Doping in sports

In light of Barry Bonds homerun record chase, this post is dedicated to the use of performance enhancing drugs. There is tons of speculation around Barry and his alledged "cheating". There's no question that Barry has used some sort of performance enhancer. If you don't believe he is guilty, then, you are probably one of those that thinks that OJ Simpson is innocent as well. There is no possible way that Barry Bonds would have grown so dramatically during his career. He went from a lean 185 pounds when he broke into the league to 228 now. Although not impossible to gain that amount of weight, Barry is linked to BALCO, an organization linked to steroid and other performance enhancing drugs. His hand was caught in the cookie jar and his face is covered in chocolate. I wonder who's been stealing the cookies?

Despite my belief that Barry is a cheater, I believe he is getting a bad rap. He is surely not the only individual in baseball that cheats. During last years' playoffs, Kenny Rogers was pretty much caught red-handed for using pine tar to help him pitch. There are other individuals in baseball that have been caught using performance enhancers. In little league, teams lie about their players ages to help them win. Alfonso Soriano, a Texas Ranger outfielder, became 2 years older after a trade from the Yankees. In baseball, teams constantly try to steal signs in order to be successful. Baseball is a game of cheaters. Barry is just playing by the unwritten rules.

Barry deserves recognition for his accomplishments. He is not getting the respect he deserves because of his bad reputation with the media. Often, Barry is considered a jerk or an asshole because he expresses his true opinion to the media. Therefore, Barry is portrayed as a villain and has not been getting the hype his record breaking attempts deserve. Ty Cobb was a huge racist yet he managed to make it to the hall of fame without the same media scrutiny. Barry Bonds deserves better treatment than a racist.

I'm not trying to dump on baseball. There are other sports where performance enhancers are an issue. The tour de France is a classic example. Since the retirement of Lance Armstrong, the tour has been plagued with doping scandals. After Lance's 7 consecutive victories, one has to question the legitimacy of the testing procedures during that period. Lance provided the tour with much needed American support. American fans, and sponsorship money, were drawn to the sport after Lance's incredible story. His recovery from testicular cancer and his rise to the top of his sport is truly remarkable. It may just be too remarkable...

Finally, the most famous Canadian cheater (or should I say cheetah) Ben Johnson. He was so doped up during the 1988 Olympics he could probably outrun a horse. He got caught, and his life was relegated to poking fun at himself during commercials for a discount beer brand. He ruined his career and any chance at being successul in life. He flushed his life down the drain.

to be continued....

Salary Cap

The NHL's salary cap is finally starting to realize the effects of the attempts at achieving parity in the league. In the last couple of years, there have been players signed to smaller market teams in order to make the whole league more competitive.

Last year, the largest victim of this parity was the Ottawa Senators. Strangely, the Senators were able to go to the Stanley Cup finals without two superstars, Zdeno Chara and Martin Havlat. The effects of drafting well helped to propel the Sens to a respectible finish.

This year, the largest victim is the Buffalo Sabres. They ended up losing not one, but two, of their captains. The Sabres lost co-captains Daniel Briere and Chris Drury. They will obviously have a difficult time maintaining the success they have had in the past. With that being said, the Sabres were one of the deepest teams in the league and are likely to remain a playoff contender in the Eastern Conference.

The purpose of this post is a reaction to a post I saw on hockeytraderumors.com. On that site, a Sens fan, created a proposal in which teams would be compensated for "drafting well". He felt that it was unjust for teams like Ottawa to lose players like Chara, Havlat, and potentially Heatley, Spezza, Redden and Fisher. Although I understand why he said it, it does not make sense. The idea of the salary cap is SUPPOSED to remove good players from good teams and make them go on bad teams. This creates parity.

Next, the guy's point was flawed in that the players were not even drafted by the Sens, at least, not all of them. His proposal would create a clause whereby the salary hit for a drafted player would be less, say 25% less. In theory, this seems appealing. There is more incentive for a team to retain the services of a quality player they drafted. They could end up saving cap space by keeping their players. However, this is not how to create parity in the league. Teams need to lose players. Teams need to continuously draft well in order to be successful.

Today, the Edmonton Oilers have made a second attempt at acquiring a group II-restricted free agent. The Oilers have now offered Tomas Vanek and Dustin Penner to contracts. Although Vanek re-signed with the Sabres, Dustin Penner was a player the Edmonton Oilers obviously wanted. In the past, under the "old" NHL, the Edmonton Oilers would never be able to consider offering such contracts. In fact, they probably would have never lost Gretzky if the salary cap was in place.

The new system in which "good drafting" teams get "punished" has also allowed for small market teams to be competitive and succeed. Edmonton now has a chance to acquire quality free agents (although few want to stay in Edmonton, but thats another rant). Also, Ottawa wouldn't even be in their current position if the cap was not in place. Large market teams would have outbid for the services of the Senators key personel.

