Benjamin Tomes's Blog: Recalcitrance: An Unapologetic Free Thinking Forum, page 34

Playing around in a time warp today. #retro #oldswag...

Playing around in a time warp today. #retro #oldswag #doorcounty

Cheap Trick | Cheap Trick Rockers Sued By Drummer And Ex-manager | Contactmusic.com

Cheap Trick | Cheap Trick Rockers Sued By Drummer And Ex-manager | Contactmusic.com:

Unfortunately, I think this will end any chance of them rejoining one another. Tis a shame, as has been fate for much of Cheap Trick’s career. Ahead of their time at the onset, and a victim of old-school music industry douchebaggery in their middle years; something that still haunts them, despite several critically acclaimed albums issued since ‘97. Their absence from Rock’s HOF is pretty noticeable for a group that had a profound influence on today’s alt-rock scene.

This is not complete without the accompanying and quite...

This is not complete without the accompanying and quite realistic sounding monkey noises, but it’s still a nice glimpse into working out with me. (at Waukesha MMA)

Boredom vs. Bore Dumb

Boredom vs. Bore Dumb:

As someone who waged a personal war on boredom, I would like to distance myself from the act of this rogue extremist. Even a war on boredom has rules of engagement. Rule number one, don’t get engaged to this Viking castoff. What was wrong with prank phone calls? Speaking of which, I think Lief Erickson is in high need of one.

Most deez ho’s be skanks but I think I’m keepin dis...

Most deez ho’s be skanks but I think I’m keepin dis one at da crib. She be an acrobat doin flips and shit. #fineasshos #thuglife #waukesha (at Corner of Waukeshock and Waukeshawe)

Dat ratchet-ass ho fell sleep next to da shitter. Aint got no...

Dat ratchet-ass ho fell sleep next to da shitter. Aint got no self-esteems. #ratchet #thuglife #waukesha (at Corner of Waukeshock and Waukeshawe)

Piss in a Cup: Selig's Pissy Mission to Get Braun Could Cause Backsplash

Since his early days as the longest interim anything on the planet, Bud Selig has had my respect.  It goes deeper than having kept my favorite team in Milwaukee, despite overtures to move it elsewhere.  

That’s not to say it has been easy, or that everyone in said planet shares my adoration and respect for the former car sales wizard who pursued a dream of his to become a major league baseball owner and rode that experience to what is arguably the most powerful position in sports today. 

Selig’s rule has not been without tumult. 

Labor stoppages, interleague play and revenue sharing have all played huge roles in marking his legacy.   None of the issues he’s handled however, provide the blistering headache and general confusion that the role of performance enhancing drugs have played. 

Not long ago, everyone in baseball was turning a blind eye to a buff problem, as test tube home runs and bar league softball scores reshaped the baseball landscape, until reality took over.  Borrowing a page from South Park’s Mr. Maki, Selig and a large contingent of the sport’s most ardent fans determined that drugs were bad. 

Who knew?  

Well, to start, a whole lot of trainers knew they were bad.   So too did players taking them, who more than took advantage of the sport’s sloppy testing and procedural discipline.  Add in the players’s union and throngs of new fans who really didn’t care if their newly beloved players were more corked than the bats they swung with.  

Today’s game is a different era.

I think Selig has done a wonderful job in making it possible for teams like the Brewers and Pirates to make it to the playoffs, the Rays to be competitive every year, and has done the ethical thing and severed his ties to the Brewers; a long sore spot with many fans of the game.  The parting was as good for the Brewers as it was for the rest of the game.   Selig lacked the capital to build and sustain a winner in Milwaukee and baseball needed his decision making skills and decisive action taking at a higher level.  The Brewers were almost instantly competitive with his selling of the team.  

Selig though, had to know that the likes of Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds were more juiced than a Florida grapefruit.  

It’s a history that makes it hard to know how to feel about Selig’s most recent baseball crusade; to rid the game of cheaters.  I find reason to celebrate in the spirit, but can’t help but as questions that nobody else seems to be fielding at the moment.  

