[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YngyMco72QA]

While he may have not have made a big enough splash on the farm to make the Bigs, he still got his 15 minutes of fame.

Since the Mitchell Report and news that A-Rod was dirty, there have been whispers about ManRam and whether he was truly a “pure hitter.” His lazy attitude in the field threw up the red flags but no one really imagined that it would be the truth. While it still might come to fruition that this was a one-time doctor assisted misstep, it also makes me wonder about this era and what it means moving forward.

In one camp, you can throw one fat asterisk next to all records set from the late 80′s to the present and saying that anyone playing in this era is open to question, whether they are a noted cheat like Big Mac or a noted clean blowhard like the Big Schill. It is a broad stroke of the brush, but it would eliminate the question on HOF voters as to whether or not a guy cheated and if it’s OK to leave a guy like Roger Clemens off of their ballot in five years from now.

The second is to only erase the cheaters from the record books. To purists this is the easiest route to take for the record book and go back to “clean” records. My problem is that you can’t just erase history. We all saw Bonds break Hammerin’ Hank’s record, that can’t be erased. MLB did not do enough to hold off this problem and now needs to find a way to fix it.

Drug testing is the first and right test, however the question is what happens with the records. Is it going to be left up to the HOF voters or will the league take a stand?

No matter what happens, I am still baffled by the fact that Jose Canseco has proven to be the most credible baseball player that I could think of right now.

Image All Posters.com

While the calendar may have told us that March 19th was the first day of spring, Americans typically associate the start of spring with the first crack of the bat. Around 8:00 p.m. tonight, spring will officially be upon us with the first pitch of tonight’s season opener with the Phillies and Braves.

There are many images and memories that pop in our heads with each opening day: playing hookie from work, snagging a foul ball, watching your team get World Series rings or your first at bat of Little League.

This year, Opening Day marks the first year that I will take a stab at Fantasy Baseball over on Yahoo. I have played fantasy football for the past five years or so and have won a few leagues and find it enjoyable. Due to the length of the baseball season, I figured that it was way too much for me to keep track of. That held true this year until, with prodding from my boss, I chose to take a stab at the baseball game.

Instead of entering a league where I would be ragged on and taken advantage of by season pros, I decided to join two entry level leagues with Yahoo.

Here are the two rosters:

Team 1

• Bengie Molina (SF – C)
• Joey Votto (Cin – 1B)
• Dustin Pedroia (Bos – 2B)
• Melvin Mora (Bal – 3B)
• Derek Jeter (NYY – SS)
• Matt Holliday (Oak – OF)
• Jay Bruce (Cin – OF)
• Bobby Abreu (LAA – OF)
• Brandon Phillips (Cin – 2B)
• Hank Blalock (Tex – 1B,3B)
• Raul Ibanez (Phi – OF)
• Hideki Matsui (NYY – OF)
• Kendry Morales (LAA – OF)
• Johan Santana (NYM – SP)
• James Shields (TB – SP)
• Francisco Cordero (Cin – RP)
• Fernando Rodney (Det – RP)
• Daisuke Matsuzaka (Bos – SP)
• Javier Vazquez (Atl – SP)
• Kevin Slowey (Min – SP)
• Manny Parra (Mil – SP)

Team 2

• Chris Iannetta (Col – C)
• Kevin Youkilis (Bos – 1B,3B)
• Robinson Cano (NYY – 2B)
• Adrian Beltre (Sea – 3B)
• Hanley Ramirez (Fla – SS)
• B.J. Upton (TB – OF)
• Matt Holliday (Oak – OF)
• Torii Hunter (LAA – OF)
• Carlos Pena (TB – 1B)
• Akinori Iwamura (TB – 2B)
• Orlando Hudson (LAD – 2B)
• Kendry Morales (LAA – OF)
• Josh Beckett (Bos – SP)
• James Shields (TB – SP)
• Joakim Soria (KC – RP)
• Brad Ziegler (Oak – RP)
• Chien-Ming Wang (NYY – SP)
• Hong-Chih Kuo (LAD – SP,RP)
• Aaron Harang (Cin – SP)
• Grant Balfour (TB – RP)
• Oliver Perez (NYM – SP)

We’ll see how I fare for the season and if my attention span wanes over the course of the year.

So when looking for a silver lining in this albatross of a tournament, its kind of fitting that someone who knows something of returning safely would bring the brightest spot to the tournament in the form of Sgt. Felix Perez, who carried a flag to the game that he brought with him from his home to his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Image: Newsday

Yahoo: It accompanied Perez to Dolphin Stadium on Tuesday night. He needed some luck for his team, the United States, in its must-win World Baseball Classic game against Puerto Rico. Perez wore a Team USA hat and a Team USA hoodie, and his little sister, Jessica, draped his flag across her shoulders. The United States’ 6-5 come-from-behind victory in the ninth inning sent them into a frenzy. She danced around. He sat in his motorized wheelchair and roared.

