They charge $240 a ticket, and when your greatest pitcher tries to do something to reach out to the fans, the Mets make it seem like he did something wrong. It’s so stupid.

I wonder if the Mets‘ organization will take this all the way. No hanging of banners, no ring of honor, no pictures, no anything. All I know is for $240, I should be able to see the autograph of anyone I wanted. It doesn’t even have to be a Mets‘ player or even a baseball player at that. For that type of money, if I wanted to see Carrot Top’s john hancock, I better be able to find it somewhere in Citi Field.

DOPEY METS WANNA ERASE DWIGHT’S CITI AUTOGRAPH (New York Post)

Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza christened Citi Field with a ceremonial first pitch that went off without a hitch, unlike these. But while Seaver stuck around to take in all the festivities, Piazza was no where to be found.

Once they left the stage and ceded their place to the first regular-season game, Seaver made his way to the press box. For nearly 15 minutes, he stood amid a crowd of reporters discussing everything from the Citi Field dimensions to the Mets’ pitching rotation.

Piazza, meanwhile, was nowhere to be seen. Escorted by security, he went from the field to the stadium tunnel. His plan to avoid the news media was only briefly interrupted, by two questions from a television news reporter about the new stadium.

One could speculate that Piazza wants no part of the media because Jeff Perlman accuses him of doing steroids in his new book, “The Rocket That Fell to Earth”. But that couldn’t have possibly been it because Tommy Lasorda has assured us that Piazza wouldn’t dare do steroids. So what could it have been? Well Piazza wants you to believe that it’s just a case of him being a private person.

He wasn’t looking for any attention, Jay Horwitz, the Mets’ vice president for media relations, said when asked why Piazza did not want to talk.

He said, I’m a private person now, I have a family, I’m raising my kids, my wife’s having a baby and I want to stay in the background.

Note to Piazza, even if you actually man up and admit your steroid use, you will still be in the background. We’ll just have closure on your career.

Mike Piazza Leaves Quickly, and Quietly, After Citi Field Ceremony
(New York Times)

* Photo courtesy of the AP

Major League Baseball is among us again. The boys of summer are back and with them they have brought a constant suspicion of steroid use. Most of us are not naive enough to believe that only a few players have or do use, but what do we expect? These guys are faced with the reality that if they don’t perform, they don’t get the big bucks. If someone offered me $20M a year, I’d use roids, at least for a while, to make certain I kept my job also, you would too. Also baseball players are not the only professional athletes that use the juice, but that’s another story all together. Nevertheless, this edition of Questionable poses is dedicated to MLB and its brightest stars.

Alex Rodriguez- After a long, hard work out, A-Rod gets a nice rub down, don’t ask why the big guy is shirtless. Perhaps he’s getting his thoughts together before he injects the juice.

Jason Giambi- This guy has become a joke, not just because of the steroid use, but his play on the field has declined steadily. This is why guys use steroids, it makes average players great enough to get big money from suckers, I mean the Steinbrenners.

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So it has finally happened. Yep, the booze wasn’t flowing during yesterday’s Tigers-Blue Jays game and it won’t be for three additional dates because according to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, folks in Toronto can’t hold their liquor.

The panel cited five broken rules at baseball and football games and concerts dating to the Canadian Football League championship game in 2007. The stadium will also be dry on April 21 when Toronto plays Texas, and for a CFL game on Aug. 1.

The ban was put into place on Tuesday because Monday’s game was delayed nine minutes in the eighth inning when fans threw two baseballs in the direction of Detroit left fielder Josh Anderson and tossed a handful of paper planes and empty beer cups onto the field. So when fans arrived at the ballpark yesterday, they were greeted with signs that listed their offenses.

Signs posted Tuesday at stadium entrances listed five reasons for the license suspension: permitting drunkenness, permitting the use of narcotics, selling and serving to apparent minors, failure to request approved identification and permitting illegal liquor on the premises.

Oh, those crazy Canadians. I guess you have to do resort to boozing and unruly behavior to make Jays’ games worthwhile. But without the booze, I guess we can kiss clips like these goodbye.

Who am I fooling? The clips will keep coming.

Beer sales banned for Tigers-Blue Jays game (AP)

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Opening day is finally upon us. So you know what that means……ceremonial first pitches. Which also means, we give you the worst ceremonial first pitches. Did you expect anything different from us?

Mariah Carey in heels and dukes. Looks good, but as for the pitch….not so good.

Some people know that they have a noodle for an arm. The mayor (or former mayor) of Cincinnati is one of them. He doesn’t even look like he’s surprised that the ball didn’t get remotely close to the plate.

This video isn’t the best quality and neither is the first pitch. He does get points for trying to take out the umpire though.

You know you’re bad when your first pitch is the inspiration for a song for a beer commercial

Don’t know what’s being said but I do know that the pitch was pretty bad. Even after the professional looking wind up.

When you throw this bad, you have to be a good sport about it.

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