the week that was and the week to come

The big story last week was Alex Rodriguez admitted to using steroids from 2001 to 2003. This DOES not surprise me at all. Baseball and the fans are at fault for the steroid era. Baseball turned a blind eye to performing-enhancing drug users, because the Home Run became the attraction of the game. By 1998 ESPN had started live coverage of the Home Run Derby at the All-Star week. Also at this time there was a famous advertisement campaign with the slogan “Chicks Dig the Long Ball.” All this contributed to the pressure to perform. I think it’s better for A-Rod to admit to using steroids and finally come clean now than to continue denying it like others such as Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds. History will look at A-Rod more kindly for admitting and I think he might still have a chance to get into the Hall of Fame.
Tuesday February 17, 2009 A-Rod held his first Press Conference since an interview he did with ESPN last week. He said a cousin injected him with an over-the-counter drug designed to give an "energy boost." He also said that it was a mistake that his cousin obtained these banned drugs from the Dominican Republic I understand this was before testing and the culture was different back in the early 90’s but if I were a pro baseball player I would look at what I was putting in my body before I used it.

A side story to this is that Miguel Tejeda was charged with lying to Congress about performance enhancing drug useage the same week. For lying, he faces up to one year in federal prison and deportation as he was born in the Domican Republic.

The other major story last week was the second retirement of Brett Favre. I say second because he retired last year but came back to play. We wll see if this retirement holds before I talk about it.

This Weekend

This weekend’s big event is the final stop of the Winter Dew Tour from Lake Tahoe, CA. Saturday is the Freesking Slopestyle final from 2:30 to 4 P.M. on NBC. Sunday is the Snowboarding Superpipe final from 3 to 6 P.M. again on NBC Sports. Like I said this is the final stop of the Tour, so the season-long champions will be crowned. Should be fun.

The next big event is an Ultimate Fighting Championship card on free TV; UFC 95 live from London, England at 9 P.M. on Spike TV.
The main event of the card is the first winner of the Ultimate Fighter Reality TV show, Diego “Nightmare” Sanchez who will move up from welterweight to lightweight to challenge former world title contender Joe “Daddy” Stevenson. UFC is always a good time.
In other news, the UFC is about to get some competition on National TV from Showtime and CBS. I think the frist Showtime live event will be April 11, no word on the first CBS show, I think it will be in May. When I know I will let you all know.

Also this weekend is the Oscars. Usually I don’t like or have an intrest in seeing any of the movies up for the awards, but this year I wil watch because of the two movies“The Wrestler” and “Frost/Nixon”. I hope Mickey Rourke wins for best actor. Yes I’M a wresting fan. I also would like to see “Frost/Nixon” win Best Picture. Frost/Nixon is a true story about a series of interviews by Robert Frost /Richard Nixon after Watergate. I think the BBC just released the real interviews. .

Enjoy the games.

Talk to you next week if not before.

Jamie Lazaroff