Why now, for one.  Hindsight is 20/20, but it’s not like people weren’t speculating at the time records were falling like steroid riddled testicles off of the anabolic freaks breaking them.  They weren’t whispers.  If Selig truly had no clue, he was not watching the same game. 

The crusade’s timing is awkward enough, but not nearly as gangly as some of the strange bedfellows and sidebar issues popping up as he pursues a group he perceives to be cheating. 

As the imminent suspensions loom ever closer to being issued, it’s Selig that is failing the urine test on this one.   His case holds no water and his approach to it gives the impression that it has been punctured with a barrage of pokes from a hypodermic needle.  

Selig recently appeared on David Letterman; an appearance one has to wonder why he took in light of his avoidance of any definitive answers on the case involving the Biogenesis Clinic out of Miami that sits at the root of the controversy. He answered no questions, offered up no anabolic grade juicy tidbits or anything else of substance.  Essentially, he did what he’s about to drop a hammer on Ryan Braun for when he spoke to his cronies.

A couple of weeks ago, Braun met with MLB investigators and offered up the same type of information that Selig did to a public anxiously awaiting answers on what is to become of the Biogenesis scandal.  

It was a hypocritical twist in a strange case that by all indications, is about to move forward in an unprecedented manner and see a litany of players suspended.  That’s bad news for the players, bad news for teams, bad news for fans, and should be even worse news for baseball as an entity and the people behind the Biogenesis clinic.  

That’s where this all goes wrong.  If you are an ardent believer that Selig is on a noble crusade, it’s time to think again.  Whatever is fueling his hard on for Ryan Braun isn’t Cialis, although if it were, it would provide a great deal of additional irony. 

The players facing suspensions will undoubtedly appeal, meaning that a long delay could come in serving them.  I’d argue that the suspensions may never come, and that Selig’s case for making them is as functional as his throwing arm.  If you’ve ever seen him throw a first pitch out, you’ll know what I mean.  He seems to have suddenly made a couple of Buds in Tony Bosch and Daniel Carpman.  

The same two admitted drug peddlers not long ago denied any athlete received anything from them, but are now changing their tune.  

Only a former used car salesman in Milwaukee could see nothing wrong with such a change in tune, a tune up so to speak.  A little money from Major League Baseball, a reduction in potential charges from a judicial system lying in wait for them, and suddenly all is well between them. 

If Selig hands down suspensions, and the rumors are correct, here’s what you have to swallow if you are a player involved in this.   

You have failed no tests.  If you want to put an asterix next to Braun’s name; don’t.  He won his case, case dismissed, except in the eyes of Selig, who has decided that the system he created and the arbitrator he appointed who exonerated Braun will still count as a lie to investigators and add an additional 50 games to his suspension. 

The arbitrator that ruled over that case was immediately fired by Selig.  This alone calls into question the fairness of the system he created.  By nature, an arbitrator is designed to be a mediator, and entirely impartial.  Firing one for a decision you didn’t like is tantamount to fraud.

The primary weapon Selig plans to use are the pair of nitwits that ran the clinic; nitwits that previously denied any players were involved, and kept records in a system that was just past Crayola crayons and sticky notes in terms of complexity.   

Oh, and there’s the whole extortion thing.  

Before baseball anted up and paid the guys for their troubles, the good doc and Tony Botched tried to extort money from Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun.  Both declined.  Bud did not.  It’s hardly the strangest bedfellow in this.  The Yankees, with the deepest pockets and largest market reach in the game, want nothing more than to dump the contract of A-Rod, who statistically is a bona-fide Hall of Famer.  He’s also an admitted steroid user, which didn’t do much to elicit a reaction from the Yanks, but now that he’s on the downside of a career but on the upside of another bloated contract, want to put him on the nearest catapult and jettison him out of town.  One can’t be blind to the irony of recent indications that Robinson Cano, long rumored to be using PED’s without proof, has the name of his official spokeswoman on the alleged records but his is notably absent.  The Yankees want to keep him in the mix, unlike A-Rod who will see his contract voided if possible. 