In summary, the Sens fan's post about wanting to retain "quality draft choices" is a bitter response from an uneducated fan. Although I am a proud Sens fan, I cannot simply agree with his logic. It is flawed, biased, and a bitter reaction to something that was supposed to help us. Never bite the hand that feeds you.

A's vs. Good Ol' Boys (Sunday, July 22, 2007)

Due to rain wetter than a donkey's kiss, the A's game against the Guzzlers was postponed on Thursday.

The A's next game, on Sunday, was played on the sand at Tauvette. A rare start on the desert at 5pm. The weather was perfect for an afternoon of ball. To support that point, the A's had a number of old teammates come to cheer the team on.

Fortunately, the A's were able to give their fans an early start. Terry Jones, our lead-off hitter, started the bottom half of the 1st inning with a triple. The A's went on to score 3 runs in the first for a quick 3-0 after one.

Unfortunately, the A's were not able to create much more offence after that. The Good Ol' Boys persisted and managed to score 5 throughout the rest of the game. The game was played well. There was solid defence with some solid pitching in between. Notably, Will Mood was able to get out of a bases-loaded with nobody out jam with only giving up one run on a long fly ball to left field.

The A's even had a chance to tie the game at the bottom half of the last inning. After a lead-off single by Alex Davey, the A's were poised to start a rally off of Good Ol' Boys starter Andy Dunn. Unfortunately, any momentum was negated by questionable coaching. First, Martin Desjardins was asked to bunt. Unfortunately, he was not able to do so, and eventually ended up striking out on three pitches. Next, I was asked to bunt as well. I layed one down and hustled to first base. I was called out. The issue I had was with the bunt call. Neither Martin or myself are great hitters, but when a team is down by 2 runs, they should not be bunting in the bottom half of the last inning with only one person on base. If we are that bad of hitters, we would be better served to take pitches and hope for a walk. When there is a man on first, it is not mandatory to call a bunt. In many cases, it is appropriate, but in this case it hurts the team. You CANNOT trade outs for bases at that point in the game. Hopefully, the next game we will not need to bunt.

A's vs. Blues (Tuesday, July 17, 2007)

Unfortunately, I was not able to attend this game. My good friend Ange had a one-day visit to Ottawa from her trip to Africa.

The A's won the game 10-8. It looks like "Crazy" Will Lowe pitched most of the innings and got the win. The A's are extending their lead in the BMFL.

Up next...

Thursday, July 19, 2007
A's vs. Guzzlers

A rematch from Sunday's slaughter, the Guzzlers will look to even the score and try to pull closer to the top of the standings. An A's win will make it very difficult for the Guzzlers to become regular season champions. This game should be a very good game to watch.

A's vs. Guzzlers (Sunday, June 15, 2007)

During a weekend that was mostly overcast and gloomy, the sun finally shon through for the 5pm matinee between the A's and Guzzlers. "Crazy" Will Lowe got the start for the A's, while "Disco" Stu Shonfeld started for the Guzzlers.

The A's didn't waste any time getting runs. In the opening frame, the A's tagged Stu for a few hits. The A's scored twice, but Stu kept his composure and got out of the inning. When it came time for "Crazy" Will to pitch, he was all wired up as usual. "Crazy" Will was looking to redeem himself after a poor showing against the Good Ol' Boys. "Crazy" Will struck out two batters in the bottom half of the inning.

The remainder of the game proceeded like the first inning. The A's never got a big inning or a big play, but constantly applied pressure to the Guzzlers pitching staff. Stu managed to last 4 innings, while "Crazy" Will went the full seven. The final score, 9-0, was representative of the game play. The Guzzlers were never in the game, but they kept losing ground each inning.

I believe everyone on the A's got on base at some point. I, personally, was hitting well, despite only going 1 for 4 at the plate. I hit a couple of hard liners to their fielders, and a fly ball that I just got under. Sadly, my worst hit ball resulted in a base hit. Baseball is funny that way.

A's vs. GOB

This game saw more hits than a Snoop dog concert. A 13-9 loss for the A's, this was certainly not one of the better performances by the team as a whole. To the Good Ol' Boys credit, they came out hitting, and hitting hard. They rocked our ace and chased him out of the game. Crazy Will's drop ball was not dropping, and he paid for it.

Defensively, the A's were not at their sharpest. Although no majors gaffes, the defence did not create any plays to help limit the bleeding caused by the massive amount of runs against. Offensively, the A's held their own. Nine runs is nothing to be ashamed of, but the defence and pitching just didn't cut it against the GOB's.

