Actually, sorry about that, folks…but I was forced to record the podcast in the truck on my way to work.  I tried messing with some of the levels but couldn’t quite get it to reduce the noise without making me sound like I was underwater.

Recording the podcast on the way to work should be an aberration.  Enjoy.

Well, I’m here to tell you that A-Rod is still baseball’s best hope, but there are several things that have just jumped out at me (some obvious, some not) over the past several days, and to me, those things, and how they are handled, will make all the difference.

• You Can’t Have it Both Ways, Alex.  After watching the Gammons interview, the first thing I noticed was the glaring contradiction whereby A-Rod starts by implying that it was a conscious effort on his part to take an active role in using performance enhancing drugs to “earn” his big fat new contract and cement his legacy as one of the greatest players of all time.  Then, later in the interview, he mentions that the “loosey-goosey” culture around baseball at the time was such that he just went with the flow, tried a few things, and could not even begin to tell you what he was on.  Well, which one is it?  I believe the scientific facts point to choice A, the one where he is a little less innocent.  He had the specific steroids and testosterone in his system, “stacked” in the specific proportions that would lead me to believe he was a habitual user, and knew exactly what he put into his system and when.  The sooner he admits this, the better off he will be…especially once the Feds come calling.  Bonds and Clemens and Tejada are going to jail.  A-Rod does not want to explore those kind of pinstripes.
• A-Rod’s Arrogance is the Most Damning Thing of All.  The first example of his arrogance here was during the Katie Couric interview.  I have included it below for easy reference.  After he says that he never used steroids and was never even tempted to do so, he goes on to say that it was because he has never felt overmatched on the baseball field and he is basically better than anyone else, not only because of how he plays, but because he did not take steroids.  I think perhaps a less egotistical answer may have served him well there.  Then, during the Gammons interview this week, he is trying to tell us that he thinks that the interview with Gammons is all that is required of him and he is ready to move on, so we should all move on as well.  In my opinion, he deserves everything that happens to him as a result of this…not because he used steroids when everyone else was using steroids, but because he was such an arrogant prick about it every step of the way.

• The New York Headline Question.  All in all, I think A-Rod did an excellent job during the Gammons interview.  Before piling on me for that last sentence, let’s remember that this is a guy that has seemed slick and coached during just about every interview I have ever seen…probably because he has 2 or 3 people on staff that coach him in those situations.  But not this time.  At least, it did not look that way.  It looked like he was genuinely not expecting any of the questions specifically, and he made an honest effort to be truthful without giving away the farm.  Let’s also remember that this dude is a ballplayer, not a Rhodes scholar.  I think he did well…except for the question about what he would like to be the headline in New York the following day.  I am trying to find it on YouTube and will change this text slightly once I do…but he basically dropped the ball and implied that the New York media was less than friendly.  The first time I saw it, as soon as the question was asked, I blurted out “A-Rod Apologizes to Fans”…think anyone might be thinking a little better of him if he had said that?
• Barack Obama is The Man.  I don’t care if you are the biggest racist redneck in the country, if you are a baseball fan, you have to know that we, as sports fans, finally have our President.  Sure, you could say it’s window dressing and he is just a brilliant orator, but take a quick look and listen below and let me know if you can think of another President since Lincoln that would have presented not only his feelings, but the feelings of an entire nation of baseball fans in such a nearly perfect manner.

