The Zong

So I’ve been alternately thumbing through the mind-numbing Mitchell Report and sleeping for a few days, all the while trying to ignore all the pundits so as to venture a somewhat independent opinion on the thing. I’ve definitely given up on even trying to decipher how the thing was actually put together, but I can say that if you paid me whatever George Mitchell was paid to do this, I could have probably come up with something a little more entertaining.

As far as I can tell, George Mitchell has constructed a blacklist in a manner that would make Joe McCarthy proud. I mean, I won’t sit here and say that I don’t believe a lot of what’s in the report, but it’s important to view all the allegations in the report for what they are: allegations, rumor, and accusations by people who are facing serious jail time. I’m sure that Mitchell is right that juicing was/is widespread, and that a lot of the players listed in the report are probably dirty, filthy fucking cheaters, but the report is thin on proof and heavy on the kind of shit I might try to include in a report to make it 409 pages long instead of 55.

What pisses me off, really, is that Bud Selig and all of baseball’s managers and owners are left basically unnamed in the report, other than a cursory nod and mild wagging of the finger. Why the hell weren’t the executives investigated more thoroughly by Mitchell? It seems pretty unlikely that they just didn’t know this shit was happening, and like a major flaw in the report that they weren’t asked more questions in general.

That said, I implore the media and baseball itself to give all these accused players the Barry Bonds treatment at every single opportunity. All the cheaters, whether they’ve failed drug tests or not, should have asterisks placed next to every win they’ve ever participated in, and all of them should be forced to testify in front of a Grand Jury. Then, their testimony should be leaked and their local piece-of-shit sports rag should have a couple of shitty reporters salvage their worthless careers by writing a bunch of sensationalist bullshit into a best-selling book. I’d also like all the fans in New York, Los Angeles, St. Louis, San Diego, etc. to go find the asterisk signs and syringes that they brought to their games against the Giants the last couple of years and bring them to every fucking game their own teams play for the rest of their lives. I mean, what’s good for the goose is good for your own hypocritical, filthy cheating fucker-filled organization too, isn’t it?

- M.G.

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The news of the Miggy/D-Train move to Detroit for some (very promising) prospects came as a bit of a surprise to some in the baseball world, not the least of whom was Josh Willingham, who isn’t really good enough to get traded just yet.

Cabrera and Willis were the last players left from Florida’s 2003 championship team. Unable to secure a new ballpark, the Marlins keep shedding players when they are due to earn huge salaries. Cabrera made $7.4 million this year and Willis $6.45 million. Both were eligible for arbitration and likely to receive raises.

“I halfway expected one of them to get traded, but not both in the same deal. So it’s a little bit of a shock,” Marlins left fielder Josh Willingham said. “It’s deflating.”

And so we can continue to thank the Florida Marlins for assisting the grand exodus of talent from the National League. I’m not sure how good Detroit’s former prospects actually are, but their new lineup is looking kind of fucking stupid, much like the lineups of the Red Sox, Yankees, and Angels. This leaves the NL looking even more pathetic and boring than it was last year, but let’s not forget to blame all the National League teams who were evidently sleeping when all this happened. I’d really like to blame Brian Sabean for this, but he didn’t really have much to offer in a trade for even one of those guys. I suppose I can blame him for bankrupting the Giants’ Farm System, and a quick look at the Yahoo! MLB Rumors page shows a couple of tidbits that make me feel a little sick. The first one is about Miguel Cabrera, something Sabean said just this past Saturday:

”I hate to speak to somebody else’s business, but you wonder if they really want to trade the player or if they absolutely, positively have to win the deal in such a one-sided fashion,” San Francisco Giants general manager Brian Sabean said. “Maybe they’re not going to get something done. I don’t know.”

Maybe they’re not. Or maybe they just did. For prospects that you don’t have because you give away first-round picks all the time to save money. Glad you got a new contract out of it, brah.

Of course, there are still quality players out there. This was just posted regarding the Blue Jay’s Alex Rios:

Would the Giants trade Matt Cain for Alex Rios?

Late Tuesday, it was learned that the “interesting” proposal Brian Sabean had mentioned Monday involved Rios, the Blue Jays’ outfielder. He has three more years of arbitration eligibility before becoming eligible for free agency after the 2010 season.

The Blue Jays want Cain for Rios, according to a high-ranking Toronto official, and the Giants seem more willing to part with Tim Lincecum.

So let me get this straight: You wouldn’t trade one of the only prospects we have for the new Manny Ramirez in the prime of his young career, but now you’re talking about trading Lincecum for Alex Rios? What the hell is wrong with you?  Did you watch any baseball last season other than the fucking Home Run Derby? This smacks of the kind of desperation that might lead to a really horrible Sabean Masterpiece for the Giants. There is a precedent for this…

- M.G.