This was a very important game for the A's. The A's needed to prove that they were indeed a force to be reckoned with in the BMFL. The A's have had the benefit of playing some of the lower seeded teams in the past few games. This game marked the first time the A's played a team above .500 in quite a while. Although we did not win, we were pleased with the offensive production against an elite pitcher such as Andy Dunn. We made several comebacks and our "never-say-die" attitude was a pleasant change from previous seasons. The A's are trying to work out the kinks in order to be a well oiled machine.

The next game is against the Guzzlers.

Standings

A's in 1st!

On Thursday night, the Ottawa A's of Blackburn beat the Rogues 8-0 to solidy their spot as a legitimate contender this year. The A's moved into first place of the Blackburn Men's Fastball League.

This game was my first game back since missing four games in June for attending the School of Accountancy. This was also the first game for Noel Hayes, whom the A's picked up after two members of its team had to quit due to work commitments. The A's also picked up Dave Millette during my absence.

The A's have acquired two quality players, and their line-up looks more dangerous than ever. In fact, the A's lead the BMFL with 7.6 runs per game, but the addition of these two veteran hitters should make the line-up even more dangerous.

In the BMFL, it is well known that politics have paid a huge part in the success and failures of some teams. The A's were never a team that was heavy into "politicking". In fact, when we acquired these two excellent players, the A's were the beneficiaries of excellent timing. We had submitted a request to get two players from the reserve list, and, at that time, there were two players available. The next guy on the list was Scott Parsons, but there was a previous request for his rights. The A's ended up with Dave as he was the next one on the list. The reserve list was then empty. The A's were next in line to acquire the next player on the list.

After going through some busy spells at work up until the end of June, Noel decided that the timing was right to join the league. The A's were fortunate of this excellent timing as we now have one of the best fielding, pitching and hitting teams in the league. The addition of these two quality players is sure to raise some eyebrows, but these transactions were performed without any favours or back-scratching that usually occurs when quality players come into the league.

In theory then, the A's hitting and defence are much improved. The thing that might put the A's over the top is the pitching of ace William Lowe. Will had pitched an excellent game, seldom missing the glove. He had an impressive 10 strikeouts. If the A's expect to do anything in the playoffs, they will need Will to be at the top of his game. He certainly looks like he's on his way.

Free Agent Frenzy

For the first time in recent memory, I was sober enough to remember my Canada Day. I was in Toronto preparing for a big exam, so I made myself a short leash to try to behave on the day where I celebrate the country that I love. I decided to watch TSN's inaugural Free Agent Frenzy day on television. TSN, with high hopes of ratings like those of "trade deadline day", tries to capitalize on the fact that people enjoy watching how to be a manager. With the popularity of fantasy pools and such, people have flocked to watch programs concerning the management of player personel.

Unfortunately, the show was a flop. I am sure the show received decents "numbers", but the actual content made the show fall flat on its face. There were no signings to report during the initial show. The show was excellent in terms of analysis. They described each Canadian teams needs and wants and who they think they will go after. Overall, as an informed sports fan, this information was useless to me.

Given the fact I am a huge Sens fan, I want to comment on the lack of any action on their part to improve the team given recent signings of key free agents.

The Sens have salary cap problems. The Sens are not like New Jersey last year where they are so close to the max that they have to do some creative tinkering, but close enough that they really have to watch what they do in terms of what to offer their key restricted free agents.

The most interesting restricted free agent is Ray Emery. After a very successful year, he is due to receive a huge raise on his $900,000 salary of last year. The Sens dilemma is that they already have a goalie that is priced as a number one. Martin Gerber makes nearly $4 million per season, but will serve as a backup to Ray Emery, if Ray is signed. With the Sens so close to the cap, they cannot afford to pay someone to sit on the bench for that kind of money.

Restricted free agents rarely get contract offers from other teams. This is due to the compensation a team receives when a restricted free agent is lost to another team. However, this week Thomas Vanek received a large offer from the Oilers, and it may not be surprising to see an offer go to Emery.

If Emery does receive a generous offer, I don't think the Sens will match the contract. I believe they will take the compensation they receive. The compensation could be 3 first rounds picks. You could really help the farm system with those kind of resources. In that case, Gerber becomes the number one goalie by default.

Gerber had turned around his season last year, so he may now be ready to take the number one role. It might be easier to get rid of Emery who has value now versus Gerber who apparently only has a mild interest from teams. In addition, the Sens have Jeff Glass in the farm system and he may be ready to be an NHL backup. Jeff Glass played on Canada's gold-medal winning world junior hockey team. He's big, he's athletic, but most importanly, he's cheap. The best case scenario, in my mind for the Sens, is that someone offers Ray Emery a big contract, Ottawa passes on the right to match the contract, receives compensation, uses Gerber as a number 1 and uses Jeff Glass as a number two.