Out classed

If I may indulge a brief tangent. Ok, I don't even need to ask, who am I kidding.

So Team USA almost completed the Cinderella story. A light touch from Dempsey on a great serve from Proctor put the world cup giants on their heals. Then, about 20 minutes later a wonderful orchestrated counter-attack was deftly and coolly finished off by Landon. It appeared for a moment that Team US was about to pull off the most unbelievable comeback in international tournament play.

But that is when the Brazilian gods woke up, disgusted by the potential embarrassment of losing to the filthy Americans, asked their lovely assistant (pictured here) to step aside and put on a soccer clinic in the second half. There is a word from the 80's that describes what happened to Team USA, "SCHOOLED".

In a way, I prefer these results. Let's hope this loss smarts enough to create a real fire in the belly for Team USA. Then we might stand a chance to get to the quarter finals of 2010 world cup.

The Simpsons!

WTF?!

O Raul, Raul, wherefore art thou Raul?

Interesting blogpost on former GYS star Raul Ibanez. I miss his quiet production. Even in an AL-only-no-Yankees league Raul always seemed to be easy to over look. Yet, he has been incredibly consistent for the past 3 years and is currently bursting into flames. Which led to speculation he is on 'roids.

In my opinion, even if Raul started using Steroids in the off-season (which would help explain his current production), I really doubt that he would have had enough time to allow for such significant changes to his physicality. In other words, answering the question, how do steroids help you hit homers is vital to any speculative argument about a player using 'roids. In this case, I would argue that the only benefit that Raul might gain from 'roiding is the healing affect. It would allow him to recover more quickly than his 37 year old body would otherwise permit. Sure this would allow him to feel better and to react better to fastballs, but it's not going to mean he can hit the ball further. I think more evidence is coming to light that steroids actually don't benefit a player's performance all that much. So when does all the speculation end?