and not over-the-top levels of PED use as some folks would have you believe. I read an article by the well-respected, former White Sox strength and conditioning guru Vern Gambetta which posited this theory as part of a defense of the sports of Track and Field and Olympic Weightlifting, and their rather long history of PED abuse at the Olympics. Unfortunately, Mr. Gambetta should know better how things work and what's really going on in the world and not spew this kind of misinformation, but hey, whatever.
Here's how it goes:
We don't send our major league players to compete/smile for the TV networks/sponsors bearing checkbooks.
We don't send our top-level prospects.
Now we're trying to protect our fringe prospects from having to go over there and compete.
The Giants 26 year-old, left-handed pitcher Geno Espineli was called up from Fresno recently after he had been named to the Team USA roster.
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/22/SPVS11T4TE.DTL
Espineli glad to forgo Olympics for the bigs
Henry Schulman
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
"All I heard is the Olympic rosters have to be set, and (being in the majors) will end up being more permanent than I thought," Espineli said. "Of course I like the idea of going to the Olympics, but once I learned I was coming up to the majors, that quickly became an afterthought.
"I'm more than happy to be here as long as possible. I hope it's until the end of the year."
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Espineli has been having a good year for Fresno, but he has not been one of the franchises more cherished and valued properties. His name rarely appeared on any one's list of organizational top prospects and if it appeared at all it was because the author produced a rather long list.
And the Giants aren't the only franchise playing this game of musical chairs with the Team USA roster. If it goes on long enough the roster is going to look like a Who's Who of future Rule 5 draft picks. And if you don't know what that means, you just don't know...
But I'll spell it out for you:
1) No Gold medal for team USA. Guaranteed.
2) No medal at all for Team USA.
3) No TV ratings potential for the IOC, the USOC and any of the other alphabet soup organizations that rule the Olympics with an iron fist.
4) No TV ratings or marketing potential = No TV or sponsor money for the WHORES.
5) No money for the whores = No nookie for baseball in the Olympics
Bye Bye, Baseball.....Bye, bye Olympics.
If I didn't know better, I would say that MLB is actually giving the Olympic poo-bahs one final middle-finger salute, but maybe I'm giving MLB a little too much credit.
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(REAL) GIANTS PROSPECTS DOWN ON THE FARM:
CLASS....PLAYER............POS...AB..R..H..RBI..AVG
AA.....Sandoval,Pablo.......C.....7...2..3...6....343....HR(5),2B(9)
LoA....Villalona, Angel.....1B....5...2..2...1....250....HR(12),2B(21)-walk-off home run
Sandoval continues to rake. Villalona looks like he's starting to catch on a bit as well. They're so cute as that age.
On the pitching side:
CLASS PITCHER...........IP..H..R..ER..BB..K..ERA
HiA....Pucetas,Kevin.....5.0..6..2...2...0...1..2.55
LoA....Bumgarner,Madison.7.0..5..3...2...2...6..1.85
Bumgardner is one of the top young pitchers in the organization, so it's good to see his numbers are solid. Both are a couple of years from Frisco.
But it beats looking at the big club's numbers. But if I were going to do that for a second or two, I couldn't help but notice the following:
A 19-31 home record vs. a 23-27 road record. The road number is about right, but even a .500 record at home bring these sad-sacks to a 48-52 record overall, only 1 1/2 games back. By the way, the list of teams under .500 at home is a virtual roll call of the leagues cellar dwellers. The Padres are on the list, or the Giants would be in the cellar.
You wonder though, if the relative lack of attendance this year and the overall lack of fan excitement doesn't account for some of the Gigantes miserable home record this year. Just a thought. By the way attendance is down approx. 10% from last year, with more downside on the horizon next year if the team does not make another splashy free-agent signing.
And by splashy, I mean a successful kind of splashy like Bonds, rather than the belly-flop kind of splashy like Zito.
HAPPY 44TH BIRTHDAY SHOUT OUT TO BARRY LAMAR BONDS, STILL THE THE B-POPE, UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE.
Gotta give it up to current Yankees management.
They lose Jorge Posada (left-hander power-hitter) to the DL...
after previously losing Hideki Matsui (left-handed power-hitter) to the DL....
and yet they respond by adding Richie Sexson, a right-handed power-hitter and Dave Kingman clone, while the B-POPE doesn't get a call.
While the Yankees post-season chances get smaller every day the Rays stay in it...
And there's no collusion????
Riiiiiiiiiight?
OK Bud, whatever you say.
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