BaseballBuzz

Oil Can Boyd, 1980s Red Sox Pitching Star, Admits Using Cocaine During Career

2012-02-10T08:43:00.000-05:00

A beloved 1980s Major League Baseball star says he used cocaine not only a few times, but a majority of the time he was pitching.

The Boston Globe reports Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd, who pitched eight seasons for the Boston Red Sox, admitted he was under the influence of cocaine two-thirds of the time he was on the mound.

Boyd has penned a tell-all book, "They Call Me Oil Can: My Life in Baseball," which will hit bookstore shelves in June.

"Some of the best games I've ever, ever pitched in the major leagues I stayed up all night; I'd say two-thirds of them," Boyd said to WBZ radio. "If I had went to bed, I would have won 150 ballgames in the time span that I played. I feel like my career was cut short for a lot of reasons, but I wasn't doing anything that hundreds of ballplayers weren’t doing at the time; because that's how I learned it.

"It was something that I had to deal with personally and I succumbed. I lived through my life and I feel good about myself. I have no regrets about what I did or said about anything that I said or did. I'm a stand-up person and I came from a quality background of people."

While drug testing is a huge issue in the sport today, Boyd says back in the 80's he was free to use any chemicals he wanted.

"I never had a drug test as long as I played baseball," he said. "I was told that, yeah, if you don't stop doing this we're going to put you into rehab, and I told them ... 'I'm going to do what I have to do, I have to win ballgames. We’ll talk about that in the offseason, right now I have to win ballgames.'"

Boyd believes despite his 10 seasons in the Major Leagues, he could have played longer had he not been the victim of racism.

"The reason I caught the deep end to it is because I'm black. The bottom line is the game carries a lot of bigotry, and that was an easy way for them to do it," Boyd said. "If I wasn't outspoken and a so-called 'proud black man,' maybe I would have gotten the empathy and sympathy like other ballplayers got that I didn’t get; like Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Steve Howe. I can name 50 people that got third and fourth chances all because they weren't outspoken black individuals."

Boyd finished his career with a 78-77 record and 4.04 ERA for the Red Sox, Expos and Rangers from 1982 to 1991. He pitched for Boston in the 1986 World Series that everyone remembers for Bill Buckner's butchering of a ground ball that helped rally the New York Mets to the championship.

The post game

Slain Lancaster baseball star and accused killer were longtime friends

2012-02-09T12:49:00.000-05:00

Sunday night, Danny Clyburn Jr. and Derrick McIlwain watched the Super Bowl together with other friends inside a tiny little house on narrow North Market Street in Lancaster - near where both grew up - friends of the men say.

It is a house used not as a home, friends and neighbors and the landlord say, but as a clubhouse. Men gather, watch sports, drink a few beers. Some of the men gathered again Monday night.

By about 2 a.m. Tuesday, Clyburn - who 15 years ago batted right after Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. on a field of immaculate green grass in front of 41,602 cheering spectators at Camden Yards - died alone in the dirt from gunshot wounds.

The dead ballplayer, Clyburn, 37, and the man charged with shooting him to death, Derrick Lamont McIlwain, 36, "were in diapers together," acquaintances of both men said Wednesday.

"We all grew up together, watched the game Sunday," said David Boyd. "It had to be too much to drink, I guess."

Another friend, Napoleon Hall, said there was no fight or argument Sunday night during the game, or the day before when the men had been together.

On Monday night they got together again - on the same street where Clyburn and McIlwain played together on as boys, where Clyburn hit a baseball so hard and threw a baseball so fast.

"Like I said, they was in diapers together," Hall said. "They went all through school together. We all did. They knew each other their whole life."

But what police say was an argument - over what is unclear - led to Clyburn's death. The Lancaster police report is brutal and stark in its directness.

The shooting was called in at 1:56 a.m. An officer found Clyburn face-up and unresponsive two minutes later, the police report shows. Neighbors told police they heard loud talking, music and a single gunshot.

A neighbor woman told police that McIlwain came to her door, was upset, and said, simply, "I shot him," according to the report.

When the woman asked who, the report shows, she said McIlwain replied, "Danny Jr."

The police report does not mention that Clyburn once was about the best ballplayer to ever come out of Lancaster, or made hundreds of thousands of dollars playing baseball professionally after getting drafted out of high school.

He is identified in the report as only an unresponsive, dead, 6-foot-3-inch, 230-pound black male.

Inside the new Lancaster County Courthouse Wednesday, the place where McIlwain eventually will have to face murder and other charges, two people waiting for an unrelated hearing recalled Clyburn the player.

A man in the Registrar of Deeds office remembered him as a great player. The owner of the building where Clyburn died remembered Clyburn the player.

Cars drove by that little clubhouse on that little street to see where the shooting happened, to see this crooked narrow street where the dream started and the life ended and Clyburn's playing big-league ball was worth shouting about all those years ago.

Clyburn had a dream just like Charles Duke of Lancaster had a dream.

Duke was an astronaut who walked on the moon in 1972 - one of just 12 people ever to do that. Duke grew up on a different side of Lancaster from where Clyburn was raised, but on a similar street of cracked pavement.

Clyburn died at 37. Duke walked on the moon at 36.

It was left to family and friends and neighbors Wednesday to remember that Clyburn's success meant that for many in Lancaster, all had succeeded to some degree.

"He played baseball on TV!" said Hall, the friend. "The major leagues, man. Sure we were proud."

Clyburn's first cousin, Constance Patterson, came by to look at the balloons and flowers left by well-wishers.

"Nobody knows what happened," Patterson said of the shooting. "People are talking, speculating, but they don't know. Nobody knows but them who was in it."

McIlwain's family, who now live across town in Lancaster, declined comment Wednesday.

McIlwain made a first appearance before a magistrate late Tuesday, court officials said, but has not yet been assigned a public defender. Sixth Circuit Chief Public Defender Mike Lifsey declined to comment Wednesday.

The building where Clyburn died, where he had watched the Super Bowl with McIlwain, is not rented to either of them, the landlord said.

McIlwain has a long criminal history of drug and driving under the influence and assault convictions, according to the State Law Enforcement Division. He is currently on probation for drug possession from a 2011 arrest. He had been arrested for being a felon in possession of a gun way back in 1996 - before Clyburn ever swung a bat in the major leagues.

And now he is accused of murder with a gun, killing a man friends say he knew all his life - a man the friends say McIlwain had watched the Super Bowl with.

Clyburn himself was convicted of drug possession and alcohol offenses in 2005 in Lancaster, records show. Yet, with two kids living in Lancaster, he had been living in California and had only come back to Lancaster Saturday to retrieve a car and head back, said family and friends.

"I sat with him right here on this porch Sunday, and he told me he gave his life to the Lord," said Esther Knox, a friend, as she stood on the porch of that little house used as a clubhouse for grown people to drink and watch ballgames. "He gave my grandson one of his baseball cards."

The card shows Danny Clyburn in uniform.

On a cool September night in 1997, the public address announcer at Camden Yards called out that number 69 for the Baltimore Orioles was pinch-hitting.

The words "Danny Clyburn Jr." flew into that night sky.

This kid who grew up on a narrow street in Lancaster, always the best ballplayer in a city of ballplayers, 22 then, strode toward home plate, dug in his spikes and worked the count to two balls and two strikes.

It is only imaginable for most of 300 million Americans to know how bright those Camden Yards lights were that night to a kid from North Market Street.

The pitcher for the Cleveland Indians was a wily left-hander named Paul Assenmacher. Clyburn grounded out, third to first, to end the eighth inning.

But Danny Clyburn had batted in the major leagues. He would go on to hit four major league homers after a brief big-league career of 41 games spanning three seasons. He played in the minors later, but never again in the majors.

Early Tuesday morning, the last bright lights around Danny Clyburn Jr. came from a portable tower brought to the scene by Lancaster firefighters so police could see to process the crime scene of a murder in the dirt.

The Heraldonline

Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/2012/02/09/3728967_p2/shooting-death-of-former-major.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/2012/02/09/3728967/shooting-death-of-former-major.html#storylink=cp
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Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer Doug Melvin reflects on colourful career

2012-02-09T12:41:00.000-05:00

When the kid from Chatham, Ont., grew up to become a major-league general manager, the first thing he did was trade his team’s best player.

By December 1994, Doug Melvin had been in baseball for a long time. He started as a tyke player on the Chatham sandlots. He pitched in the minor leagues and shared winter workouts with Ferguson Jenkins at a local high-school gym. He pitched batting practice for the New York Yankees, became a scout and spent eight years in Baltimore as chief aide to venerable GM Roland Hemond.

Then the Texas Rangers gave him his first GM job. Presto, he traded Jose Canseco to the Boston Red Sox for Otis Nixon.

“Every restaurant I went into in Texas, I got people giving me dirty looks because Canseco was a home-run hitter, big power guy,” Melvin recalled.

“I was looking for defence and a top-of-the-order hitter. That was one of the toughest few days I had. I thought, ‘Geez, I’m maybe not tough enough for this job.’ ”

He got over it. But naturally, there is a moral to the story. For Doug Melvin, there is a moral to every story, and baseball is full of them.

“It’s the best business that I think you can be in,” he said. “You can manage by storytelling. I don’t think you have to have a college degree. Just have integrity, be honest with people and respect the players and the game. You can manage by storytelling and learn from that too.”

Like baseball people everywhere, Melvin loves stories, and he collected — and contributed — a bunch on Tuesday during a conference call in which he was unveiled as a new inductee to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

Melvin, now the GM in Milwaukee, traded yarns with former Expo great Rusty Staub, former big-league pitcher Rhéal Cormier and Ernie Whitt, manager of the 2011 Canadian national team, which won gold at the Pan-Am Games.

During his eight years in Texas, Melvin also traded two-time MVP Juan Gonzalez. After taking over the Brewers, he unloaded their best player, Richie Sexson. He traded for a half-season’s worth of C.C. Sabathia, which was enough to put the Brewers into the 2008 playoffs, then watched the burly lefty trundle off to the Bronx. After developing Prince Fielder in the minors and watching him boost the Brewers to a division title last year, Melvin could not afford to keep him either.