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Remember in 2002 when the National Intelligence Estimate said Iraq was going to use something called Weapons of Mass Destruction to whip America’s ass? I was pretty sure I remembered that, and I went and read some of it. From the “Key Judgements” comes this little tidbit, which I’m sure you’ll remember from the W. Administration’s Greatest Hits album:

“If Baghdad acquires sufficient fissile material from abroad it could make a nuclear weapon within several months to a year. “

That little clause goes right up there with “The smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud” and “We’re fighting them over there so that we don’t have to fight them over here” in the bullshit rhetoric Hall of Fame that was constructed in order to justify invading and pillaging a sovereign nation that never attacked us. At the time, the NIE was touted as a Big Fucking Deal by everyone who supported the war, including Hillary Clinton, and was given to us as pretty much hard factual evidence, even though absolutely none of it was true.

So you can imagine my joy in reading about the new NIE on Iran, which says:

“…Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb”

All political uses aside (ha ha), since the 2002 debacle, I would posit that the NIE has about as much structural integrity as this country’s bridges, but that’s never stopped the Bush Administration from using something to justify a war before, so I expected them to maybe come out and announce the creation of a bipartisan congressional committee to work out what should go in the giant holiday gift basket we’re about to send to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I mean, the NIE says all sorts of things which suggest that Iran is done being part of the Axis of Evil and is more interested in being part of the Cadre of Good Guys. To wit:

Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005. Our assessment that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.

Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs.

There is plenty of bet-hedging in the report, as we are reminded that Iran probably still wants to develop nuclear weapons, and I’m sure that’s true. I want a lot of stuff too, like a swimming-pool full of scotch and strippers, but my intelligence suggests that it will be a few decades before I am able to achieve that objective. Still, you’d never know any of this hearing it from Steve Hadley who loves to read between the lines when it comes to matters of National Security.

But the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, quickly issued a statement describing the N.I.E. as containing positive news rather than reflecting intelligence mistakes.

“It confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons,” Mr. Hadley said. “It tells us that we have made progress in trying to ensure that this does not happen. But the intelligence also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem.”

“The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically — without the use of force — as the administration has been trying to do,” Mr. Hadley said.

In looking over the transcript, I don’t see any pauses or notes to show when Hadley had to clear his throat and cover his mouth to subdue the hysterical fucking laughter that must have been welling up inside him as he said all this. I mean, I understand how politicians learn to spin shit in their favor all the time, but are you fucking kidding me?

- M.G.

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The revelation is at hand: It seems that a team of plucky scientists made some stem cells out of someone’s dandruff, and the Times makes it sound like it was pretty easy, ya friggin’ idiots:

All they had to do, the scientists said, was add four genes. The genes reprogrammed the chromosomes of the skin cells, making the cells into blank slates that should be able to turn into any of the 220 cell types of the human body, be it heart, brain, blood or bone. Until now, the only way to get such human universal cells was to pluck them from a human embryo several days after fertilization, destroying the embryo in the process.

Well, if that’s all you had to do, I’m glad you finally did it. Lazy showoffs.

But seriously, folks, Dana Perino is pissed that folks aren’t giving the President more credit for curing the stem cells. She’s cute when she’s angry:

“President Bush is very pleased to see the important advances in ethical stem cell research reported in scientific journals today,” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said today. “By avoiding techniques that destroy life, while vigorously supporting alternative approaches, President Bush is encouraging scientific advancement within ethical boundaries.

That’s all well and good, only the fact is that if the Decider had decided to fund more stem cell research at the outset, we might have gotten here years ago. According to James Thompson, the guy who discovered stem cells and is therefore kind of like Satan incarnate to embryo-boosters everywhere, maybe Dana ought to remind the President that he’s actually not a scientist just yet. He’s actually kind of a jerk about this kind of thing:

Thomson, who co-discovered human embryonic stem cells in 1998, credited the president with providing some funds for work starting in 2001 but said Bush’s funding limits “represented very bad public policy as far as I’m concerned. The field has been much slower taking off than it would have been otherwise.”

So as much as I’d hate to blame the President for the years his policy has set back stem cell research in general, I guess I’ll leave that to all the families of the dead folks who’s lives would have been saved if he hadn’t tried to impose his religious beliefs on yet another scientific institution.

- M.G.

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I finally got a chance to read through the Bonds indictment this evening, and I’ll tell you something: It sure is boring. I’m glad I’m not a fucking lawyer or anything.

