I was talking with Pete Rose some seven, eight years ago, and I deliberately didn't ask him if he bet on baseball.
What would be the point?
For more than a decade, Rose had staunchly denied any involvement in illegal gambling. As if, then, he was going to suddenly open up to me, handing over a laundry list of all his sins. Right. Based on what? That he might like my first name?
The Yankees don't intend to offer Alex Rodriguez a contract extension, leaving him the option of opting out of his deal after the season and becoming a free agent.
"Alex has a significant contract. The most significant in baseball history," Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said Wednesday. "He has a decision to make. It's in his contract. It's a right he's earned."
Rodriguez has four seasons left in the record $252 million, 10-year agreement he signed with Texas before the 2001 season. Under the terms of the deal, Rodriguez can terminate it after this season. He also can stay for 2008 and have the right to opt out of the final two seasons if the Yankees don't boost his salary to $32 million annually for the final two years.
Bluffton- Using equipment donated by three major-league organizations, Bluffton University's baseball team began practicing and continued the healing from a bus wreck that killed five teammates.
School officials announced Tuesday that the team will play this season despite the deaths.
"It's important they get back on the field and do what they love," said athletic director Phill Talavinia.
Bruce Drennan, who was convicted of sports gambling charges, has been hired to host a daily talk show called ?All Bets Are Off? on a cable station created by Indians owner Larry Dolan.
SportsTime Ohio announced Drennan?s hiring at a news conference Tuesday attended by Indians President Paul Dolan, Larry Dolan?s son.
The Dolans own SportsTime Ohio through a subsidiary called Fastball Sports Productions LLC. The Dolans created SportsTime Ohio in late 2005 as a cable outlet for Indians games. It is scheduled to become a full-time ports channel April 1, the day Drennan?s show debuts.
Everything about the 2008 presidential election has been fast-forwarded. States are moving up their primaries and caucuses. And the candidates — all 18 of them and counting — are adjusting accordingly, making this one of the earliest election cycles in history. As a result, serious thought must be given to adjusting another aspect of the campaign: protection for presidential candidates.
We understand that asking for Secret Service protection can be a double-edged sword. Candidates may fear looking presumptuous or cowardly. They also may resist the separation from voters that protection can demand. But the course of history is unpredictable, and every step should be taken to ensure that it is not altered by a madman with a gun.
Unbelievable ploy
Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer and his wife, Karen, are leading a campaign to put a summer camp for grieving children in every Major League Baseball city, including Cincinnati.
The Moyers are co-founders of the Moyer Foundation, which so far has helped fund eight Camp Erin bereavement camps in six states. The foundation's goal is to open 10 additional bereavement camps in eight cities, including Cincinnati, by the summer of 2008. All 27 MLB cities would have at least one camp within three years.
"We're hoping to be involved with that project," said Vicky Ott, executive director of Blue Ash-based Fernside for Grieving Children and Families. Fernside, the nation's second-oldest children's grief center and an affiliate of Hospice of Cincinnati, has offered a summer camp for ages 7 to 12 since 1989. It began offering a teen retreat for ages 13 to 18 in 2000.
BLUFFTON, Ohio (AP) - Using bats and gloves donated by three major league teams, Bluffton University's baseball team began practicing and continued the healing from a bus wreck that killed five teammates.
School officials announced Tuesday the team will play this season despite the deaths.
In our society, virtue, much like evolution, advances in fits and starts
and occasionally takes a wrong turn.
So it was on a recent national radio show that former House Speaker Newt
It has always been my assumption that Pete Rose will get into the Hall of Fame.
As time goes by, people will tend to have doubts whether betting on games while managing the Cincinnati Reds was really such a terrible thing that it should keep baseball's all-time hits leader from being enshrined.
Voters won't necessarily forget what Rose did, but they might see fit to place his scandal in a different context, especially as other scandals continue to pop up. As Rose ages, an element of sympathy might even enter into the issue.