Getting Nixon for Canseco eventually helped put the Rangers into the post-season for the first time. Some deals do not pan out, of course, but Melvin no longer second-guesses himself as he did after the Canseco trade.

“It’s like a bad at-bat,” he said. “The best hitters in the game can have bad at-bats. If you have a bad at-bat, put it behind you and move on to your next at-bat. Otherwise, if you dwell on those bad at-bats, you’re never going to be successful. If you dwell on a few bad deals that you make, you’re not going to be successful.”

Melvin himself might not have been successful, or even enjoyed a long baseball career, were it not for Pat Gillick.

Released by the Pirates after two years in the minors, Melvin drove to Florida seeking a tryout in the spring of 1975. Gillick, the Yankees’ farm director, gave him a look and a minor-league contract.

“Pat’s always been an inspiration for any general manager in the major leagues, but he impacted me even before that. I probably might not have been in baseball if Pat wouldn’t have taken 10 to 15 minutes to look at me throw on the sidelines. So I owe a whole lot to Pat Gillick just from that one tryout.”

In 1978, Gillick became GM in Toronto and immediately started to raid the Yankees’ farm system. “That’s when I really started recognizing that Pat was pretty on the ball,” Melvin said.

Melvin’s work as a Yankees’ farmhand led to various scouting and front-office jobs in New York. Former Yankees manager Bob Lemon recommended him to Hemond in Baltimore, and Hemond became his mentor when the two hooked up in 1987.

Hemond had been in baseball since 1951, the year before Melvin was born. Hemond called Melvin “Kid.” The kid became a sponge for the knowledge and stories handed down by the elder statesman.

The moral of that story comes in a piece of advice Melvin gives to aspiring front-office types these days.

“A lot of the young people in the game today, they hang around too many times with other young people,” he said. “Maybe it’s because I’m an old-timer now, but I think it’s good to try to gravitate toward the experienced people.”

That began back in Chatham, where Jenkins was a hometown hero who inspired Melvin to abandon hockey and basketball and become a pitcher. They got to know each other in the John McGregor Secondary School gym. Already, the kid was gravitating toward experience.

The cliché says Canadians have a tougher time breaking into baseball. Melvin said the knowledge he learned from his mentors erased any anti-Canadian bias that might have existed.

Well, there was one adjustment.

“I had to get rid of saying ‘eh.’ Everybody got on me about that,” he said.

National Post

Josh Hamilton of Texas Rangers says he had elapse at Dallas-area bar

2012-02-03T17:24:00.000-05:00

Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton, a recovering drug addict, admitted Friday he had a relapse and had “three or four” drinks earlier this week at a Dallas-area bar.

Hamilton called it a “weak moment” and said he’ll take specific steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The 30-year-old player was suspended for more than three years for drug and alcohol use while in the Tampa Bay organization. He missed the entire 2004 and 2005 seasons but has become one of the best players in baseball on a team that has won the last two American League pennants. He was the AL MVP in 2010.

Hamilton said he has not taken any drugs and had been tested twice since Monday, part of his normal routine. He said he expects to meet with Major League Baseball doctors in New York soon.

It is Hamilton’s second known alcohol-related relapse in three years. In January 2009, he drank to excess in a bar in Tempe, Ariz.

Before that, Hamilton said he hadn’t taken a drink of alcohol since Oct. 6, 2005.

Hamilton’s wife, Katie, tweeted: “Truly appreciate all the encouraging & supportive tweets we’ve been getting. God is Faithful and forgives- so thankful that you all are.”

Hamilton said his life “in general is based on making the right choices, everything as far as my recovery, as far as my baseball goes, it’s all based around my relationship with the Lord.”

“You all know how hard I work on the field, I give it everything I have,” said Hamilton, clearly struggling to keep his emotions in check. “When I don’t do that off the field, I leave myself open for a weak moment. I had a weak moment Monday night.”

Hamilton said he “ended up ordering a drink . . . probably had three or four drinks, ended up calling (teammate) Ian Kinsler, to just kind to come out hang out with me. Ian did not know I had been drinking.”

When the Rangers acquired him from the Cincinnati Reds in December 2007, they were aware of Hamilton’s off-the-field problems and had a zero-tolerance policy regarding his drinking. He is tested for drug use three times a week and has had an accountability partner to support him in his recovery — though that job is now vacant.

Hitting coach Johnny Narron’s primary role was to support the former No. 1 overall draft pick, but Narron left the Rangers in November for Milwaukee.

The Rangers announced last month Hamilton’s father-in-law had been hired as a staff special assistant to be the accountability partner. But Michael Dean Chadwick has since decided against accepting that position because of “family considerations.”

Hamilton can become a free agent after this season and has said he will not negotiate an extension after he reports to spring training. He had planned to leave for spring training Feb. 17, a full week before the full-squad reporting date in Arizona.

Hamilton had a strong 2011 as the Rangers returned to the World Series, batting .298 with 25 homers and 94 RBIs. He missed 36 games early in the season because of a broken bone in his arm suffered on a play at the plate against the Tigers.

The season also was marred by the death of a firefighter who fell from the stands while trying to catch a ball for his son that was thrown by Hamilton.

When the playoffs began, six-year-old Cooper Stone threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Hamilton, his favourite player. The scene brought 50,000 fans to their feet, many with tears in their eyes, and Hamilton himself was touched deeply.

“Just to see the smile on his face and him enjoying himself,” Hamilton said after the game, “it was pretty special to see.”

Still, Hamilton, whose wife had their third girl last summer, acknowledged during the playoffs it had been an emotional year, “up and down.”

“It’s been good for me to see all the guys and how they react and how they respond to things I have gone through — injuries, tragedy at the ballpark,” he said in October. “But those things, you learn from them, you learn how to deal with them, how to cope with them, and you move forward.”

The Toronto star

Baseball MVP Josh Hamilton Suffers Addiction Relapse

2012-02-03T17:22:00.000-05:00

Texas Rangers’ outfielder Josh Hamilton, the 2010 American League MVP who has battled alcohol and drug addictions for over a decade, admitted Friday he relapsed and had several drinks on Monday night.

In a press conference, Hamilton, 30, said while dealing with personal issues, he went to a Dallas restaurant and in a “weak moment,” had about three or four drinks.

Teammate Ian Kinsler joined him later and the two left and eventually went to another restaurant across the street. Kinsler drove Hamilton home and asked Hamilton if he was planning to go back out. Hamilton said he wasn’t planning to go anywhere.

But, the All-Star confessed, he ended up back at the same restaurant he and Kinsler visited earlier.

“It was just wrong. That’s what it comes down to,” Hamilton said. “I needed to be responsible at that moment.”

He later reported the incident to the team and to Major League Baseball and underwent two drug tests.

Hamilton said he plans to meet with the league’s doctors in New York in the next few days, and stressed he is serious about staying clean and sober.

“I cannot take a break from my recovery. My recovery is an everyday process.”

The relapse is not Hamilton’s first. In August 2009, Hamilton was photographed drinking in a bar in Tempe, Ariz., which he said was the first drink he had since he vowed to stay sober in October 2005.

Dr. David Sack, chief executive officer of Promises Treatment Centers in Los Angeles and Malibu, said stumbles like Hamilton’s are pretty common on an addict’s road to recovery.

“Most people who achieve long-term sobriety have failed multiple times before they’ve succeeded,” Sack told ABC News. “But an athlete has strong motivation to keep pursuing treatment because their livelihood and career depend on it. In our experience, they do remarkably well with treatment.”

Hamilton has gotten significant support from baseball management and his teammates in his efforts to stay alcohol-free. After the 2009 incident, he had an “accountability partner,” Johnny Narron, with him throughout the season. His teammates stopped drinking in front of him, even shielding him from the smell of alcohol. The 2011 American League champion team’s postseason celebrations eschewed the traditional champagne showers for ginger ale and water.

But Sack said there are a range of cues and environmental triggers that may cause addicts to fall off the wagon, especially times of stress and anxiety.

“It’s hard for me to imagine anything more stressful than being a pro athlete where every day you have to go out and prove yourself,” Sack said, adding that the strain of unpredictable performance, travel and separation from the support of family and friends can also be challenging for athletes struggling with addiction.

ESPN reported that the Texas Rangers are working to get Hamilton recovery-related support, which Sack said may include a combination of addiction medications like Naltrexone and individual therapy to explore what factors triggered his alcohol relapse.

According to ESPN, Hamilton’s struggles with alcohol, cocaine and heroin have impacted his career since 1999, when he was the first-round draft pick by the Tampa Bay Rays. In 2003, he was banned from baseball for drug and alcohol use. He was reinstated in 2006 after his vow to get sober, but continued to undergo drug testing three times each week.

abcnews

Braun Takes M.V.P. Amid ‘Challenges’

2012-01-23T10:22:00.001-05:00

The winner of the 2011 National League Most Valuable Player award, Ryan Braun attended the dinner hosted by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Saturday night.

A murmur of expectation bubbled through the ballroom at the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan as it became clear Ryan Braun would soon be approaching the podium.

Braun, the winner of the 2011 National League Most Valuable Player award, attended the dinner hosted by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Saturday night, making his first public appearance and comments since reports emerged in December that he had tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone during the 2011 season.

After working his way through a long list of people to thank, he mentioned his appreciation of the players association “for supporting me through everything I’ve went through over the last couple of months.”

Braun continued his speech in a more serious tone, fumbling his words at one point.

“You know, sometimes in life, we all deal with challenges we never expected to endure,” he said.

“We have an opportunity to look at those challenges and view them either as obstacles or as opportunities. I’ve chose to view every challenge I’ve ever faced as an opportunity, and this will be no different.”

Braun never said what challenge he was referring to, but it was clear. Through his lawyer and spokesman, Braun has vehemently denied using performance-enhancing drugs. He spent the two days before the dinner at appeal hearings with an independent arbitrator.

“I’ve always believed a person’s character is revealed through the way they deal with those moments of adversity,” he said.