That said, I can understand some of the words, and I think the worst ones for Bonds occur on page 3, line 2:

9. During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances for Bonds and other professional athletes.

Now, I know there have to be a few fans left somewhere in this town who will find some way to deny that any of this is true, and these are all unproven allegations at this point, but that seems like a pretty big fucking discovery to me. If it turns out that it’s true, and that there are vials of Barry’s piss tinged with PEDs in an evidence locker waiting to be presented at trial, then all those people who used the “He’s never tested positive for anything” horseshit are gonna have to avoid their Bonds-hating friends at the bars for awhile.

If convicted, and I’m sure that’s a long way away, but it’s fun to imagine, Bonds faces a maximum of 30 years in prison and fines amounting to about three innings of salary for Alex Rodriguez next year. Jeffrey Toobin is on CNN right now, and I trust his legal opinion slightly more than my own. He’s not coming out and saying it, but you can kind of tell from the look in his eyes that he thinks Barry’s fucked.

What isn’t being discussed just yet, but will be soon, is the ramifications for Bonds’ career. He has almost certainly played his last major league baseball game, obviously, but what of the Hall of Fame? All the speculation, asterisks and surly interviews didn’t seem to hurt his chances of getting in (some idiots even flip-flopped a few days before the indictment), but without any further deliberation, verdicts or proof, if a positive test for steroids exists with Barry’s name on it, I don’t think there’s any way the man gets in. He can write letters of commiseration to Pete Rose and Mark McGwire from the cell he’s sharing with Scooter Libby.

Personally, I’ll just say what I have before about this: It’s a shame. Nobody, even those who hate the man, can look at his early career and deny that he was one of the greatest natural talents the game has ever seen. He was unquestionably the greatest player of an entire generation, and I think it’s fairly certain that even without the juice, he’d easily wear that mantle forever. His father was a great player and a patriarch in the Giants’ organization, and his godfather was Willie Mays, perhaps the greatest player ever and certainly the greatest to ever wear the San Francisco uniform. If the allegations are true, after all the posturing and denials, in spite of his great pedigree, in spite of the greatness endowed to him by genetics and nature and in spite of his status as a legend playing for his hometown team, Barry Bonds will have squandered it all and become a pariah unequaled by anyone in the history of the game since the 1919 Black Sox.

The sheer Shakespearean nature of it all will put erections in the pants of journalists across the country, and will provide fodder for years of stupid specials on ESPN, all the while putting a smelly, rotten cherry on top of the shittiest sundae ever served to the long-suffering fans of the San Francisco Baseball Giants.

- M.G.

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Maybe it’s a little late to be saying this, but Karl Rove is a free man.

Bonds’ appearance date here in San Francisco is December 7th, a date which will live in infamy. Can’t wait to read that indictment…

- M.G.

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Here we are five games into the NBA season and the C’s are undefeated and atop the SI power rankings. Before getting into my initial observations, let me mention how great it is to be a Boston fan right now. None of our major professional sports teams have lost since the Sox lost to Cleveland in Game 4 of the ALCS. That has to be at least a month. (I know Peter King made the same observation in MMQB but I’ve been saying this for the past week, just ask Trim and RoFo). I also know the Bruins have lost, but I don’t count hockey as a major sport. And on top of that, BC has lost in consecutive weeks, which will finally quiet those BC yahoos.

That being said, here are my initial observations on the C’s…

• KG is much better than I thought. I knew he was a superstar, but his intensity is insane. He’s waving the towel from the bench, cheering on the scrubs with a 20 point lead in the fourth quarter. He never lets up, even when Doc keeps him in 10 minutes longer than he should, which leads me to…
• Doc’s coaching… coming into the year, my only question was whether Doc could coach. Since he’s been here, there have always been excuses. Not anymore. Not with GPA. So far, he’s proven that he can coach a team with talent but I’m a bit worried about the minutes GPA are logging. Allen played all 48 minutes of a BLOWOUT. Keep in mind, he’s coming off two ankle surgeries. Was it really necessary to play him wire to wire? KG’s no spring chicken either, yet he’s playing for 17-18 minute stretches in the first half alone. I guess I shouldn’t complain, being 5-0 and all, but I’d rather not see any of the GPA components out of gas by the All Star break.
• KG is ridonculous.

One more thing, I’d like to thank Glaser for ruining the draft lottery via his Skype powers when the C’s ended up with the 5th pick. If they won the lottery, #5 wouldn’t be in green, unless you’re talking about Gerald Green.

- E.Z.

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Even a disgruntled fan like me often finds Ray Ratto of the Chronicle too gleefully a curmudgeon when he writes about the Giants and Niners and how bad they are most of the time, but the thing is, when the fat bastard is right, the fat bastard is right:

How much longer are you willing to subject yourselves to this barely watchable glop?

