Managers Gone Wild

I thought I was creative and imaginative in finding ways to get ejected from games, but this guy is an all-time classic.

Notice how it appears he thinks the home plate umpires strike zone is a tad bit WIDE. And the base umpires did not seem to be using those square white things called bases to properly make safe/out calls. The belly crawl and grenade toss is simply icing on the cake. Notice also, two players doing there level best and failing to suppress laughter.

Cubs Baseball, Another Century of Frustration??

The Cubs today showed the kind of futility that should keep them from the post-season for God knows how long into the 21st Century. The team seems to be focusing their anger and disdain on guys wearing the same uniform lately, as today's Barrett-Zambrano dust-up seems to illustrate.

Now, that by itself won't keep them out of the post-season, playing as they do in the worst division in baseball, what makes this team so special and capable of maintaining their legacy, is a Bad-News Bears-esque disdain for 1)catching the ball well, 2) throwing the ball and 3)displaying even basic base running acumen.

Fundamentally, still one of the worst teams in the major leagues. Ironically, the lack of basic fundamental play, was the main reason the media honks in this area gave for running one Johnny "Dusty" Baker out as manager. Even after spending quality Wrigley Bucks on free-agents this past off-season, as well as luring Lou Piniella away from the booth, these Cubs if anything seem to be regressing to an even lower level of baseball, if that's possible.

This team may not be as good as the Devil Rays, at about 4 times the payroll. Todays debacle came after the team supposedly had a players only meeting to straighten out some of the bone-headed play and lack of cohesion. Looks like they may have just been playing cards behind closed doors.

Oh well, better luck next century.

With Liberty and Drug Tests, FOR ALL!!!

This from the Daily Herald. St. Viator, a suburban Chicago school is instituting a drug testing program for ALL students. WHAT A CONCEPT.

If combating drug use among youths is as strong a public policy concern as some of the hysterical ramblings we've heard lately regarding Performance Enhancing Drugs indicate it is, then we should be concerned about and combat drug abuse amongst all students equally. PERIOD.

To do otherwise indicates we are only concerned about athletes harming themselves, and not the chess club. This gives the kids who would normally succumb to peer pressure to use drugs, to be able to say, "Thanks, but if I fail the drug test, my mom won't get me a car for graduation" or whatever.

Besides, high school is supposed to be preparing kids to be productive members of the workforce and many companies today require you to produce a sample or two here and there. Although, they don't test the guy in sales after he lands a big contract for PED's now that I think about it. Not a perfect world, I guess.

St. Viator to drug-test all students in fall
BY SHEILA AHERN
sahern@dailyherald.com

Next fall, St. Viator High School students will map out routes to new classes, memorize locker combos and shop for a homecoming outfit.

This year, they can add this to the autumn back-to-school rituals: a drug test.

The 20-member St. Viator Board of Trustees has unanimously approved a new drug policy where each student will be drug-tested using a strand of hair.

Every student will be tested in the first six weeks of school, and 20 will be randomly tested weekly for the rest of the year, said the Rev. Robert Egan, president of St. Viator.

I bet this will bring back shorter haircuts amongst the boys. The only concern I would have doing it this way is if using hair samples provides a history of drug use that goes back years into the students past.


Each test costs $45. The school has budgeted $65,000 to $75,000 for the drug tests for the 2007-08 school year.

St. Viator now randomly tests for drugs only members of the boys football and hockey teams. A drug dog also visits five times a year, and random students are picked for breathalyzer tests at school dances, Egan said.

Hair samples will be tested for cocaine, opiates, PCP, marijuana, amphetamines and Ecstasy, whose use within 90 days of the test can be detected. It does not detect steroids or alcohol.

A student who refuses to be tested will be kicked out, Egan said.

The faculty and staff will not be tested.


An increasing number of schools are drug-testing athletes or those in other extracurricular activities. According to the National School Boards Association, about 5 percent of school districts drug-test athletes and 2 percent test for extracurricular activities.

In Antioch-Lake Villa High School District 117, students participating in extracurricular activities and those seeking parking permits are drug-tested.




