Results tagged “mannyramirez”

Before ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons became one of these most popular sports columnist in the country he was simply known as “The Boston Sports Guy” writing for Digital City Boston (what Bill has described as “AOL’s digital newspaper”). More than a decade later, the Holy Cross/Boston University alum has ventured beyond the sports column and into television; as a former writer for "Jimmy Kimmel Live", documentaries; as executive producer of ESPN’s 30 For 30 series and books; his latest The Book of Basketball just hit shelves this week.

Manny vs. Pedro. Two guys we loved while they were here (well, maybe not the last month or two or eighteen of Manny, your mileage may vary), who helped us out a lot in 2004, and stuck around long enough to pose for some goofy pictures.

It's exactly what we didn't want to hear: The New York Times says that two of the names on that mysterious 2003 list of baseball players who tested positive for PEDs were our big sluggers, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. We know, of course, that Manny just served a 50-game suspension in L.A. for being caught with something; we'd never heard anything about Ortiz other than blanket suspicion and whispers. This isn't good, though.

In 1991, Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra was told that his team had just traded Von Hayes to the Angels. "Great trade," said Dykstra. "Who did we get?" Well, the answer to the 2009 Red Sox version of that is Chris Duncan, the former Cardinals outfielder who now will be thought of, whatever happens, as the Lowe/Varitek to Julio Lugo's Heathcliff Slocumb. Lugo is going to St. Louis, which we like to think of as payback for the Cardinals' foisting Edgar Renteria on us (via free agency, admittedly) and starting the downward spiral of Fenway shortstopdom.

It's been about three months since the All-Star game, right? And about 12 years since the Royals left Fenway. Time stretches out endlessly when there are no Red Sox games. Tonight, see how many Sox players you still remember when they face the Blue Jays to begin the second half of the season. Clay Buchholz will get the start and the opportunity to impress Terry Francona (another no-hitter might not be a bad idea) and force himself into the discussion of how the Sox will arrange their rotation the rest of the way.

Wakefield's been pitching out of his mind. Penny and Lester have been good, for the most part, but not great. Smoltz is still a giant question mark. Dice-K seems to have been rightly sent on the "Julio Lugo Not-Really-Injured Tour Of The World". The one constant, with apologies to Terence Mann, is Josh Beckett.

The Sox are home, everyone's pumped for the Fourth of July, the weather is finally something not to be suicidal about...everything's great. Except that the Sox can't seem to beat Seattle.

The Red Sox staff had no answers for the bottom of Seattle's order as Rob Johnson and Ronny Cedeno combined to go 5-10 with five RBI in a 7-6 Sox loss in 11 innings. Johnson's two-run double in the 11th inning was the deciding hit in the game. Ramon Ramirez took the loss.

• DCist was shocked when a local newscaster threatened a gay blogger on live TV while they were discussing Kirby Dick's new film, Outrage, a documentary about outing closeted politicians who fight against marriage equality legislation.
• Shanghaiist knocked-off that super pretentious piece on bike culture by the New York Times by showing its own counterfeit bike style.
• Seattlest, staring at a week full of rain, started hunting for cheap flights to LA.

We're not going to talk too much more about yesterday's big news. Bill Simmons gets really sad, and Dan Shaughnessy must be trapped under something; it's the only explanation why he's not on Page One and all over this. The Red Sox react. Other than that, let's move on until the news breaks that Manny actually was trying to get pregnant.

Yes, it certainly is "odd day": 5/7/09 is one of only six days this century that will have three consecutive odd numbers in the date. Most of the rest of the world has to wait until July 5 to be super excited. Meanwhile, steroids charges against another odd number are just making this day even more strange.

A new twist in the Manny saga! A source close to the suspended slugger says that the banned substance for which he tested positive wasn't steroid-related at all, but a sexual enhancer.

Manny Ramirez has released a statement through the MLB Players' Association, and, as expected, he has attributed his failed drug test to a prescribed and proscribed medication:

Bostonist has spent the early afternoon reeling over the news that Manny Ramirez tested positive for steroids. (Does that mean that 2004 and 2007 are as tainted as Roger Clemens's World Series victory in 2000? And, if Manny used steroids while he played for the Sox, whom did he share them with?)

We were among the last stalwarts of the pro-Manny side of last year's big Red Sox controversy, but we can admit when we were wrong. Looks like the Red Sox dodged a bullet, since Manny's now suspended for 50 games for a positive steroid test, according to an ESPN/LA Times report. Manny, hitting .348 for the scorching Dodgers, might blame the test on something his doctor gave him, which doesn't sound fishy at all. We'll let you know more when we know more, and if you're going to link this to David Ortiz' sudden lack of power this season, well, you may not be the only one.

OK, the excitement's mostly died down, but we can still string it out for one more day.

Could there be a new top dog in the Beanpot? It's still BU's tournament to lose - they're #1 in the country and have won 11 out of the last 13 - but after yesterday, there's a lot of hope down on Huntington Avenue that things might change this year. The Terriers barely survived a hungry Harvard team, falling behind early and needing a bunch of late scores. Meanwhile, the Huskies, #3 in the country and sniffing their first Beanpot since 1988, routed BC 6-1 on the strength of goalie Brad Thiessen, who stopped 45 out of 46.

Eddie House. Man. Does anyone really think that bringing in Stephon Marbury to take some little-guy minutes away from Eddie is a good idea right now? Anyone except Starbury, that is?

Our nightmare is over. One of our floundering local wintertime teams finally broke into the win column last night, as the Bruins refound their offensive mojo and whacked the Ottawa Senators, 6-4 at the Garden last night.

No local games yesterday.

The Hawks are real. We knew they took the Celtics to seven inexplicable games last year, and we knew they were undefeated when they arrived at the Garden last night.

It took a little while for the Celtics to find their rhythm yesterday. Maybe it was the tough Houston game, maybe it was getting used to a new arena, maybe it was recovering from the whirlwind afternoon tour of Oklahoma City. We may never know.

On the way to Tropicana Field, Terry Francona announced his starting rotation for the ALCS! And it's...a continuation of the rotation from the first round. That was anticlimactic. Daisuke will start Game One in St. Petersburg, Beckett Game Two, and Lester and Wakefield will take the first two games in Boston. Tito says he has equal confidence in all three of his big guns (even after Beckett's stinkeroo last week), and says the order doesn't matter as long as they all potentially get to start twice. The man knows what he's doing.

Remember Manny Ramirez? Bill Simmons does, and he's spent the last two months on a roller coaster of emotion about what went wrong (coughScottBorascough), what could have been done to fix it, and what it all means. The result is a 750-page analysis that's well worth the hours it will take to read it.

Cause and effect? While the Red Sox were jetting off to Toronto, they found themselves a half-game closer to first, because the Rays blew an 8-6 lead and lost to the Twins. So as long as we're not playing the team we're trying to catch, maybe we can catch them. Sound right?

-- Justin Timberlake is casting for a new reality game show where you run around trying to find a ringing cell phone called "The Phone." If this show's a hit, you can be sure "Honey, Have You Seen My Car Keys?" will be next. [Loaded Gun]

Hank wasn’t there to get the crowd going and the normally loud crowd at Gillette seemed to have taken a Quaalude before the game. But then again, it’s not a real game. Nothing was at stake; even Tom Brady was bundled up on the sidelines like Nanook of the North. (Tom, it was 70 degrees.) Maybe it was the cool crisp air that got to the Pats, but even a push at the end didn’t get them the win. The Pats lost to the Ravens, 16-15.