9/13-9/15 Red Sox vs. Yankees Series

The Yankees won two games of their last 5 games on wild pitches. It's disgusting watching A-Rod pimping around helping them battle for the playoffs. He's going to win his appeal and get either 50 or 100 games as a 1st or 2nd offender. Selig should have just suspended him for the rest of this year. Sounds like he'd have accepted that. Pound these bums.

Re: luxury tax, I think his contract would only count for the pro-rated portion where he's not suspended, but I could be wrong.

Dempster is what he is: a #5 pitcher who gives you innings and usually doesn't poop the bed too fast. Say what you want about his slew of starts where he gives up 4-5 runs in six innings, but with this offense, that still gives the team a chance to win.

It's worth noting that for all the "ZMOG HOW IS AROID STILL ON THE FIELD" nonsense, the whole situation is a direct result of Selig's ridiculous attempts to impose a lifetime ban (or effectively lifetime) on Rodriguez. It's just another example of Selig's remarkable ability to find the worst possible solution for every problem. By his overzealous attempt to rid the game of a notorious PED user, he's made said PED user the biggest story of the season and kept him on the field. They should have just negotiated some kind of acceptable suspension with Rodriguez and downplayed it as much as possible. "Well, it's unfortunate, but Rodriguez has been found in violation of the league's drug policy and will be accepting a suspension for X games in accordance with the penalties outlined in the CBA... now, how about those Pirates? And can you believe the season this Kershaw kid is having?"

Do what the NFL does. Have a policy (if you want it to be a more effective policy than the NFL, fine), enforce it consistently and fairly, and outside of that just STFU. There's always going to be jerks and cheaters in the game. It's up to baseball to decide how much attention they want focused on those guys.

why hasn't the appeal been heard? It's ridiculous that multi-billion dollar industry with it's own set of internal rules can't find the time to hear a simple appeal about the biggest (negative) story line of the entire season

Right on, right on. But all of this is much, much too simple for the meatheads who run baseball.

What is especially grating for those of us older than, say, 35, is the overbearing hypocrisy. These are the same jokers who loved that old-time revival music from McGuire, Sosa, Palmiero, Bonds, and everyone else who juiced. There was no coherent policy in place in the late 90s, none, and there were individuals working very hard to mask those drugs from what minimal testing did exist. So much money involved, no one wanted to kill the golden goose, the one stuffed full of steroids, and HGH.

Now the Lords of the Realm need a visible target for all that righteous crap, and ARod is such an easy target.  In a very twisted way, this is the flip side of the silly "superstar" nexus for the game, and a very dark star it is. Just as you point out, they've made it the biggest story of the season.

A word of caution: if you run a business of any kind, you don't want MLB doing your public relations work for you.

Think that he never failed a test and their primary witness is under federal investigation, reportedly in dire financial straits and was also reportedly paid by MLB for handing over information, and has already been cited for impersonating a physician in the state of Florida. I would think even a decent attorney will have a field day with this before an arbiter when trying to impugn the veracity of the information. Also, it will be tough to justify suspending ARod for more than 50 games on a 1st offense when that is the agreement signed by MLB and the Union, and because MLB didn't give Colon and Cabrera as second suspension but instead assumed that they flunked in 2012 because of what the got at Biogenesis last year - even though none of the other 18 Biogenesis "clients"named who ostensibly took the same supplements flunked (again, easy to cast doubt on whether they were violating a test or took something above and beyond what they got at biogenesis).

This will be fascinating. And if ARod even sniffs that MLB's case will be very weak before a real judge, look for him to take this to court if he doesn't get what he wants.

Meanwhile the Yankees will get off scott free, lux tax-wise for every day he's suspended. If anyone thinks Selig doesn't represent the interests of the owners and no one else, think again.

So, HR records were set because of changes in technique? Ok.

That's fantastic.

If the Red Sox win the World Series, I'm gonna get a framed poster of that. Amazing.

Tim Britton ?@timbritton 1m
Ellsbury starts physical activities today. Still no timetable on him.

MLB has a dozen ways to manipulate offensive production, and they've done just that many times over the years. You need to familiarize yourself with the data. It creates a hall of mirrors for anyone trying to say anything about the causes. That's the reality.