• Tom Hicks Should Go Away.  For some reason, this rich guy that should have known better is on my TV talking about how he felt betrayed that A-Rod juiced up when he was with the Rangers.  Tom Hicks is way too smart to not know that at least half of his team, and every other team, was on the juice during that time.  I just wish he would go away…he has no dog in this fight, when you really look at it.  In fact, I think that A-Rod himself, or at least all Rangers fans, have been the ones that have been betrayed by Hicks.  So, let me get this straight…you had enough balls to give A-Rod the biggest deal in sports history, but not enough balls to extend yourself a little bit further and get him some teammates that didn’t suck?  How can some of these guys be so damn smart in their pre-baseball endeavors and so damn stupid once they own a team?
• Where the Eff is the Commissioner Hiding?  Speaking of stupid baseball owners, how come we have yet to hear from the Commissioner himself?  He is the single person in all of this that bears more responsibility for every inflated stat, wasted taxpayer dollar and dead-too-early-of-a-heart-attack former major leaguer that has happened and will happen in the future.  The blood is on his hands, and it always has been.  And how has he handled it?  Ignoring Barry Bonds during his run at Hank Aaron’s record.  Way to go, Mr. Commissioner.  What are you going to do now that your Ace in the Hole is dirty, too?  So far, to the surprise of no one, you have been absent from the public eye.  Every day that you have been commissioner has been an indictment against the entire league, but you are somehow getting worse at the time your game needs you to get better.  I am begging you as a baseball fan…can you please just have enough integrity and respect for the game you have destroyed to buy the Brewers back from your daughter and just run one franchise into the ground instead of the entire league?
• Conspiracy Theorists, The Line Forms Here. OK…I have no evidence of any of this whatsoever, but what if the “source” that leaked A-Rod’s name to Sports Illustrated was someone from the A-Rod camp?  Bear with me here, but A-Rod will forever be known as the first guy to come clean (Pettitte does not count) and has the potential to be known as the guy who brought baseball out of the steroid era…instead of Jose Canseco.  In fact, would you put it outside the realm of possibilities that this is all a creation of the Commissioner’s office, who would rather have A-Rod be known as the face of the steroid era and not Bonds and definitely not Ozzie’s brother…OK, probably a bad example when you have a commissioner that would have extreme difficulty pouring piss out of a boot, even if the instructions were written on the heel.  But, at this point, nothing would surprise me.  Let’s also not forget that A-Rod’s agent is the devil incarnate…anything is possible.
• Let’s Get ‘Em All.  The Feds have been talking about some crazy stuff lately, like not only dealing with the 104 positive tests, but also re-testing the 500+ negative samples they seized back in 2003, to determine if they were using, but were just further ahead of the testing technology of the day than A-Rod and the other 103 guys with hot samples.  I’m all in favor of it, but only because I think that the only way to actually quantify the Steroids Era is to get as much information about as many players as possible, and what they were using and what they were not.  There is a very easy way to accomplish this…an amnesty period, monitored by MLB.  Any player can come clean between now and March 31.  After that, if we or the Feds have to come to you, then you will be subject to a one-year suspension without pay.
• Statistical Relevance – Welcome to MLB Geeks.com.  I have purchased a domain name, started to gather my fellow geeks that love baseball, and hope to be launching an actual company soon that is dedicated to using cutting-edge technology to provide net positive value to our national pastime.  Watch our blog for more on this one later.

So, in conclusion, the only thing this blog entry has taught us is that I have had something to say regarding A-Rod and the steroids mess, and I have done so with my usual focus on conjecture and a total lack of sound journalistic research.  I hope you enjoyed my take on it and found something here that not every other idiot is saying about it.

If you were disappointed at the lack of content over the summer, rest assured that I will try to make time this fall and beyond.  Plus, you can always get off your ass and chime in with some posts of your own.  Just click the “Write For Us” link at the top of the page and follow the instructions.

Before I get to my predictions, let me just reiterate what a total crap shoot it is to make any of these kind of predictions in baseball.  Sure, it usually works out over a 7-game series that the better team will win, but not always.  Even 7 games is a pretty small sample when you are talking about baseball.  Case in point — does anyone outside the city of St. Louis actually believe the 2006 Cardinals were better than the 2006 Tigers?  And then, when you throw in the 5-game component of the divisional round, anything can happen.  The 2005 Chicago White Sox swept the 2005 Boston Red Sox…a team that was better than them at every single position on the field, in the dugout, and in the corporate offices…friggin’ El Duque.

Anyway, here are my predictions guesses.  Sorry about the image quality…no time to eff with it right now.  Maybe I will clean it up later.

Division Series

Series	How it Ends	Why
vs.	Chicago in 4	I hope I am wrong, since I like the spunk of the Rays, but their fans think they are ready because they have responded to every “big game” so far.  I know you can’t exactly play a playoff game during the season, but there is not a single person in that organization, including Joe Maddon, that knows what a big game looks like.
vs.	Boston in 5	The last thing anyone needs is for the champs to get some press saying they are vulnerable, and they are getting it in spades with all the injuries.  This is a team that battled back from 0-3 against the Yanks and 1-3 against the Tribe.  Besides, they OWN the Angels, and especially K-Rod, in the playoffs.  Bold Sidebar Prediction:  Someone from the Sawx will go yard off K-Rod in this series…and that someone will be Coco Crisp.
vs.	Chicago in 4	There is only one player on the Dodgers that can change the outcome of this series, and everyone knows it.  If someone else from the Dodgers decides to step it up, then they maybe have a small chance at possibly competing in this series.  Plus, they have Joe Torre and Derek Lowe, who everyone forgets got all 3 series-clinching wins for Boston in 2004…if they can somehow get it to Game 5 and give Lowe the ball, all bets are off.
vs.	Milwaukee in 5	There is no way C.C. is letting this team lose this series.  Very rarely can you make this argument, but you can here — if C.C. is going to definitely give you 2 wins, can you count on winning 1 out of the other 3?

League Championship Series

Series	How it Ends	Why
vs.	Boston in 6	Boston is better at just about every single position, just like they were in 2005.  There’s always a chance that such a significant advantage will not be reflected over the course of the series, but I will take my chances with the better team on paper in this case.  One side note…do not underestimate the Orlando Cabrera factor…all the dude does is collect World Series rings.
vs.	Chicago in 4	The Cubs have the Brewers’ number.  What people will remember about this one is that Dale Sveum is no Lou Piniella.