Barker said St. Viator's tactic "seems extreme" and likens it to plopping a metal detector at a high school's front door: It primarily, he says, instills fear and suspicion in the community.

But the program is seen as a huge success at St. Patrick High School in Chicago. Since 2004, the school has spent $60,000 yearly to drug-test every student. Each year, less than 1 percent tests positive for drugs, said school spokesman Chris Nelson.

"The parents couldn't be happier," he said.

Across the nation, drug-testing high-schoolers has become increasingly popular in the past five or six years, said Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Most policies don't last more than a year, he said.

"It give these kids a way out," she said. "It's a better excuse than, 'My mom will kill me.'æ"

• Daily Herald staff writer Erin Holmes contributed to this report.

A-Rod and His Gal Pal

FROM TODAY'S NEW YORK POST:


http://www.nypost.com/seven/05302007/news/regionalnews/hes_a_yankee_doodle_randy_regionalnews_dan_mangan.htm

By DAN MANGAN

May 30, 2007 -- Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez stepped up to the plate with a mysterious, busty blonde in Toronto, as these intimate, exclusive photos reveal.

Cynthia Rodriguez - A-Rod's wife and mother of their 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Natasha - was nowhere to be seen during the slugger's big night out on the town, which occurred the evening before the last-place Bronx Bombers' pathetic 7-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays.

And it came as Rodriguez took a room at Toronto's Four Seasons hotel - down the street from the Park Hyatt, where most, if not all of his Yankee teammates and coaches are staying during a three-game stint that ends tonight.

C'mon, his wife would have just been a third wheel, besides she doesn't like blondes.

Wait a minute, he doesn't stay with his teammates? Who does this guy think he is, Roger Clemens. He probably doesn't want Jeter to steal another girlfriend from him.

"No comment," Rodriguez said when The Post asked him about his north-of-the-border jaunt with the blonde.

Yankees spokesman Jason Zillo said A-Rod has "never commented on his personal or private life, and he's not going to start now."

Right, just like his other nasty habits like not hitting in the clutch, NOT playing on a World Series winner, WHY START COMMENTING ON STUFF NOW? Just cram all those skeletons into a big closet marked "Alex's Screw Ups".

Rodriguez went 0-for-3 last night in the Yanks' 3-2 loss to the Blue Jays.

A-Rod started his busy Sunday in The Bronx, where the Yankees dropped a third straight game to the Los Angeles Angels.

At least the night wasn't a total washout. A size three collar and a waiting Hummer (He drives a Hummer, right?). That's a decent day at the park.

Rodriguez, who was wearing his wedding band, was casually dressed in jeans and a white, short-sleeved T-shirt featuring a large fleur-de-lis on its left arm. His tight-bodied, bleach-blonde gal pal was clad in a snug pair of blue jeans, a shiny, light T-shirt and wedge-heeled shoes.

See, he was wearing his wedding band. That means anything that happened is OK. These creeps in the media make me sick. Fleur-de-lis? Not very manly, but when you're A-Rod, you can pull shit like this off.

Home to what one Web site calls, "Toronto's most beautiful all-nude dancers," the Brass Rail is known for its booming sound system, overflowing crowds, overpriced beers and $20 lap dances - a drop in the bucket for Rodriguez, who has a 10-year contract worth $252 million.

Over-priced beers? But apparently very reasonably priced lap dances (no editorial). And the third baseman is no bargain at those prices either, pal. This writer has his priorities in place, huh?

Rodriguez and the blonde spent an hour or so at the Brass Rail, the witness said.
When they walked out of there, A-Rod and the woman were alone.

Those Rodriguez flunkies know when to make themselves scarce. They'd have spent more time at the bar but Alex is young and not very skilled in the art of conversation and the sexual tension it can create. Plus, he doesn't speak Canadian very well and his posse didn;t have a American-to-Canadian thesauraus.

They then got a cab back to the Four Seasons. Their cab pulled up to the hotel minutes after midnight.