On the way out, the 27-year-old Perez placed the flag in his lap and leaned over to a security guard manning Gate G. He was hoping some players from Team USA might sign it.

While this might seem like a small request what happened next was truly remarkable.

“The next thing I know,” Perez said, “I’m getting called to come back in there.”

And so began the coolest 30 minutes of Felix Perez’s life. On an evening when he felt especially proud to be an American – when a group of his sporting heroes wearing his country’s name across their chests banded together to win a game they had no business winning – Perez found himself surrounded by them, doused with celebratory Miller Lites, with the American flag that was with him during the worst moment of his life passed around the room and signed by every player on the team.

“Everybody,” Perez said.

Then they handed him a ball filled with signatures.

“Everybody,” Perez said.

The half-hour went too fast. Jimmy Rollins, who scored the winning run, wanted to chat more. David Wright, who drove it in, couldn’t hear enough about how the New York Mets are Perez’s favorite team. Almost half the team surrounded Perez for a photograph, the flag draped around his torso, a smile on every face, and none brighter than his.

Now that is a true class act from a team that has often felt like the rod team in their own country – These players took time that they didn’t have to give to offer a tribute to a real hero who risked his life so that they could play the game he loves every day.

Even if the team falls short in winning the tournament, yesterday’s event shows that they have already won and hopefully won over some fans.

Image Daylife.com

In the business of baseball, it is important for teams to make as much money that they can. Whether it be merchandising, TV contracts or tickets, the objective is to turn a profit.

When a team has attendance issues, they may install a flexible pricing platform where they raise prices for rivals and appealing opponents (or teams whose fan base travels well Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals). This is an old practice and probably frustrating for the fans of the local nine looking to take their family out to random games. Take the Tampa Bay Rays for example: An outfield ticket is $17 for a regular game, $20 for marquee games and $24 for Prime games. Note the Rays don’t make it easy to find the definition of each game.

While I see no reason to argue with the pricing model, I do take exception for the new plan that I read about in Sports Illustrated from the . Instead of pricing per opponent, fans can expect to pay more/less pending on who the starter is for 2,000 of the hardest to sell tickets. Expect to pay more for NL Cy Young Award Winner Tim Lincecum each time he toes the rubber.

The price range is between $5-$50 with a day-to-day fluctuation of just $.50. Doesn’t sound bad and initial projections show $810,000 increase in revenue if all tickets are sold for a five-spot.

The plan would make sense, especially for a team looking to find a way to pay Barry Zito’s insane contract. However,

Image Daylife.com

I can’t help but laugh especially when the Giant’s VP of Ticket Services Russ Stanley notes that the light went on for this idea – scalpers during Barry Bonds’ home run chase.

“It was our softest opponent, softest day of the week, and tickets were only $10. We could have been charging $50,” noting that scalpers were bringing that in.

Only in America can scalpers start a trend on tickets in a sport married to its traditions. And if you were wondering the Giants have distanced themselves from Bonds and his legal circus.

Image SICovers.com

There was a time not so long ago that Sports Illustrated was known for putting curses on its cover boys, Life of Riley and a swimsuit issue. However after Riley jumped ship, there was no reason to read the back page and the cover jinx seemed to fade away (here and here).

While the magazine did add Dan Patrick, yes the former ESPN stalwart, that wasn’t the real story — Sports Illustrated turned into a first-class marketer for their authors’ books, even gracing the most recent cover.

First it was Tom Verducci and Joe Torre telling all about his Yankee years. The book excerpt shed some light into the behind the scenes drama. First there was the fallout with the GM and then the hoopla with Alex Rodriguez being a Jeter-junkie and A-Fraud. Then in the most recent issue, the aforementioned A-Rod graces the cover. However, its not for any heroic deed, but rather being exposed as yet another dirty player of the steroid era.

In the case of Verducci, the plug propelled his book to the top of the NY Times Best Seller list, prompting a book tour that would be more fitting for J.K. Rowling. As for Selena Roberts’ piece/excerpt, her book has been pushed up for an April publication.

No question as a timely sale for Opening Day. While I have no qualms with anyone making money, I do wonder where the line is with being a journalistic outlet and becoming a self-promoting platform. There is no doubt that having a best-selling author and scooping all major news outlets with bringing down baseball’s golden boy latest * will help sell magazines. However, why is a propaganda piece gracing the pages of a magazine that costs subscribers $54 a year?

I doubt that I will ever have an answer to the question. The stories may have peaked my interest, but I would rather wait for the paperback and I am kind of frustrated that two issues were filed with excerpts of three books – last I checked it was a sports magazine, not Readers’ Digest.