“I’ve always loved and had so much respect for the game of baseball. Everything I’ve done in my career has been done out of respect and appreciation in mind, and that is why I’m so grateful and humbled to accept this award tonight.”

Braun left the podium to enthusiastic applause.

Also receiving applause Saturday was the former Met Jose Reyes, who accepted the Good Guy Award for accessibility and candor to the news media.

Reyes, who signed with the Miami Marlins this winter, used his brief speech to thank his former manager, Terry Collins, and the Mets’ organization, for which he has played since he joined professional baseball.

“I need to thank the New York Mets organization for giving me the opportunity to play in the big league and play professional baseball,” Reyes said. “All the fans in New York, thank you for the support, especially the New York Mets fans.”

The evening had somber undertones, as many award recipients and presenters offered their thoughts to Gary Carter, the former Met who was found to have brain cancer last year. Last week, Carter’s family revealed that more tumors had been found on his brain.

Carter was unable to attend the dinner, and his three children accepted the “You Gotta Have Heart” award on his behalf, receiving a standing ovation as they took the stage.

“It’s been a difficult eight-month journey,” Kimmy Carter Bloemers, one of his daughters, said as she fought back tears.

Nytimes

Darvish, Texas agree to $60M, 6-year deal

2012-01-19T10:05:00.000-05:00

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP)—Yu Darvish impressed the Texas Rangers with his big body, durability and desire.

The two-time defending AL champions were so impressed that they have invested more than $111 million to acquire Japan’s best pitcher. They made a record posting bid and then used just about every minute of a 30-day negotiating window to reach an agreement Wednesday with Darvish on a $60 million, six-year contract.

“The thing that stood out probably is just his passion for the game and trying to be the best he can possibly be,” said Rangers President Nolan Ryan, a Hall of Fame pitcher. “He’s probably the most upside player I’ve ever seen come out of Japan.”

Darvish had a 93-38 record with a 1.99 ERA in 167 games the past seven seasons in Japan. The 25-year-old right-hander, who is 6-foot-5, was already a two-time MVP of Japan’s Pacific League and a five-time All-Star. He led the league in strikeouts three times and ERA twice, and averaged 205 innings pitched over the last five seasons.

“It’s all about winning,” general manager Jon Daniels said. “We saw a guy that we felt was built to pitch innings. It’s a classic pitcher’s build. He has a real commitment to his conditioning and work ethic and a lot of intangibles that we think will lend him to pitch innings and at a high caliber for a period of time.”

In addition to the salary, Texas will pay a posting fee of $51,703,411 to the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters of the Pacific League. The last two figures in that amount represent the jersey numbers of Ryan (34) and Darvish (11).

When that bid was accepted by the Fighters on Dec. 19, an exclusive window opened for Texas to negotiate a deal that got finished only minutes before a 4 p.m. CST deadline Wednesday. If not, the pitcher would have stayed in Japan.

“He’s really thrilled to be coming here,” said Arn Tellem, one of Darvish’s agents. “This is where he wanted to be, and he was hoping when the posting began that the Rangers would win the post.”

The Rangers scouted Darvish for more than two years, building a personal relationship that Tellem said was significant to the pitcher.

While agents Don Nomura and Tellem were in Texas finishing the deal, including negotiations until about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday before resuming a few hours later, Darvish was in Japan.

Darvish returned home after his first and only visit to Texas two weeks ago, when he met Ryan and some of his new teammates, toured Rangers Ballpark and completed a physical.

On his website, Darvish posted a note acknowledging his new team, which anticipates a Friday night news conference to formally introduce him.

“I will have a press conference first in America and then come back to Japan, at which point I will express my gratitude to my fans here in Japan,” he wrote.

Darvish’s deal surpasses what Daisuke Matsuzaka got when he left Japan and signed with the Boston Red Sox in December 2006. Dice-K got a $52 million, six-year deal and the Red Sox paid a $51.111 million posting fee that was the previous high for a Japanese player.

Matsuzaka is 49-30 with a 4.25 ERA in 106 games (105 starts) over five seasons in Boston since his high-profile move from the Seibu Lions when he was 26. He missed most of last season after right elbow surgery and is going into the final year of his contract, worth about $10 million.

When Ichiro Suzuki used the posting system in 2000 to get to the majors, the Seattle Mariners won the right negotiate with a bid of about $13 million, then signed the outfielder to a $14 million, three-year contract.

Though Daniels wishes the posting fee for Darvish was lower, he acknowledged, “That was our call. We didn’t want to risk not getting him.”

Daniels described the move as a “step-out deal” for the Rangers, and said negotiations were never contentious. He said there were good reasons for wanting a six-year deal.

“You tend to look at things a little differently when you look at somebody that age and the years of the deal take him into his prime,” Daniels said. “And secondly, with the nature of the posting process and the size of the post, size of our bid, it made sense to amortize it out over a longer period.”

Darvish, the son of an Iranian father and a Japanese mother, went 18-6 last season in Japan with a 1.44 ERA and 276 strikeouts, both league bests.

Darvish, who turned pro at 18, pitched in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and was a member of the Japanese team that won the 2009 World Baseball Classic.

Through last season, 38 Japan-born pitchers had appeared in the major leagues. There were nine last season, including Rangers relievers Yoshinori Tateyama and Koji Uehara, who are both still there.

Ryan, the strikeout king who pitched a record 27 major league seasons, was asked in Japanese on Wednesday how hopeful he was that Darvish would have a legendary career as he did. Daniels smiled when the question was translated into English.

“We feel like he’s extremely talented, and probably one of the most talented young pitchers that we’ve seen,” Ryan said. “So we feel like he has a very bright future ahead of him. What that equates to we really don’t know, but we feel like once he gets settled in with our organization and spring training and gets into our routine, we’ll start really seeing what he’s capable of doing.”

Pedro Martinez on Manny Ramirez, steroids, and odds of returning to baseball

2012-01-14T18:23:00.000-05:00

Pedro Martinez

Last night Pedro Martinez, who was back in town to help raise money for the Jimmy Fund and the Pedro Martinez and Brother Foundation, spoke to reporters at the Liberty Hotel in downtown Boston. But Martinez also went on to talk about the prospect of him pitching next season, Manny Ramirez, and steroids.

Here’s the Q&A.

How long would it take you to get ready to pitch this season?
"Probably not too long, because once you get your body in shape the throwing program is only like a month and a half and spring training isn’t ever here yet.

"I wish everybody would stop thinking about that because I don’t think I’m going to [come back]. Some [teams] expressed their wishes, saying that I could probably go back, but I just said no. I was really specific at the time. I said, ‘I’m not going to go.' After I lost my dad I realized that family comes first. I realized that I had achieved enough to actually have a successful career and also to be happy with it.

"After losing my dad, I didn’t feel like anything else mattered and that’s when everything just got to me. I wanted to make sure I gave my family the time they needed before I blew it. I’m actually doing that. I’m doing really good at spending time with the family."

Why do you think Manny Ramirez is trying to come back?
"Because he wasn’t ready to leave. He wasn’t ready to make sure that whatever he had in mind was as important as baseball. I just don’t think he’s comfortable.

"Everybody is different. Manny, I think misses baseball. He missed the things he did to stay away from thinking too much and I think Manny is realizing that he should have stayed in baseball a little bit longer."

"It’s really sad to see Manny struggle that way [referring to his recent legal troubles]. I know that Manny is misunderstood a lot and not everybody gets to know him like I know him. Thank god we’re really close in Florida and I’m able to see him from time to time, but even I was surprised to see Manny struggle the way he did after he got away from baseball."

"I’m pretty sure he was disappointed that he got suspended for 100 games and he didn’t feel like he wanted to go and spend 100 days waiting for his chance to play. I’m glad it was reduced to 50 games, so he can probably get back, show everybody that he’s being real, and that he’s going to be a role model from now on."

How do you feel about players accused of using steroids not making the Hall of Fame?
"I’ll be really sad to see guys that did so well not be able to go in with some of us. But at the same time it’s a matter of responsibility. You make your choices and you’re going to have to carry over with the consequences."

"I’m glad I didn’t do [steroids], even though I was criticized for missing one or two or three starts a year for sometimes being in pain and expressing it." (Pedro talked about how player recovery times were significantly less when they were using steroids)

"I’m glad I did it clean, and I’m really extremely sorry for those guys that have to make that decision to go the wrong way, because I know baseball is hard enough to play by itself, and now carrying over such a bad reputation is not anything you want to have after such a beautiful job and a beautiful career. It’s sad but it’s your choice and you’re responsible for the steps you take."

Do you ever think about what might lay ahead three years from now? (referring to his first appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot in 2015)
“To me, it seems like time is flying and I try not to think about it, but everybody on the streets reminds me what’s coming. So I normally hear it, but I’m not worried about it. It will be definitely be a great honor to be called to the Hall of Fame and be part of so many good payers and probably the cream of baseball."

By Seth Lakso, Globe Correspondent

Barry Larkin elected to baseball's Hall of Fame

2012-01-09T17:47:00.001-05:00

Barry Larkin, who was planning to spend his morning on the golf course trying to calm his nerves, will be spending the rest of his day celebrating his entrance into baseball's Hall of Fame.

Larkin, who spent his entire 19-year career with the Cincinnati Reds, was the lone player inducted into the Hall of Fame on his third year of the ballot. Larkin received 86.4% of the vote of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, eclipsing the 75% needed for induction.

"I'm at a loss of words for this time," said Larkin. "I'm incredibly, incredibly moved by this experience, so humbled by being newest member of the Hall of Fame.

"I don't know how things changed, but I am so pleased and happy with everything. I was really surprised by the 86%, but I am so thankful for everyone who voted for me and supported me."

The only other players other than Larkiin to gain more than 50% of the vote were Jack Morris (66.7%), Jeff Bagwell (56.0%) and Lee Smith (50.6%). Morris, who was on the ballot for the 13th time, fell short again but improved from last years total (53.5%). Smith was followed by Tim Raines (48.7%) and Edgar Martinez (36.5%). Bernie Williams had the most votes (9.6%) of the first-timers on the ballot.