Right before the beefy-armed bitch would have turned into a pumpkin. Good thing those dumb-f**ks were on Canadian time or A-Rod would have been wiping pumpkin seeds off his genitalia. Sucks when that happens.

A-Rod then strode into the hotel behind her. He rubbed his nose as if to obscure his face to other people as he joined her at the elevator bank.

As the doors to an elevator opened, he and the blonde got in together, the witness said.

The doors then closed, and they disappeared upstairs.

Yes, he strode the smug, purposeful stride of a stallion who just knew he was moments away from mounting his filly. Actually, he rubbed a different body part and did the F-you dance for the pathetic paparazzi, but they couldn't print those details in the New York Post, they have standards and journalistic integrity and junk.

Alas, we may never fully know what happened after those two hormonally charged hunks disappeared into the night, but if nine months from now, she pops out a tight-bodied, green eyed little muffin with GQ good looks, in a shiny shirt with a propensity for choking in the clutch, I guess we'll be able to connect the dots.

Good Luck in Divorce Court, what's 1/2 of $252 Million?

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day. Remember it's more than just a good excuse for a three-day weekend.

Teen Golfer's Mother Dies from Cancer

Really a sad story from the world of sports. Hopefully, many other lives will be saved from early detection of this and other cancers that are manageable and treatable if caught in the early stages. It was good to see that she fought long enough and hard enough to see her daughter play at that level. Puts things in perspective.


Excerpts from espn.com
http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/news/story?id=2882571

Kelly Jo Dowd dies after long battle with cancer

Kelly Jo Dowd, a cancer-stricken mother whose dream of seeing her teen daughter Dakoda play in an LPGA event was realized last spring, has died. She was 42.

She spent years battling breast cancer, which her family said spread to her bones and liver, and then to her brain in the final months of her life. She died Thursday night at her home in Palm Harbor, Fla., with her daughter and other relatives at her side.

Kelly Jo Dowd's dream was to see Dakoda play in an LPGA event.

Her death came just over a year after seeing her daughter play in the Ginn Open in Reunion, Fla., when Dakoda, then 13, and her family went public with their story, even knowing Kelly Jo's death was expected. Shortly before the tournament, the family was told Kelly Jo would have only a few months to live.

Dakoda Dowd, one of the nation's top-ranked junior golfers, was invited to play in the 2006 tournament by Ginn Resorts president and CEO Bobby Ginn, who lauded the Dowds Friday as "a special family whose story touched a nation."

"I'm prouder today than I was yesterday that my daughter has the courage and strength to play with these LPGA professionals," Kelly Jo said after that tournament. "And I feel great right now. I feel great. My dream came true out here."

The Dowd family chose to tell their story with hopes that Kelly Jo's plight -- she ignored a lump for several months before being diagnosed with breast cancer -- would be a strong reminder that women should be vigilant in doing self-exams and getting checked regularly.

"I did something pretty stupid," Kelly Jo said in a 2006 interview with the AP. "And the only way that I can let myself feel better about it is if I know that people can learn from our situation."

"We're not going to run away from this," he said. "We're going to glorify her and do her proud."

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press

NBA Numbers Confirm Bias in Officiating

That's BIAS, not RACISM. BIAS. There is a difference.

So now Commissioner Stern can apologize to the authors of the original study and admit he was wrong about their work. And Charles Barkley can eat his rather strong words railing against the original study. I know Sir Charles can eat, so this should be a slam dunk.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for either of the two events to occur. Both guys are stubborn and strong willed and both apparently think they are never wrong. Although in Commissioner Stern's defense, I still think he was right about the Phoenix Suns suspension fiasco. If the players don't react as they did, Horry gets suspended all by his lonesome.

I'm not sure you have to get up from the bench to defend your teammate after he does a dive worthy of an Oscar. Now, if they had stepped onto the court while holding up their cards grading the dive like they used to do in the Olympics, or in the slam dunk events, I'd cut them some slack. But getting up to heighten the tension and elevate the testosterone level a couple of notches, put them in time-out every GD time.

