That’s just Tiger being Tiger

From the excellent sports blog Awful Announcing,

So Tiger, Jack, Kenny Perry and Stewart Cink, all played together in the Memorial Skins Challenge this afternoon, and not only did Tiger take home the lion’s share of cash, but he also did so in a way only he could. There were four skins that had carried over to the 18th, and Tiger hit a clutch putt to deny Kenny Perry the win. With five skins now carrying over, the four players decided to have a closest to the pin contest from off the 18th green, and Tiger decided to show off by holing his chip….The guy is just insane. He’s donating the money to charity anyway, but that doesn’t matter. I used to think Michael Jordan was the most competitive person ever, but Tiger might have just taken over the number one spot.

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.

Has Manny quit on the Dodgers already?

Great job Frank McCourt and the LA Dodgers! We’ve said before, when you lay down with dogs…this is what you get.

ESPN: Manny ponders Cleveland reunion

Manny Ramirez is already yearning for the old days — of Cleveland.

Ramirez, who early last month signed a two-year, $45 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, says a return to the Cleveland Indians before retirement would be ideal.

“I would like to play for Cleveland one more time, to go back where I started,” Ramirez told USA Today. “I have so many good memories there, why not?

“I think to go back where you started is everyone’s dream.”

Manny Ramirez has played exactly 0.021% of his two-year contract (7 out of 324 games) and he is already talking about the next team he would like to play for? What a stand-up guy. Such respect for his employer. Stay classy Manny. We expect nothing less from you!

Frank McCourt wakes up with fleas

UPDATE: Welcome mighty Hub Blog readers. I’ve added a special Manny Ramirez category just for you. Enjoy!

Frank McCourt may own the Dodgers, but he is a Boston guy. He should have known better than to lay down with a dog like Manny Ramirez.

Dodgers’ Manny Ramirez exits with sore hamstring

Bat in hand, Manny Ramirez strolled into the Dodgers’ clubhouse before Sunday’s game, looked at the lineup card and saw he was listed to play his normal position of left field for the first time this spring.

“Left field?” he said, tongue firmly in his cheek. “Are we trying?” Then he walked away and joked, “We’ll get ‘em tomorrow.”

Manny is expected to take the next week off.