"The Cincinnati Reds organization and our entire city are thrilled with Barry's election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame," said Reds president and CEO Bob Castellini. "His extraordinary talent has earned him a permanent place in Cooperstown."

He becomes just the 48th Hall of Famer to spend his entire career with one organization. He is just the third Hall of Famer to spend his whole career with the Reds, joining Johnny Bench and Bid McPhee.

"It's a shot of immortality, the best in the history of the game," he said last week. "To be emblazoned into that history of the game is a tremendous honor."

Larkin, the 1995 National League MVP, a 12-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove winner, represents perhaps the final Hall of Fame induction class -- at least for a generation -- not soiled by steroid or human-growth hormone use.

Next year Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa are on the ballot for the first time, all who have been convicted or linked to steroid/HGH use. The ballot also will include second baseman Craig Biggio, catcher Mike Piazza and pitcher Curt Schilling. The ballot will only get stronger in future years with Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas, Jeff Kent and Mike Mussina eligible in 2014; Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Gary Sheffield in 2015; and Ken Griffey Jr. and Trevor Hoffman in 2016.

Larkin was the first shortstop in history, in 1996, to join the 30-homer, 30-stolen bases club. He hit at least .300 in nine of his 19 seasons, and wound up with a .295 batting average, 2,340 hits, 198 homers and 379 stolen bases.

"(Barry) was the best shortstop of his era, and if not for Ozzie Smith, he would have had a lot more Gold Glove awards, too," said Jim Bowden, former Reds general manager from 1992-3003.

"It certainly is a deserving honor for the Cincinnati native and Reds shortstop," said Hall of Famer Johnny Bench. "Barry distinguished himself as a tremendous leader and a dominating player."

Larkin, who works for ESPN, is also a spring training instructor for the Reds. He has gone to South Korea and Brazil as an envoy for Major League Baseball and the State Department. He also is a member of the Capital One Cup Advisory Board team, honoring the finest Division 1 college athletic programs.

Larkin, who will appear at a Hall of Fame press conference Tuesday in New York, ironically was already planning to be in Manhattan. He is helping his 16-year-old daughter, Cymcole, put together a music video. They plan to get footage at Times Square and the Empire State Building.

Larkin will be inducted July 22 at Cooperstown, N.Y., along with the late Ron Santo, elected last month by the Veterans Committee. Santo will be represented by his widow.

Holdovers that will remain on the ballot in addition to Morris, Bagwell, Smith and Williams are first basemen Mark McGwire, Fred McGriff, Don Mattingly and Rafael Palmeiro; outfielders Tim Raines, Dale Murphy and Larry Walker; designated hitter-third baseman Edgar Martinez and shortstop Alan Trammell.

***
Complete vote:

Barry Larkin 495 (86.4%), Jack Morris 382 (66.7%), Jeff Bagwell 321 (56.0%), Lee Smith 290 (50.6%), Tim Raines 279 (48.7%), Edgar Martinez 209 (36.5%), Alan Trammell 211 (36.8%), Fred McGriff 137 (23.9%), Larry Walker 131 (22.9%), Mark McGwire 112 (19.5%), Don Mattingly 102 (17.8%), Dale Murphy 83 (14.5%), Rafael Palmeiro 72 (12.6%), Bernie Williams 55 (9.6%), Juan Gonzalez 23 (4.0%), Vinny Castilla 6 (1.0%), Tim Salmon 5 (0.9%), Bill Mueller 4 (0.7%), Brad Radke 2 (0.3%), Javy Lopez 1 (0.2%), Eric Young 1 (0.2%), Jeromy Burnitz 0, Brian Jordan 0, Terry Mulholland 0, Phil Nevin 0, Ruben Sierra 0, Tony Womack 0.

Browsing: 2012 MLB.com Hot Stove

2012-01-02T21:48:00.000-05:00

All-Star pitcher Bailey joins Red Sox in multi-trade

2011-12-31T09:28:00.000-05:00

The Boston Red Sox acquired All-Star pitcher Andrew Bailey and outfielder Ryan Sweeney from the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday in exchange for outfielder Josh Reddick and two minor league prospects, the teams said.

Bailey, a two-time All-Star, converted 24 of 26 save opportunities for Oakland last season to rank as the second-most successful closer in the American League (AL).

The 27-year-old, the AL Rookie of the Year in 2009, posted a 3.24 ERA in 42 relief appearances with the A's in 2011, compiling 41 strikeouts.

"I love the Bay Area, but if you're going to get traded, I can't think of a better situation for myself and my family to be in," Bailey, who lives in Connecticut in the offseason, told Boston's website (http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/).

"It's a big market, a big team, and I'm excited about the opportunity to win over there."

In exchange for Bailey and Sweeney, Oakland have acquired Reddick along with minor league pitcher Raul Alcantara and first baseman Miles Head.

White Sox sign Danks to $65M deal

In other news, The Chicago White Sox have agreed to a five-year, $65 million contract extension with starting pitcher John Danks, the American League team said.

Danks, 26, will receive $8 million in 2012 and $14.25 million in each of the next four seasons up until 2016, the White Sox said in a news release.

The left-hander posted an 8-12 record with a 4.33 earned run average and had 135 strikeouts in 27 starts for the White Sox last season. — Reuters

Baseball’s hottest free agent could come from Cuba

2011-12-27T18:31:00.000-05:00

Cuba's Yoennis Cespedes watches his third hit of the game as he drives in his fourth run of the game in the seventh inning against Mexico during their World Baseball Classic game at PETCO Park in San Diego on March 16, 2009

Now that the Texas Rangers have won the right to negotiate with Japanese pitching phenom Yu Darvish, Major League Baseball has turned its attention to the other exciting player on the international scene. This player will not require a $50-million (all currency U.S.) posting fee and, unlike Darvish, he will be free to talk to any team about a contract.

Yoenis Cespedes, a captivating Cuban outfielder with a running back’s body whom scouts have been following for years, is within days of gaining his residency in the Dominican Republic. Once he does, Major League Baseball will declare Cespedes a free agent and the bidding can begin.

“Then anyone can make an offer who wants to,” said an American League executive who was not authorized to speak publicly about a free agent. “Compared to Darvish, this is going to be the Wild West.”

At least a dozen teams fancy the 26-year-old Cespedes, who is built like Bo Jackson and has Vladimir Guerrero’s swing. Some people in baseball believe he will command a contract worth more than $50-million, and the list of teams who may pursue him includes the Miami Marlins, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Baltimore Orioles, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.

None, however, want to reveal their strategy regarding his impending free agency or publish their own scouting reports.

Certainly, all 30 clubs are aware of Cespedes’s exploits – his speed in the 60-yard dash, his ability to track balls in centre field and, most of all, his power to all fields as a right-handed slugger. Although Cespedes has had only a few at-bats against major-league pitching, in the World Baseball Classic, many talent evaluators believe he may eventually separate himself from all previous position players who have defected over the past two decades from Fidel Castro’s Cuba.

“He might be the best to come out of Cuba,” said Ismael Cruz, the Toronto Blue Jays’ special assistant to the general manager. “The question for everyone is how much you want to pay for that, and that is up to each team to decide.”

Cespedes, whose mother, Estela Milanés, was a star pitcher on the Cuban softball team at the 2000 Olympics, defected from Cuba on a speedboat after he broke the single-season home run record in the 2010-11 season. He and Jose Dariel Abreu, the Cuban league most valuable player, each hit 33 homers.

Once he got to the Dominican Republic (if he had sought residency in the United States he would be subject to baseball’s draft and therefore not be a free agent), Cespedes hired Adam Katz of the Wasserman group to represent him. His management team in the Dominican published an indulgent 20-minute video called The Showcase that illuminated his undisputed athleticism and brute strength through his workout regimen, as well as highlights of him in a Cuban uniform crushing balls to all fields and flashing his magnetic smile.

Like Darvish, there is an element of mystery surrounding Cespedes because the recent records of Cuban defectors is mixed. Several, like Livan Hernandez, Orlando Hernandez and Kendry Morales, have become stars, while others, like Alay Soler, Leonys Martin and even Aroldis Chapman – currently a $30-million setup reliever – have not quite lived up to expectations.

Those who have seen Cespedes play for the Cuban national team and in recent workouts in the Dominican, issue universally favourable reports, although with nuances. All agree he can run, field, throw, hit for power and perhaps hit for average over time. Some assign higher grades in certain categories.

One general manager referred to Cespedes’s five tools and said, “all of them are off the charts.” Others wonder if he will play centre field in the majors, but one scout who has seen him play in competitions in four different countries, said he has uncanny defensive instincts and plays with his heart. He added that within “a few years he will be one of the two or three best centre fielders in baseball.” As for his speed, he has been rated a 7 on a scale of 2 through 8.

A few described an average to slightly above average arm, and wonder whether Cespedes will ever be a .300 hitter. A National League scout, who has seen him several times since 2008, projected him as a .270 hitter, with 25 home runs and 85 to 100 runs batted in. Not a superstar, but perhaps an All-Star. “He’s definitely a middle-of-the-order guy,” the scout said. “I’ve seen him for years now and I always used to say, ‘I hope he comes out.’” New York Times News Service

Baseball writers' response to Conlin accusations draws scorn

2011-12-21T22:03:00.000-05:00

One of the first rules of journalism is to tell the story and not become part of it.

Perhaps that helps explain the awkward steps taken by the Baseball Writers Association of America in reaction to the accusations of child sex abuse leveled against longtime sportswriter Bill Conlin, who on Tuesday abruptly retired from his job as columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News.

Three women and a man told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Conlin, the 2011 winner of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for distinguished baseball coverage, molested them while they were between the ages of 7 and 12. One of the women, whom the Inquirer identified as Atlantic City, N.J., prosecutor Kelley Blanchet, is Conlin's niece.

The BBWAA, which votes for postseason awards and the Hall of Fame, issued a statement from president Bill Shaikin of theLos Angeles Times on Wednesday, saying, "We were shocked and saddened to learn of the allegations involving Bill Conlin and we extend our sympathies to everyone involved.''

