Free Republic

Giambi's legacy with Yankees? Generosity Ken Davidoff 12:00 PM EDT, September 17, 2008 It could be that Jason Giambi's finest hour as a Yankee didn't occur on the field, or in the dugout, or in front of a grand jury in San Francisco. No, Giambi, whose colorful Yankees tenure is very likely coming to an end after seven memorable seasons, arguably shined the brightest in a back room of the Yankees' clubhouse, in the fall of 2003. The Yankees were holding their "shares meeting," when the players who have been on the club for the entire season convene and decide...

It's easy to understand the media's love-fest with Albert Pujols. The St. Louis Cardinals slugger crushes baseballs into the outer realms. And more important in the wake of the BALCO fiasco, he has yet to be tainted by evidence of steroid use. Pujols has 25 homers in 51 games played, putting him on pace to break Barry Bonds' record of 73 home runs in a single season. Both fans and rival players breathlessly praise Pujols as they once did Bonds. St. Louis' marketing department is constantly churning with new ideas for milking the Albert cash cow. And within baseball's press...

The congressional hearings on steroids have the potential to be one of the most important events in baseball's long history. More important than any lockout or union strike. More important than the 1980s' epidemic of cokehead players. You might have to go all the way back to the Black Sox scandal to find an event of equal meaning. The reason is simple: The use of steroids, like the fixing of the 1919 World Series, goes directly to the integrity of baseball. Any time there is doubt about the final results, about wins and losses, batting averages and home runs, every...

Professional baseball–America’s pastime. You don’t have to be an avid fan of the game to know the names of Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig and other greats, or to realize that the sport of baseball today is not as it was when the three previously mentioned greats played. As a radio ad I once heard asked rhetorically, “how did the word ‘negotiate’ make it from the business page to the sports page?’ Admittedly, I am not a huge sports fan. Nevertheless, I understand the basic rules, now how to read the statistics, and whenever the Red Sox make it...

New York Yankees star Jason Giambi told a federal grand jury that he had injected himself with human growth hormone during the 2003 baseball season and had started using steroids at least two years earlier, The Chronicle has learned. Giambi has publicly denied using performance-enhancing drugs, but his Dec. 11, 2003, testimony in the BALCO steroids case contradicts those statements, according to a transcript of the grand jury proceedings reviewed by The Chronicle. The onetime Oakland A's first baseman and 2000 American League Most Valuable Player testified that in 2003, when he hit 41 home runs for the Yankees, he...

Synthetic urine, which sounds like something more likely to generate snickers than sales, is turning into a small success for a Kansas company. Dyna-Tek Industries, a company bought by Kevin Dyches and his wife, Sandra, five years ago, has developed synthetic urine for the research industry. One of their first customers is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites), which made a big purchase this summer and has hinted it could be a major buyer long into the future. Other research institutions and laboratories are also looking into Dyna-Tek's product, called Surine. "We have been very...