FJM has gone dark for the foreseeable future. Sorry folks. We may post once in a while, but it's pretty much over.
You can still e-mail dak,Ken Tremendous,Junior,Matthew Murbles, or Coach.
Now, before you read this next quote, remember that John Kruk is not just a fat sanctimonious dummy who apparently will do anything to protect the heretofore untarnished legacy of his old teammate Lenny Dykstra (and others). He is also J.D./PhD from Stanford. After graduating law school, Kruk was at Latham Watkins in NY for six years before being poached by Skadden, where he headed up their litigation team for eleven years, rising to Managing Partner in 2003.
So it means something when Kruk dispenses his legal opinions. To wit:
But you can't prove that they took anything! Just because you have 'em doesn't mean you took 'em. Now, common sense tells you if you're purchasing them you're probably going to use 'em also, but -- if there's no drug test, no failed drug test, how can you suspend anyone by hearsay? I mean, that's like arresting someone at 12 o'clock in the afternoon, saying, "About a week ago, you had a couple drinks and you were driving, so we're going to arrest you now." You can't do it unless you prove it.
Alcohol is not illegal. Many steroids are, when obtained the way these dudes often obtained them, I think. Also, in many cases, there is substantial corroborating evidence in the form of eyewitness testimony and credit card receipts and the like. To say nothing of the circumstantial evidence of: the users' injuries' healed quickly and they got better at baseball. But again, I'm no expert.
I also look forward to any of the named players stepping forward and claiming that they purchased, but did not use, steroids. Forgetting the validity of the legal arguments set forth by John D. Kruk, Attorney at Law, I just don't think the "I never injected" arguments would hold up that well in a MLB hearing (which is very different from a like Federal grand jury).
Through All of This, Let's Remember Who the Real Victims Are
I'm talking, of course, about the players who cheated and were caught.
I feel so bad for them. All they were trying to do is cheat and buy and use illegal drugs so that they could make more money and skew the history of baseball. Is that so wrong? Show me how that's wrong. And for cripe's sake, if you have to go ahead and investigate them and catch them cheating and lying and illegally purchasing and whatever, don't actually name them! What purpose does that serve?
But don't take my word for it. Take the word of famed genius and multiple-variation idiot John Kruk, on ESPN a second ago:
John Kruk: You know -- most of this is all hearsay. You heard Roger Cossack say that this stuff wouldn't stand up in a court. The thing I keep hearing from Mitchell and from Bud Selig is this: "Now we move forward. Now we move forward." If you want to move forward, why do you bring up names from the past who have nothing to do with the game of baseball right now? Mo Vaughn, Lenny Dykstra, David Justice -- guys who aren't involved in the game anymore. Why bring up their names? If you want to clean the game up, clean the game up. Those guys aren't dirtying the game anymore. They're out of it. So leave 'em out of it and move forward and get the guys who are. But again -- why do you gotta name the names? What is the purpose of naming the names of these people? Is it to satisfy the public? Is it to satisfy themselves? Why drag 'em all through the mud? Let them go. You got 'em, you call 'em in separately, privately, and you say, "Here's what we got on you, now you talk." If they don't want to talk, then you can do something as far as suspension. But you -- you don't have to get out in the public with this.
Forget for a minute that Krukie seems to lose his argument completely towards the end, where he advocates suspensions for players who are no longer playing the game. And forget for a minute that Mitchell clearly asked each and every player whose name came up in the investigation to come and speak with him on the record, and that they all declined. Instead, focus on this: if you used steroids, which is cheating, you deserve less than zero sympathy from anyone. You certainly don't deserve a get-out-of-jail-free card from Krukie.
Why name the names? Are you fucking kidding me?
No one who used this shit before the MLB testing policy was in place should be punished by the game itself. But their names? Those are ours, now, thank you.
Some weird stuff Sunday morning on ESPN. Stephen A. Smith was inexplicably like lurking around the studio for both Sportscenter and BBTN. It was so weird that at the end of SC he like didn't even have a chair, and had to awkwardly stand nearby the anchor desk. Then at the end of BBTN Steve Phillips said goodbye on behalf of himself and Krukie, leading Smith to give him a look like "What the hell?" and then eventually Phillips included him. Odd all the way around.
On SC they did that mentally challenged "Who's Now?" thing and it was Vince Young vs. Maria Sharapova. I felt bad for everyone involved, as they tried to figure out if Vince Young's 6 wins as a rookie were more "now" than Sharapova's $20m in endorsements. One of the most pointless arguments I have ever been exposed to.