BLUFFTON, Ohio — Bluffton University will play baseball this season despite the deaths of five players who were killed when the team bus toppled off an overpass in Atlanta.
"It's important they get back on the field and do what they love," athletic director Phill Talavinia said Tuesday.
School president James Harder said the players met daily the last week to talk about whether to play. More than anything, he said, they were concerned about the feelings of the families who lost sons. No one objected.
SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) - If Ken Griffey Jr. is ready to play on opening day, it will be in right field, Cincinnati Reds manager Jerry Narron said Monday.
Narron expects to start Ryan Freel in center field, because Griffey is still working his way back from a broken left hand suffered in the offseason while wrestling with his kids.
'Right now, that's what our plan is. We would have loved for him to be available opening day to play center field; it just didn't work out,' Narron said.
JUPITER — — Hours before Dave Parker threw out Brian Downing to preserve the National League's 7-6 victory in the 1979 All-Star Game, little brothers Aaron and Bret Boone put on quite a defensive show of their own.
As Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt and other All-Stars took their swings during batting practice, 6-year-old Aaron and 10-year-old Bret ran down balls all across the Seattle Kingdome outfield.
"Here's these two little kids in the outfield shagging and they're catching these shots — I mean towering fly balls, in center field on the warning track behind their backs,'' their father, retired All-Star catcher Bob Boone, recalled Tuesday.
This was not a meeting of young Mensa International members.
Still, even "Jeopardy!" television quiz show host Alex Trebek might have been fooled.
About 90 Northeast Oregon high school students, some with "Jeopardy!" potential, flexed their cerebral muscles at the La Grande Invitational Academic Bowl last week.
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) -- How much would you pay to cook up a few steaks on a fancy grill? If you buy it from Manny Ramirez, prepare to shell out more than $20,000 - but it comes with an autographed baseball. The Red Sox quirky slugger with the $160 million contract is selling on eBay a JENN-AIR grill he said he bought for about $4,000. "Manny, get over here now," teammate David Ortiz bellowed when he saw a television report about Ramirez's move into the luxury appliance trade before Tuesday ...
Talk about your budget crunches. Too little funding of NASA?s program tracking asteroids has the space agency behind schedule in its important mission to monitor space rocks that could devastate or extinguish life on Earth.
The problem?s hardly academic: If planetary defenders knew of an asteroid?s approach, one day they could potentially launch spacecraft with the potential to divert it. The alternative is getting caught unaware. Think, for example, of the strike above the Siberian landscape in 1908 that leveled 830 square miles of forest, or the impact 65 million years ago that likely killed the dinosaurs.
This hardly is NASA?s problem alone, however. It?s the world?s. More of its nations need to pitch in the resources to help all concerned survive it.
The following editorial appeared in Saturday's Chicago Tribune:
In his 24 years playing Major League Baseball, Pete Rose stockpiled 4,256 hits, tops in history. But he has been even more prolific in another category: Denials, career.
Since 1989, when he was permanently banned from baseball for gambling, he has found every way possible to claim that, yes, he was a bettor, but, no, he didn't bet on his own team.
It will be the fourth spring training start for the Red Sox star rookie from Japan. He's scheduled to pitch on the road again next Monday against the Cincinnati Reds and probably will work on March 31 in the final preseason game in Philadelphia.
His first regular-season start is slated for April 5 in the finale of a three-game series at Kansas City.
Matsuzaka's last start was postponed in the top of the third inning when a torrential downpour hit Dodgertown in Vero Beach last Friday. He allowed one run when three of the first four Los Angeles batters reached base then retired the remaining five batters he faced.
Baseball fans reach with items for Florida Marlins Hanley Ramirez to autograph during the Marlins' spring training baseball game with the Houston Astros at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Fla., Monday, March 19, 2007. (AP Photo/James A. Finley)
San Diego Padres left-hander David Wells has Type 2 diabetes, which the team says is controllable.
"It's something he'll have to manage and something we'll have to help him manage," chief executive officer Sandy Alderson said Monday. "It's not unprecedented by any means."
