Top Ten Cloves: Things About Fantasy Baseball Leagues Winning Supreme Court Case To Use Real Names

News Item: Fantasy baseball leagues can use real players' names, Supreme Court agrees

10. New line of replica Fantasy Baseball uniforms on the store shelves by mid-summer

9. Fantasy Baseball League can now start negotiating with ESPN, to broadcast fantasy games

8. Will follow real baseball and unretire No. 42 for a day in their Fantasy Baseball League

7. Real baseball players now getting deluged with emails, from Fantasy Baseballers, wanting more real information from them

6. Fantasy Baseball scouts now heading to Dominican Republic, and other areas, to scout out new, talented, Spanish-named players

5. The The Fantasy League Roger Clemens will end up having an affair with the Fantasy Country Western singer, Mindy McCready

4. Haven't figured out yet how to have Fantasy Parade, for Fantasy team that wins their Fantasy World Series

3. Opens up new areas of having fantasy players getting into steroids

2. That opens up having Fantasy George Mitchell Steroid Investigation (Well, actually, they can use the real one)

1. Many in Fantasy Baseball are taking last walk, or drive, as now, with ruling, they have absolutely no reason to leave house again


Bonus, Bonus

Special Essay - Play Ball! ... Batter Up! ... Could You Please Tell Me, What Is This Thing Called Baseball?

Garlic Coverage of Baseball Steroid Scandal

Top Ten Cloves: Potential Problems With Pro Video-Game League Championship Gaming Series

Weekend At Rogers'; Or The Dead Guy For The Mitchell Report

Poor Roger Clemens.

Fidgeting and fuming much of yesterday, at the Congressional hearing into Steroids in Baseball, or, the government-produced reality show based on The Mitchell Report, Roger Rocket still doesn't get it.

Oh, he's into his Lenny Bruce defense all the way.

Deny it ... They catch you in the act, deny it ... They catch you with a chicken, deny it.

But that's just a sideshow, a little theatrics for the home audience.

They've already voted him off the island.

Roger Rocket is the dead body for The Mitchell Report.

When you document, and pull in the former Senator from Maine to really put a glossy, embossed stamp on it, your dog-and-pony show, you gotta throw a body on it, you gotta have someone take the fall, so all the other dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds can feel good, feel like something was done, feel clean.

This doesn't infer sympathy for Roger Rocket.

Sure, he's one of the greatest ever, however, during his tenure in Boston, his arrogance went beyond the typical sports stars confidence trash talking ... Roger Rocket was packing, along with that fastball of his, a whole extra bullpen of arrogance.

There's a pox on baseball ... From Bud Selig & Co., to the team owners, managers, coaches, players and ballboys, they sold out the integrity of the game to see a few more homeruns, put a few more fat fannies in the seats, to sell a bit more official merchandise.

And yes, there are scores more names in The Mitchell Report, and likely hundreds more that didn't make the final draft, but Roger Rocket has been - and, at least the American League fans will appreciate this - the designated dead body for it.

Decades from now, Roger Rocket will be winning a chosen few a round of drinks, when the subject of old time baseball comes up, and the crowd struggles with their memories of The Mitchell Report, and wasn't that a big deal and didn't someone get thrown under the bus with it ... The roto-stat-geek in that crowd will be the one to remember the dead body ... The roto-stat-geek will be the one to come up with Rocket Roger's name


Bonus Roger Rocket Riffs

Dana Milbank: Bottom Feeders

NYT: Sports of The Times - Politicians Turn Steroid Hearing Into a Partisan Squabble

Boston Globe: Clemens is hit hard on the Hill; Pitcher leaves self vulnerable as he denies steroid use to skeptical lawmakers

Boston Globe: Steroid hearing play-by-play

NYT: Sports Business - Quite a Show, Offering Something New

And if you don't know anything about baseball ...

Special Essay - Play Ball! ... Batter Up! Could You Please Tell Me, What Is This Thing Called Baseball?

Top Ten Cloves: Reasons Mitchell Baseball Steroid Investigation Is Unlike CIA Torture Tapes Case

News Item: All-Star Roster Shows Up on Mitchell Report

10. Everyone is pretty sure that White House Council Harriet Meirs didn't know baseball players were taking steroids

9. So far, no one has asked current or former baseball executive to investigate CIA erasing torture tapes

8. No evidence - yet - White House told baseball players to take steroids

7. No record of Al Qaeda, or other terrorists, taking steroids

6. Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) said she didn't write a letter to MLB, asking them to not let baseball players take steroids

5. No reports of Major League Baseball dragging their steroid users off to black site prisons in foreign countries

4. Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann not prepared to say if a terrorist hits a homerun, that it is, indeed, a homerun

3. No known videotape of baseball players, or terrorists, being "steroidboarded"

2. No memo found yet of President Bush telling baseball players to "leave no marks", so that, if there's no sign of steroid use, it didn't happen

1. Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) wouldn't be able to say that "Hitting a homerun is like swimming"

Juiced-Up Links

The Mitchell Report

TPM's Timeline of the CIA's Torture Tapes

The Mitchell Report - Highlights of the Mitchell Report, released Thursday

The Mitchell Report: Naming Names

Steroid Report Implicates Top Players

Clemens, Pettitte named in baseball steroid report

Mitchell report: Baseball slow to react to players' steroid use

Garlic Coverage of Baseball Steroid Scandal

If we were set up like a newspaper, think of this post as a sidebar story.

The Garlic has been at the forefront of the blogosphere with it's detailed coverage, the digging, the intrepid reporting, of baseball's steroid scandals - stories you won't find anywhere else.

Take them out for a spin and enjoy!

Bonds Indicted ... Let's Have A Barrypalooza!

Top Ten Cloves: How Barry Bonds Celebrated Breaking Hank Aaron's Homerun Record Last Night

Retro Garlic ... Bonds Bashing and Landis Landing ... In The Lab ... Again

Breaking News! ... Baseball Bombshell Expands Steroid Scandal; Giants’ Bonds Tests Positive For Landis Testosterone; Cyclist Said To Be Kingpin Of Lucrative Doping Ring, Selling His Own DNA

Politics and Sports Collide; Paperwork Mix-Up Has Feingold Censuring Bonds and MLB Investigating Bush

















Second Palmeiro Bombshell: Tests Positive For Cialis

IOC Dumps Baseball; Fewer HR's and Little Scandal Potential; New MLB Ban On Steroids Limits PR Effort of Games, IOC TV Time

Schumer, MLB Call For New Roberts Probe; No Records Found Of His Work As Umpire; May Have To Abstain From Potential Steroid Cases

Wheaties Official Breakfast Cereal; of MLB; Box To Feature Steroids; Drops Bombshell In Break From Tradition Established in 1934

More Steroid Hearings - The NFL Goes To Congress; McGwire Surprise Witness; Still Not Talking

And, if you are new to baseball, brush up with the best darn baseball primer on the World Wide Web!

Special Essay - Play Ball! ... Batter Up! - Could You Please Tell Me, What Is This Thing Called Baseball?