However, the organization's initial public reaction to the news, expressed in a Tuesday statement from secretary/treasurer Jack O'Connell, was seen as defending Conlin instead of showing concern for the victims.

"The allegations have no bearing on his winning the 2011 J.G. Taylor Spink Award, which was in recognition of his notable career as a baseball writer,'' said the statement, which also mentioned Conlin has been a member in good standing since 1966.

The statement was particularly striking in light of the recent child sex-abuse scandals at Penn State and Syracuse universities.

Criticism, even internally, has been swift, with several members of the BBWAA speaking out.

"It's like the BBWAA was trying to say, 'Hey, Bill Conlin is a child molester, but he's OUR child molester.' Shameful,'' tweeted Yahoo! Sports columnist Jeff Passan.

Andy Martino of the New York Daily News called the statement "tone deaf, and insensitive to the alleged victims.

"Because it was issued by an organization of which I have been a member since 2009, I feel compelled to publicly distance myself from it, and make clear that it does not represent me.''

Conlin, the Philadelphia Phillies' beat writer from 1966-1987, was recognized as the Spink Award winner in Cooperstown, N.Y., as part of the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in July.

Hall spokesman Brad Horn pointed out the award is chosen by the BBWAA and its winners are not actually Hall of Famers.

Any action taken regarding Conlin and the award would be the responsibility of the BBWAA.

Shaikin said the organization has no further comment.

‘Winner’s curse’ unlikely to strike Rangers

2011-12-20T22:14:00.000-05:00

Japanese right-hander Yu Darvish should "hit the ground as a legitimate No. 2 starter,” says Vince Gennaro, president of the Society for American Baseball Research.

According to statisticians, it’s unlikely the Texas Rangers will experience buyer’s remorse if they successfully sign Yu Darvish.

“Early on, these guys might have gotten burned because they didn’t really know how the Japanese worked out,” said John Kagel, an auction theorist at Ohio State University, “but in this case they probably have pretty decent information.”

The fear is that Darvish will be a bust, as Hideki Irabu and Kei Igawa were for the Yankees. Even Boston’s Daisuke Matsuzaka has underperformed after a promising first couple of seasons in North America.

“In my laboratory you see people suffer from the winner’s curse when they’re not experienced,” said Kagel. “But after a while they learn too — and they’re not rocket scientists.”

The winner’s curse Kagel refers to is a statistical phenomenon which says that if a bidding team (such as the Rangers) has incomplete information on the player it wants (such as Darvish), the team, if its bid is successful, will overpay.

“It’s not just a money-saving process,” said R. Mark Isaac, an economist at Florida State University. “This is a calibration exercise.”

In other words, if your bid is too high, you’re not only paying too much but you’ve probably overestimated the attributes of your purchase.

While the winner’s curse may explain why so many Japanese players have tanked in the past, there are fewer unknowns now than in 2007, when the Yankees signed Igawa.

“In four years scouting has come a long way,” says Chris Lund, a writer with The Hardball Times. “There are more avenues to see them play.”

Indeed, industry insiders say the Rangers’ $51.7 million (all figures U.S.) winning bid for Darvish reflects a conservative estimate of his potential.

“If we take a little bit of the hype and dial it back just a bit, Darvish should be expected to hit the ground as a legitimate No. 2 starter,” said Vince Gennaro, author of Diamond Dollars: The Economics of Winning in Baseball and president of the Society for American Baseball Research.

A No. 2 starter could make as much as $18 million a year, or $90 million on a five-year contract.

Darvish is likely to get around $11 million (U.S.) a year for five seasons, said Gennaro.

“Which is still very much in line with where a 25-year-old No. 2 starter would start,” he said.

Thus, combining the posting fee and salary, Darvish will cost the Rangers roughly $107 million — a sum not so different from what his North American peers would cost.

You could say the phenomenon of the Japanese free agent began in 1994, when pitcher Hideo Nomo skirted the working agreement between U.S. and Japanese baseball by retiring from Nippon Professional Baseball so that he could sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Nomo’s manoeuvre led to the creation of the posting system in 1998.

The system is by no means perfect.

“Like it or not, it is kind of a dart throw,” said Kevin Goldstein, national writer at Baseballprospectus.com. “You’re saying to yourself, ‘What’s our choke point on this guy?’”

No model can predict if Darvish is worth the money — only time will tell.

“Game-by-game performance is still incredibly hard to predict,” said Shane Jensen, a member of the sports section of the American Statistical Association. “And coming up with a good predictive model for who is going to break down and who is not isn’t something that’s done.”

Baseball Star Bonds Gets House Arrest

2011-12-18T13:18:00.000-05:00

SAN FRANCISCO—A federal judge on Friday sentenced Barry Bonds, baseball's home-run king, to two months' probation and 30 days' home confinement for obstructing justice during a grand-jury investigation of a company that sold steroids to athletes—a sentence that a prosecutor in the case called a "slap on the wrist."

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Former Major League Baseball player Barry Bonds leaves federal court following a sentencing hearing Friday in San Francisco, Calif.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston delayed the sentence until a higher court rules on Mr. Bonds's appeal of his conviction. Dennis Riordan, a lawyer for Mr. Bonds, said he believed the conviction would be thrown out.

The sentence caps the highest-profile trial in a 10-year federal probe that ensnared athletes in several sports and revealed the use of previously undetected steroids. A number of football and baseball players admitted to using steroids during secret grand-jury proceedings in 2003 related to the investigation of a Bay Area steroids manufacturer.

Federal prosecutors in 2007 charged Mr. Bonds with lying to the grand jury. A criminal jury in April convicted him of obstruction of justice when he responded to questions about his steroid use with non sequiturs and rambling digressions.

The jury failed to reach a verdict on three other charges: that Mr. Bonds lied when he told the jury he never knowingly took steroids or received human growth hormone from his trainer, and that he didn't allow anyone other than his doctor to inject him. Prosecutors decided not to retry him on those counts.

A judge Friday sentenced Barry Bonds, baseball's home-run king, to probation and home confinement for obstructing justice in grand-jury probe into a company that sold steroids to athletes. Justin Scheck has details on The News Hub. Photo: Reuters

Prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Mr. Bonds to 15 months in prison, though the U.S. Probation Office, which recommends sentences in federal cases, suggested he serve probation and no prison time. Judge Illston agreed with the recommendation, citing Mr. Bonds's community service as a reason.

The judge said Mr. Bonds's conviction didn't demand a stiffer sentence. "The jury got it exactly right here: Mr. Bonds made an effort to obstruct justice, but I also find he didn't succeed," she said, since prosecutors eventually convicted the dealers they were investigating.

If his conviction stands, Mr. Bonds would be confined to a home with six bedrooms and 10 bathrooms in Beverly Hills, Calif. The house sits on 2.5 acres and has a swimming pool, according to Zillow Inc., an online real-state firm. Public records show Mr. Bonds bought the house in 2002 for $8.7 million.

During the hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Parrella said the sentence was too lenient. Mr. Bonds deserved prison because his misstatements were part of a pattern of behavior that included using performance-enhancing drugs and cheating on his wife, he said.

"He wasn't convicted of that," Judge Illston responded.

A spokesman for the San Francisco U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment.

By JUSTIN SCHECK

Bonds Avoids Prison Time for Giving Evasive Testimony

2011-12-16T15:16:00.001-05:00

Former baseball player Barry Bonds arrives at federal court in San Francisco for sentencing on Friday.

SAN FRANCISCO — Barry Bonds, baseball’s home run champion, avoided a prison term Friday when Judge Susan Illston sentenced him to 30 days of house arrest, 2 years of probation, 250 hours of community service with youth groups and a $4,000 fine for providing evasive testimony to a federal grand jury eight years ago.

Bonds’s lawyers stated their intention to appeal, and Illston agreed to stay the sentence through the appeal process.

The sentence is in line with those Illston, who presided over Bonds’s perjury trial in April, has handed down to other similarly convicted athletes. Bonds, wearing a dark suit, a white shirt and a silver tie, did not react to the sentence, which was substantially more lenient than the 15 months of incarceration recommended by the prosecution. His mother, Patricia, sat in the front row.

Bonds was convicted April 13 by a jury that listened to three weeks of often-graphic testimony about his suspected use of performance-enhancing drugs. It found him guilty on one of the four counts in the case, agreeing that he had obstructed justice by giving evasive answers to a grand jury in 2003 when asked if his former personal trainer Greg Anderson had ever injected him.

The jury, which spent four days deliberating, also came within one vote of convicting him on a second count, voting, 11-to-1, that he had committed perjury when he told the same grand jury in 2003 that he was never injected by anyone other than his doctor.

The federal prosecutors in the case ultimately chose not to seek a retrial on that count and two others involving perjury on which the Bonds jury deadlocked. They asked Illston to sentence Bonds to 15 months in prison, arguing that his “pervasive efforts to testify falsely, to mislead the grand jury, to dodge questions in the grand jury make his conduct worthy of a significant jail sentence.”

Bonds’s lawyers countered that he should be sentenced to probation and community service, and that any time in prison would be “unfair and unwarranted.” Meanwhile, federal probation officers, in a presentencing report, recommended a “downward departure” from the sentencing guidelines that call for a prison term of 15 to 21 months for the crime for which Bonds was convicted.

Bonds’s legal difficulties began eight years ago because of his connection to the federal investigation into steroids trafficking by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative. In three other cases connected to Balco, Illston did not resort to prison time in her sentences. The former N.F.L lineman Dana Stubblefield received two years of probation; the former Olympic cyclist Tammy Thomas was given five years of probation and six months of home confinement; and the track coach Trevor Graham received five years of probation and a year of home confinement.

Bonds, 47, holds the record for most home runs in a season (73) and a career (762). He last played in 2007, and even before his conviction had become an enduring symbol of baseball’s steroids era, which ran rampant through the 1990s and the first part of the last decade, and ended up tarnishing many of the sport’s top sluggers in that period, Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro among them.