Wells was diagnosed two weeks ago, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported in Monday's editions.
SARASOTA, Fla. - Ken Griffey Jr. is running out of time to get ready for opening day.
The Cincinnati Reds' outfielder has been taking batting practice, but the left wrist he broke while wrestling with his kids in December remains sore.
Cincinnati manager Jerry Narron said Monday that he hoped Griffey would play this week.
SARASOTA, Fla. -- If Ken Griffey Jr. is ready to play on opening day, it will be in right field, Cincinnati Reds manager Jerry Narron said Monday.
Narron expects to start Ryan Freel in center field, because Griffey is still working his way back from a broken left hand suffered in the offseason while wrestling with his kids.
''Right now, that's what our plan is. We would have loved for him to be available opening day to play center field; it just didn't work out,'' Narron said.
LAKELAND -- With Joel Zumaya entertaining fans, the Detroit Tigers have a new scoreboard showing the speed of pitches at Joker Marchant Stadium.
The hard-throwing Zumaya didn't figure in the decision Monday as the Tigers beat the Cincinnati Reds 6-2, but he'll be remembered by the crowd of 7,767.
Zumaya was frequently clocked at 102 mph by the new electronic screen installed atop the fence in center, and one pitch registered 103 mph.
If Ken Griffey Jr. is ready to play on opening day, he'll find himself in right field instead of center.
Cincinnati Reds manager Jerry Narron said Monday he expects to start Ryan Freel in center April 2 against the Chicago Cubs because Griffey is still working his way back from a broken left hand. The longtime center fielder was injured in the offseason while wrestling with his kids.
``We had to make a decision. This late in the spring we need to get our club out on the field,'' Narron said in Sarasota, Fla. ``I've got to do everything I can do to put our best club out there. My feeling is that with Ryan Freel out there, it gives us strong defense up the middle.''
If Ken Griffey Jr. is ready to play on Opening Day, he will be in right field.
Cincinnati Reds manager Jerry Narron said Monday he expects to start Ryan Freel in center against the Cubs on April 2 because Griffey is still working his way back from a broken left hand. The longtime center fielder was injured in the offseason while wrestling with his kids.
"Right now, that's what our plan is. We would have loved for him to be available opening day to play center field -- it just didn't work out," Narron said.
San Diego Padres left-hander David Wells has Type 2 diabetes, which the team says can be controlled with diet and medication.
''It's something he'll have to manage and something we'll have to help him manage,'' Padres chief executive officer Sandy Alderson said Monday. ''It's not unprecedented by any means.''
Wells was diagnosed two weeks ago, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Monday.
PEORIA, Ariz. - Padres left-hander David Wells has Type 2 diabetes, which the team says is controllable.
"It's something he'll have to manage and something we'll have to help him manage," chief executive officer Sandy Alderson said Monday. "It's not unprecedented by any means."
Wells was diagnosed two weeks ago, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported in Monday's editions.
San Diego Padres left-hander David Wells was diagnosed two weeks ago with Type 2 diabetes, which the team says is controllable.
"It's something he'll have to manage and something we'll have to help him manage," chief executive officer Sandy Alderson said Monday. "It's not unprecedented by any means."
Asked if he feels less energy at times, Wells said: "It depends." He declined further comment.
Medlen, a native of Oakdale, a city about 90 miles east of San Francisco, who drives for John Force Racing, was injured when his Funny Car crashed into the right guard rail during a test session.
The 33-year-old was transported by helicopter to the University of Florida medical center, where he was being treated in the intensive care unit, the team said on its web site. His injuries were not disclosed.
Griffey Jr. to open year in right field
Dontrelle Willis is all set to start on opening day. If Ken Griffey Jr. is ready to play, he'll find himself in right field.
Cincinnati Reds manager Jerry Narron said Monday he expects to start Ryan Freel in center April 2 against the Chicago Cubs because Griffey is still working his way back from a broken left hand. The longtime center fielder was injured in the offseason while wrestling with his kids.