On the other side of the coin I think that it is a pure marketing genius by offering a product to your audience while promoting your writers. SI has managed to monetize their customers in every way possible.

Image courtesy of Careerhub.typepad.com

As you ponder that, I’ll break into my story. While at college, I fell into the world of sports. Not as an athlete, but rather an intern with the NJ Devils. After a semester working there, I landed a gig as a media relations intern with the NY Knicks. After these two experience, I figured that sports was for me. It was fun, exciting and made people interested in what I did, however after graduation, I couldn’t land a job and went to work for my stepdad’s construction company trying to figure out what to do.

Then in mid-July, I got a call from the Baltimore Ravens, asking me if I would be interested in an internship for training camp. It was slated to last six weeks, but they selected two people to stay on.  To make a long story short, I wound up with the Ravens for two years and had a lot of fun and met a ton of cool folks.

I know you are probably asking yourself what part of this is the bad nightmarish part. You’ll see

After missing the playoffs, my fellow intern Hilary was told that her last day was the following Monday. Without hearing anything, and having some bugs dropped in my ear that I would be around for a while, I thought that I was safe. I was wrong – and the following week, I said my goodbye’s to the folks that I had spent two long years with.

From there I hung around Charm City a few weeks with no job and when money was short, I returned to Jersey and the family business. While looking for jobs, I wound up landing one with Jaguar and Range Rover. This job lasted all of six hours as I got a call from a minor league baseball team in Long Island that wanted me to be the media relations manager. So without much thought, I quit and was on my way to making less than I had as an intern.

The base salary was $25K and I could make more in commission checks from sales. I was told that sales comes naturally to PR people, as we are inclined to be full of sh%t. I figured it wouldn’t be that bad, and I could do it, however the red flags should have went up soon  after when I was told that they would not pay to relocate me, not even putting me up in a hotel room.

At first the job was great, working in a new sport and running my own department. I had a great intern named Presto and we got along well, then there were the official scorers Red and Joe that truly entertained me.

Red was an old tymer who generally had disdain for the owner of the team and always told people to f-off, when he wasn’t napping. Then there was Joe a male Yenta who smelled from caddying and always had a bad attitude. They did teach me how to be an official scorer, it came in handy during a 25-1 game with all kinds of kooky plays including a Buckner.

During the first year, I realized how hands on the life of a minor league employee was in the independent leagues – cleaning up the park, pulling tarp in the rain, working outside events and attending parades and other promo events. Not only did I show up daily before eight, but routinely worked until after midnight for weeks straight. Since there was no travel money, I also was writing away game recaps from the friendly confines of my desk. Work weeks often hovered around 70-80 hours a week.

The PR work also became a drag as the local media outlet did not send out a quality reporter and most times it was a burden for them to be there. So all of the releases and game notes that I crafted turned out to be recycling. I also produced magazines and a media guide, that I am not sure if 10 all season were purchased. So it began to wear on me and I also got tapped to do PR for the league as well which took away much of the free time that I had. The crowning moment was getting us on CNBC.

Note: In the two years I lived on the Island, I was 10 min. from the beach and saw it twice.

Image courtesy of NYT

As long as my coffee pot was full and I had some energy drinks I was fine. It was in my first offseason that I realized that the job might not be for me as I entered the sales season. There was the need to constantly fill out call sheets and a pressure to sell-sell-sell. Going into meetings with small business owners, I would feel guilty of bilking them out of hard earned cash – and also thier entire marketing budget – for advertising.

Believe it or not, I lost money that offseason as accounts decided against renewing and I only brought in two new contracts. So I had to learn to live on a shoestring budget and make Ramen the meal of choice. The season did not turn out much better.

The team was going through a management shift and I became the favorite target for anger and spite. The exiting manager promised the sky and I fell for it thinking I was going to be getting a raise. On his way out, I was assured that I would be taken care of. Funny how that term means different things to different people.

During my review, I brought up salary and the new GM informed me that I made enough money. After hearing that I laughed, since when is $25,000 a lot of money for someone living in Suffolk County New York? Informed him that he would need to find another PR person.

Unemployment or working at Burger King would have paid more than I was making. In turn, I wound up job hunting and landing a job in Massachusetts to be closer to my girlfriend. Leaving behind the job was not as hard as leaving the people I was friends with and wondering how they could stay working there. After I left I was also made to be the villain as many people opened their eyes and realized how bad it was and left as well.

I began thinking of this experience dwelling on the economy and noticing how many people are doing things that don’t make them happy. I also wondered how many of them were in the so called dream job? Hopefully they don’t wind up in a situation like mine.

Let me know what you think, I’d be happy to share similar stories as well…