Quick and to the point with Fraud-Ram

I won't dwell on this topic of the Steroid Era for too much because sincerely, my opinions of this matter was buried, or so I thought, a long time ago. Right after the A-Rod news came out. I wasn't hoping for a day in which we would hear another Superstar linked to the Steroid Era, much less a guy like Manny Ramirez. But hey, I said that I wasn't going to be surprised if another player of his caliber would get caught, and frankly, I'm not. It was just a matter of days. And it will only be another matter of days for the next leaf of the Steroid tree to dwindle and fall, and disgrace the game even more.

I really don't care anymore whether it was a mysterious cream, or vitamins from the GNC store, or female hormone pills, the list of banned substances are given out each and every year to every member of the players union. I would assume that any player with the right frame of mine, and who wants to protect his reputation, should look over that list ANY time that they take any medicine or a trainer's miracle cream. You know, just in case there is anything that might get them SUSPENDED and hurt their team in the process.

Well, the Dodgers sure are glad that they didn't trade Juan Pierre this past offseason. He is their starter for at least the next 50 games. He'll steal you a bunch of bases and score a lots of runs, but he is no Manny.

Random Thoughts of the Day

The Japanese team shutout the team from China 4-0 in the opener of the World Baseball Classic in front of almost 44,000 fans at the Tokyodome. Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish was the pitcher of record after tossing four no-hit innings to open the game. Ichiro Susuki went 0-5 and stranded 5 men on base. Not a good way to start there Ichiro. Nevertheless Japan, the favorite in this group, notches its first victory on what they hope is a return to the finals and a repeat of the title. Up next, Korea, who won the Olympic gold in Beijing, takes on the Chinese Taipei team.

Man, a weird game for me to watch was yesterday's exhibition between the Houston Astros and the team from Venezuela. Who was I suppose to root for? Betray my country or betray my favorite team? Luckily for me the game ended, fittingly, in a 4-4 tie. Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers and Jose Lopez of the Mariners provided the firework with two RBIs each for the Venezuelan team. On the other side, Astros 2005 first round pick pitcher turned outfielder Brian Bogusevic went 2-4 with a run scored and an RBI to pace their offense. He is now hitting .500 this spring. Not bad.

It looks like Alex Rodriguez is going to miss playing in the Classic after an MRI done to his hip revealed an internal cyst on the right side that requires immediate surgery. Apparently the recovery for this kind of procedures is about 10 weeks and that might also force him to miss part of the regular season as well. This is another blow for A-Rod who was hoping to concentrate on playing baseball after having gone through his worst and most contorversial offseason to date.

And finally it's official...Manny Ramirez is back with the Dodgers. The enigmatic outfielder re-signed to the nifty tune of a 2 year 45 million dollars contract. I wish I was on that guy's Christmas list. The contract plays out like this: $25 million in 2009, $20 million in 2010 with a player option after the first year. If Ramirez decides to stay, payment will be deferred over five years without interest at $10 million each for the first two years and $8.33 million each for the next three years. If he opts out, he'll receive $25 million over the course of four years, $10 million, $5 million, $5 million and $5 million. In other words: ka-ching!

Oh and by the way, there are only 31 days until the regular season starts. And then after that 6 months of pure baseball! Can't wait!