CASE CLOSED.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2870260

Even NBA study might confirm racial bias in officiating
By Lester Munson

The Wharton School professor whose study started a controversy about possible racial bias in foul calls in the NBA has now seen the NBA's own data about its officiating, and is more convinced than ever that he's right.

"Their own study agrees with our conclusion: A referee is more likely to blow the whistle and call a foul against a player of another race," Justin Wolfers said after he reviewed the information in work done by an NBA contractor.

The league initially had refused to allow Wolfers to examine its study, but finally sent it to him last week after a series of blistering criticisms of Wolfers and his work.

Responding to Wolfers' conclusions that officials were guilty of "own-race bias" in enough foul calls to affect the outcomes of games, a league spokesman said that Wolfers was "wrong," that he was "disingenuous" and that his work was "sloppy and ludicrous." Commissioner David Stern and league president Joel Litvin attacked Wolfers in numerous broadcast appearances.

"After refusing my requests for weeks, the NBA was unexpectedly gracious enough to share its material with me," Wolfers said. "And I am now able to say that their critical statements are contradicted by the league consultant's own statistical output."

It's academic, yes. But it just might be correct that a racial bias exists in NBA officiating.
"I believe they were tired of the criticism that they had not given it to us," he said. "And I don't think they really knew what their study said."

An independent analysis of the two conflicting studies requested by ESPN.com confirms Wolfers' findings that referees favor their own race when they blow their whistles. Thomas Miles, who has a Ph. D. in economics from the University of Chicago and is a graduate of Harvard Law School, dissected the massive study completed by Wolfers, and compared it with the smaller study by an NBA consultant.

An NBA spokesman declined to respond to Miles' observations.

"It's done. It's over. We have nothing to add to what we have said already," the spokesman said.

"It is remarkable how [Wolfers] was able to use the NBA's own data set and show that it supported what he said at the beginning," Miles said. Wolfers used the NBA's own categories of minutes played in his response to the NBA's study, and showed that there is evidence of discrimination even with the NBA's own data.

Lester Munson is a Chicago journalist and lawyer who has been reporting on investigative and legal issues in the sports industry for 18 years.

Elijah Dukes of Hazzard

From the St. Pete Times comes this disturbing update on Devil Rays Elijah Dukes. Dukes seems determined to prove the old adage, about the apple not falling far from the tree, to be true.

Dukes, who grew up in Sulphur Springs, saw his father convicted of second-degree murder when he was 11. Elijah Dukes Sr. received a 20-year prison sentence for shooting a man who sold his wife $100 worth of fake crack cocaine.


Imagine you find this text message photo on your cell phone from your estranged husband and the father of your children:



And this voice message to complement the picture:

"You dead, dawg," says an angry voice. "I ain't even bulls-------. Your kids, too."


"Hey, dawg. It's on, dawg. You dead, dawg. I ain't even bulls-------. Your kids too, dawg. It don't even matter to me who is in the car with you. N-----, all I know is, n-----, when I see your m-----f------- a-- riding, dawg, it's on. As a matter of fact, I'm coming to your m-----f------ house."

This quote is also disturbing if it's true, because it show the mind-set that perpetuates the behavior:

"He's trying to act like he's made a change," Gilbert said. "He's made no changes. He's gotten worse. He says that since he plays baseball, 'No one can f--- with me.'"


And this is why the Rays continue to stick with him:

Dukes, who makes the major-league minimum $380,000, is considered one of the best all-around athletes on the Rays, with a mix of speed and power that some scouts predict could make him one of the game's top players.

Unfortunately, Mr. Dukes seems more determined to make paternalistic history, as well as domestic violence history, than baseball history. To further enchance this young charmers character resume, we find these further details:

Four women have gone to court seeking child support from Dukes. In all four cases, the court found Dukes was the father, meaning he has at least five children by four women. Two of those women were pregnant at the same time, giving birth in 2003 within eight days of each other.

