S.P.O.R.T.S. Cam: Calling Griff clean stupid; Landshark stupidly brilliant

Now that Manny Ramirez has tested positive for banned substances, who'll be the next big name outed as a baseball cheat? Derek Jeter? David Ortiz? Albert Pujols? Barry Zito? Is it irresponsible to ruminate? I don't think so; these are the kinds of conversations baseball fans have all the time.

"Jeter isn't the type ... then again, neither was Andy Pettitte ..."

"Ortiz hasn't hit a home run yet this season ..."

"Pujols is the greatest right-handed hitter in baseball, but he came out of nowhere ..."

"Zito is too laid back, but maybe he felt the pressure to live up to his record-setting contract, and when he didn't pitch well that first year in San Fran ..."

Basically, you can make a case for any player in baseball, which is why I found it uncharacteristically naïve for Jason Whitlock to say we can believe in Ken Griffey Jr.

Here's an excerpt of what Whitlock (also of FoxSports) wrote in the Kansas City Star:

"Griffey is going to go down in history as the Last Great Steroid Free Player We Trust. Let's just call him LGSFPWT for short."

(Paging Mr. Lags-fa-pout?)

"And as such, Griffey just might be the first player to be a unanimous selection into the Hall of Fame. If not unanimous, he might receive the highest percentage of votes. Voting for Griffey and sending him to Cooperstown with a Ronald Reaganlike voting mandate might be a way for baseball writers to voice their opinion about the steroids era. Wednesday I asked Griffey why he never got involved with steroids, why he never felt pressure to compete with the pumped-up lesser talents who stole some of his glory. He credited his father, Ken Griffey Sr."

(He didn't credit Jackie Robinson? Sell out.)

"My dad told me to not worry about representing anybody but him (Griffey Sr.)," Griffey Jr. said. "He told me, 'Don't you worry about being the next Joe Morgan or Johnny Bench or Davey Concepcion. You be Ken Griffey's son and that's it.' I remember him telling me that when I was 8 years old. I was lucky that my dad was never caught up in being a star. He was an All-Star, but he wasn't a superstar. He played with Bench and Morgan and all those guys."

(Before BALCO, how would Barry Bonds have responded to a similar question? He probably would have cited the influence of his dad, who played with superstars like Willie Mays, but was never quite a superstar himself.)

"Griffey Sr.'s mantra stuck with his son even when McGwire, Sosa and Bonds were the toast of major-league baseball and hitting home runs at record paces. Griffey Jr. chugged along putting up damn good numbers until his body broke down in his 30s. Apparently he never turned to a chemist to fix the aches and pains."

Apparently? It might seem apparent, but nothing is what it seems when it comes to the steroids guessing game. Rick Reilly wrote a laughably terrible article for ESPN the Magazine a few months ago stripping MVP awards from "known" cheats like Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa and handing them to players who finished behind them in the voting -- ya know, those deserving, "clean" players like Luis Gonzalez and Mike Piazza.

I'm not saying Piazza and Gonzalez are dirty, but I sure as hell wouldn't go on the record calling them clean. How can I know for sure? How do I know their names aren't (like A-Rod's) among those 104 who failed a test earlier this decade? And how can Jason Whitlock know for sure with Griffey?

He can't.

In this day and age, there's nobody named Lagsfapout.

I have two hard-and-fast rules when it comes to sports: I don't gamble on games (often) and I never bitch about the officiating, particularly at the end of games.

Do refs screw up sometimes? Of course they do, they're human. But as long as I have no money on a game, the initial reaction to bad officiating soon subsides. The non-call on Antoine Wright of the Mavericks at the end of Game 3 against the Nuggets? It was an obvious foul and it should have been called. But would calling it have changed the outcome? Maybe, maybe not. The thing is the Mavericks shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place.

I've been a diehard Mavericks fan for three weeks now and the self-loathing has already take root. The Mavs had countless chances to put that freaking game away, and I watched it thinking, "They're letting 'em hang around, they're gonna get bit," and lo and behold they did. They have no one to blame but themselves.

You want the refs to save you at the end of a game? Good luck with that. That's not how it works, Arizona Cardinals fans. And that's not how it goes, San Diego Chargers fans. And it's not how the damn cookie crumbles, Dallas Mavericks fans. (Argh.) Make your own plays, quit crying and deal with the consequences. If you're gonna foul the guy, foul him hard; otherwise, tip your hat because Carmelo Anthony made a tough off-balance three when a miss would have lost the game. That's stepping up. That's taking the win.

Never leave it to the refs.

Raise your hand if you've never peed in public?

Liar.