In recent years baseball has become notably more aggressive about testing for steroids and punishing those who test positive. Beginning in February it will begin testing major leaguers for human growth hormone, putting it ahead of other major team sports in North America.

But any sense that baseball was successfully wiping out the use of performance-enhancers was given a serious blow a week ago when it was disclosed that the Milwaukee Brewers’ Ryan Braun, the National League’s 2011 most valuable player, had tested positive for a banned substance, leaving him facing a 50-game suspension.

Braun is appealing the test’s finding, but he will have a difficult time having it overturned. Like Bonds, he is a left fielder and a hitter with home run power, and even as baseball was hoping that the Bonds verdict would begin to bring a close to a long and unhappy chapter in the sport’s history, the Braun case is threatening to start a new one.

By JASON TURBOW NYTimes

Barry Bonds sentencing Friday in BALCO case

2011-12-15T21:41:00.000-05:00

Former San Francisco Giants baseball player Barry Bonds leaves the federal courthouse in San Francisco after a hearing in his trial. (June 23, 2011)

SAN FRANCISCO -- The largest federal criminal investigation into sports doping began more than nine years ago with a tax agent digging through the trash of the now notorious Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. Barring an appeal, the government's work comes to an anti-climactic end Friday when Barry Bonds -- the probe's highest-profile catch -- is sentenced for obstruction of justice.

In between, the federal government spent millions of dollars and untold staff hours obtaining the convictions of 11 people. Six of them, including track star Marion Jones, were ensnared for lying to grand jurors, federal investigators or the court.

Five men, including Bonds' personal trainer Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges stemming from their BALCO connections.

The investigation in general -- and the pursuit of Bonds in particular -- ignited a debate over whether the government's long involvement was the best use of public resources.

More than seven years after he testified before a grand jury investigating BALCO, Major League Baseball's all-time home runs leader was convicted on just one of four remaining counts against him. And the jury deadlocked on whether Bonds lied about taking performance enhancing drugs.

Now, federal sentencing guidelines suggest a prison term of between 15 months and 21 months. But federal probation officers are recommending that Bonds receive no time, citing his charitable work, the nature of the crime and his otherwise spotless criminal record. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston has sentenced two other BALCO figures convicted of similar crimes to probation and house arrest.

Was it all worth it? "It absolutely was," said MacGregor Scott, the former U.S. attorney for Sacramento, now in private practice at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. "It brought a focus and awareness to the steroids issue that wasn't there before." Scott said prosecutors had to go after Bonds once they concluded he lied to the grand jury when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs and said he allowed only doctors to inject him. Dozens of other athletes testified truthfully, Scott said.

"There aren't two sets of laws, one for Bonds and one for everybody else," Scott said. "The grand jury is the bedrock of the criminal justice system in the United States." The probe did lead directly to former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell's in-depth investigation of drug use in Major League Baseball and his seminal Mitchell Report, which in turn prompted MLB and its players' union to strengthen their steroids policy.

Yet the relatively short list of convictions leaves some, perhaps most notably the BALCO founder himself, unimpressed.

"Obviously, the BALCO case brought about a greater public awareness regarding the rampant use of drugs at the elite level of sport, which is a good thing," said Victor Conte, the BALCO founder and president -- who spent four months in prison after pleading guilty to steroids distribution. "As the BALCO case comes to a close, I don't think it was the highest and best use of the tens of millions of taxpayer dollars that were spent on the case." Bonds will have 14 days after his sentencing to file a notice of appeal.

The trial itself ended ambiguously in April about three weeks after it began.

The jury concluded Bonds purposely evaded responding during testimony to a grand jury investigating steroids distribution in sports with a rambling non sequitur to a question about drug injections, and the jurors convicted him of obstruction of justice. But they couldn't reach a unanimous agreement on the heart of the case, deadlocking on three charges alleging Bonds lied to the grand jury when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs and testifying that no one other than his doctors ever injected him.

Prosecutors in September dropped those charges, foregoing another trial and declaring the one conviction showed the value of the Bonds prosecution.

The government's lead investigator, Jeff Novitzky, said Bonds first came to his attention during his weekly Monday night raids of BALCO's trash during the summer and fall of 2002. Novitzky, who was with the Internal Revenue Service then and is now a Food and Drug Administration investigator, said he found a magazine article quoting Bonds as crediting BALCO with helping him pump up and increase his power.

Novitzky gathered more evidence connecting Bonds to BALCO during September 2003 raids of the lab and the home of Greg Anderson, Bonds' personal trainer at the time. Three months later, Bonds was called before the grand jury and granted immunity from prosecution so long as he testified truthfully.

Despite the jury's mixed verdict, prosecutors still insist Bonds lied.

"The evidence at trial demonstrated that Bonds went into the grand jury with the intention of providing false statements and obstructing the grand jury's efforts to get to the truth in the BALCO matter," prosecutors wrote the judge last week seeking a prison sentence of 15 months for the former San Francisco Giants slugger. "Without truthful testimony, the judicial system simply cannot function properly in its mission-to get to justice." In recommending that Bonds serve a term of house arrest, probation and community service -- but no prison time -- the federal probation department called Bonds' conviction an "aberration" and cited his "significant history of charitable, civic and prior good works" as reasons for the judge to "downward depart" from federal guidelines.

The department's report is confidential, but was cited in part by Bonds' lawyers last week in arguing for probation and volunteer work. Earlier this year, Bonds announced he would pay for the college education of the two children of Bryan Stow, the Giants fan who remains hospitalized after the highly publicized opening day beating in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium.

Bonds' lawyers quote an unidentified nurse writing in a letter to Illston that Bonds often visits sick children at the University of California, San Francisco's Benioff Children's Hospital. He paid for the 2009 renovation of what is now the Barry Bonds Family Foundation Playroom, which he visited in June.

"Barry Bonds is a hero to us at the UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital," the nurse wrote. "I consider being a character witness for Barry Bonds a privilege."

http://www.newsday.com/sports

Ryan Braun saga has no positives

2011-12-14T08:10:00.000-05:00

In this Oct. 9, 2011, file photo, Milwaukee Brewers’ Ryan Braun hits a two-RBI double during the fifth inning in Game 1 of baseball’s National League championship series against the St. Louis Cardinals, in Milwaukee

MILWAUKEE — Since no player has successfully appealed a positive performance-enhancing drug test, it’s hard to trust Ryan Braun right now.

But because baseball apparently isn’t against making examples of its stars as perhaps a way of compensating for its casual attitude during the Steroid Era, it’s hard to trust the game’s drug-testing procedure, too.

So what if this were all one big mistake?

No one wants to believe a baseball player anymore because of the way a few conducted themselves before Congress. But what if Braun’s handlers are telling the truth, that their client is innocent?
What if Braun is merely the victim of circumstance? What if, for example, in being treated for a medical condition instead of trying to give himself a competitive advantage at his job, Braun put something in his body that made the dope-testing machines flip like Ozzie Smith?
Apparently it’s never happened before, but baseball has been known to crank out an unprecedented occurrence every now and then.
But even if that were the case, Braun should have known better during a time of reactionary crackdowns in baseball.
I don’t care if it’s a Tic Tac or a Big Mac, anything a baseball player ingests these days should be checked and double-checked by team or MLB reps. That is the cautionary price everyone pays for the fraudulent home run races that once spun the turnstiles and filled the tills.
Braun and baseball have been embarrassed by the way the news got out before either side was prepared to deal with the bombshell. There is nothing to do now except wait on more definitive results.
In the meantime, if Braun wasn’t wronged by the system, we’re left with this philosophical wresting match:
Why would he have taken such a risk?
Braun has the squeakiest of clean reputations in this town, and all over baseball, for that matter. As a top-shelf player who has committed himself to essentially a career-long contract with the Brewers and a businessman who has invested in Milwaukee, why would he jeopardize his golden-boy reputation?
Nothing has been proved, but already discussion has begun on reopening the vote on his National League MVP award. Why would he possibility subject himself to such public embarrassment?
He has uncanny hand-eye coordination. PEDs couldn’t help him make contact with a baseball any better than the rare qualities nature bestowed upon him. OK, so maybe he could have driven the ball farther. And there would be a quicker recovery time for those occasional injuries Braun has suffered.
There is the practical, if not cynical, viewpoint posted in a blog by former MLB pitcher Dirk Heyhurst, who is no Ryan Braun. Yet Heyhurst might not be stretching it when he contends that crime still pays in baseball.
"It sure does," he wrote. "If it didn’t people would be less inclined to commit it." Other players might think that way, but I don’t believe Braun is so self-absorbed that he would trade a couple of months back home in Malibu while his teammates sunk without their best player.

Braun came up as a cocky kid, but since becoming the face of the franchise he has been careful to never publicly put himself above the team. He took a below-market contract to keep him in a Brewers’ uniform essentially for life, but still it is more than $135 million guaranteed over the next decade we’re talking here.
Nevertheless, it has not been in Braun’s personality to coast. He works longer and harder at his craft than most players I’ve seen, in spite of his riches. He left money on the table. These are not characteristics of someone looking for a shortcut.
That’s why I’m still willing to give Braun the benefit of the doubt. This could all be one big mistake. Time will tell.
http://www.bostonherald.com

Griffin: Braun PED scandal staggers baseball

2011-12-12T20:04:00.000-05:00

Just 20 days ago, the Brewers' Ryan Braun was named NL MVP. But a urine test during the NLDS against Arizona produced a positive test for steroids.

Every time Major League Baseball seems set to stage a revival among its most skeptical fans, the ones that swore off the game after the strike of ’94, the muscular shadow of steroids comes along to rain on its parade. This time, it’s one of the game’s most beloved young stars, the reigning NL MVP, playing in the commissioner of baseball’s own home town, Milwaukee. Outfielder Ryan Braun, after failing a PED test, now finds himself in the crosshairs of suspension and disgrace. The sport is staggered.

Braun, just 20 days ago on Nov. 22, was named NL MVP for his season of 33 homers, 33 steals and a .994 OPS, leading the Brewers to the NL Central crown, hitting ahead of teammate Prince Fielder. It was during the NLDS against Arizona that he was randomly tested for steroids.