``Right now, that's what our plan is. We would have loved for him to be available opening day to play center field - it just didn't work out,'' Narron said in Sarasota, Fla.
SARASOTA, FLA. If Ken Griffey Jr. is ready to play opening day, he will be in right field.
Cincinnati Reds manager Jerry Narron said Monday he expects to start Ryan Freel in center because Griffey is working his way back from a broken left hand.
The longtime center fielder was injured in the offseason while wrestling with his kids.
SARASOTA – If Ken Griffey Jr. is ready to play on Opening Day, he will be in right field.
Cincinnati Reds manager Jerry Narron said Monday he expects to start Ryan Freel in center because Griffey is still working his way back from a broken left hand. The longtime center fielder was injured in the offseason while wrestling with his kids.
LocalLinks
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - The Kansas City Royals' catching race between John Buck and Jason LaRue is still too close for manager Buddy Bell to call.
Bell said Sunday he doesn't know who will be behind the plate for the April 2 opener against Boston, but whoever doesn't start that game will be in the lineup for the next one.
At the start of the season, Bell's plan is to alternate Buck, who has started the past 2 1/2 seasons, and LaRue, who started five years for the Cincinnati Reds and was acquired in an offseason trade.
Dancing With the Stars, 8-10 p.m., Channels 9, 22. A new round begins, fret-free. Eliminations won't start until next week.
Early sympathy is with Heather Mills, the activist and estranged wife of Paul McCartney. She'll try to prove she can compete equally, dancing with a prosthetic leg.
The lineup has athletes - boxer Laila Ali, skater Apolo Anton Ohno, basketball player Clyde Drexler. It has singers Billy Ray Cyrus and Joey Fatone, actors Ian Ziering and John Ratzenberger. There's also TV host Leeza Gibbons, model Paulina Porizkova and Shandi Finnessey, who was Miss USA 2004. Each is paired with a ballroom-dancing pro.
SARASOTA -- Jeff Francoeur and Kelly Johnson homered off Aaron Harang to lead an Atlanta Braves split squad to a 6-5 victory over the Cincinnati Reds before a crowd of 7,082 at Ed Smith Stadium on Sunday.
Harang, the projected opening-day starter for the Reds, pitched five innings, allowing four runs -- three earned -- and eight hits while striking out nine. Harang led the NL with 216 strikeouts in 2006.
"It seems like they were hitting my off-speed pitch," Harang said. "The only ball hit really hard was Francoeur's, the other one (by Johnson) was a fly ball. I don't know if you want to call it wind-aided or not. We were joking that there were a lot of balls that hit off the plate and found a hole."
SARASOTA, Fla. - Jeff Francoeur and Kelly Johnson homered off Aaron Harang to lead an Atlanta Braves split squad to a 6-5 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday.
Harang, the projected opening-day starter for the Reds, pitched five innings, allowing four runs -- three earned -- and eight hits while striking out nine. Harang led the NL with 216 strikeouts in 2006.
"It seems like they were hitting my off-speed pitch," Harang said. "The only ball hit really hard was Francoeur's, the other one (by Johnson) was a fly ball. I don't know if you want to call it wind-aided or not. We were joking that there were a lot of balls that hit off the plate and found a hole."
DETROIT -- The Cincinnati Reds used to become the Cincinnati Greens for one day every March 17. The Cubs have brought out green baseball caps for the day in spring training. Heck, even the Chicago Bulls pulled out the green unis for a premature celebration of St. Patrick's Day this year.
So it seemed a sensible question when Notre Dame hockey coach Jeff Jackson was asked if the Irish skaters would partake in the wearing of the green for Saturday's CCHA title game against Michigan at Joe Louis Arena, and bring back the old-school, front-laced green sweaters they donned for Senior Night on Feb. 24.