America's Sweetheart files this report via email:
I have an idea for what to do after "Who's Now?" is over. It's called "what time is it?" A panel of ESPN experts would sit around and argue about what time it was. They would never agree because the time would always be changing. People could vote on-line and the it would all depend on when they voted.
At the end you would have some idea of what time it was.
Finally, on BBTN, Phillips and Kruk debate the "Worst Franchise in Sports." Phillips chooses the Phillies because their next loss will be their 10,000th. This is problematic for several reasons: first, because that says as much about the longevity of the franchise (starting in 1890) as anything else. Second, the team is only 4 games out this year and has a lot of good players. Third, the team has been in the WS as recently as 1993. The Phils aren't close to being the worst franchise in baseball, much less all of pro sports.
Not to be outdone, Kruk chose the New Orleans Saints.
They signed Brett Myers to a long-term deal. That makes him a happy person. And I think the maturity that he has gained from the incident that happened last year in Boston is gonna propel him to stand up and be the ace of this staff.
You heard it first from Kruk, folks. Hitting your wife in the face in front of Fenway Park improves your pitching ability.
On the Padres: I think this guy right here, Marcus Giles, is going to make a big difference also. He's a gritty, gutty player, and when you talk about the San Diego Padres, gritty and gutty sometimes don't always go in the same sentence.
Krukie, around here gritty and gutty always go in the same sentence. That sentence is "Fuck gritty and gutty."
Let's hope gritty and gutty Marcus Giles can bounce back from his gritty .259 EqA and gutty .387 slugging percentage from last year. The guy's had a couple of great years in the past, when he wasn't so g and g.
Karl Ravech: Team to watch in the American League East? John Kruk: To me it is the Yankees, Karl, because I think that now they're embarrassed. They haven't won a World Championship in how many years, so they are embarrassed.
My team to watch in this division is the Minnesota Twins ... we're not sure about their pitching right now. Brad Radke retired. Nelson Liriano injured, who knows when he's coming back?
He'll be back this year, and he'll pitch better than any 43-year-old retired utility infielder ever has before.
You Would Think That If He Mentioned Something So Specific, He Would Have Looked It Up To Make Sure He Was Right
John Kruk, BBTN 9/3/06
Re: Ryan Howard.
"And, and, 133 RBI's like [Steve Phillips] mentioned. And at the start of the season, the first, what, month / month and a half he was hitting seventh in the line-up for Charlie Manuel." (emphasis not mine)
Ryan Howard, this year, batting 7th in the line-up: Two games played. Seven at bats.
What a month.
Also worth noting that following Kruk's piece of misinformation, Phillips chimed in with a quick, off-camera, "that's right!"
John Kruk, who is a MENSA-level genius, has this to say about Manny Ramirez:
When is this guy going to be held responsible for his actions? I understand that sometimes a star player gets special treatment, but this is supposed to be a team game in which every player is responsible for his team and he doesn't seem to understand or care. He just goes about his business without any fear of reprisal from management or his teammates and that's not right. When I played, there was no way I could have gotten away with this type of behavior, and neither could anyone else on the team.
John Kruk has mounted his horse, and he is going to ride it all the way to Indignationville! Because Manny Ramirez is not being a professional, and John Kruk has some words for him, by gum! This would have never stood in John Kruk's day. For example, John Kruk played on the 1993 Phillies. If Manny Ramirez tried any of this nonsense on the 1993 Phillies, someone would have held his feet to the fire. If Manny tried this B.S. on the 1993 Phillies, Lenny Dykstra would have taken the hypodermic needle out of his ass and marched right over to Manny and said, "Hey! Be a professional!" Dykstra's words might have carried some respect, since -- totally coincidentally -- he was in the midst of a year where he set statistically improbable personal highs in every major offensive category. (He was working really hard in the weight room, I guess.) Also, Dykstra's words may have carried respect because his sheer physical size had exploded so much in so short a time that one of the Phillies announcers took to calling him "Lenny Kruk" when he came to the plate.
But if Dykstra had approached Manny, things might have gotten heated. So heated, that maybe Jeff Scott, the convicted felon who, in a sworn affidavit, said that he "hug out with about half" of the 1993 Phillies, providing them with drugs, would have had to come over and break things up. Maybe Kruk could have pulled Dykstra aside and given him a cigarette, since the two of them used to smoke cigarettes on the bench -- in full view of the fans -- during games. Or maybe they could have just done a line of coke, as dozens of whispered reports suggested they did all the time.