Then three weeks later, after Braun’s Brewers had been eliminated, he was told his urine sample had contained three times the testosterone to epitestosterone ratio of a normal human being and twice the level of the next highest player ever tested. The conclusion was of “synthetic testosterone” produced outside the body. Braun and his reps volunteered a second test that produced normal results.

The problem is that a second test using a fresh sample is not authorized by MLB. However, the follow-up test on the original sample, sent to World Anti-Doping Agency headquarters in Montreal, confirmed the original reading. With an automatic 50-game suspension at the start of 2012 now likely, Braun’s appeal is in the process of being heard.

He is represented by sports attorney David Cornwell, who has also represented former Ohio State QB Terrelle Pryor and a couple of wayward Steelers, Ben Roethlisberger and Donte Stallworth.

Braun is a 28-year-old athlete that you want to believe. And he somehow seems confident of his position, even though the appeal process has thus far tossed an 0-for-12 shutout in favour of The Man.

Braun came out swinging. He has already told close friends in the national media and in local circles that when the truth comes out he will be vindicated. A simple mistake? A mix-up?

Braun’s lawyer has already decried the public rush to judgment that he perceives, although today’s media of which he speaks is populated by the inclusion of much irresponsible, often scathing social media, Twitter, Facebook and bloggers without borders. Through the years fans have often stampeded over each other to be the first to predict guilt and disaster for sports. The games play on.

While there is reason to believe that Braun’s spotless image will be tarnished, if, as is likely, his 50-game suspension is upheld, there are reasons that Braun’s case may not inflict as much permanent damager as some others in the past.

First, one must consider the history of baseball’s drug-testing program that has been in place since 2004, with suspensions and sanctions starting in 2005. Minor-league testing began in 2001, so since turning professional in the June 2005 draft, Braun has been tested at some level throughout his career without incident. He will get the chance to explain how it is that he never failed a previous test and how a second urine sample taken three weeks later was somehow clean of all illegal residue.

Second reason is the steady decrease in the numbers of cheaters that have been detected since mandatory testing began. In the first three seasons of random urine testing, hampered by allegations of advance warning, lax supervision while collecting samples, etc., from 2005-07, there were 23 major-league players caught and suspended, including the most famous, Rafael Palmeiro in ’05.

In the four years since then, 2008-11, including Braun’s case, there have been nine players caught. That list includes Braun, Manny Ramirez, twice, Mike Jacobs, Sergio Mitre, J.C. Romero, during the post-season in ’09 with the Phils, Eliezer Alfonzo, Pablo Ozuna and Ronny Paulino.

An example of the underlying problem players feel they have is demonstrated by the sad case of Paulino. The 30-year-old career back-up catcher was at least serviceable in an occasional starting role with the Marlins in ’09. But after his 50-game suspension in 2010, he came back again with the Mets and is expected to be non-tendered because, in the words of one member of the front office, he’s “lost power and turned into a singles hitter.”

Really? Ya think? With the major-league minimum bumped up to $480,000 (U.S.), there is huge incentive for fringe guys like that to try and cheat.

The third encouraging factor for baseball, if there can be any in a situation like this, is the fact that one of the early conspiracy suspicions, even with testing, was that baseball would protect it’s stars, throwing guys like Alex Sanchez, Neifi Perez and Mike Morse under the steroid-fuelled bus.

The fact that Braun, one of the biggest stars in baseball, an MVP, a fan icon and one of the commissioner’s personal favourites, is now teetering on the brink of disgrace and infamy, suggests the process does not play favourites which fans were suspicious of. He will likely serve 50 games.

The final damage cannot be predicted. The final result on his legacy is anyone’s guess. Until that January moment in time when Braun steps up to the microphone and truthfully explains the extraordinary events leading to his otherwise inexplicably damning PED results, the one event that can possibly salvage his heretofore squeaky-clean public image, we’re all just suggesting and pontificating with a tut-tut-tut self-righteousness that often comes across as insincere and self-serving. Time will tell.

And the truth shall set you free, Ryan Braun.

By Richard Griffin

Baseball notes: Rays sign rookie hurler Matt Moore for 8 years

2011-12-10T08:39:00.000-05:00

Marlins' Nunez sorry for fake name, age; Yanks re-sign Garcia

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Two months after becoming the youngest starting pitcher to win a team's opening playoff game, Tampa Bay left-hander Matt Moore agreed Friday to an eight-year contract that could be worth up to $39.75 million.

Moore, 22, made his major league debut for the Rays in September, going 1-0 with a 2.89 ERA in three appearances. He started Game 1 of the American League Division Series against Texas and pitched seven shutout innings to beat the Rangers.

Moore, whose deal includes $14 million guaranteed and club options for 2017-19, began the year at Double-A (8-3, 2.20 ERA) before he was promoted to Triple-A Durham (4-0, 1.37).

Arizona: Right-hander Trevor Cahill and left-hander Craig Breslow were acquired from Oakland for right-hander Jarrod Parker and outfielder Collin Cowgill. ... First baseman Lyle Overbay signed a one-year contract. Overbay, 34, hit .286 with one home run and 10 RBIs in 18 games after signing with the Diamondbacks on Aug. 13. He was released by Pittsburgh earlier last season. Overbay also has played for the Brewers and Blue Jays.

Miami: Right-hander Leo Nunez apologized for using a fake name and age, saying he falsified his identify when he was young so he could play pro baseball. "I apologize to my supporters, my fans," he said. His real name is Juan Carlos Oviedo and he's 29, a year older than listed in the media guide. Officials in the Dominican Republic said he would not be prosecuted because he was cooperating with a larger investigation of fake documents. In September, he was placed on the restricted list after Dominican authorities said he was implicated in the case. Nunez had 36 saves and a 4.06 ERA this year. He pitched in K.C. for four years, then joined the Marlins in 2009.

N.Y. Yankees: Former Tigers right-hander Freddy Garcia re-signed for one year. He was 12-8 with a 3.62 ERA this year.

Philadelphia: Outfielder Laynce Nix signed a $2.5-million, two-year contract. He hit .250 with 16 home runs and 44 RBIs for the Nationals this year. ... Left-hander David Purcey signed a minor league contract. Purcey went 1-2 with a 7.23 ERA last year for the Tigers, who obtained him from the A's for infielder Scott Sizemore.

Texas: Infielder Alberto Gonzalez signed a minor league deal. Gonzalez, 28, hit .215 with one home run and 32 RBIs this year in San Diego, which acquired him from the Nats before the season.

Pujols agrees to terms with Angels on landmark deal

2011-12-08T11:36:00.000-05:00

Albert Pujols, the heart and hammer of the St. Louis Cardinals for more than a decade, will leave St. Louis and sign with the Los Angeles Angels, a person with knowledge of the deal told Yahoo! Sports.

Latecomers to the Pujols derby, the Angels will pay Pujols $250 million to $260 million over 10 years, a devastating turn for the Cardinals and a departure from past organizational philosophies for Arte Moreno’s Angels.

After a month-long search for wealth and happiness, most notably in Miami, Pujols will not return to the only organization he’s known.

The contract value is the second or third highest in baseball history, behind the contractAlex Rodriguez signed with theNew York Yankees in 2008 ($275 million) and perhaps higher than the one Rodriguez signed with theTexas Rangers in 2001 ($252 million).

Pujols left the Cardinals after 11 seasons and two World Series titles.
(AP)

Clearly of the mind to change direction after failing to reach the playoffs in back-to-back seasons, the Angels will put Pujols in the middle of their lineup, steal more thunder from the limping Los Angeles Dodgers, and attempt to catch the prospering Texas Rangers in the AL West.

It was, perhaps, with some regret that a new beginning in Southern California will mean for Pujols that he will not be a Cardinal.

Over 11 years in St. Louis, Pujols had become a generational figure, the kind of ballplayer who defines an era of baseball in a city that runs on baseball.

He arrived in 2001 as Rookie of the Year. By 2005, he was an MVP. By 2009, a three-time MVP. And, by 2011, the Cardinals were World Series champions twice with him in the middle of their order and at the heart of their clubhouse.

In the fall of what might have been his final season there, fans rose at Busch Stadium to beseech him to stay or, in the worst scenario, to bid him farewell. It happened again and again as the Cardinals’ season threatened to end, first in the regular season, then in each of three postseason rounds, and finally in the triumphant aftermath of Game 7 of the World Series.

Now he is gone, off to Anaheim.

To today’s St. Louis he was its Musial, its Gibson, its Hornsby.

Musial and Gibson never left, of course, and Pujols’ legacy as a Cardinal would be measured in part by that standard of loyalty – outdated as it may be.

Albert Pujols' deal with the Angels is exceeded only by Alex Rodriguez in baseball history.
(AP)

Pujols and the Cardinals had begun the process of this contract – the one that could take Pujols to the end of his career – more than a year before. There were rumors Pujols wished to match Rodriguez’s $275 million standard. There were debates over the responsibilities of the midmarket franchise, either to its public or its bottom line, and how those might be married.

Cardinals fans feared Pujols would be gone the moment he and his bat hit the open market. Competitive from April to October, the Cardinals certainly would be overmatched when the larger markets showed up in November and December.

Up against a wildcat offer from the Miami Marlins, needs for the drawing power of a Pujols in downtrodden locales, and then potential interest from the annually desperate Cubs, the Cardinals were not able to manage it all.

Not with the Angels doing whatever it took to land him even though they had a rookie-of-the-year candidate in first baseman Mark Trumbo, even though their first baseman of two years ago, Kendrys Morales, is set to return from a devastating injury.

So Pujols will not be a Cardinal on the day they raise the World Series banner and get their rings, and he will not defend the championship with them. Presumably, he will go to the Hall of Fame based on 11 years of Cardinals seasons and the rest in suburban L.A., not at all in the manners of Musial and Gibson.

St. Louis goes on without its icon. The risks instead belong to Moreno and the Angels; that Pujols’ salary will be a burden to a franchise that lacks the revenues of the larger markets and that Pujols will grow old and mediocre before the contract expires.