"I try to minimize our third jerseys, because I think we still need to establish an identity," uttered Jackson in a valiant effort to say anything but yes or no. "When you're the home team, it's hard. We're not going to ask Michigan to change."
Two weeks until opening day. Johan Santana and Curt Schilling look ready right now.
Santana pitched five shutout innings Sunday, allowing one hit and leading the Minnesota Twins to a 4-3 victory over a Philadelphia Phillies split squad in Fort Myers, Fla.
The two-time Cy Young Award winner walked three and struck out two, lowering his ERA to 0.64 in spring training.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Can Southern Illinois be this year's George Mason? ''I don't know if we're going to be this year's George Mason,'' guard Bryan Mullins said after SIU had cracked the Sweet 16 on Sunday. ''We just want to be this year's Southern Illinois.''
The NCAA tournament selection commitee, which gave SIU a No. 4 seed, wouldn't consider the Salukis as big of a surprise as the Patriots, who reached the Final Four last year as a No. 11 seed.
But to the millions of fans who make March Madness an annual obsession, a deep run by a school such as SIU would rally everyone who believes in underdogs.
Pete Rose has a new spin on his gambling habit. The man who for a decade swore that he never bet on baseball, then admitted that he did so on occasion, now says he bet on every game the Cincinnati Reds played during his five years as manager.
Major League Baseball's unequivocal ban on gambling is posted in every clubhouse. It's as fundamental as fielding a grounder. So why would Rose now admit he broke the rule 814 times? The only conclusion is that he somehow thinks the new story will help him rejoin the game's official family and get the Hall of Fame plaque he so desperately craves.
When John Dowd investigated Rose for MLB, he detected a clear pattern: Rose, he said, never bet the Reds when Mario Soto or Bill Gullickson pitched. That's the kind of tip to other gamblers that baseball rightly fears.
SARASOTA, Fla. ? Jeff Francoeur and Kelly Johnson homered off Aaron Harang to lead an Atlanta Braves split squad to a 6-5 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday.
Harang, the projected opening-day starter for the Reds, pitched five innings, allowing four runs ? three earned ? and eight hits while striking out nine. Harang led the NL with 216 strikeouts in 2006.
"It seems like they were hitting my off-speed pitch," Harang said. "The only ball hit really hard was Francoeur's, the other one (by Johnson) was a fly ball. I don't know if you want to call it wind-aided or not. We were joking that there were a lot of balls that hit off the plate and found a hole."
Regular season, spring training - doesn't matter. Johan Santana is almost unhittable.
The two-time Cy Young Award winner pitched five shutout innings Sunday, allowing one hit and leading the Minnesota Twins to a 4-3 victory over a Philadelphia Phillies split squad in Fort Myers, Fla.
Santana walked three and struck out two, lowering his ERA to 0.64 in spring training.
"He was outstanding," Astros manager Phil Garner said. "That looked like season-ready right there."
Oswalt had planned to pitch just five innings, but returned for the sixth because he had thrown only about 50 pitches after five. He finished with 71 pitches, 48 for strikes.
"Pitch count is the biggest thing," he said. "I needed to get the pitch count up so I'll be ready to throw 100 pitches when the season starts."
Fewer people are buying condominiums in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky than they were in 2005. But those who buy are flashing big-time cash.
The trend toward high-priced condos - $500,000 seems to be the threshold for princeliness - is especially pronounced in Northern Kentucky. As of March 9, condos sold in Northern Kentucky so far in 2007 had an average price of $177,206, or 22 percent higher than last year's record of $144,816.
"Obviously, this is a niche we hadn't tapped into yet," said Janie Wilson, president of the Northern Kentucky Association of Realtors and associate manager of Sibcy Cline in Fort Mitchell. "Apparently we were lacking in inventory."
CINCINNATI -- The 1919 World Series is known historically for the Black Sox Scandal, the exile of eight Chicago White Sox players from baseball for conspiring with gamblers to fix the series they were heavily favored to win.
