Steroids finally hit home

There have been a few great moments for me in baseball this decade: Luis Gonzalez’s bloop single to win Game 7 of the 2001 World Series and defeat the hated New York Yankees; the Red Sox winning the championship in 2004; and, of course, the Colorado Rockies’ run to the World Series in 2007.

To be honest, Boston’s first championship of the decade has held up the best. The D-Backs in ’01 finally beat the three-time defending champions when no one thought they could, but the Yankees have never been the same since. It’s easy to take for granted how awesome it is when they lose. The Rockies’ hot streak was out of this world and came with nigh-perfect timing, except for its ending, but it was such a short burst of excitement. It wasn’t like the whole season had been awesome, or the next year was. But Boston’s win is still the stuff of legend. In 2003, they suffered a heartbreaking loss in the ALCS to the Yankees following a surprising meltdown from the once-incomparable Pedro Martinez. The next year they not only made it back but pulled an historic comeback from a 3-0 deficit before sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. Even though they annihilated the Rockies in 2007, I can’t forget how much I loved the Sox once upon a time.

(By the way, I am compelled to mention: 2003 almost makes me understand the NBA. There is no way that David Stern would have let a potential Cubs-Red Sox World Series matchup get away. For all that’s happened to baseball, the Marlins-Yankees matchup proved at least that between the lines, the game is still on the level.)

With such fond memories of Boston’s title, you can imagine my dismay in reading reports that not only Manny Ramirez, but also the wildly popular David Ortiz, tested positive for performance-enhancing drug use in 2003. These tests, incidentally, were supposed to be anonymous, and while I wish they had stayed that way, it's amazing how at this late date, things are still coming out. Actually, in some ways I feel the players’ union got what it deserved, considering it basically fought for years to prevent drug testing. Not a union I’d want to belong to.

In any event, I can’t say I’m entirely shocked to hear Ortiz might have used steroids or whatever, considering how his career went from “hitter with some pop” to “legend” when he moved cities. But it still hurts.

I’ve said before that steroid use, having not been against the rules for so long, should not keep a suspected user out of the Hall of Fame, especially if his use came before the rule changes. And I guess this doesn’t change my mind, but I’m sick of seeing every single baseball accomplishment come with a freaking disclaimer attached.

Armstrong doesn’t win the Tour de France

Alberto Contador, known best in America as Lance Armstrong’s teammate, won the Tour de France Sunday. It was his second victory in the race, having also won it two years ago.

Is finishing third at 37 more impressive than winning it all at 26? Eh, I don’t know. They were both impressive, which, you know, you can usually say about podium finishers on the Tour. Personally I’ve had more fun this year badmouthing Lance, probably because people get so mad about it, but it’s pretty unbelievable he could jump back into it like that.

Well, I got nothing else, but didn’t think I should let this pass by…

Perfection

This is more of a thought than a full-blown post. Thursday Blaine e-mailed me with the news of Mark Buehrle’s perfect game in a 5-0 win against the Tampa Bay Rays. On my way out of work a couple hours later, I saw two co-workers downstairs, one of whom is a big White Sox fan. I asked if he had seen what happened in the game, and he hadn’t, so I urged him to go check a computer. But he just sits down as I start talking to the other guy, so I pull up ESPN.com on my phone and hand it to him, leading to an immediate stream of celebratory swearing. The other guy’s curiosity now piqued, he comes over to see what it is, and I tell him the Sox threw a perfect game. He shrugs his shoulders, completely unimpressed.

The next day I the non-fan comes into my office, and he asks if I heard about the baseball game yesterday where nothing happened. Very funny, but it made me think. The boxscore listed an attendance of 28,036 at U.S. Cellular Field Thursday. Of those twenty-eight thousand, surely some were at their first baseball game. Perhaps some were even forced to come by pushy friends. Well, can you imagine finally convincing someone to go to a baseball game with you, and you end up seeing a perfect game, and afterwards they complain that nothing happened? I think I would go ballistic.

On the other hand, if you didn’t like baseball it might be pretty boring. I mean, maybe DeWayne Wise’s catch would have looked kind of cool. But overall, you might not feel like going to a baseball game ever again.