Or maybe Pete Incaviglia, who hit 11 HR in 1991 and 1992, but who hit a mysterious 24 in 1993, would have stepped in and restored some professionalism to the clubhouse. Or Danny Jackson, the pitcher (pitcher!) who was nicknamed "The Incredible Hulk" because of how muscular he was, could have knocked some professionalism into Manny. If not, surely Dutch Daulton, who had 105 RBI in 1993 but never played in more than 98 games in any subsequent season due to a series of injuries (he was only 31 in 1993; maybe the injuries were the result of eating too many Froot Loops?), and who was beloved for what amounted to erratic and bizarre behavior, would have gone up to Manny and said, "Settle down. Act properly."
Or, wait -- I know what would have happened if Manny had acted unprofessionally in John Kruk's era. Lenny Dykstra's best friend, who allegedly helped him bet on baseball games, including those of the self-same 1993 Phillies, could have talked some sense into Manny over the phone, after taking Dykstra's wager on that afternoon's Twins-Brewers game. That would have worked. Maybe Dykstra, the notorious high-stakes gambler, who was linked to a gambling probe in Mississippi in 1991, could have helped matters by telling Manny that he, Dykstra, would bet heavily on Ramirez for the rest of the year in order to give Manny an incentive to play. And Kruk could have backed him up. After all, Kruk probably felt like he owed Dykstra some support, since a few months after Dykstra was linked to gambling on baseball, Dykstra broke his collarbone in a car wreck after John Kruk's bachelor party and missed several months of the season.
So, go get 'em, Krukie! Don't let these modern-day weirdos sully the reputation of your straight-arrow, play-the-right-way 1993 Phillies. You guys were the model for baseball player behavior. Is it possible that all of this is simply conjecture? That everyone on your team, more or less, had statistically improbably great years? That no one on the Phillies was using steroids or gambling on baseball or doing drugs or anything? Absolutely. And I will bet everything I own in the world that some of you were doing some combination of using steroids and drugs and gambling on baseball.
Think I'm being unfair? Think it's wrong to bring all this stuff up when you are accusing Manny of a different crime? Well, you did say, and I quote, "this is supposed to be a team game in which every player is responsible for his team. He just goes about his business without any fear of reprisal from management or his teammates and that's not right." So, way to call out your guys for everything they did back in the day. Let's see how you did that: (from cantstopthebleeding.com)
“Let me tell you, we partied hard on that team."
But what about Jeff Scott?
“I never heard of the guy, never saw anybody like that,” Kruk said.
Does Habeeb’s claim [that Scott "hug out with half the team"] bother Kruk?
“Not at all,” the former first baseman said. “If you listened to everything people said about us, you’d think we were all alcoholics, drug addicts and steroid users. I wish we had that much fun.”
Didn't you just talk about how hard you partied?
“One year [Dykstra] weighed next to nothing and the next he was all bulked up,” Kruk said. “I heard reporters wondering what he was on, so I asked him. I said, ‘What did you do?’ He said, ‘I just worked hard.’ I believed him. I had no reason not to believe him. He’d never lied to me before, and I knew he was big into weight lifting.
“You know, so many guys were getting big at that time from weights. When I first came in the league, I thought Jack Clark and Steve Garvey were big. Then all of sudden it seemed like everyone was that big. To me, Lenny was no different.”
Good work, Krukie. You're a goddamn hero. And for the record, you dunderhead, several of Manny's teammates, including Curt Schilling, David Wells, and Tim Wakefield, publicly or privately called Manny on his behavior. And as for management, well, they tried to get rid of him. So really, when you think about it, what the fuck are you complaining about?
Loyal readers of FJM will remember that John Kruk predicted Randy Johnson would win 30 games this year. And that Harold Reynolds seconded that prediction a month later.
After tonght, Randy Johnson: 10-6, 4.21 ERA, .266 BAA, 21 HR allowed. On pace for a 17-10 season.
Rubbing it in? They deserve it, those idiots.
Also, completely inappropriately for this board:
Jason Giambi's OPS in 2003: .939. Jason Giambi's OPS in 2004: .721. Jason Giambi's OPS in April 2005: .768. May: .664. June: .905. July: 1.541.
More significantly, his SLG: April: .373. May: an Alex Cora-esque .315. June: .431. July: 1.000.
Somebody give me one reason not to think that he is back on the Juice, effective June 1, 2005.
"This entire Kenny Rogers fiasco has gotten completely out of hand. I'm not condoning what he did because obviously it was flat out wrong, but can we all just let it go? I'm tired of seeing the darn thing every time I turn on the news."
Man. If only John Kruk had access to a major sports news outlet, so he could do something about this.
Oh, sorry -- didn't cite the origin of the comment. It was in Krukie's regular column on ESPN.com.
