The New York Times this morning confirmed something we all pretty much suspected: Baseball’s steroid “tests” are so easy to usurp and foil that you’d have to be an idiot to fail one. (Or Mike Cameron.)
The night before testers arrive at major league stadiums to take urine samples from players, officials for the home team receive a call from the testing company requesting stadium and parking passes for the drug testers. This procedure is not outlined in the league’s 48-page testing policy, which baseball promotes as one of the toughest in sports. Teams are not told which players will be tested — or how many — but the number is said to be roughly five per visit.
Now there’s a testing program with teeth! At this point, we’re not sure a test would catch someone physically doing steroids while being tested.
Sadly, we haven’t had the joy yet of watching the Knicks play — they open in Cleveland on Friday — but that doesn’t mean we can’t relive the glory of the last 10 years of beautiful Knicks history.
April 2001: You know what pro athletes don’t discuss enough? Jews! Knick point guard Charlie Ward does his part to ameliorate this shortage, musing about their role in Christ’s death (apparently, they caused it) before bringing the conversation into modern times by noting, “There are Christians being persecuted by Jews every day.” Inspired by this theological display, the Knicks go on to lose in the first round of the playoffs in a truly nightmarish series. (Midway through, center Marcus Camby’s sister is taken hostage by a knife-wielding ex-boyfriend who allegedly sexually abuses her in front of Camby’s mother and other sister.) It is the Knicks’ worst playoff showing in 10 years.
May 2001: Strangely, Jewish groups fail to be appeased by Charlie Ward’s defense of his statements: “I didn’t mean to offend any one group because that’s not what I’m about. I have friends that are Jewish. Actually, my friend is a Jewish guy, and his name is Jesus Christ.” So suck on that, Jews!
Say what you will about the Suns: There’s no team in the NBA more consistently entertaining than the Knicks.
This handsome, rambunctious gentleman is Sam Dana, a former college football player for Columbia who died yesterday at the age of 104. He was the oldest living former professional player.
Dana played with Lou Gehrig — see, now that’s cool, having played a sport with Lou Gehrig — at Columbia and spent one season with the football New York Yankees in 1928. No one knew he had played pro ball until four years ago, when he came across a listing of himself in an NFL encyclopedia.
We mourn his passing and congratulate him on his immediate signing to the Knicks 12-man roster.
We remember, back in 2000, when we were working for one of those dot-com startups that were all the rage at the time. Everybody strolled into the office around 10:30, left at 5 and brought their dogs to the office. And no one did any real work; we all just sat in “brainstorming” meetings, discussing projects we would never launch. It was an inspiring time. We only remember one real idea from the time; Doing One Of Those “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” books online.
We never ended up doing it, but that kind of encapsulates what we thought about the Web at the time: It’s like a book, but you get to choose what happens! Now the fine folks at Fanhouse have come up with one about A-Rod. It’s obviously a fantasy inspired series; looks what happens when we had him sign with the Cubs:
In the series, you finally shine on a big stage. Everyone expects the Cubs to be overmatched by the defending champion Red Sox, but with your help you stretch the series to Game 7, which is at Fenway (because of your two-run error in the All-Star Game). You go 2-for-4 with a big two-run double in the sixth inning that gives the Cubs their margin of victory in a 3-1 win that finally brings a World Series back to Chicago. Amazingly, the universe fails to collapse upon itself after you and the Chicago Cubs simultaneously win a World Series.
How cute: The only thing that’s missing is A-Rod flying out of the stadium on a unicorn.
It’s starting to inch ever so closer to official that Joe Torre will be the new manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, particularly after Grady Little resigned from the job yesterday, claiming those famous “personal reasons.” Thus continues Torre’s perpetual torment of poor Grady.
Pretty much everywhere Grady Little has turned the last few years … there has been Joe Torre, making his life miserable.