Helton’s big game

A concerned reader wrote in to ask why I hadn’t posted about Todd Helton’s 500th career home run. I had similar feelings when I first misread last night’s recaps; turns out Helton hit his 500th career double, and also hit a home run in the eighth inning to break the tie and lead the Colorado Rockies to a 4-3 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.

If you’re looking for video highlights, I like MLB.com’s sadly unembeddable package.

Two things. First, five hundred career doubles, while not as cool as the same number of home runs, are incredibly impressive. Helton has been playing for years, sure, but the mark takes a ton of consistency, durability, and skill, and he’s had all three in spades. I can still remember when he first joined the team in 1997, my first year as a Rockies fan; he showed up late in Larry Walker’s MVP season, but showed enough promise to run wildly popular first baseman Andres Galarraga out of town.

The Big Cat was beloved in Denver; known best for his hitting (won the batting title with a .370 average in the franchise’s first year), he was actually surprisingly agile around the bag. I can recall his doing the splits to catch errant throws at first. But Helton never gave Rockies fans even a hint of a reason to think the team had made the wrong move. To the Cat’s quickness at first he added a terrific throwing arm; rarely does a first baseman have the chance to showcase it, but when he does, it’s oh-so-sweet. And, of course, his hitting numbers have been incredible, and no one even bought it years ago when he may have sort of been accused of using steroids.

And second, Helton is having a resurgence this year. He’s hitting .324/.406/.528 so far this year, with eleven homers and twenty-nine of those doubles. Helton will be 36 within a month. It’s pretty crazy to think the ride will be shutting down soon, but it’s nice to see he’s still getting it done.

All-Star Game 2009

The MLB All-Star Game was tonight and, shock of all, the American League won. The A.L. has now won seven games in a row. Back in ’02? The game ended in a tie. Before that the A.L. had won five more in a row. If it hadn’t been for that public display of spinelessness in 2002, when the commissioner called the game before it was through, surely we’d be looking at a streak equal to that of the NFC’s Super Bowl dominance of the ’80s and ’90s.

I wanted to enjoy tonight’s game—I really did—but gosh, they sure made it hard. Strike one: FOX saying the game would start at 6. I remember seeing that and thinking, this game’s not really going to start at 6, but I decided to start watching then anyway. Of course, there wasn’t an actual game on at the time. Yeah, I could stand to be a little wiser, but they could stand to be a little more honest. When I first turned on the game, they were showing President Obama meeting some of the players, and I was thinking, wow, he’s like the biggest star at this game, isn’t he? It was kind of cool watching him talk to the players. Funny watching him stand next to Ichiro, almost motionless, for a few seconds before I realized the President was signing an autograph for the Japanese baseball star.

Anyway, next up were the introductions. Now I like the introductions. For some reason the All-Star gimmick of showing each player tip their hat as they’re announced always works for me. This year only one player, I think (can’t remember who) was doing the whole holding-his-kid thing, which is good. I was surprised to recognize the name of almost every player, considering I haven’t followed baseball closely for years. But it was still disappointing to think, oh, these guys are the stars now. Perhaps I’m romanticizing but go back five or ten years and the players, to me, seemed like much bigger stars. Even forgetting the home-run record guys, you had Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez and Nomar and all the pitchers from Atlanta and a million other guys. These weren’t necessarily the headliners, but they were on the team every year, and they were all well-known. Maybe it’s just that I grew up with them, but they felt like bigger stars. This year for real stars we had Albert Pujols and Derek Jeter, and maybe Joe Mauer and Ryan Howard and a few others belong in that tier, but overall I’m not going to remember most of these players when they’re gone. Plus the pitchers—I didn’t know a lot of those dudes. Mariano, Trevor Hoffman, and Josh Beckett are memorable enough, but shouldn’t there be more? What do you think?

Anyway, that tangent aside, the game still hadn’t started yet. Why not? Well, President Obama and four former presidents (and in a proud moment, I actually thought to myself: “I wonder which four”) narrated this tribute to “real” All-Stars or something that I think was about citizens who do stuff in their community. Not to be a jerk but was there a reason for that? Why do sports fans have to suffer through this, “there’s a real world out there” garbage? You know, I doubt Lifetime viewers are tearing up the value-to-society charts, but do they have to sit through a community-service infomercial before they can catch their latest drama? I don’t think so.