John Kruk, on BBTN, just talked about the Red Sox' 8th-inning rally, and mentioned how he thought the key was David Ortiz "giving himself up" by pulling the ball to the right side of the infield with Mark Bellhorn on 2nd and nobody out. David Ortiz, it's fair to say, has never tried to "give himself up" by pulling the ball to the right side. He hits almost everything to the right side. That's why teams put on the crazy Ted Williams shift when he comes up. He is a dead pull hitter, with occasional power to center and even more occasional power to left center. Everyone in the universe who watches baseball knows this.
So, maybe the problem is that Kruk doesn't know the difference between a hitter "giving himself up" and a hitter "hitting the ball like he always, always, always does every time he is ever playing baseball." In other words, Kruk cannot discern between deliberate intention and mere coincidence.
Another problem is that he is a fat idiot who eats a plate of his own turds every night right before BBTN.
I was watching that game, and was amazed not only by Ortiz brilliantly and selflessly "giving himself up," but by his seemingly amazing ability to decide to have his bat shatter on the play, thereby deadening the ball.
The ol' "Shatter the Bat" play. The perfect way to manufacture a productive out.
Let's begin this beautiful Sunday morning by saying that Randy Johnson, before his start today, is a dominating 7-5, which means he only has to go 23-0 in his final 19 starts in order to win the 30 games that John Kruk and Harold Reynolds, on separate occasions, predicted he would. Good luck, Randy!
Now, to get our juices flowing this morning, here's a little bon mot from Krukie. Today he has chosen to focus his marshmallow-sharp analysis on his alma mater, the Phillies. He begins by saying this:
"It's becoming clear the Phillies are starting to become the Colorado Rockies of the NL East."
I'm starting to feel like I'm beginning to think that it's possible that John Kruk might be about to begin to start to become a moron.
There's a lot more nonsense in the article. I'll try to post later, unless someone else beats me to it.
...just posited, on BBTN, that maybe the reason the Astros actually scored some runs for Clemens today is because Clemens gave up three runs in the first inning, which, Kruk proposed, using science and intelligence, caused the Astros hitters to try harder to come back and score runs for him. Karl Ravech then said, "Yeah. That's it. Clemens needs to pitch *badly.*" At which Kruk giggled like a drunk turd.
"For this team to continue to contend they need to go out and make a trade for a No. 2 hitter. The Phillies have the perfect guy for them in Placido Polanco. He's not getting consistent at-bats in Philly, but he's a great No. 2 hitter because he gives himself up."
The best hitters in the world are the ones who intentionally make outs.
"They also would be well served if they could get a lefty starter to mix things up in the rotation. They have excellent intangibles with manager Bruce Bochy who is the best manager in the division."
Bochy leads all NL managers in intangibles this year with 106.40. Pretty excellent. Second place is Tony LaRussa with 115.42. (Remember, when you calculate intangibles, you want the LOWEST score possible.) The all-time record for excellence in intangibles in one season is Cookie Lavagetto, who achieved an unthinkably excellent 30.1 with the Washington Senators in 1960, despite his team going 73-81. Which just goes to show you: having excellent managerial intangibles does not guarantee success.
From his ESPN.com preview of the best interleague match-ups:
"Chicago White Sox-Chicago Cubs This is a series in which the White Sox could come in and steal some borderline Cubs fans. Believe me, I played for the Sox for a year and they need some fans. Sox players are treated like second-class citizens by the fans. If Paul Konerko and Derrek Lee both made reservations at the same time and at the same place and the restaurant only had room for one, then Konerko would be eating at McDonald's that night."
1. The word "fans" appears as the final word in each of the first three sentences. 2. What?
As we all know, before the season started, ESPN analyst and obese idiot John Kruk predicted that Randy Johnson would win 30 games this year. After Johnson's 3-2 start, ESPN analyst and blabbering fartbrain Harold Reynolds *reiterated* the prediction.
So, let's check in. After today's loss to the Mets, in which Johnson gave up 12 hits and 4 runs in 6.2 innings, Randy Johnson is now 4-3 with a 3.94 ERA. RJ is thus on pace for a 15-11 season. Is it possible for Kruk and HR to be correct? Absolutely!!! The Yankees are 22-21, so they have 119 games left. Johnson thus has roughly 24 starts left, if he stays healthy. So all he has to do is win every single one of his starts, and start throwing on three days rest around Sep. 1 to cram in two additional starts, and then win those. Or, maybe he can pick up a few wins out of the pen.
Anyway, I'm sure Krukie and HR know what they're talking about. Because they're both really really smart, and are not in any way stupid or terrible at their jobs. 30 wins for RJ, here we come!