In Cincinnati, it's also known for the Reds' first world championship. And an eclectic new display of 1919 Series artifacts offers the first extensive Reds'-eye view of the scandal.
The exhibit shows that the Reds were a very good team -- best record in baseball that year -- and could have beaten the Sox, whether they were trying to lose or not. (Hey, this is Cincinnati's history, not Chicago's.)
ASSOCIATED PRESSSARASOTA, Fla. — The Cincinnati Reds reassigned their top pitching prospect to minor league camp on Friday, but that was OK with Homer Bailey, the team’s first pick in the 2004 draft.
He didn’t expect to be on the Reds’ opening day roster.“I’ll go wherever they want me to go and work on whatever they want me to work on,” Bailey said. “I just want to show them what I can do.”
SARASOTA -- The Cincinnati Reds donated more than $50,000 on Saturday to help the Newtown Little League renovate baseball fields and buy equipment.
Some of the money will also be used for new uniforms and to help pay registration fees for those who can't afford them. The money from the Reds Community Fund will be used to renovate 17 fields over the next two years. So far, fields at Booker High School, Newtown Estates Park Community Center and the Sarasota Youth Athletic Complex have been improved.
"Our field renovation efforts are part of our continuing engagement of underprivileged youth through baseball," said Charley Frank, executive director of the Reds Community Fund.
Pete Rose is getting closer to the truth. At this rate, he should get there by 2142.
For more than a decade, Rose adamantly denied he had bet on baseball. Then he finally admitted that yeah, sure, he had bet on baseball, but never on his own team.
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"Radio is the theater of the mind; television is the theater of the mindless."
-- Steve Allen
Glenn Novak is a throwback. When I toiled with him at Inland Steel, he was a grunt in the field -- a bullworker. Novak's interests are also nostalgic. He's a fan of The Three Stooges and a collector of old radios. He is an authority on both subjects.
TUCSON, Ariz. -- When Cubs manager Lou Piniella and White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen saw each other before their teams met Friday at Tucson Electric Park, there was a big hug and back slaps all around.
These two former Rookie of the Year players who went on to win Manager of the Year awards enjoy a mutual respect. Guillen warned Piniella about the Chicago media, and Piniella told the Sox manager he was right about his assessment.
There is no doubt Guillen has respect for Piniella, but he was quick to remind Saturday that no manager -- not even himself -- can be considered a sure thing to turn around a ballclub.
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Saturday, March 17, 2007.
Valley Press Staff Writer
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The Clinton County Leadership Institute (CCLI) is celebrating St. Patrick's Day in grand fashion.
The 20th anniversary Leprechauns, Leaders and Gold celebration for CCLI is at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at Roberts Centre.
The evening includes an Irish-themed dinner, presentation of Leaders of the Year Awards and both a live and silent auction.
Paunchy body. Mop-top flapping in the wind. Dirt covering his uniform from head to toe. Running to first base at a full sprint after ball four. Spraying line drives everywhere.
Nope, it really doesn't seem that long ago that Peter Edward Rose was the player we all wanted to be. Flash forward to today, however, -- barely more than two decades later -- and he's become as undesirable as a lawn full of dandelions.
And if Barry Bonds is smart, he's taken notice.
Boston's rookie already knew something about the holiday when he pitched in Japan the past eight seasons and saw U.S. teams wearing green jerseys on that day in spring training, just as his Red Sox did Saturday.
"I watched that on TV in Japan," Matsuzaka said through a translator. "Back then, I thought someday I want to wear that."
Matsuzaka pitched Friday against the Los Angeles Dodgers so didn't get a chance to wear the green jersey in Saturday's 2-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds. Another Japanese rookie, reliever Hideki Okajima, did when he pitched one shutout inning for the Red Sox.
``I've tried to pitch through the pain, but it got to be too much the last time out,'' Grabow said Saturday. ``Hopefully, it will quiet down soon and I'll be back on the mound before too long.''
Grabow made 203 relief appearances from 2004-06, ranking 11th among lefties in that span.