By the time the game came on, well, I was already doing other things. I did happen to catch the tail end of Obama’s time in the booth with Buck and McCarver. The booth guys were doing that whole thing where they just chat with the famous guest right on through the live action, and the President was mid-sentence when Prince Fielder smacked a ground-rule double down the leftfield line. Obama stopped, and said “ooh” or “oh” or something and shut up, forcing Buck to pick up the play-by-play. Thank you, Mr. President. I’m glad somebody wanted me to catch some baseball tonight. Plus he let Willie Mays fly along to the game. I think his role in the proceedings will be what I remember most fondly from tonight’s game.

Microsoft Silverlight update

Microsoft just updated its Silverlight browser plug-in to version 3.0, which adds some new features, my favorite being its ability to leverage your computer’s graphics chip for smoother video playback. You can download it from their Silverlight website. They have a demo of their streaming video up that is just breathtaking if your connection is good enough. Seriously, check it out.

Silverlight, as you may remember, was the technology NBC chose for their streaming Olympic videos last year. I just watched a sweet Dwyane Wade-to-Kobe Bryant alley-oop on their site, and it looks just like it did last year, which is pretty good. But can you imagine how sweet it will be if they can get the 2012 stream from London looking half as good as that cartoon? That’d be so cool. I will never feel like waiting for one of NBC’s “Live” broadcasts to hit my TV again.

New Hole Punch blog

Just a heads-up in case you didn’t notice the link to the side: I’ve started a new blog, Hole Punch Etc., for when I feel like posting about stuff that isn’t sports. I figured that would be less annoying than if I just randomly threw stuff on here. So far it only has one post, but I think in the future I will write about a bunch of different topics. It’s pretty open-ended on purpose. Last year I would have written there about the election, I’m sure, and I imagine I’ll put some technology-related stuff on there, but then again I also might just use it to vent about why Transformers 2 was so awful. I’m sure the updates will be sporadic, just like they are here. Anyway, feel free to check it out.

Vote for the Broncos’ all-time team

I was just gonna write about this on Twitter, but didn’t know if anyone would see it. (Does anyone read that?) The Broncos are letting you pick your 50th anniversary Broncos team on their website, and it’s AWESOME. (Thanks, Lindsay.)

Some of the choices are great. Because I know Elway’s going to win at quarterback, I was tempted to vote for Frank Tripucka (whose No. 18 is one of the team’s three retired jerseys), or maybe Jake Plummer. And now that I know that the all-time team is going to be honored at a Broncos’ game this year, I really, really hope Jay Cutler wins it. But, in the end, I decided I’d rather be part of the 96.2% or whatever who go with Elway.

Some positions are really, really hard, because we’re so loaded. It’s funny that the Broncos spent the first part of the decade looking for the next Steve Atwater, who was just one in a long tradition of great Denver safeties (Dennis Smith, Billy Thompson, Austin Gonsulin). Leaving Smith off was tough, but I literally had to vote for Atwater (they show you some highlights before you see the candidates, and you can guess which Atwater hit made the reel) and Tyrone Braxton has always been a favorite of mine, the undersized, supposedly-slow D-back who was terrific in pass coverage.

We’ve had enough memorable linebackers that I would have gone with a 3-4 lineup, personally, though you don’t get the choice. I thought Simon Fletcher and Rich “Tombstone” Jackson had to be my bookends on the defensive line, but Rulon Jones caught my eye.

On the offensive side of the ball, running back is surprisingly tough even without Howard Griffith or the Human Bowling Ball, but T.D. and Floyd Little (his No. 44 joins 18 & 7, if you’re wondering) are the safe picks. Wide receiver is really, really difficult. I ended up going with Ed McCaffrey opposite Rod Smith but I think that’s going to keep me up nights, especially since I think they’re both gonna win, too. Lionel Taylor was the first pro receiver ever to catch one hundred passes in a season and Haven Moses was huge in bringing us to our first Super Bowl.

Anyway, if you like the Broncos, you have to try it!

The rest of my team: Shannon Sharpe (duh), a line of Gary Zimmerman-Mark Schlereth-Tom Nalen-Keith Bishop-Tony Jones, Louis Wright and Champ Bailey on the corners, with Trevor Pryce and Rubin Carter attacking in front of Randy Gradishar, Tom Jackson and Karl Mecklenburg. Jason Elam and Mike Horan are my kicking team, and Rick Upchurch edged the terrific Darrien Gordon as a return man.