The season is lost, but getting worse with each new week. Even with Frank Gore back, the 49ers didn’t come close to gaining 200 yards or establishing any offensive continuity. They gave every indication on the sideline of being resigned to a shameful fate, eager only for the year to end, and every indication on the field that they almost would rather be on the sideline.

So we ask again, what’s in this for you, the fan? What could you possibly be getting out of this? The belief that good times are just around the corner? Signs that they are ready to rebound? An argument in which you and your pal the Raiders’ fan both can win and still feel lousy when the night ends and the bartender has your car keys?

As painful as it is to say this, I probably am too disgusted to write anything quite that eloquent right now, so you win, Ratto.

I believe that, through my booze-induced haze, I heard one of the MNF sideline reporters talking about the 49er sideline at some point in the first half. She spoke of disarray, coaches and players yelling at one another and so on. It remains clear that if a team can’t play with a little heart right after the head coach’s father dies, much less bickers and falters throughout the game, then the problem goes far beyond personnel or coaching, and points at a pervasive problem with the philosophy of the organization, and that starts at the very top.

I suppose that it IS time to stop watching this team, and possibly time to start asking some important questions about how things got this bad. It’s not going to get fixed anytime soon, but it’s important that the mistakes that ownership has made with this team two or three times already do not happen a fourth and fifth time. How much longer will fans accept the rebuilding label, and how much longer can the Yorks pretend that they know what they’re doing?

- M.G.

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So what did I miss?

This prolonged absence, a product of shoddy computer manufacturing (don’t ever, ever buy a Toshiba. Ever.)  and an influx of busy work, has given me time to kick back and look at the giant open sore suppurating out at Candlestick Point. Every week brings with it an opportunity for me to launch into a bilious tirade on Monday morning, but I swear that the team is so much worse than expected that watching them play simply sucks the desire to do anything at all right out of me.

2-6 isn’t a great record to have halfway through the season, but it’s worse than all that; I watched the first two victories of the season, against the Cardinals and Rams, and unless you can convince me that the Niners were just toying with them, I’m going to continue to be shocked that the team isn’t 0-8 right now. You heard it here first: The Santa Clara 49ers are the worst 2-6 team in football.

I don’t even want to know what’s wrong anymore. I don’t care who’s getting the blame for this, and I really couldn’t care less that the team has had some injuries. Healthy or not, this team is absolutely impossible to watch without groaning or puking or killing something, and I don’t fucking care how it gets fixed, I just want it to stop being so horrible.

I realize that we should be taking the season one loss at a time, so maybe I shouldn’t look past this week’s Monday night drubbing by the Seahawks on national television, but I can’t wait for the Niners to match up next week with the winless Rams, who look to remain winless this week against the Saints. The 49ers escaped with a win against them earlier in the season, and I’m sure the Rams are looking at the game as the only opportunity they have to get in the win column, so it looks to be a fantastic, exciting place-kicking duel. I’m trying my best to sell my tickets to that game, but the best offer I’ve gotten so far entails me hand-delivering the tickets to someone who then gets to beat the shit out of me for being a season ticket holder in the first place. I’m waiting for an actual monetary offer, so if you’re interested, let me know.

As one last added insult, let’s remember that the more games the Niners lose, the higher the New England Patriots get to draft in the first round. Aren’t sports fun?

- M.G.

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Imagine that you’re a farmer. Just imagine it. Now imagine that you’re a farmer in the State of Qatar. I’m not sure what you farm in Qatar, but the Wikipedia suggests that you probably farm pearls or natural gas, so your life is probably pretty peaceful. Anyhow, imagine that one day, as you sit quietly watching your herd of pearl necklace-clad natural gases serenely grazing in your fields of whatever, a giant explosion on the grounds of your farm shatters any illusions you might have that your country will remain untouched by war, bringing about memories of the colonial rule of the British and Ottoman Empires that the Wikipedia just told me about.

Then, imagine that you are told that the explosion was an errant Patriot missile, sent to your front door by the United States of America, and then you read a quote like this:

“Those things are not supposed to accidentally discharge,” said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. “It was not supposed to happen.”

I don’t know how to say “No shit, motherfucker” in Arabic, but I’m sure it sounds hilarious.

Maybe the headline is only barely HOF material, but I’m putting it up there anyhow. I wish someone at Reuters had the wherewithal to come with a headline like “Errant Patriot Bombs yet Another Islamic Nation,” but that’s neither here nor there. As it is, I think we can all agree that when someone at the Pentagon refers to any of our advanced weaponry as “those things,” it doesn’t bode well for anyone within range, much lest anyone in the entire Middle East.

- M.G.

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