Come on, who hasn't stumbled out of a bar and heard the call of nature? I sure have. It's against the law, I know, but frankly no harm/no foul, right?

Well, no harm means NOT urinating on another man's car, particularly when he's inside the car and likes to golf.

Friday morning two gentlemen in Pullman, Wash., decided to relieve themselves on a vehicle parked downtown. According to the Associated Press they believed the car was unoccupied, but "Police say the owner got out of the car and assaulted the two men with a golf club. One of the men suffered a possible arm fracture and was transported to Pullman Regional Hospital. Police Sergeant Dan Dornes said urinating in public is a crime, but the two men will probably not be cited in this case. Police are trying to locate the owner of the car."

He's probably skulking in the back seat, waiting for the next guy to piss on his ride.

Kobe Bryant's jersey is the No. 1 seller in the NBA, which speaks more to his on-court accomplishments than his personality. Given that, I'm mildly intrigued to see this day-in-the life documentary Kobe Doin' Work, the latest Spike Lee marijuana cigarette.

Does Kobe take unsold loaves of bread from Stop & Shop and deliver them to the local soup kitchen? Does he face Mecca and pray five times a day? Does he pee sitting down? He'd better do something unusual to merit a drawn-out version of MTV Cribs.

Kobe, whose different-shaped eyes make him resemble a Bond villain, reportedly wouldn't cooperate with the project unless he was given total creative control, so perhaps this is actually a Kobe Bryant joint. Spike Lee denies that, but I guess we'll be able to judge for ourselves this Saturday when the joint premieres on ESPN.

And really, a "joint?" Spike, you're 52 years old, time to use the grown-up's dictionary.

As a Red Sox fan, I'm contractually obligated to hate the Yankees, yet I took no glee in the Mitchell Report and its reliance on two New York-based stooges (Kirk Radomski and Brian McNamee) to embarrass a slew of Yankee and Met players. Yes, I was happy the spotlight stayed off the Red Sox players, but I sure didn't delude myself into thinking my team was a paragon of virtue. Any Sox fan who thinks the team has always been clean, especially now, is a moron.

Still some New York fans screamed about the absence of Red Sox players in the report, saying George Mitchell's role as an advisor to the team swayed his investigation. And now, believe it or not, some Yankee fans actually think "1918" is a viable chant again, since Manny Ramirez tested positive for PEDs as a member of the Dodgers, and that somehow calls into question the 2004 and 2007 Red Sox championships.

Seriously, after the Ramirez revelation, several Yankee fans sent me messages that said his actions now negated those World Series wins.

If I were 12, I might have taken the bait. But I'm not, so I simply have to wonder how bad things have gotten in the Bronx -- the losing, the overpriced empty seats, the fans who get locked out after a rain delay -- that fanatics are trying to resurrect the Curse of the Bambino.

Being the fourth-best team in the American League East is not a good feeling, is it, Yankee obsessives? Have fun with the "1918" chant; it cuts as deep as "Calvin Schiraldi" these days.

John Belushi: "... the Land Shark is considered the cleverest of all sharks. Unlike the great white shark, which tends to inhabit the waters and harbors and recreational beach areas, the Land Shark may strike at any place, anytime. It is capable of disguising its voice, and generally preys on young, single women."

[Scene: A New York apartment. Someone knocks on the door.]

Woman: [not opening the door] Yes?

Voice:(mumbling) Mrs. Arlsburgerhhh?

Woman: What?

Voice: (mumbling) Mrs. Johannesburrrr?

Woman: Who is it?

Voice: [pause] Flowers.

Woman: Flowers for whom?

Voice: [long pause] Plumber, ma'am.

Woman: I don't need a plumber. You're that clever shark, aren't you?

Voice: [pause] Candygram.

Woman: Candygram, my foot. You get out of here before I call the police. You're the shark, and you know it.

Voice: Wait. I-I'm only a dolphin, ma'am.

Woman: A dolphin? Well...okay. [opens door] [Huge latex and foam-rubber shark head lunges through open door, chomps down on woman's head, and drags her out of the apartment, all while the Jaws attack music is playing.] (Source: Wikipedia)

Land Shark is also the name of a Jimmy Buffett lager, and now -- thanks to a marketing partnership between Buffett and the Miami Dolphins -- the name of the team's home stadium. But first and foremost, it's a Saturday Night Live skit.

Heinz Field and Gillette Stadium exemplify the intersection of sports and marketing. LandShark Stadium exemplifies the intersection of sports and (un)intentional comedy; and I'm not sure if this marketing campaign is stupid or brilliant. Perhaps, like the Land Shark skits on SNL, it's stupidly brilliant.

No?

Well, at any rate, it's better than Debbie Downer Stadium.