Fast Facts:
Elijah Dukes' children

Date of birth Mother Gender
Nov. 25, 2003 NiShea Gilbert boy
Dec. 3, 2003 Carla Bryant girl
June 7, 2004 Shantell Mitchell boy
June 16, 2005 NiShea Gilbert girl
July 19, 2006 Porcia Daniels girl

The complete story is available here:
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/05/23/Tampabay/Ballplayer_s_wife__He.shtml
Ballplayer's wife: He threatened me, kids
Rays' Elijah Dukes is under a restraining order - again.
By EDUARDO ENCINA and ABBIE VANSICKLE
Published May 23, 2007

But the question is: "How long are the Devil Rays, an organization that seems to be as littered with players of questionable character and behavior as it is with losses, willing to tolerate this sort of behavior from someone that represents the community, the organization and Major League Baseball?"

Where is Roger Goodell when you need him? Can we get a table for two for Mr. Dukes and Mr. Lastings Milledge of the Mets at the next MLB conduct policy meeting? What, they don't have one? Take a page from the NFL, Mr. Selig, if you really care about the fans perception of the "integrity of the game". Integrity and character is displayed by how you conduct yourself when others aren't looking (or you believe that to be the case). These guys are proven failures.

Milledge has had conduct issues going back to high school, the stupidity of releasing a rap song laced with the content he chose at this time, reeks of blatant stupidity.
Trade value reduced to zero, with the Devil Rays exception thrown in.

If this type of story continues, I propose that at the next relocation and contraction discussions that Major League Baseball has, consider transferring the Devil Rays franchise, not to Orlando, but instead to the Florida Correctional League.
It should save them on travel costs.

CHARACTER COUNTS.

The One and Only Dr. Mike Marshall

MIKE MARSHALL - ONE OF THE TOP RELIEVERS OF HIS ERA:


DR. MIKE MARSHALL TODAY:



There was a great feature article this week on the man who I consider the best pitching coach in the country bar none, Dr. Mike Marshall, by Jeff Passan at Yahoo Sports.

Dr. Marshall believes that Sir Isaac Newton may in fact be the greatest pitching coach who ever lived, but you have to dig through his FREE on-line book to find out why.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=Apk10uwj8nzz0lVh14FxK3w5nYcB?slug=jp-marshall051007&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

I've been to the Marshall Training Facility in Zephyrhills on a couple of occasions and Dr. Mike has always been open and accessible to coaches and players. Those that see the training methods first-hand and the impact it has on pitchers cannot help but come away impressed, and at times, awed. His guys always have lights out stuff, a great variety and quality of breaking pitches.

I recall on one occasion I visited and witnessed Jeff Sparks throwing the 15 lb. iron ball into the rebound wall as if it was a baseball or a softball. There was no hump-back trajectory, He was throwing from some distance away from the wall (most of the trainees work out close to the wall) and there was plenty of heat on the the throw. I believe they were shooting a feature for one of MLB's highlight shows. I never saw the show run live, but it was an awesome display of power pitching.



His methods are not accepted by the mainstream pitching gurus or major league baseball and that may be a good thing. MLB's track record of arm injuries amongst pitchers in their care and custody is historically bad and seemingly getting worse. It may only trail the collective record of the so-called pitching gurus who combined have not injured anybody "according to their records", but have presided over a nationwide epidemic of youth arm injuries.

I recall when I visited the complex for the first time, a young Mark Prior was blazing through the major leagues, with the mere mention of his name eliciting gushing comments regarding his perfect mechanics and impending injury-free, Hall of Fame career. Guaranteed. You couldn't get coaches to drool more if you had Pamela Anderson show up in a thong.

Tom House's computer told him Prior was perfect, and House came down from his mountain top to tell all of us coaches, so goodness gracious, it had to be true. At that time, Dr. Mike was answering questions regarding Prior with the caution that Prior's "perfect" delivery was flawed. He was heading full-length towards injury just as certain as his mound mate with the Cubs, Kerry Wood. Now at the time, this was on the order of saying the Emperor had no clothes, or that the Earth was round. It went against almost universally accepted wisdom. Wisdom gathered by first one person saying it, then another, and another until soon only a fool would dare get up and contradict the collective logic.

