Talkin' Baseball

Not much going on in my world today, at least not at the moment, so I thought I'd do a little recap of some baseball, since we've not done that the last few days.

What really brought this up was my friend Robert talking some about the steroid suspension of Rafael Palmerio. As you may know, Palmerio was at one time the spokesperson for Viagra, which led to Robert's line that I liked so much I had to get it in here, "Either way, you know his bat is corked."

If the news coming out is true, that the steroid is one of those that is pretty strong and not found in dietary supplements, etc., then this is a huge blow to Palmerio, and a boost to Jose Canseco's claims in his book. I mean, who starts using steroids after a new, tougher testing policy has been put into place AND you've famously denied using steriods in well-publicized remarks to Congres? After all that, you are going to go, "Hmm, never used them before, but maybe there's something to all of this hype" and start? Don't think so, which means he's probably used them in the past, which means a lot of his numbers are questionable.

I think this really damages Palmerio's Hall of Fame chances. He just recently hit the 3000 hits plateau, and that made him only the fourth player to get 3000 hits and 500 HR. However, he's never won an MVP, never been a dominant player, and usually he's not even been the best (or most feared) player on his own team. There were some HOF questions before the steroid issue came up, and I think that's just another cloud that he's going to have to deal with.

Interestingly enough, though, MLB has known about this for a while. Apparently Palmerio flunked the test in May and appealed to a secret grievance committee. That helped MLB keep the spotlight on him while he was going for #3000 without the surrounding steroid questions being part of that chase. Should they have come out sooner? I don't know, but I can understand them not wanting the negative publicity around what should be a great moment in the game's history.

The Cards have split the first two with the Marlins. Marquis, I think, was suffering from the effects of the 132-pitch outing he had against the Padres last week, and still almost managed to hold off the Marlins. Florida's a tough team, though with Delgado out of the lineup at the moment, they're a little damaged as well. But that pitching staff is tough, and the Cards have not seen even the half of it yet--Beckett and Burnett are scheduled for tonight and tomorrow night, which could give the makeshift Cardinal lineup some problems.

Last night, though, they showed why they've been winning--pitching, most especially, Chris Carpenter. It's almost an upset now when he gives up a run. I believe he has a 0.83 ERA in his last 9 starts or so, and that's including the 3 runs he gave up to San Diego last time out. He's got to be the front-runner for the Cy Young award. I know Clemens has been quite outstanding, but 16 wins, among the leaders in Ks, and a 2.26 ERA on a team that's winning their division and is the best team in the NL? I'd give it to him.

Going to play poker tonight. Our "league", which we call the Pottsville Poker Tour (PPT), has tournament-style games every two weeks (on Friday or Saturday), and "ring games" on the off-weeks (on Wednesday). The ring games are cheaper, you get fewer chips, and have a time limit of an hour and a half, so that we can get two in on one night. I've never done a ring game before but I think I'm going to go for the first game tonight. We'll see how it turns out!