Schadenfreude: Yankee $tadium is new, hot dog buns are not

From Sports by Brooks,

A guy who goes by the moniker Bald Vinny Milano steps up to the plate and describes what happened:

“I was at the game tonight, and the kid in front of me was eating a hot dog. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a big patch of green mold on the bottom of the bun. I warned the guy about two bites before he ate the moldy bread, and he practically threw up. I can’t believe that would even happen at a place like Yankee Stadium. There are really expensive, high class places to eat in the stadium, but somehow a moldy hot dog roll made its way to a CUSTOMER! I was so shocked, I took a picture of it. Here is the kicker…he went back to the concession stand, and they would not give him another hot dog! They offered him another bun, but not a replacement dog!”

I’m surprised the concessionaires didn’t try to pass off the mold as guacamole.

I would question the truthiness of this story if it was coming from a Red Sox or Mets blog. But it’s coming from a Yankees fan site, and why would they besmirch their favorite team with such a foul stadium food story? As if the astronomical ticket prices weren’t enough to make your average Yanks fan sick.

Schadenfreude: Manny Ramirez busted

Hat Tip: SoxNation.net

This will have to be a quickie post because I am overcome with excitement and schadenfreude, almost dizzy from it really. Oh. My. God.

Manny Ramirez suspended 50 games for positive drug test

Manny Ramirez has tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and has been suspended 50 games starting today, Major League Baseball confirmed. The suspension will cost Ramirez $7.7 million, or roughly 31% of his $25-million salary. Players in violation of baseball’s drug policy are not paid during suspensions.

This is the final nail in the reputation of Manny Ramirez, athlete. His personal reputation was killed by slow motion suicide over the past five years, now his professional reputation has also been TKO’d by suicide. Hey, one more category Manny leads the league in…self -inflicted wounds!

A final thought while I set up a DVR of SportsCenter so I can watch this segment on a loop…Jose Canseco is money on the topic of steriods,

In an appearance at USC last month, Jose Canseco said Ramirez’s name “is most likely, 90%” on a list of 104 players that failed a drug test in 2003. The players were promised anonymity for taking tests in 2003; Rodriguez is the only player that has been identified among that group.

UPDATE: Manny using HCG, a female hormone

Courtesy of the Whiner Line on WEEI, “That’s just Manny being Tranny” and “Maybe that’s why he takes a week off every month”

It is not an anabolic steroid but rather a fertility drug that is widely considered to be part of the chemical enhancement game played by athletes. The hormone is produced naturally by women during pregnancy and often is used by steroid users to reboot their body’s natural testosterone production coming off a steroid cycle. It is also associated in the sports and the bodybuilding communities with serious and prolonged steroid use.

UPDATE II: Peter Gammons will believe anything an agent tells him. What a jock sniffer. He’s pathetic.

UPDATE III: Boston Dirt Dogs ID Manny’s doctors

Is there anything better than Yankee schadenfreude?

What an enjoyable read the Sunday New York Post was this morning. It was worth $10 bucks instead of two. Let’s review the various levels of misery in the Bronx surrounding the Yankees, all from today’s paper.

EXCLUSIVE: A-HOLE: YANKEES’ HOLE OF FAME; SITE OF ‘CURSE’ DIG UNFILLED A YEAR LATER

Hex still marks the spot at the new Yankee Stadium. It has been more than a year since the team extricated a Red Sox jersey maliciously entombed in the new stadium’s concrete by a Boston-loving hardhat — yet the hole remains unfilled, and officials have no clue what to do with it, The Post has learned.

HORNY A-ROD A LAP DUNCE

A-Rod can’t even go to a sex club without making a fool of himself.
The major-league slugger looked like a rank amateur when he made a supposedly clandestine visit to a Dallas sex club in 2004 — but showed up wearing a Yankee hat that screamed, “Look at me!” “The guy’s not the biggest genius in the world. I guess the cat’s out of the bag on that,” Rick Reid, the owner of Iniquity swingers club, told The Post.

THIS WEEK’S WINNERS AND LOSERS

LOSER: RANDY LEVINE: Yankee president dismisses stadium seat price issue before Hal Steinbrenner cut prices.

BOOK: A-ROD DRIVEN BY NEED TO OUTDO JETER

Away from the diamond, he went so far as to use Jeter in his pickup lines: “The guys,” Roberts wrote, “who went clubbing with Alex say there was one pickup line he used repeatedly, even on women who knew nothing of baseball: ‘Who’s hotter, me or Derek Jeter?’ “

30-YEAR-OLD ROOK OUTDUELS SABATHIA

CC Sabathia is one horse that hasn’t done much winning, placing or showing this season. The best thing you could say about the $161 million lefty yesterday was the Yankees didn’t have to put him out to pasture after the game.

HEFTY LEFTY HASN’T PITCHED LIKE ACE

The fact remains — after the previously-collared Torii Hunter reached down on what seemed a wicked 0-1 slider and lined a two-run double against the base of the left-field fence on Sabathia’s 119th and final pitch of the game — he ended the day 1-3 with a 4.85 ERA in his first six starts in pinstripes. That’s not exactly preliminary bang for $161 million bucks, even if not exactly cause for panic, unless those 253 innings Sabathia totaled last year while willing the Brewers to the postseason are kicking back.