DeMarcus Ware is awesome

Many NFL fans knew that already, of course: Ware led the league with twenty sacks last year for the Dallas Cowboys (okay, that last part isn’t very awesome). And it’s not his eighty-plus tackles or his six forced fumbles that make him cool, either.

No, what makes DeMarcus Ware awesome is his willingness to go into hiding. Just ask ex-Cowboy Greg Ellis, which is what former Cowboys star Michael Irvin did Wednesday.

‘It's a disgrace when DeMarcus Ware comes off the field just so I can get in the game and when the coaches tell him to come on the field, he tries to hide so I can play,’ Ellis said on Irvin's show. ‘And you're telling me we're trying to win the Super Bowl?’

Seriously?

During the interview Wednesday, Irvin asked Ellis to clarify his statement that Ware would take himself out of games.

‘On his own. He would say, 'G, come on.' And I would tell him, 'No, DeMarcus, go ahead, man. You're coming up on your contract year. Don't mess that stuff up.'’

Ware gave a cagey response on the radio yesterday, which you can find in that ESPN article, but he admits that basically, yeah, he did do that. He gave up some of his own precious playing time for Ellis, who was in his eleventh year with the Cowboys.

That may look like a tiny risk, and it is if you ignore small facts like how many NFL players have statistics-based contract incentives (don’t know about Ware specifically on this) or the one that says most NFL owners are willing to be petty and vindictive in all your future contract negotiations. In a small way, at least, Ware was taking a chance with his career that wasn’t going to benefit him any.

Now wait: shouldn’t Ware do what his coaches say all the time? Well, I’m sure the coaches would like that, but I think it’s awesome that he has the leadership chops to just go ahead and pay respect to a long-tenured veteran like this. (It’s not like Ellis was a liability; he chipped in eight sacks of his own on the year.) Life in the NFL is really, really short, even if you’re star. Some organizations don’t value independent thinking in their rank-and-file, but to me a guy like Ware is worth his weight in gold to a team and its defense. If I were running the Cowboys, I’d do what I could to keep him happy for a long, long time.

Nuggets lose Dahntay Jones

Former Nuggets shooting guard Dahntay Jones has agreed to terms on a four-year deal with the Indiana Pacers.

Jones was a starter, sure, but his minutes went down each round in the playoffs, and he only averaged 17.5 minutes per game over the entire postseason. So he was really more like a sixth man, except with Chris Andersen and J.R. Smith playing such huge roles off the bench, he was actually the seventh man in terms of PT. He also wasn’t much of a jump shooter even when teams were leaving him open.

But he also had a sweet dunk on Erick Dampier in Game Three of the Dallas series, and he was part of one of the memorable moments of the Lakers series when he tripped Kobe Bryant. I was much more concerned about the fate of Chris Andersen this offseason than I was with Jones. I tend to criticize filthy-rich sports owners when they cheap out on teams, but if the NBA salary cap is really shrinking before the 2010-2011 season, then losing Jones is a minor sacrifice. J.R. Smith can step up in the lineup, and he’ll have to, because the Nuggets don’t have another guard ready if he’s struggling. Yes, we have Ty Lawson. But rookie point guards are no sure thing. Congratulations to Jones on his deal and significant raise; here’s to hoping the Nuggets won’t miss him too much on the court.

Joe Sakic retiring

John reminded me that longtime Colorado Avalanche center and captain Joe Sakic will retire tomorrow.

Like many Coloradans, I started following hockey right around June of 1996, right as Sakic was wrapping up his masterpiece postseason that would earn him the Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP. Over the next few seasons his reputation soured a bit among some Denver fans as his postseason numbers often didn’t match his lofty standards, which is sort of hilarious considering he led a Colorado team to the state’s first-ever major pro sports championship. Sakic was outstanding again in 2001, when the team won its second Stanley Cup.

I don’t really have any specific Sakic memories, but he’s been a leader and star of the Avs ever since they came to Denver. I want to call him the steady hand to Forsberg’s flash but that’s selling Sakic, who was a spectacular player, way too short. He will be missed.

Birdman to stay in Denver

Hallelujah. Five years. Saw it on ESPN.com, which cites a Denver Post report. To me, this was the biggest question mark of our offseason, and it’s already taken care of. I’m very pleased to see ownership and management step up like this.