World Series

Series	How it Ends	Why
vs.	Boston in 4	The Rox Sox sweep NL teams out of the World Series — it’s what they do.  In case these two teams are not here, change the previous statement to read “AL teams sweep NL teams out of the World Series — it’s what they do.”  Once again, thank you to the Tigers for committing 3 baserunning blunders and 4 errors per game in the ‘06 Series to lose to the junior varsity and break the streak.

One final thought — after the steroids mess of the past year or two, how badly do you think Bud Selig wants a Red Sox – Cubs World Series?  There are a couple of other compelling potential WS matchups (Torre/Manny/Lowe/Nomar against Boston, All-Chicago, and All-L.A. come to mind), but there are some ratings dogs out there as well.  How much money do you think Fox and MLB would lose with Rays-Brewers?  Luckily, this is not a salary cap league, so we should be spared from that kind of let-down.

Last night’s game was an awesome primer.  Let’s get this thing started.

PLAY BALL!!!!

Major League Baseball has decided to implement replay review.  First of all, it is high time that MLB implemented instant replay.  In fact, the refusal of MLB to acknowledge, in any way, how technology can help level the playing field is the second largest embarrassment of the last 15 years.  Granted, when compared to how Bud Selig has handled the steroids mess, his refusal to use technology is a distant second, but it is still the second biggest embarrassment to MLB, with the possible exception of the mere fact that Bud Selig is the commissioner to begin with.  The fact that someone with an ownership interest in one of the franchises was and is allowed to be the commissioner is an abomination.

It is just unconscionable to me that a sport that has rotating ads on the wall of the stadium behind the batter that viewers at home can see, but don’t actually exist on the wall itself…and a sport in which a computer can show us with amazing precision at which point the ball crossed the strike zone…does not have an instant replay policy.  What an embarrassment…

It seems that MLB is interested in nothing more than making the viewing experience pleasurable for the average fan…not doing one of the other major parts of their job and protecting the game and the competition therein.  Of course, this should come as no surprise, since it is also the same league that stuck its head in the sand about steroids for several reasons, the most glaring of which was to overcome the public perception problem they had after the work stoppage of 1994.

Let me take a moment here to acknowledge all the “purists” out there.  You have no argument in this case…especially when you are talking about video review of home run calls.  It seems that almost every new ballpark has something quirky happening around the home run line.  That’s right…line.  It is not always a fence.  We have a bunch of ballparks where a home run or something less is determined by whether or not a ball hit above, below, or on a line drawn on a wall.  Did I mention that the umpire is often more than 150 feet away from the line itself?

So, I guess that takes us to the second portion of the opening statement. 

Home run calls.  MLB has definitely gotten it right to start with home runs…even if they are doing it as a total knee-jerk to the umps having a bad week a little while ago.  With all of the quirks in the modern ballparks, plus the athletic prowess of the players of today, which allow the game to happen with a pace that has not yet been witnessed, it makes sense that MLB would institute such a policy as soon as possible.

But, you absolutely cannot EVER change the rules in the middle of a season.  A season defines everything about the game…and there are teams and players that have all kinds of financial incentives based on what happens over the course of the season.

So, that takes us to the final portion of the opening statement:

Effective August 1st.  The last thing MLB needs is another problem on its hands, and that is exactly what they are opening themselves up for.  The worst case scenario of implementing a change this significant in the middle of the season would give MLB a gigantic black eye when they already have been beaten and battered (justifiably so) by the steroids fiasco and their bumbling of it at every turn.

So, how do you think MLB would look if one or more of these situations plays out:

• Hypothetical Worst Case #1:  The Cleveland Indians lose a game on July 31, in extra innings, after a play in the 9th inning, which ended up being a double, and replay shows that it was clearly a home run.  Now, let’s say the Tribe misses out on winning their division, getting into the playoffs, and all of the revenue that comes along with it, by one game.  Since we are talking about a hypothetical worst case, let’s make it worse…let’s say that the White Sox, who have won the division by one game, were awarded a victory on a similar play that was similarly called a double and later reversed to a home run call, since that play happened on August 1st or later.
• Hypothetical Worst Case #2:  Alex Rodriguez, the best player in the game, who also has the slimiest agent in the history of agents, ends the season with 39 home runs.  He also had 2 hits in June and July that were clearly home runs on the SportsCenter replay, but not called home runs during the games in which he hit them.  Let’s just say that Pay-Rod has an incentive clause in his contract that pays him an extra million bucks if he reaches 40 home runs.  Do you think for one second that Scott Boras would not sue the league in the most public and humiliating way possible, just to make his 10% of that million bucks?

The mere fact that these two preposterous examples are possible should be more than enough to keep MLB from taking some so smart and turning it into something stupid.  Hell, you are over 10 years late to the instant replay party already…what’s another year?