It is hard out here
Can I just say that it is hard out here for a joke pimp, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers?
Ahh, that time again
You can tell it is spring time. High school students are asking if they can go outside to have sex with their teachers.
Oops
Are you excited for the big season finale of “American Idol”? Paula Abdul is so excited she accidentally poured some coke into her rum and coke.
Here we go again
President Bush is sending National Guard troops to the Mexican border. It’s all part of President Bush’s plan to search out Burritos of mass destruction.
Can you imagine how relieved the National Guard soldiers are to go to Mexican border instead of Iraq? At the border the only terrorists are Mariachi bands.
Youch
New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner said that if the horse, Hemingway’s Key, doesn’t run well in the Belmont, he will have the horse neutered. Upon hearing this, struggling Yankee pitcher, Randy clutched his Johnson.
Too bad
The Senate has approved a law that increases broadcast obscenity fines by ten times. Well, so much for our “There was a Man from Nantucket” limerick segment.
Idle Idol
Experts say Taylor Hicks will win “American Idol” because he looks like a young George Clooney. And the experts say Ryan Seacrest will still be annoying because he looks like a young Joan Rivers.
Amazing
President Bush has proposed sweeping immigration changes; which is amazing when you consider that, before he was president, George W. Bush thought immigration was the sincerest form of flattery.
Big stud
Well, after an agonizingly long wait, it looks like that big muscle-bound horse is going to be OK and retire out to stud. But enough about Barry Bonds, Barbaro also doing better.
Pretty sure on this
The whole product placement in movies thing has gone too far. Take, for example, that scene in “The De Vinci Code” that showed the De Vinci’s “The Last Supper” I’m not a theologian, but I am pretty sure the last supper was not held at an Olive Garden.
Things are trickier
You know the latest trend in high schools? Elaborate, expensive and creative ways for the guy to ask a girl to the prom: sky writing, engraved jewelry, live bands. It’s not like last year where the guy could just stay after class and ask his teacher.
Rhymes with bite sash
Britney Spears was leaving a New York Hotel carrying a drink and her baby when she tripped and almost dropped the baby. When asked why she almost dropped the baby, Britney said;
“Shoot, I didn’t want to spill my drink, it was a full Mountain Dew and Gin, y’all,”
Get it
The fastest growing girls name is Nevaeh, which is heaven backwards. Not nearly as popular is the other new backwards girl’s name: Tuls.
Or a Slickie
Reports are that, after major surgery on a badly broken ankle, Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, was walking around showing extreme interest in nearby mares. From the brink of total disaster to lusting after the ladies. In political terms this is known as pulling a Clinton.
Best of both
Thanks to “The Sopranos” there is a new word in everyone’s vocabulary. The word whore pronounced Jersey-style as who’errr, as in sewer. Or, as in Paris Hilton’s case, you can have a sewer who’er.
Or
Thanks to “The Sopranos” there is a new word in everyone’s vocabulary. The word whore pronounced Jersey-style as whoeerrr, which rhymes with poor. Or, as in Anna Nicole Smith before she married the old rich guy: a poor whoeerr.
Hard to get that big head around that
If he pulls through, Barbaro will have a lucrative future as a breeding stud. That’s got to be a weird concept for a horse to comprehend.
“Let me get this straight, instead of getting whipped on my butt and running my tail off around a stupid circle, all I have to do to get paid a fortune is what again? Seriously, am I getting punked? Come on, where’s Ashton Kucher?”
Do the math
Kirstie Alley wants to appear on Oprah in a bikini and she has lost over 70 pounds. Or as 70 pounds is known in Hollywood terms, the Olsen Twins and David Spade.
After surgery on a badly broken ankle, Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, was lowered into a pool for water therapy; it’s the same system they used to bathe Kirstie Alley before she lost weight.
Since you asked:
Barry Bonds home run chase is just one more in a long series of things the press has wrong; nobody really cares, nor did they ever care, about home run totals, except for a bunch of Rainman-like sports dorks. When Maris broke Ruth’s record the stands were half empty. The McGuire and Sosa battle was of great interest because it was a close race, not because of the numbers. We wanted to see who won.
But add to the fact that the guy chasing the record was a steroid user, take our apathy and multiply it times ten.
My love, growing up, was the Decathlon and I studied the sport. When Bruce Jenner packed on thirty five to forty pounds of pure muscle between Munich in 1972 and Montreal in 1976, did I suspect he was using steroids? Yes, everybody did. At the time, did I consider it cheating? No. It was, in my mind, like somebody using a better vaulting pole or lighter track spikes. Before Rafer Johnson, no track athlete even lifted weights. Steroids were viewed, in 1976, as a way of making weight lifting more effective.