On the flipside, Braun signed what might be the most cost-effective and team friendly deal in the history of big contracts when he committed to the Brewers through 2020.  The cash-strapped Brewers, no matter how embarrassing the case gets or how bad Braun’s involvement, want nothing to do with parting ways with him.  They’ll be hard pressed to ever have a star remain for that long under his market value.  Rodriguez’s involvement will be an afterthought when this is finished, but Braun sits as the juiced apple of Selig’s watchful eye.  

For those who are quick to condemn the Brewer star, keep a couple things in mind.  Braun didn’t test positive for any particular substance in his infamous failed test; he had jacked up testosterone.  While rare, it’s entirely possible to do this through treatments of other medical conditions; conditions someone might very well not want to be made public, as is their right under HIPAA laws.  Braun’s name was the only player in the Biogenesis scrawlings doubling as records that failed to have a substance next to it.  The claim was that Braun paid them as consultants, and Bud’s buds confirmed that at the time it was brought into question.  It wasn’t until they flipped that it began to change.  

Mind you, that some of the potential explanations for a spike in testosterone for a legit reason might be more embarrassing than a failed test for PED’s.  

Essentially, Selig’s crusade is made up of questionable people, a money trail that in most cases would stand out like Brady Anderson’s 50 home run season, and lacks failed drug tests, admissions, and testimony from people that have high incentive to lie like a used car salesman. 

Selig won’t be around baseball much longer, and he’s done too much good to the game to have his legacy go down this way.  For a man preaching integrity of the game, the integrity of his case is as hollow as the juicy players he’s trying to rid the game of.  He worked hard to rid the image of an educated Herb Tarlek, and this crusade smacks of personal vendetta for a boy he seems to feel has sullied the good Jewish boy image and baseball club he owned for years.  

If you are going to wage a moral crusade, your own moral compass better be pointing in the right direction.  Even if the players are as guilty as can be, if Selig wishes to turn a pissing contest into a legal battle, his cup will runneth over.  Gunning for the players he is requires an airtight case, and this anything but.  

You have to do special work to make pro baseball players sympathetic in today’s sport’s world.  These aren’t the proprietary players that shared beds in the days of yesteryear when traveling.  They’re paid well, pampered, and given a lot of money for their skills in a pastime that affords them a lot of time off, significantly less physical dangers than that of other games, and a chance at a longer career than you find in the NFL or NBA.  Somehow though, at least for me, Selig has managed to do just that.  His office has leaked information that is by contractual language, required to be kept confidential.  

It hasn’t been.  

Selig is quick to point out that somehow, by grace of god, he was able to get language in the MLB Players Contract that gave him the right to levy suspensions without evidence.  Clearly this was a mistake by the union, but that doesn’t mean that he’ll win a legal fight.  In fact, something that vague that allows you to be suspended from any job without a shred of tangible, credible evidence, would be attacked in court.  The game these guys play and the union they’re in guarantees they will have ample legal representation.  You can bet that there will be a fight.  At least ethically, if he’s not going to respect contractual language, he shouldn’t be invoking it either.  

Baseball can’t afford to lose this fight.  Failing here could set back the crusade to clean up the game permanently.  You fight fire with fire, but you don’t do the same in morality and ethical issues.  Selig has a responsibility to act ethically, and the cup he’s peeing in is about as full of it as you can get.

 Some cups you don’t want to overfill, and have spill all over your standard issue, car salesman polyester jacket.  

That might be a harder mess to clean that than the game.  

I wanted deez hos ‘til I remembered what happens to dat...

I wanted deez hos ‘til I remembered what happens to dat floor in da shitter and said hell no to ‘em. (at Corner of Waukeshock and Waukeshawe)

Hey Stark, grab me a cold one.

Hey Stark, grab me a cold one.

Touch up to do, and must add details, but the Iron Man fridge is...

Touch up to do, and must add details, but the Iron Man fridge is almost done. The 1949 Coldspot about to become a cool spot.