But Dr. Marshall calls it like he sees it, and he does not suffer fools gladly.
That may be why he does not endear himself to major league front office minds. Many of them don't want to have to think too hard. But when Prior, shortly thereafter began to have arm problems that he seemingly still has not recovered from, it should be noted that only Dr. Marshall predicted that this would happen using foresight and not the traditional baseball wisdom of 20-20 hindsight.

Marshall's credentials are impeccable and the faith he has in both his methods and his mission are impregnable. His style and bedside manner is as ferocious as a pit-bull. In my opinion, this is due to his obvious passion for the subject matter and the the consequences of failure to deliver the results that young pitchers are expecting. To be able to pitch effectively, consistently and injury-free.

When Marshall was a player he was a bit of an enigma, however he pitched virtually everyday, racking up innings pitched totals that would be the envy of most starting pitchers of today. When reporters or other players tried to find out what it was he was doing to get results that were so far from the mainstream, he told them he studied kinesiology. Players certainly had no idea what that meant, neither did reporters. Both groups it seems were equal parts intellectually lazy and skeptical of what Marshall was communicating to them, so they stopped communicating it seems.

One of the things I did get from my visits to Zephyrhills, was that Dr. Mike does not water down his terminology or his methodology. Those who can't keep up are swept aside. By the same token, those who stay in the ring and fight to learn end up richly rewarded in the end. The results speak for themselves.

I was just winding down my less than illustrious playing career when Marshall was dominating with the Dodgers. And I admired him, in spite of the fact that he played for the Dodgers, because he was an average sized individual, doing extraordinary things at the the highest level of his craft, a craft that was generally dominated by above average sized individuals.

If you visit his website www.drmikemarshall.com you will find his FREE Book, and also a fantastic CD that illustrates and explains the training and techniques. I can't recommend any books or CD's higher then these for training pitchers.

There currently is a small army of coaches who are using these techniques, Marshall currently offers a certification program for those interested. I know I'll be down there as soon as my schedule fits the Doc's.

For selfish reasons, I would prefer that not that many fellow coaches knew of or employed Marshall's methods, but for the greater good of preventing pitching arm injuries, how can any serious pitching coach ignore these methods when the traditional methods currently being taught have been proven to be a failure over and over and over again.

Q: What's the definition of INSANITY?

A: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

I think this maxim applies here. ENJOY THE JOURNEY.


HERE ARE SOME ILLUSTRATIONS OF SOME OF THE METHODS HIS TRAINEES USE:

STUDENT USING MARSHALL REBOUND WALL:


STUDENTS USING MARSHALL WRIST WEIGHTS:



EXCERPTS FROM THE ARTICLE:
Marshall won a Cy Young award with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1974, earned his Ph.D. in exercise physiology four years later and in the 30 years since has developed a motion that he believes could completely eradicate pitching-arm injuries, if only the right people would listen.

Marshall is 64 years old, impish and hyperkinetic. At 5-foot-8½, he looks more Ph.D. than ex-ballplayer. He still holds major-league records for games pitched in one season (106), relief innings pitched (208 1/3) and consecutive games for a pitcher (13), all set with the Los Angeles Dodgers in his 1974 Cy Young season. Everyone around baseball figured Marshall some kind of genetic freak, or maybe a masochist.

Marshall has a Ph.D. in exercise physiology from Michigan State. He was just ahead of his time. Almost 40 years ago, when he started the studies toward his doctorate at Michigan State, Marshall had questions about how to throw a baseball without injuring himself. Millions of pitches, thousands of feet of high-speed film and hundreds of adjustments later, he believes knows the answers better than anyone in the world.

"I'm a researcher," Marshall said. "People forget that about me. That's where my heart is. I pitched baseball, really, as the lab experiment of my research to see if it worked. Turned out it did. I don't need any more validation that I know something about baseball.

"I know what works. That's the greatest truth there is. I have a responsibility to give it back. Nobody wants it? Hey. That's not my problem."


