Oh c'mon. A pedophile is just that... (and let's dredge up the Ghost of Wade Boggs just for some more scan-dell. It all smells. Sex and the great American Voyeur Commentary goes on as Rush keeps doing his drugs, or am I crazy when I smell oil like W? )

Clemens has always been a pendejo. Yep, that's right. Go look that up. There are plenty of them peppered throughout sports and they come from everywhere as in LIFE. Clemens* is just another variety. Mannie is his own as is my beloved Kenny Lofton.

Geography is not the defining hallmark of a "red neck". Stereotypes don't help. Neither does pointing fingers.

I do think that when we talk about the GAME we have to look at it apart from what the people who play it do when off the field. I mean after all, are you Mr. XYZ Corp Man after hours? Um, call me crazy but I don't think anyone is unless that is their whole identity and that may be a problem with pro sports but that is a diff debate.

Rather than trolling for egregiousness in its own right to, for me, obsfuscate the debate on the on field performance of some pendejos with maybe or maybe not relevant scandals. I certainly am not about to pay to see Clemens* or any one team or individual in whom I am not interested. I vote with my $. I don't want to encourage anyone with issues to bring them to the field because I am not there to have their shit breezin' by my nose. Yeah it adds up things about character (Oh yeah and Cal Ripken is another epic douche bag for lest we leave that one out for heroes of nothing IMO...) but do you really think that these guys are playing for model citizen awards? Sorry but that and sports marketing seem to be very diff things to me, when *I think about it*.

Ya don't like it, don't look. Justice? Well she isn't carrying a ball in her scales. She also isn't carrying a DSM-IV and MMPI's. Really there are a lot of lost people in pro whatever. They aren't THAT well rounded? Or Are they? I mean listen to teh interviews and see when they've been asked to solve oh say the mysteries of HIV or global warming. They are about your disposable income, not your penchant for intellectually weighty matters, or are they? They certainly aren't social barometers either...They aren't paid to always be whole people and given their relatively few other foci when entertaining a career at that level. Of course I could be very wrong. But I would hardly call Steinbrenner a jewel and I went to school with his kids. Deep Insight? Not. Just casual observations about what we may see by chance or what we may learn from other sources.

Throwing knives in the sandbox isn't exactly talking smack about another team or a public figure. I'm not going to ascribe labels but I do think that while I have tee-hee'd about some of this, it is BASEBALL. I get my back up about my Tribe. But the "local hillbillies " where I live play hockey... and still no one cares if they came from Bama to play hockey if they can handle a puck and score... kinda like baseball. Oh and BTW, does that include the "jacks" from South of the Border as well? It, the game is about a whole subculture of many things and talking shit is part of that. But in sticking to the factoids at hand, I do believe there are plenty of losers everywhere. Not just on the Yank-Mes, not just from the South or South Boston even.

Yeah its been kinda funny but now, well, not so much. Aside from that, I haven't seen Coach present a scathing political commentary I haven't agreed with. Stirring shit is not talking smack. Not IMO. So I think this one is waaaay over the shark. Besides, it's not going to undo anything that has been done well or very wrong. It only contributes to the lesser discourse we already have going in monosyllables from our fearless leaders. I think we can perhaps do better here?

I don't wants pervs or dirt bags to do well. But that is a bit out of the jurisdiction of fandom and this forum?

Just sayin'-
MA