The Mets Police

Last week, 22 year old Nick Adenhart was killed in Los Angeles when another 22 year old, driving under the influence, drove his van into the car Nick was in. People shook their heads, said things like "he was just a kid," and MLB mourned his loss.

Last October, 23 year old Joba Chamberlain was arrested in Nebraska for driving under the influence. People shook their heads, said things like "he's a kid," but neither MLB nor the Yankees did anything.

Last year, 35 year old former Angel Scott Spiezio pled guilty to DUI and hit-and-run charges.

In February, former Yankee Jim Leyritz was jailed in connection to a DUI case where he is being charged with vehicular manslaughter.

In April 2007, Cardinals relief pitcher Josh Hancock, driving with a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit, was killed when he ran his Ford Explorer into teh back of a flat bed truck.

In March 2007, Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa was arrested for DUI in Florida.

In Ocober 2008, Colorado reliever Luis Vizcaino was arrested for driving under the influence in Tampa after driving 71 in a 45 mph zone.

In October 2007, Tampa Bay's pitching coach was arrested on DUI charges after rear-ending a car near Tropicana Field.

In March 2007, Toronto pitcher Gustavo Chacin was arrested for drunk driving in Tampa.

These were just examples I found after a 5 minute Google search - in other words these were the easy ones.

But is baseball doing anything? Is Bud Selig doing anything?

No

Bud is too busy thinking about maybe punishing Alex Rodriguez for doing steroids.

Baseball now has tough penalties for steroid and drug use. Yet when it comes to alcohol abuse they continue to look the other way.

Don't get me wrong, steroids are a problem - but obviously alcohol abuse among players is a problem. And really always has been, going back to Babe Ruth. The difference is that steroids have never killed innocent bystanders - alcohol abuse has.

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Does anyone doubt that A-Rod's press conference will be a disaster?   He brought in a heavy hitter PR firm, which means this will be the most rehearsed non-honest conference in history.

During the Gammons interview he spoke as if he was trying to remember what else he was supposed to get it - "oh and I was naive.  I was naive and stupid.  And did I work in the word culture?"

Pettitte did it right.  Everyone forgave him in about two seconds.  Giambi too.  

I'm still waiting for an "I never did steroids" from the Captain.

Meanwhile, the commissioner just doesn't get it.  We need to buy him a "The buck stops here!" sign for his desk.     Check out Newsday today:

"I don't want to hear the commissioner turned a blind eye to this or he didn't care about it," Selig said. "That annoys the you-know-what out of me. You bet I'm sensitive to the criticism. The reason I'm so frustrated is, if you look at our whole body of work, I think we've come farther than anyone ever dreamed possible."

Please.  Y'all got rich on McGwire & Sosa.

The commish will be watching the press conference today:

"Let's just say I'm going to monitor that situation closely," he said. "I honestly don't know how anyone could have done more than we've already done."

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People love pictures and this week we chronicled the last days of Shea Stadium with pictures on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (We will continue with more pictures on Monday and Tuesday - until Shea is no more).

Of course the big story continued to focus Alex Rodriguez and the revelation of his steroid use and the collateral damage that may come from it. Of particular concern was Derek Jeter's non-emphatic denial that he could be on the list of players who tested positive.

As far as A-Rod goes, we asked the hypothetical question if you would do steroids for $27 million a year? And we offered media tips to A-Rod on how to deal with the media in spring training

Meanwhile Bud Selig continues to show his hypocrisy by suggesting he would suspend A-Rod and reinstate pre-steroid records. But if he's going to do that, then he needs to go back over 100 years to the first steroid user in baseball.

And since baseball has become so hypocritical, we here at The Mets Police offered up nominations for our Hall of Infamy.

Lastly, but not forgotten, was the announcement this week that Brett Favre was retiring (again) and that he now joins others who retired in strange uniforms.


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Baseball writers (including Bill Madden of the News) are already talking about keeping A-Rod out of the Hall of Fame.

This Hall is going to have quite a problem when I take my son there in 2020.

Among the people who it seems won't be in the Hall will be Barry Bonds (you know, baseball's home run leader both season and career) and Roger Clemens (he only won 354 games and struck out 4600 batters).

Mark McGwire, who the country cheered in 1998.  Not in.

Sammy Sosa, the guy New York City had a ticker-tape parade for - yes, you can look it up, New York had a parade for a Chicago Cub.  He won't be in.

Rafael Palmeiro with his 3,000 hits and 569 homers.  Not in.

The all-time hit king, Pete Rose, he won't be in.

A-Rod and his three MVP's - no chance they award him another one - he won't be in.

It's kind of hard to have a Hall of Fame when all the top stat accumulators are not in.

In this 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, Bud Selig needs to take a page from Abe.

The only way to move on is to leave the past in the past.   Declare amnesty for all past sins.  The numbers shall hold, those whose numbers deserve the Hall should make it in.   You can't undo the last 15 years.  All you can do is fix the future.

Move forward with a really tough drug police, one that the players union should be shamed into accepting.  It's time to move on.


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Court documents released today show that Barry Bonds tested positive for steroids up to 5 times during his home run tear between 2000 and 2006.

No real shock there. Seriously, anyone who didn't believe Bonds was juiced probably also believes the world is flat.

The real news to come out of the unsealed documents is this:

June 4, 2003: MLB urine test originally negative; retested later by government it was positive for THG, clomiphene, exogenous testosterone

July 7, 2006: MLB urine test positive for D-amphetamine

So the first test by MLB they screwed up - fine, it happens. Although it is interesting that it happened to the person taht everyone knew was juicing.

The second test is big though. Bonds tested positive for steroids AFTER Bud Selig and MLB had instituted what it called a strong anti-steroid policy. Prior to the 2005 season, MLB stated that a first positive test would result in a MANDATORY 10 game suspension.

So why wasn't Bonds suspended?

More importantly - at the time of the positive test Bonds had not yet passed Hank Aaron (I'm too lazy to look up the exact number he was behind, but it was about 25 or so).

Selig knowingly let a juiced player surpass Hank Aaron.

Bonds is guilty - and so is Selig.

Time for the commissioner to step down


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Graziano in the Ledger throws it out there that Selig is a great commissioner.   Whoa hold on there pal.

Yeah it's fun that the Rays are in the World Series and that the Brewers made the playoffs but let's calm down a little before we start ignoring the last 15 years.

Everyone knows the list but I wil bore you with it anyway.  In no particular order:

1.  Clemens.  Everyone kidded themselves.  All you had to do was look at him.

2.  Bonds.  Congrats, both Home Run records are now tarnished and we're hoping A-Rod of all people can be the home run king.

3.  McGwire.   Heads in the sand to sell tickets.  Ditto Sosa.

4.  Interleague Play.   It sucks.  Yeah it's halfway fun when the Mets play the Yankees and a bunch of similar matchups, but it's not more exciting than Yankees-Sox is or Mets-Phils should be.

5.  The dopey three divisions and Wild Card.   All the Wild Card does is allow teams that suck or are (undermanaged by Bobby Valentine) to stick around and kid themselves.   Oh, and it adds a lame round of playoffs.

6.   11pm playoff games.   Remember that one?

7.  5am opening day!  Remember those?

8.  The leagues still haven't reconciled the DH.   That should be solved in 5 minutes.  Flip a coin.  Expand the rosters to 26 to shut the union up.    Just decide.

Anyone of a certain age knows the game was much better in 1978 than it was in 2008.  Selig is horrible.