TEIXERIA: EARLY SWOON ‘EMBARRASSING’

Twenty-four games into the season, Mark Teixeira is “embarrassed” by his batting average. That’s his word. The Yankees’ struggling first baseman went 0-for-3 with a walk in yesterday’s 8-4 loss to the Angels in The Bronx, and for the season his average is now down to a miniscule .182 — the worst among Yankees regulars.

Schadenfreude: Red Sox turn Yankee’s into April Fools

The best part of yesterday’s game may not even have been the steal of home by the electric Jacoby Ellsbury. It was the fact that that the Sox shut down the Yankee offense using AAA pitchers. OUCH.

PS: Ellsbury is to the Sox what Rondo is to the Celts. Both are an absolute joy to watch.

Manny Ramirez to ask for TARP money?

Disgraced aging malcontent Manny Ramirez hasn’t been able to pick himself a winner of a contract this offseason. After quiting on the team and stealing $20 million from the Red Sox last season, Manny went to the Dodgers and tore the cover off the ball. This only served to remind baseball owners that Manny’s talent is like a faucet, something that can be turned off at any time. Manny entered the offseason with dreams of another $100 million contract. When the Dodgers offered him 2-years for $45 million, he didn’t even dignify the offer with a no. He never responded. One can only speculate what Manny’s reaction was to the Dodgers latest offer, which is the only one he has on the table two weeks away from Spring Training,

Dodgers make Ramirez a one-year offer

The Los Angeles Dodgers made Manny Ramirez a one-year, $25 million offer Monday, according to a baseball source, a substantial departure from the two-year, $45 million offer they extended in November at the general manager meetings.

Schadenfreude never felt so good. This guy is the biggest insult to fans in all of sport. Rumor has it that agent Scott Boras is working on an application to create a new set of TARP funds, the Troubled Athlete Relief Program.

UPDATE: From the Herald, “Cardinals slugger and friend Albert Pujols, who told reporters in the Dominican on Thursday that Ramirez felt unwanted, “I speak with Manny every three days and he tells me, ‘Man, no one wants to sign me,’.

UPDATE II: Welcome Hub Blog readers.

UPDATE III: From an emailer, “The only way this gets better is if we learn Manny was an investor with Bernie Madoff.”

Schadenfreude Alert: Manny Ramirez losing millions every day

Although the 11-win Patriots missed the playoffs, there is some positive local sports news. Manny Ramirez is losing millions every day as the free agent market doesn’t exactly work out as he had planned.

Here is ESPN’s Buster Olney yesterday saying that the market for Manny just isn’t there and that he’ll probably end up with the Dodgers,

Today, ESPN is reporting that the Dodgers may have moved on from the disgraced, aging, one-dimensional malcontent,

So long Manny? Dodgers call Dunn, source says

Apparently, the Dodgers aren’t going to sit around all winter, waiting for Manny Ramirez to beg to come back. They now have Adam Dunn on their shopping list.

The Dodgers contacted Dunn’s agent, Greg Genske, over the holidays, according to an executive of a team interested in Dunn. And that creates an intriguing option for both parties.

Sweet, sweet Schadenfreude.

Schadenfreude Alert: Chuck Turner arrested at Boston City Hall

FBI Photo: Sticky Fingers Turner accepting his ca$h bribe.

Boston City councilor Chuck Turner has a long history of embarrassing himself and the city. This morning he was arrested at his City Hall office as part of the Diane Wilkerson corruption probe.

Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner Arrested

BOSTON (WBZ) ― Boston city councilor Chuck Turner was arrested early Friday morning, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

He was arrested at Boston City Hall on a federal warrant. Sources told WBZ Turner faces federal charges of bribery and lying to a federal officer. Federal agents went to Turner’s home in Roxbury overnight but left when no one answered.

They put out a fugitive alert and found him at City Hall around 7 a.m. FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz told WBZ the arrest is connected to the Dianne Wilkerson bribery case.

Being arrested for bribery and lying isn’t even close to the worst, most offensive thing Chuck Turner has done as a Boston City councilor. Not. Even. Close.

In 2004, Turner and fellow “community activist” scam artist Sadiki Kambon held an infamous press conference in which they charged U.S. soldiers with raping Iraqi women. The charge, and the alleged video evidence, were completely bogus, but it was good enough for the Boston Globe, who published the story, and then regretted ever believing this fraud,

Boston Globe Editorial: Turner’s bogus photos
May 14, 2004

THE RECENT actions of Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner were reckless and inflammatory. With no regard for truth or consequences, Turner unveiled graphic photographs at a Tuesday press conference, suggesting that the images portrayed the rape of Iraqi women by US soldiers. The display was an all-time low for a member of the City Council. Turner, now in his third term, used twisted logic to justify the photo array. While stopping short of claiming authenticity, Turner argued that “the American people have a right and responsibility to see the pictures” in light of recent revelations regarding abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

Turner’s photos appear to match ones found on a pornographic website. Yesterday the Globe apologized for including a photo showing the images with the article about Turner’s claims.

Unsubstantiated charges are becoming common in Turner’s repertoire. Last September he accused City Council President Michael Flaherty of “institutional racism” when Flaherty tried to steer council business toward local concerns and away from resolutions on the Iraq conflict. One year earlier, Turner suggested that a police officer, not a robbery suspect, might have shot a 3-year-old boy. Again, he offered no credible evidence.

Chuck Turner arrested at City Hall…Couldn’t have happened to a bigger asshole nicer guy!