Kobe Is a Chucker, But It's Better Than Being A Statutory Rapist

Newsflash: Roger Clemens is a scumbag and a liar. If all of the years of throwing at people's heads, taking steroids and lying about both, and negotiating into contracts that he not travel with his teams weren't enough to convince you, now it appears that when he was 28, he began sleeping with a 15-year-old girl. He was married and the affair lasted 10-years. He denies every word of the story; she says every word is true. Does anyone buy his good 'ole country boy honesty in his steroid/lying to Congress story now - it's like Cush's dad saying his word is stronger than oak and then signing a contract with Bob Sugar the night before the draft.

Speaking of adulterers, I had to watch the Lakers-Nuggets game last night as the profanity censor for KCAL again and Kobe Bryant has not changed his one-man show at all. It is a popular thing to say he has grown up and sees he needs teammates now. Not even close. Before the game, Lamar Odom said in an interview that things in the clubhouse are better because they're winning. That's it.

The Lakers held a solid lead for basically the whole game. About mid-way through the third, the Lakers had an in bounds play, up by 6. They stacked up right in front of the ball and Kenyon Martin walked in and shoved his way in the middle of it. Kobe was obviously pissed and they did a close-up of his little "I am gonna make you pay" smile. Here is the succession of the his 5 plays:

Fall-away three pointer missed
Turnover (drove in and jumped up with no shot and no one to pass to, threw it out of bounds)
Fouls J.R. Smith shooting a 3 (Smith makes all three free throws and the game is tied)
Missed three pointer
Turnover (stolen while dribbling at the top of the key)

Yes, he went nuts and put together a 7-0 run that wound up winning the game, but all three shots in that run were early in the clock on isolation plays. He stops running the offense and takes over. If the shots fall like they did late in the game, he is a hero. But for the entire third and beginning of the fourth, the same ill-advised shots did not fall and the Nuggets climbed into the lead. This won't work against a good team.

Carmelo Anthony is now in league with the worst post-season performing superstars of all time. He fouled out of yet another playoff game. He made almost no contribution while he was in there besides a few big dunks (and one missed dunks that may have swung the entire fourth quarter). His career post-season record is 4-20 with five straight first-round exits. But at least he seems like a good guy off the court.

And when talking about epic chokes, how can I not mention that Barry Zito, the $126 Million Dollar Man, is now a middle reliever for the worst team in the league? Apparently the Giants are not happy with his 7.53 ERA, 0-6 record, 81 MPH fastball or the fact that opponents are hitting .338 off of him. When I think that the Mets went after him and lost out, then signed Johan Santana a year later with that money, I feel all warm inside. To his credit, Zito said all the right things after the move and I think he really is a good guy. I do hope he finds his stuff again.

Great Moments In Announcing: April 28, 2008 - Stu Lantz took about five minutes to explain to all the kids out there watching that if you jump into a person's chest, you will foul them. Instead you want to jump to one side or the other when you are running at a jump-shooter. He also explained that the key to the playoffs is getting out of the first round. Some would say it is defense, or foul shooting, or winning the championship, but modest, patently obvious goals are important too.

I try to do the right thing and serve my community, and I was really tempted to just hold down the mute button for the entire Laker game to spare Los Angeles from Stu's arrogance, stuttering and insanity. I would do that for the Dodger game tonight, but if Charlie Steiner is announcing, no one would notice anyway. No one allows more dead-air between sentences than Steiner. But at least when he does speak, he shows a deft grasp on not knowing anything about baseball.

Holding Out For An Anti-Hero

Being that it is tax day, it seems appropriate to write about things that pretty much everyone hates. Like Barry Bonds. There have been rumblings that it is only a matter of time before some team signs him - that they have all waited long enough and wouldn't have to pay top dollar anymore.

So how is it that no struggling team (read: Detroit Tigers) has signed him? So he is a clubhouse poison. So he comes out of the box like Billy Crystal in his MLB debut this spring. So he could never win anything when he was doped up like it was the All-Drug Olympics. So he will double any team's food budget (besides the Dodgers who already have Andruw Jones eating anything that sits still for a moment). Who cares?

Last year he hit a home run every 11 times at bat. He puts butts in the seats and the reporters in the press box - both of which put advertising dollars in your bank account. He can play DH and never run out a double. He doesn't need to carry the team, just scare the hell out of pitchers enough to make them pitch to the rest of the guys.

But the reasons that no one will sign him this year (or ever again) have nothing to do with his on base percentage or home run total. Signing him is a sign of panic and tells your players you don't think they can do it, which is a bad move even for the Tigers who supposedly have one of the most prolific offenses in history but are in last place and are averaging three runs per game. If your clubhouse is happy and friendly, he will make it tense and uncomfortable. If your clubhouse is tense and uncomfortable, he will cause it to explode and will likely eat someone.

As for the on-the-field performance questions, it isn't his inability to leg out and infield hit that makes him unhirable, it is that he could be thrown out at first from left field. As all of the cool-aid drinking San Franciscans whined, 'roids wouldn't make him see the ball better or improve his hand-eye coordination. But as everyone else argued, if you are 15 percent stronger because of drugs, a 350-foot gapper is now a 400-foot dinger. Bonds cannot be dumb enough to still be juicing (right?), and he is now 44-years-old, so that 350-foot gapper is now about a 300-foot flyout. He'd never get an intentional walk again and would never be pitched around.

I suppose someone will sign him. It will probably be Texas as another season withers away and they need something to make it interesting (plus they got 21 homers and 92 RBI out of Sosa last year). But he won't be nearly as hate-able as he once was, being a needle-scarred shell of his former self. So who are we to hate now? Sheffield? The poor bastard is stuck in Detroit and has to make wild racism claims just to make the national papers. It is weird to not have any great villains on the field. There are jerks (Manny, Larry Jones, Jeff Kent, Arod) but no proper villains.

Where have you gone Roger Clemens?