In a single winter, St. Louis would have to say goodbye to manager Tony La Russa and then to Pujols, so large a part of their conscience and their game. And it might be awhile before the Cardinals look quite like the Cardinals again.

Albert Pujols Is The Shrewdest Man In Baseball

2011-12-07T17:22:00.000-05:00

If Albert Pujols knows where he's going, he hasn't let it leak to anyone.

Albert Pujols wanted to avoid all this. If it were up to Albert, he would have signed a new contact with the Cardinals last winter. But if it were up to Albert, that contract would have been the richest contract in the history of baseball -- more than the $275 million that Alex Rodriguez scammed wrenched out of the Yankees. So here we are. A decision from Pujols is imminent. Marlins? Cardinals? Mystery team? But no one -- absolutely no one -- has a shred of credible information about what that decision will be. No leaks, no rumors. Hardly any speculation. Pujols has it all under wraps.

There are two sides to Albert Pujols: the down-to-earth Albert who speaks softly, goes about his business and wins fans and admirers with his generocity. Then there's the proud Pujols, who believes deep down that he is the best hitter in the history of baseball, and wants have that affirmed for him in baseball's language of respect -- money.

For a guy who is not entirely comfortable playing the free agency game, Pujols is really good at it. If Pujols, or anyone close to him, were to leak the slightest indication of where his head is at, or where he might be headed, the news would spread like wildfire. Pujols is handling the media scrutiny with a tightness of control that most politicians could only dream of.

So here we are, with a decision coming imminently, and no one has any idea which direction Pujols is leaning. We do know that he has massive offers from the Marlins, Cardinals and a third mystery team -- rumored to be the Angels -- but no one on the entire internet has enough info to even make a false guess or start an erroneous rumor. Pujols is in complete control.

Is he using the Marlins as leverage? Yes. Is he toying with the Cardinals? Yes. Is he patronizing the mystery team? Absolutely.

He may not have wanted to play the free agency game, but he did. And we found out Albert Pujols is not only the best hitter in baseball, but the shrewdest.

Onliest problem for Albert is that after he finally puts his name on a contract, the scrutiny isn't going to stop. Every at bat will be examined and dissected, and from today until 2021 we are all going to be discussing whether or not he lived up to the massive, burdensome contract that he's going to pry out of these poor saps.

Miami Marlins in hot pursuit of Albert Pujols

2011-12-07T17:19:00.000-05:00

The baseball world waited Tuesday night for Albert Pujols to decide on his employer for 2012 and beyond. A decision was expected imminently, perhaps late Tuesday night, as Pujols contemplated a return to the St. Louis Cardinals or a 10-year offer from the Miami Marlins.

Albert Pujols

The Marlins, who are opening a new ballpark this season and have agreed to a deal with free-agent shortstop Jose Reyes, offered Pujols a package reported to be worth about $220 million. The Cardinals' offer is believed to be less than that in both years and dollars.

"I know we're getting a lot of attention," said Marlins executive Larry Beinfest, whose club also has signed All-Star closer Heath Bell. "We're hopeful to still get something done while we're here. You just never know the timing."

The Cardinals, the only team for which Pujols has played, have been increasingly anxious in recent days as it became clear the Marlins were prepared to actually pay Pujols to join them in South Florida.

Amid the Pujols buzz, a report surfaced that Hanley Ramirez was so opposed to the Marlins' master plan, he would just as soon not be part of it. ESPN.com quoted a source saying Ramirez would rather play elsewhere than move from shortstop to third to accommodate Reyes.

Trades: The Chicago White Sox sent closer Sergio Santos to the Toronto Blue Jays, sending him back to the organization where he once tried to make the majors as a shortstop.

Toronto gave up pitching prospect Nestor Molina. Santos had 30 saves in 36 chances last season, going 4-5 with a 3.55 ERA.

The Minnesota Twins traded pitcher Kevin Slowey (0-8, 6,67 ERA) to the Colorado Rockies for a player to be determined.

Red Sox: Left-hander Andrew Miller has agreed to a one-year deal, avoiding salary arbitration.

Mets: The team reached agreements with free-agent relievers Frank Francisco and Jon Rauch.

Francisco, the likely closer, gets a $12 million, two-year contract while Rauch receives a one-year deal worth $3.5 million.

TV: ESPN hired Terry Francona to replace analyst Bobby Valentine after Valentine replaced Francona as manager of the Boston Red Sox.

2012 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot includes Williams, Mueller

2011-12-02T17:11:00.000-05:00

Among the first-time eligibles, Williams won the AL batting title for the Yankees in 1998 and Mueller (pictured) for the Red Sox in 2003.

NEW YORK — Former AL batting champions Bernie Williams and Bill Mueller are among 13 newcomers on baseball’s 2012 Hall of Fame ballot, joining top holdovers Barry Larkin, Jack Morris, Lee Smith and Jeff Bagwell.

Following the election of Robert Alomar and Bert Blyleven last year, a relatively weak field of first-timers could give renewed hope to Larkin and Morris.

The 2013 ballot that will be sent out late next year figures to be among the most controversial, with seven-time MVP Barry Bonds and seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens eligible for the first time along with Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza, Curt Schilling and Sammy Sosa.

Bonds, Clemens and Sosa have been implicated in the use of performance-enhancing drugs, allegations they have denied.

Twenty-seven players are on this year’s Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot, including 14 holdovers. A player needs at least 75% to gain election, and results will be announced Jan. 9.

A 12-time All-Star and the 1995 NL MVP, Larkin fell 75 votes shy with 62.1% last year in his second try, up from 51.6.

Morris, the winningest pitcher of the 1980s but burdened by a 3.90 career ERA, received 53.5% on his 12th try, up from 52.3 the previous year and 22.2% in his initial appearance. Players are eligible to appear on the writers’ ballot for up to 15 years.

Smith, third on the career saves list with 478, got 45.3% last year, down from 47.3%. Jeff Bagwell, who hit 449 homers, got 41.7% support in his first appearance.

Mark McGwire, 10th on the career home run list with 583, received 19.8% of the vote last year in his fifth try on the ballot, down from 23.7 in 2010 – a vote before he admitted using steroids and human growth hormone.

Rafael Palmeiro, among just four players with 500 homers and 3,000 hits along with Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Eddie Murray, was on just 11% of the ballots last year in his first appearance. He received a 10-day suspension in 2005 for a positive test, claiming it was due to a vitamin vial given to him by teammate Miguel Tejada.

Two-time AL MVP Juan Gonzalez, a two-time AL MVP implicated by Jose Canseco in steroids use, received 30 votes last year, just above the 5% threshold for remaining on the ballot.

Among the first-time eligibles, Williams won the AL batting title for the Yankees in 1998 and Mueller for the Red Sox in 2003. Newcomers also include 1993 AL Rookie of the Year Tim Salmon and former RBIs leaders Ruben Sierra and Vinny Castilla.

Two of the biggest stars of the Steroids Era appear on the ballot for the first time a year from now: Bonds, the career leader with 762 home runs, and Clemens, ninth in wins (354) and third in strikeouts (4,672).

Bonds is to be sentenced Dec. 16 following his conviction in April on one count of obstruction of justice for giving an evasive answer in 2003 to a grand jury investigating steroids distribution.

Following a mistrial in July, Clemens is scheduled for a trial April 17 on one count of obstruction of Congress, three counts of making false statements to Congress and two counts of perjury. The charges stem from denials of allegations of drug use he made to a congressional committee in 2008 following the publication of the Mitchell Report.

While Sosa never failed a drug test with penalties, The New York Times reported he was among the players who tested positive on baseball’s 2003 survey test.

The complete ballot: Jeff Bagwell, Jeromy Burnitz, Vinny Castilla, Juan Gonzalez, Brian Jordan, Barry Larkin, Javy Lopez, Edgar Martinez, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Mark McGwire, Jack Morris, Bill Mueller, Terry Mulholland, Dale Murphy, Phil Nevin, Rafael Palmeiro, Brad Radke, Tim Raines, Tim Salmon, Ruben Sierra, Lee Smith, Alan Trammell, Larry Walker, Bernie Williams, Tony Womack, Eric Young.

The Associated Press Nov 30, 2011

Ryan Braun: Most Valuable Player of the year

2011-11-24T16:43:00.003-05:00

Posted by Jerry White On Thursday, November 24th 2011 in Sports

Based on an article published by the Associated Press, Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun was declared the Most Valuable Player of the year on Wednesday.

After a close analysis of the results scored by Ryan Braun and Matt Kemp during the last baseball season, the National League has decided to give the award to Ryan Braun. Milwaukee’s left fielder beat Matt Kemp due to his 96-66 points as opposed to Kemp’s 82-79.

Ryan told the press that he won the NL MVP award because he had the chance of being in a better team. In Braun’s opinion, Matt Kemp’s season was better and he would have won the prize if the jury had taken only the results of the season into consideration. Even though the award is individual, it is, nevertheless, the result of an organized team work, concluded the Brewers’ player.

Sports critics say the opposite. They claim that if it hadn’t been for Ryan, the Milwaukee Brewers wouldn’t have won their first division title in 30 years. As a matter of fact, the left fielder is very appreciated by baseball fans. He received 20 out of 32 first-place votes and 388 points, whereas Kemp earned only 10 first-place votes and 332 points.

The ‘Hebrew Hammer’ as the press often calls him confessed on Wednesday that he was nervous about the National League’s decision. He was very happy when NL reps called him to communicate that he received the NL MVP title.

The first persons besides Braun to hear the great news were his brother and his girlfriend who were at his house when the 28-year-old baseball player received the call. Even though he was over the moon with joy, Ryan did not forget to send several encouraging messages to his friend, Matt Kemp. The third place of the contest was occupied by Braun’s teammate, Prince Fielder, whereas Arizona’s Justin Upton finished fourth. The fifth baseball player was Albert Pujols who scored only 166 points.

Ryan Braun will continue to play for the Milwaukee Brewers until 2020 due to the $105 million contract he signed in April. The MVP award increased Braun’s account with another $100,000 bonus.