From the Bleachers

Ye Shiwen’s ridiculous swimming Gold medal time a little fishy, to say the least

Seriously, does China think we are really that stupid? Do they honestly think we are that completely brain-dead that they can just ram another human steroid down our throats and we won’t notice them smashing World records like they were Tibetan protests? The Olympics are off to a fine start by all accounts however China seem determined to wipe the shine off the five famous rings, and has apparently learnt nothing from being caught doping on several occasions recently.

In 2009 five junior Chinese swimmers were banned after testing positive for the anabolic agent clenbuterol at the 2008 national junior championships. In 1994 China ‘dominated’ the Rome world championships, when its drug-riddled women ‘won’ 13 of the 16 available golds, and were subsequently banned by all World swimming federations.

Basically, China has priors.

Texas Rangers fans who booed Josh Hamilton Friday night should go watch a different sport

Friday night in Texas the Rangers lost a ball game, 9-5 to the White Sox, a team that is ripping it up since its marquee addition of Kevin Youkilis earlier in July. The White Sox are beating all comers since they added the Greek God Of Walks.  That alone should have softened the blow of losing for Rangers fans. The same Rangers who are the highest scoring team in baseball (ahead of the Red Sox in second). The same Rangers who are 58-41 and possess the fourth best record in all of Major League Baseball.

The very same Texas Rangers who have won the last two AL pennants, and have competed in the last two World Series. Some still think they were unlucky to lose last years.

Amazingly, despite all of the above, on Friday night Josh Hamilton was roundly booed by his home fans, Texas Rangers 'fans'. Hamilton struck out in a key moment in the 5th inningand the 'boos' rained down from the Texas stands.

The LA Dodgers land prize fish Hanley Ramirez as Miami continues to unravel

You have to wonder, what on earth are the Miami Marlins doing? Stunning MLB news today as it is starting to break that the LA Dodgers have landed Hanley Ramirez and his very, very big bat in a several-player-deal that is heavily weighted in the Dodgers favour. At first glance it would appear Miami might be in the middle of a big salary (and talent) dump, the deal is that lopsided.

If you recall, the Marlins dumped every decent part of its roster after World Series wins in '97 and '03, this time round they would appear to have forgotten to win the series before dumping its roster.

The ugliest part of this is the Marlins front office is now going to attempt to sneakily assasinate Ramirez around baseball by releasing thinly veiled hints in regards club house chemistry and so on. I am not buying it, what about all those goofy pro-Marlins promos we were force fed where Ramirez horsed around with Reyes and other Marlins, apparently one big happy family? Now it suits the front office to hide behind these 'character' stories we are already starting to see on Hanley. I call bullshit. They are trying to distract us from the stink of their latest fire sale by distributing misinformation.

A tribute to Jessica Ghawi

The terrible shooting in Denver in the very early hours of this Friday morning still seems somewhat unreal. It is both shocking and tragic, and there are obviously and understandably going to be billions of words written about this terrible, pointless injustice.  From a news point of view, the story is going to be covered into the most minute details. On a more personal level, we are all going to have our opinions, and many of them are going to be very strong. I for one am barely able to conceal my anger at those who would even now protect this insane ‘right to bear arms’, a ‘right’ protected by a constitution written when bears and angry indigenous peoples were a real issue.

This article isn’t about any of that.

Far more experienced and superior writers are going to tackle the news and political elements of this tragedy. This is just about a girl, Jessica, who died this morning, for absolutely no reason at all, way too soon.

Please! Enough already with the Jeremy Lin: 25 games started = $25 million contract

Good lord! Jeremy Lin this, Jeremy Lin that. The Knicks will keep him, the Knicks won’t keep him. Whatever. Houston have him now so maybe, maybe there is some end in sight to this torrential downpour of repetitive, inane Jeremy Lin media coverage. What on earth has been going on? ESPN is practically ESPN\JeremyLin.com at this stage, their poster boy LeBron James has even taken a backstage to Linsanity.

Imagine you were a pretty big sports fan who, the night before Lin injured himself this NBA season past, was hit in the head by a blunt object and slipped into a coma. Imagine you woke up today and your loved ones had a laptop ready for you with all the big sporting websites open so you could catch up on your beloved sports news straight off the bat.