Some days it sounds like a pig farm with all the noise. Marshall has expanded the exercise far beyond the 6-, 10- and 15-pound iron balls. The students, usually half a dozen ranging from 18 to 25 years old, are mostly marginal pitchers who want to pitch in college or maybe independent ball. With a wrist weight ranging from 15 to 30 pounds tethered to their pitching arm, they swing their pitching arm straight down like a pendulum, lift it over their ear and follow through with a hard pronation, turning the wrist outward with the thumb pointing down.

Marshall is convinced these actions can help save baseball from one of its great scourges. The rest of the motion is simple. No leg kick. No rotating the hips back toward second base. Facing the hitter, the pitcher steps with his glove-side foot and rotates his other leg with such fury his back almost ends up parallel to home plate.

And yet the motion comes straight from the laboratory. Following Marshall's rookie season in 1967, when his poor delivery caused shoulder pain, he used high-speed film to analyze himself and noticed that if a pitcher pronates his forearm, it protects his elbow and shoulder. Marshall continued to refine the motion, adding the pendulum swings, where musculature prevents elbow-ligament damage, and the step forward, to prevent the arm from flying out and locking up. Marshall's theory: Apply all force toward home plate instead of wasting it laterally with complicated wind-ups.

Whatever Marshall's students thought they knew he makes them forget. They learn a new vocabulary to complement the new motion. Maxline is a pitch that comes in on the arm side of the plate, a torque pitch to the other. They know a lat is really a latissimus dorsi, plus the proper names for the other 35 muscles used in the pitching motion.

In one week with Marshall, a pitcher throws more than he would in a month with an affiliated team. It's every day for 90 minutes, with the wrist weights, the iron ball and weighted lids from 4-gallon drums or footballs to help learn the release of a pronation curveball. Sometimes the lids go flying like Frisbees, so every inch of the 16-by-12-foot nets is necessary. Then it's at least 50 pitches with real baseballs, usually more.

More than 100 students have gone through Marshall's 280-day program, and he claims not one has left injured. Williams was cut by the Mets in 2006 after they told him a magnetic resonance imaging revealed a torn labrum in the shoulder. A week after starting Marshall's program, Williams' pain disappeared.

"Have you ever had surgery on your labrum?" Marshall said.

"No," Williams said.

"And do you ever have pain throwing as hard as you can today?" Marshall said.

"No," Williams said.

"This is Jeff Sparks," Marshall said. "He is the most highly skilled pitcher in the world. And nobody will hire him."

Jeff Sparks, 35, temples graying, scowling like Billy Bob Thornton, is Mike Marshall's greatest student and greatest success. Right now, he sells home-and-garden products at Lowe's. He also goes to firefighter school. In December, he'll take EMT certification training.



Here is the part where everyone calls Mike Marshall a lunatic, where they laugh at his motion, attack his science, scoff at his claims and roll their eyes.

Because for all of the triumphs Marshall sees, the baseball world sees him for what he hasn't done, and that is consistently produce major-league-caliber players. And so develops the Catch-22: Teams think Marshall is too much of a kook to send him top-of-the-line talent and elite players avoid him because they don't want any sort of associated stigma.

"Mike Marshall thinks I'm nuts, God bless him," said Tom House, the former big-league reliever, longtime pitching coach for Prior and, yes, a frequent target of Marshall's jabs. "I really admire his passion about what he does. But he's not the only one who does it."

Any suggestion that Marshall adapt his program – mix his motion with the traditional motion to make the transition easier, or cut out the terminology to focus on the end rather than the means, or perhaps collaborate with others in the growing field of biomechanics – is met with a stern no.

As averse as Marshall is to his peers' theories, he at least respects the science behind them. For baseball executives, who he believes take pride in their ignorance, Marshall saves a special kind of repugnance.

"I got tired of appeasing the stupid," Marshall said. "How long does a blonde have to act like a moron before she gets a date? These people (in organized baseball) are idiots. They don't know a damn thing. The thing is, they're powerful. They get the kids and can destroy them. And they do."