Now do I consider Bruce Jenner a cheater? Absolutely, yes, I do. Even though I idolized Jenner in 1976, the fact is he would not have been better than everyone else without the drugs. Period.
Should Jenner’s records and gold medal be taken away because he used steroids? No. That would be like taking the records away from athletes who ran faster on a synthetic track. Steroids were, unfortunately, part of the athletic landscape and you cannot undue that, as much as you’d like to.
Without steroids, Bruce Jenner would have been exactly what he was in 1972: a skinny but way-above-average Decathlete. Jenner did not possess the physical makeup to be wildly strong and that was always going to keep him from being the best. The Decathlon has always been a balancing act between strength and speed, just like it is with hitting home runs. If you suddenly give a skinny guy with a ton of speed unnatural strength, the contest is over. The quick, skinny, well coordinated guys, like Jenner and Sosa and Bonds used to be, benefit far more from steroids than do the naturally big and muscular guys who are stronger but less coordinated or a little less quick.
Just because Jenner had more points than Rafer Johnson, does that make Rafer’s heroic gold medal winning collapse into the arms of his best friend and competitor, C.K. Yang, at the end of his 1,500 meters in Rome in 1960, any less spectacular? Oh, hell no.
And how about the Sosa-like vanishing act Jenner performed after Montreal? Not only did he vanish from the sport, his body vanished without the steroids. No less than four years after his gold medal, Jenner was down to maybe 170 pounds, fifty pounds of muscle from when he competed. Fifty freaking pounds of muscle.
Just like Rafer Johnson is still considered a noble Olympic icon and Bruce Jenner, Mr. Ugly Sweater Infomercial huckster, is not, that is how history is going to compare Barry Bonds to Babe Ruth.
Bonds, Sosa, Conseco and McGuire will be remembered in baseball as Bruce Jenner is remembered in track: another guy who cheated with steroids to put their selfish quest for glory at the expense of fairness and at the expense of their sport’s reputation.
Forget the asterisks or altering the record books, their tarnished legacy is punishment enough.
Ahh, that time again
You can tell it is spring time. High school students are asking if they can go outside to have sex with their teachers.
Oops
Are you excited for the big season finale of “American Idol”? Paula Abdul is so excited she accidentally poured some coke into her rum and coke.
Here we go again
President Bush is sending National Guard troops to the Mexican border. It’s all part of President Bush’s plan to search out Burritos of mass destruction.
Can you imagine how relieved the National Guard soldiers are to go to Mexican border instead of Iraq? At the border the only terrorists are Mariachi bands.
Youch
New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner said that if the horse, Hemingway’s Key, doesn’t run well in the Belmont, he will have the horse neutered. Upon hearing this, struggling Yankee pitcher, Randy clutched his Johnson.
Too bad
The Senate has approved a law that increases broadcast obscenity fines by ten times. Well, so much for our “There was a Man from Nantucket” limerick segment.
Idle Idol
Experts say Taylor Hicks will win “American Idol” because he looks like a young George Clooney. And the experts say Ryan Seacrest will still be annoying because he looks like a young Joan Rivers.
Amazing
President Bush has proposed sweeping immigration changes; which is amazing when you consider that, before he was president, George W. Bush thought immigration was the sincerest form of flattery.
Big stud
Well, after an agonizingly long wait, it looks like that big muscle-bound horse is going to be OK and retire out to stud. But enough about Barry Bonds, Barbaro also doing better.
Pretty sure on this
The whole product placement in movies thing has gone too far. Take, for example, that scene in “The De Vinci Code” that showed the De Vinci’s “The Last Supper” I’m not a theologian, but I am pretty sure the last supper was not held at an Olive Garden.
Things are trickier
You know the latest trend in high schools? Elaborate, expensive and creative ways for the guy to ask a girl to the prom: sky writing, engraved jewelry, live bands. It’s not like last year where the guy could just stay after class and ask his teacher.
Rhymes with bite sash
Britney Spears was leaving a New York Hotel carrying a drink and her baby when she tripped and almost dropped the baby. When asked why she almost dropped the baby, Britney said;
“Shoot, I didn’t want to spill my drink, it was a full Mountain Dew and Gin, y’all,”
Get it
The fastest growing girls name is Nevaeh, which is heaven backwards. Not nearly as popular is the other new backwards girl’s name: Tuls.