We imagine Grady Little will end up managing somewhere, though it seems like Japan might be his best bet. We can see Grady being incredibly popular in Japan, actually; he’d certainly have an amusing personality-themed restaurant.
We’re a little behind on this, but it’s awfully amusing, particularly because it’s Halloween. Lions quarterback Jon Kitna apparently has a better sense of humor than you might have thought.
“A lot of the guys on the team remember what happened,” Kitna told Fox 2 at the party. “It’s far enough removed that you can laugh at it now.”
Some people are being real sticks in the mud about it, which is silly; as anybody who knows Jon Kitna can tell you, all of his jokes are authorized by God.
Welcome the return of your daily recap of NBA “action.”
• They’re Not Booing, They’re Saying Koooobe. OK, they were booing. But Kobe Bryant did not let a little pregame negativity from the home fans effect the way he hogged the ball led the Lakers to almost-victory. Kobe scored 45 points, including 18 in the fourth quarter, but it wasn’t enough as the Rockets prevailed 95-93. It was of course Rick Adelman’s coaching debut, and while the Rockets looked confused at first, they eventually got their act together behind Shane Battier (tiebreaking 3-pointer with 2.5 seconds left) and Tracy McGrady (30 points). Overall impression: Kobe just looks like a guy who knows he could be traded at any minute. And Yao looks like a guy who could score 100 points if he suddenly woke up and realized he was 7-4.
• Hoist The Colors, Mr. Duncan. The Spurs received their championship rings, hauled their championship banners to the rafters, and announced a sparkling new contract for Tim Duncan. Oh, and there was a game; Duncan scoring 24 points and grabbing 13 rebounds in a 106-97 win over Portland. In my game simulation, however, Greg Oden played for the Blazers, and I arrived at the game in a Porsche. Neither changed the outcome. Duncan reached an agreement to stay with the Spurs through the 2011-12 season.
• Jazz 117, Warriors 96. From Golden State of Mind: “What was that 5.6 earthquake in the middle of the game? It’s just like the Jazz to make that happen, they’re so dirty. Haha. Seriously, that was so crazy. My seat started shaking and I thought the guys behind me were getting a little overexcited during some free throws. But then I turned around and nobody was sitting behind me. The shaking went on for a good 6-7 seconds. But the show must go on. Well the Jazz seemed to continue, not the Warriors. It seems like after the earthquake everything fell apart.” Yep, I felt it too. But unlike the Warriors, it did not cause me to give up eight points to Gordon Giricek.
• The Pavlovic Effect. Sasha Pavlovic agreed to a three-year contract with the Cavaliers on Tuesday, ending a lengthy holdout. Financial terms were not disclosed. There, now you can sleep tonight.
The New York Times this morning confirmed something we all pretty much suspected: Baseball’s steroid “tests” are so easy to usurp and foil that you’d have to be an idiot to fail one. (Or Mike Cameron.)
Sadly, we haven’t had the joy yet of watching the Knicks play — they open in Cleveland on Friday — but that doesn’t mean we can’t relive the glory of the last 10 years of beautiful Knicks history.
This handsome, rambunctious gentleman is Sam Dana, a former college football player for Columbia who died yesterday at the age of 104. He was the oldest living former professional player.
We remember, back in 2000, when we were working for one of those dot-com startups that were all the rage at the time. Everybody strolled into the office around 10:30, left at 5 and brought their dogs to the office. And no one did any real work; we all just sat in “brainstorming” meetings, discussing projects we would never launch. It was an inspiring time. We only remember one real idea from the time; Doing One Of Those “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” books online. 
It’s starting to inch ever so closer to official that Joe Torre will be the new manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, particularly after Grady Little resigned from the job yesterday, claiming those famous “personal reasons.” Thus continues Torre’s perpetual torment of poor Grady.
We’re a little behind on this, but it’s awfully amusing, particularly because it’s Halloween. Lions quarterback Jon Kitna apparently has a better sense of humor than you might have thought.
Welcome the return of your daily recap of NBA “action.”