Problem is, the teachings – the same pitching motion for the last century – have led to arm breakdowns that stifled, shortened or ended careers. So in the mid-'90s, Marshall sent a letter to all 30 teams offering his services. No one bit. He called GMs he knew from his playing days and never heard back.


It won't happen. Marshall resigns himself to this. He tries to slough off any bitterness. He can't fathom why businessmen would shoo away something that would save them tens of millions of dollars.

At this point, he only hopes his ideas flourish. When Roger Clemens throws his fastball with a hard pronation of the wrist, Marshall beams. And, even better, during Clemens' first minor-league rehabilitation session, Marshall thought he saw a pendulum swing, a rarity among major leagues.

"People are going to take bits and pieces," Marshall said, "and if that's the way this spreads, fine. They're eventually going to figure out how I teach that curveball, and it's going to dominate baseball. Then they're going to pendulum swing, and that's going to get rid of Tommy John surgery. And then if they get the arm up before the front foot lands, that will take care of the front-of-the-shoulder problems. And then … "

Marshall kept talking. About different muscles, and where they attach, and what they do, and all of the things that make his theories, brilliant as they may be, so inaccessible. Only he stopped himself, like he knew he was getting off the point. As much as he is Dr. Mike Marshall, biomechanist, kinesiologist and anatomist, he's also just Doc, single-minded as ever.

"And then, finally," Marshall said, "we'll develop the best pitchers anyone's ever seen."

Jeff Passan is a national baseball writer for Yahoo! Sports. Send Jeff a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

OMG According to Dan Patrick, Dan Patrick might be a Racist

OK so let me see if I follow the logic correctly:

Commissioner Stern scolds young Danny Patrick (nee: Pugh) and wacks him in the weenie over the Stoudamire-Diauw suspensions because DP wants the best players on the the court even though they violated a serious league rule, known to all players, designed to keep skirmishes from escalating into something more serious.

DP's logic: I just want to see the rule "open to interpretation" so it allows star players to violate it and still play. He doesn't want the series decided by Horry's cheap shot.

The Commisioner correctly, and in a tone dripping with condescension and sarcasm, admonishes Dan that NBA decisions should not be decided by what's best for the league economically in matter such as this.

He also realizes that the reason a generation of fans are turned off to the NBA is for just this reason. It's a star-driven league, they make the rules, they break the rules. This is how the NBA got to be the current NBA, which is to say And-1 without the annoying P.A. Announcer.

RANT ALERT:Kobe should be able to whack anyone that dares challenge his jump shot, and if he wacks an ocassional pretty, young hotel employee on the side, who cares. He's Kobe.

Iverson can palm the ball with impunity, because that's what the fans pay to see. Even Skip to My Lou from the And-1 team can release his persona and go legit in today's NBA. Anything goers.

Then, when the FIBA refs get there and call the rules as they are written, "without interpretation", the so-called "best players in the world" get routinely thumped.

Anyway back to my original point:
After the Commisioner leaves, of course young Daniel says that "Wow, the Commisioner really was defensive about his position regarding the rule and the suspensions" and concludes that this defensiveness is a sure sign that he doesn't really believe in the position he is stating.

And then today, like most days, he rips into Bonds and a caller or an e-mailer will ask him why he doesn't rip Clemens or Giambi and implies or states directly that racism is a motive.

And it occurs to me that every time I've heard that happen, that Danno gets REALLY, REALLY DEFENSIVE about the fact that not everything is racial and he himself is not a racist.

And today I just put two and two together and, OMG, Danny is trying to tell us that subconsiously, and using his logic, he might be a racist. OMG. It's as clear as a bell. Dan, this is an obvious cry for help. And you need help. Thankfully, we are a forgiving country and I'm sure you'll rebound from this around the same time Don Imus does.

That and if you've ever heard his "White Boy can play" story, You'd know the man has some serious issues. Classic White Guilt. Oh well, another boyhood hero falls by the wayside. What is this world coming to?