From the sheer stupid, heavy weight of Lin related coverage, you would have to assume that Lin had, while you lay in a coma, single handed led the Knicks to the NBA title, averaging 34 points a game in the playoffs, had talked Michael Bay out of ever making another Transformer movie, had opened sixteen orphanages, slapped the silly out of Tom Cruise, and donated 50 % of his salary to New York’s homeless.  The next day after all that, he had cured World hunger.

Olympics: LeBron, The President and respect

We're not going to pull the wool over your eyes here in this column. We have had our well documented ‘disagreements’ with ‘The King’, LeBron James, largely based around ESPNs sycophantic infatuation with the lad. You could argue it is not all his fault. Nevertheless, ‘From the bleachers’ has unashamedly driven the nail in as often as possible.

Last night we were given pause for thought.

The USA played Brazil in an Olympics warm up in Washington, and President Obama, a big basketball fan, was in attendance. LeBron, who dominated on the night in the USAs 80-69 win, had this to say about his President;

MLB: Emotional night on tap tonight at Fenway Park as Red Sox host White Sox

When the Boston Red Sox host the Chicago White Sox tonight at Fenway Park, there will be more sub plots attached to the occasion than to your average day time Mexican soap opera. A fully charged night of emotion is almost guaranteed as a number of potentially dramatic talking points play themselves out across the diamond.

First to the most glaringly obvious. ‘Youk’ is back. The bearded one is almost guaranteed a terrific response from the Fenway crowd thanks in large part to his classy exit from The Fens, almost as much as the years of graft and World Series wins behind him. Kevin Youkilis was always a fan favourite in Boston, and most likely always will be. He probably didn’t need to take out a full page advertisement on ESPN thanking the Fenway faithful, however the fact he did, shows he does care about his relationship with his former fans. Just remember, that loud droning noise you will likely hear as he takes his first at bat is not booing, it's Yooooooouk-ing.

Interesting quick side note on that page, notice Youkilis went out of his way to thank Tito?

The NFL rules the airwaves (In the USA anyway)

It’s official. The NFL owns the USA. Well, it at least owns bragging rights to ‘most watched sport on television’. It is the King of TV. It is an inflated, wrecking ball of a  Godzilla sized monster. How can we say this with such authority? The website Sports Media Watch has compiled the ratings for the 50 most-viewed sports telecasts of the first half of 2012. The NFL is all over it like white on rice. It’s not even close.

Click on the below to view it in a larger view.
 

That’s a clown car, bro! Bryce Harper gets new wheels

And so yes, this appears to be happening. Bryce Harper got himself some new wheels, and the Washington Post has reacted in a calm, dignified, restrained manner. You know, with a 16 page photo gallery on pretty much every angle of said automobile. In fairness, it does have one pretty sweet feature, which we will get to in a minute. The rookie had his shiny new Mercedes-Benz CLS delivered after a month of custom detailing work. Harper had his Mercedes-Benz customized with a curly ‘W’ (We can only assume for ‘Washington’, although ‘W****r’ is of course still on the table)  and a glowing bat rack in his trunk.

That’s right, a bat rack, in his trunk, that glows.  Your guess is as good as ours, perhaps Harper sometimes really needs to grab a bat in the dark. You never know.  You can check out the full ‘article’ here, and while away your listless hours perusing the various snazzy little elements of the custom job.

Hopefully this ‘article’ from the Post might spark other news starved papers to give us some insight into the trunk of their own marquee players.  We assume Prince Fielder keeps some sort of grill in his trunk, and naturally Josh Hamilton has to have a fully stocked bar full video games system in his.

Kevin Youkilis is glad to be away from the Boston sports media

In case you haven’t noticed. Kevin Youkilis, recently traded to the Chicago White Sox, is raking. Youk is hitting bombs again, winning games with his bat, and the White Sox are on a tear since they picked him up in exchange for basically garbage to the Red Sox. Predictably enough, Youk is already a firm favourite on the Chicago south side, with his replica jerseys flying out of the club shop faster than you can say ‘Greek God of walks’.  Let’s take a step back to just a few weeks ago, before Youkilis was traded. At the time, the Boston sports media was tripping over itself in a rush to see who could insult Youkilis the harshest. In articles on Boston online papers, in Twitter and Facebook, the press absolutely whaled away at Youkilis, calling him washed up, done, finished and saying it was the right move to ship him out of time, as fast as possible. A couple of writers even suggested releasing the veteran.

The problem is, as Youkilis continues to show himself to be a veteran, quality bat, turns out they might have been very wrong.