Or a Slickie
Reports are that, after major surgery on a badly broken ankle, Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, was walking around showing extreme interest in nearby mares. From the brink of total disaster to lusting after the ladies. In political terms this is known as pulling a Clinton.
Best of both
Thanks to “The Sopranos” there is a new word in everyone’s vocabulary. The word whore pronounced Jersey-style as who’errr, as in sewer. Or, as in Paris Hilton’s case, you can have a sewer who’er.
Or
Thanks to “The Sopranos” there is a new word in everyone’s vocabulary. The word whore pronounced Jersey-style as whoeerrr, which rhymes with poor. Or, as in Anna Nicole Smith before she married the old rich guy: a poor whoeerr.
Hard to get that big head around that
If he pulls through, Barbaro will have a lucrative future as a breeding stud. That’s got to be a weird concept for a horse to comprehend.
“Let me get this straight, instead of getting whipped on my butt and running my tail off around a stupid circle, all I have to do to get paid a fortune is what again? Seriously, am I getting punked? Come on, where’s Ashton Kucher?”
Do the math
Kirstie Alley wants to appear on Oprah in a bikini and she has lost over 70 pounds. Or as 70 pounds is known in Hollywood terms, the Olsen Twins and David Spade.
After surgery on a badly broken ankle, Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, was lowered into a pool for water therapy; it’s the same system they used to bathe Kirstie Alley before she lost weight.
Since you asked:
Barry Bonds home run chase is just one more in a long series of things the press has wrong; nobody really cares, nor did they ever care, about home run totals, except for a bunch of Rainman-like sports dorks. When Maris broke Ruth’s record the stands were half empty. The McGuire and Sosa battle was of great interest because it was a close race, not because of the numbers. We wanted to see who won.
But add to the fact that the guy chasing the record was a steroid user, take our apathy and multiply it times ten.
My love, growing up, was the Decathlon and I studied the sport. When Bruce Jenner packed on thirty five to forty pounds of pure muscle between Munich in 1972 and Montreal in 1976, did I suspect he was using steroids? Yes, everybody did. At the time, did I consider it cheating? No. It was, in my mind, like somebody using a better vaulting pole or lighter track spikes. Before Rafer Johnson, no track athlete even lifted weights. Steroids were viewed, in 1976, as a way of making weight lifting more effective.
Now do I consider Bruce Jenner a cheater? Absolutely, yes, I do. Even though I idolized Jenner in 1976, the fact is he would not have been better than everyone else without the drugs. Period.
Should Jenner’s records and gold medal be taken away because he used steroids? No. That would be like taking the records away from athletes who ran faster on a synthetic track. Steroids were, unfortunately, part of the athletic landscape and you cannot undue that, as much as you’d like to.
Without steroids, Bruce Jenner would have been exactly what he was in 1972: a skinny but way-above-average Decathlete. Jenner did not possess the physical makeup to be wildly strong and that was always going to keep him from being the best. The Decathlon has always been a balancing act between strength and speed, just like it is with hitting home runs. If you suddenly give a skinny guy with a ton of speed unnatural strength, the contest is over. The quick, skinny, well coordinated guys, like Jenner and Sosa and Bonds used to be, benefit far more from steroids than do the naturally big and muscular guys who are stronger but less coordinated or a little less quick.
Just because Jenner had more points than Rafer Johnson, does that make Rafer’s heroic gold medal winning collapse into the arms of his best friend and competitor, C.K. Yang, at the end of his 1,500 meters in Rome in 1960, any less spectacular? Oh, hell no.
And how about the Sosa-like vanishing act Jenner performed after Montreal? Not only did he vanish from the sport, his body vanished without the steroids. No less than four years after his gold medal, Jenner was down to maybe 170 pounds, fifty pounds of muscle from when he competed. Fifty freaking pounds of muscle.
Just like Rafer Johnson is still considered a noble Olympic icon and Bruce Jenner, Mr. Ugly Sweater Infomercial huckster, is not, that is how history is going to compare Barry Bonds to Babe Ruth.
Bonds, Sosa, Conseco and McGuire will be remembered in baseball as Bruce Jenner is remembered in track: another guy who cheated with steroids to put their selfish quest for glory at the expense of fairness and at the expense of their sport’s reputation.
Forget the asterisks or altering the record books, their tarnished legacy is punishment enough.
posted by Alex at
7:31 AM
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