Weed Out the Crap

The Baltimore Orioles released Jay Gibbons on Sunday.

The 31-year-old outfielder, who batted just .189 with no homers and four RBIs in 16 games this spring, is owed $11.9 million by the O's to cover his salary for the next two seasons. He agreed to a $21.1 million, four-year contract in January 2006... hind-sight is 20/20, as they say.

Gibbons was given a 15-day suspension in early December, along with Kansas City Royals outfielder Jose Guillen, after a media report stated that they had received a shipment of HGH after January of 2005, when it was already banned by MLB.

However, the commissioner’s office and players association put the penalties on hold Friday for 10 days to let negotiations simmer over their drug policy. If a deal is struck, the suspensions will most likely be dropped.

With little room for a crappy outfielder or designated hitter who doesn't even hit bombs, the O's went with Scott Moore as their utilityman, claiming Gibbons' troubles had nothing to do with their decision. Now they will eat almost $12 million clams.

In other O's news, pitcher Rocky Cherry has been placed on the DL with a right shoulder strain. The 27-year-old righty went 1-1 with a 3.00 ERA in 12 appearances with the Chicago Cubs last season, and posted a 7.71 ERA in 10 games with Baltimore.

[Oriole Post]

Blah Blah Steroids

First and foremost, weekends off are awesome. They should come around more often.

It's been a whirl-wind sports weekend, with baseball slipping further out of people's minds as football season begins and 80% of everyone's favorite teams are now basically out of contention. Including mine.

So, what happened this weekend... Oh, it looks like Troy Glaus and Jay Gibbons received some steroids and HGH. Sweet.

I think we should prepare ourselves for some sort of meltdown. Your favorite player, my favorite guy? Maybe he's taken HGH in the past. Maybe he doesn't speak great English and was confused by a steroid prescription, or something.

Maybe, he's just a dirty cheater and shot juice into his veins to get an edge in the game.

Whatever the case, it seems names are starting to come out of the woodwork involved with this Florida pharmacy investigation.

Gibbons received six shipments of HGH, two shipments of testosterone and two shipments of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) between October of 2003 to July 2005 -- after both substances were banned by baseball. The "after" part, sadly makes him a cheater, so there will be no victimizing the Baltimore Orioles outfielder here. Gibbons enjoyed his best season in 2003, before taking the substances, when he hit .277 with 23 homers and 100 RBIs.

Toronto's Glaus received multiple shipments of nandrolone and testosterone, all between September of 2003 and May 2004, also an underhanded move. But he sucks anyhow, so really... who cares besides the players on his team that didn't make the All-Star game those four years he did.

These two, including Rick Ankiel, are the latest athletes to be linked to Signature Pharmacy for illegally getting prescription medications.

They certainly will not be the last.

[SI.com]