The level of negativity attached to Youkilis by the media was astonishing. A number of my Red Sox fan friends mentioned it to me and we wondered why they were going so hard on the guy. Was it all instructed from ‘above’? (The Red Sox own part of the Boston Globe, for example) Did Youkilis do something to annoy them? Or were they just that negative?

Yankee star Mark Teixeira calls Redsox Padilla 'friendless'

So last night Yankee first baseman Mark Teixeira had a big hit off Red Sox reliever Vincent Padilla, a game winning hit as it turned out. The Yanks won a game that almost went on four hours, injury riddled Boston licks its wounds and gets ready for today's potentially draining double dip. Game over, no big deal, nothing to see here, right?

Wrong. Teixeira would appear to have become the 'class' police of MLB, if his incredibly stupid, childish and frankly bush league comments after the game are anything to go by. Teixeira and Padilla have something of a history, in that the latter has hit him with pitches twice. I guess they must have really, really stung the Yankee first baseman because the big lug had this to say post game;

“Game-winning hits always feel good, but that one definitely felt real good. I was making some jokes. I’ve got to get in line. He doesn’t have a lot of friends in the game.”

It is no secret Padilla is a coulourful character, who has knocked around a few organisations and has been moved on specially because of the 'colour' we just alluded to. He is definitely not blameless in this. However, to be a Major League baseball player, and to stand there in a post game interview and to say 'He doesn't have a lot of friends in the game' is nothing short of imbecilic. It is arrogant and aggressive. Frankly I hope Padilla continues to be the person he is, he is enjoyable to watch, and who are we to tell him to change his 'style'?

The 2012 Irish Central Alternate MLB All-Stars

Not long now until the MLB All-Star game, under a week to be exact, and up to now baseball fans everywhere have been talking about the guys that made it, and some deserving guys that didn't. Well, how about the absolutely un-deserving guys, what about those folk who won't be at the All-Star game and yet have 'preformed' at such a deviant level (deviant from the norm) that some sort of celebration should be held in their honour. What about the alternate All-Stars?

There are some truly legendary (legendarily awful) seasons being executed on the diamond this season, and these staggeringly bad numbers need to be at least taken note of.

It all starts with the guy hunched down behind the plate, and the Irish Central alternate all-stars have Oakland's Kurt Suzuki flashing signs as catcher and, well, not doing much else at all, actually. His pathetic .210 batting average is painful to see even in statistical representation, let alone in the field of play. He has been to the plate 229 times and has yet to lose a ball in the stands. Zero home runs. Pathetic.

Irish soccer legend Damien Duff visits Irish troops in the Lebanon

Some professional athletes talk a big game. Others put their money where their mouth is.

While we go about our normal lives, worrying about paying the bills, what we are going to have for dinner and what’s on TV later, there are currently over 330 Irish soldiers serving in the Lebanon as part of the strong UN remit in that country, keeping the peace in a time of great stress for the region. It is an incredibly dangerous task, and tragically, 47 Irish soldiers have died defending the peace in South Lebanon. All the while the fear remains that the problems in neighbouring Syria could explode across the border. It is a tense time to be a UN peace keeper based in the region.

This brings us to Damien Duff, or ‘The Duffer’

Erin Andrews and FOX: Perfect partners in a voyeuristic World

With former Uber-sideline reporter Erin Andrews moving to FOX Sports, once more we are reminded just how swarthy and essentially incestuous a place the Internet is. The basics, for those of you new to this breaking story, a once famous and now considerably less famous side-line reporter has left a big sports website to move to a smaller sports website. That’s it really. From the wild reaction on the Internet, you would think Bryce Harper just stormed in on a Phillies post-game press conference wearing a Hells Angels tank-top, smacked Cole Hamels in the back of the head with a baseball bat, renounced Mormonism and snogged a female reporter on the way out in triumph.

Andrews and FOX are of course perfect partners. Perfect in the same way Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise were for each other. If you recall, Erin Andrews was once victim of a voyeur who invaded her privacy in a hotel some years back. FOX are absolute masters at voyeuristic invasions of privacy. Their owners, News Corp, have spent the better part of 2012 in courtrooms in the United Kingdom fighting, unsuccessfully, allegations that they tapped the phones of celebrities, politicians and regular Joe Punters, basically in an attempt to get breaking news stories without performing any, you know, journalism.