Slow output

The actual hiking is interfering with writing about hiking. Since I'm way behind, I'll satisfy myself with the observation that sending John Lackey for Tommy Johns surgery is an adequate, although expensive, way to keep the SOB out of circulation next year. Both that, and Theo's inauguration in Chicago, come on the the 25th anniversary of the Buckner Ball. If you want to make something of that, you're too late.

I want to know if the Cubs are going to feed Theo stewed kid as a reminder to go after the goat.

I didn't take the pledge

The no-baseball talk until February pledge, that is.

I'm mostly approaching the question of Jesus Montero's future with the Yankees organisation as an exercise in headline possibilities, especially for the New York Post and the New York Daily News.

Assuming they do bring him up from AAA, we can look forward to Yanks Bring up Jesus or some variation thereof.

However, if the Evil Empire signs Russell Martin, the question becomes what to do about Montero. I gather not everyone in New York is happy with the prospect of the older Martin as starting catcher, while keeping Montero in the wings would be increasingly difficult. What then could be a more devastating headline than Yankees Trade Jesus?

What a pity Miroslav Satan doesn't play baseball. Then the Yankees could trade Jesus for Satan, as is right and proper.

Sigh

The Braves are out of the running...again. The tear-jerking farewells to Bobby Cox left me a little cold, because I think five, maybe ten years ago would have been much better.

When a team fails you, they really ought to fail you royally, as the Sox did for most of the 86-year drought, or as the Cubs continue to do, goat or no goat. This business of almost getting there, year after year, is just playing cruelly with the fans' hearts.

So from here on in 2010, I don't have a dog in the fight, and no excuse to stay up late.

Don't believe it? I do

I refer to David Ortiz' statement regarding being on "the list".

Long ago, whilst earning big bucks as a freelance writer (pause for laughs) I took a part-time job at ...umm...a well-known health food and supplement store. One learned very early that the way to make a decent living there was to push certain commission items. None of the commissions were huge but they added up. It was possible to increase a minimum wage take four or fivefold.

Among the items were a number of bodybuilding supplements popular with the hard-core gym rats. To reduce the biochemistry to its fundamentals: supplement combinations go in; supplement combinations essentially become anabolic steroids in the body; bulky bod goes out. Add to this equation that minimum wage salespeople looking for commissions didn't trouble themselves with the long-term consequences. So yes, I was an enabler.

For every gym rat who knew what was going on, there were five or more eager but clueless people who bought these products because somebody told them they were good for bulking up. That was 25 years ago. Should athletes have got smarter about cause and effect? Sure. Were they smarter six years ago? I'm not so sure about that.

I wonder how many of the snarky reporters covering Ortiz would have done any better, in 2003, defining and explaining the biochemistry of bodily assimilation of supplements? Ortiz has tested negative for those six years. Nobody has claimed to find steroids in his locker, etc. etc. Conclusion: O-V-E-R. But its a Boston athlete/coach/team, and New York-based journalists feel obliged to buy into a lame, stale rivalry story.

And there's one of those annoying lacunae that bedevil journalism these days. It's easier to find out the vault combinations at Fort Knox than it is to get explicit information about whose name was on the 2003 steroid list and what he was alleged to have taken. Who then leaked Ortiz' name, and does he or she live in New York? Riddle me that and I'll move on.

The mixed feelings of the young-old

On the one hand, it is good news that John Smoltz has been designated for assignment. It is good for the Sox--one of those moments when it's better to do something than nothing. In baseball, moves like that can pay off. The decision brings to a close an awkward and embarrassing coda to a stellar career. Ballplayers are no better than opera stars when it comes to knowing when it's time to hang it up.

When my daughter E was young, from age seven through 11 or so, we spent many Friday evenings watching the Braves on TNT or TBS. I would tell her how my grandfather used to be able to sit in the dugout when they were the Boston Braves and things were slow for the day games. I trotted out the old, splintered, Braves bat that I inherited from him. Then we'd talk about the game, the tactics, the probabilities...and when Smoltz was the Braves closer, we couldn't wait for him to stride out from the dugout with the very un-PC "chop" in the background, and finish off the adversary.

Growing up when and where she did, E naturally became an unreconstructed Red Sox fan. But I have to credit Smoltz and the Braves for doing their part to make her a baseball fan, which to me is so much more important.

Here's to you, John Smoltz. I wish this had worked out, but nothing that has happened this year will ever take away what you gave to at least one father and daughter.

Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

In Roger Clemens' case, that would be his harried publicist, trying sign language to say that he should stop talking now.

I'm sure it was only vitamins and lidocaine. Years ago, I was also sure that I only read Playboy for the articles, and that those cigarettes tasted funny just because they were stale. This may get interesting.