Jose Bautista accused by Damien Cox of being a Toronto Blue Jay

Before Steve Simmons was making dumb statements online, there was Damien Cox.

Damien Cox... Damien Cox seems to have mastered the art of making bold statements without actually making bold statements. His latest 'Star' column is accusing Jose Bautista, who hit 2 home runs in a 3-2 Blue Jay win over the Yankees Monday night, of taking drugs.

The great news for Bautista is that these numbers will surely net him an enormous increase on his current $2.4 million salary when his contract expires. That would motivate any player to find a way to improve his stats.

The Blue Jays, we know, have quietly become known as a bit of a nest for alleged steroid abusers over the years. Clemens played here. Gregg Zaun has been implicated. Ditto for Troy Glaus.

And now comes Bautista. Blue Jay fans will, of course, angrily respond to the suggestion that everything isn't on the up-and-up, just as I remember getting bushels of bitter emails from baseball fans when questioning Mark McGwire's open use of androstenedione back when he was smashing Roger Maris' record.

This seems to be an implication that not just Bautista, but ever single Toronto Blue Jay in the team's history has been juicing. "Joe Carter? He played for the same organization as Troy Glaus. Think about it, guys: Pat Hentgen played in Skydome, LIKE ROGER CLEMENS DID!!!!"

The beauty with Cox is that he can get away with making his stupid, baseless arguments because he's not alleging that Jose Bautista's cap size has grown by 1000% over the last three months. He's alleging Jose Bautista to have played for an organization that has had some players with steroid problems, like every single Major League Baseball team for the last twenty years.

The post had the side-effect of inspiring a "Cox Bloc" post, where Godd Till alleges that Damien Cox is taking drugs because other writers take drugs, and the argument is virtually the same.

But one is intentionally funny, and the other is just pure stupidity.

After the game, Cox took to Twitter, where he was either distancing himself from his argument or providing further evidence.

"So adorable to watch baseball media circling the wagons. Just like they did with McGwire. . .and Sosa. . .and Clemens. . .and Zaun. . . ."

"Don't forget, it wasn't baseball media that brought down Bonds. They watched McGwire openly keep stuff in his locker, cheered him on."

"My favourite so far is the one that delivers a solemn lecture on ethics and reporting in the cyber era. Gosh, we are so impressed."

I don't get this guy. He's trying to circle the media wagons around Bautista, like they did for McGwire. But now the media are cheering McGwire on and, because we're in the cyber era we're... wait... what?

Steve Simmons has become a parody of himself

The Toronto Sun's Steve Simmons, fervent defender of lazy sportswriters, and yet another clown who does not understand the salary cap, has taken some heat recently.

Quite understandably, Simmons became front-and-centre online thanks to his legally correct yet ethically bankrupt defense of colleague Dave Fuller during the Pensio Plan Puppets saga.

Simmons has now come out comparing Cristobal Huet signing in Switzerland on loan from Chicago to Ilya Kovalchuk making $3.5 million more than his cap hit.

"Transferring Huet to the Swiss League is a circumvention of the salary cap," Simmons writes, and quite surprisingly, he credits CBC's Jeff Marek for the idea. Huet has one of the more egregious problem contracts in the NHL at $5.625 million.

Funnily enough, Jeff Marek never explicitly said that the Huet deal was circumvention. Marek said that some could see it as against the spirit of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. While I think that Marek is wrong, I think it's fair to point out that Jeff Marek is not as stupid as Steve Simmons.

For one, Simmons makes me imagine that he thinks every time a problem contract is moved, it's cap circumvention. Loaning a player to Europe is a creative way of getting rid of a problem contract.

The word 'circumvention' in this case is just mind-numbingly stupid because circumvention implies that you're getting around an obstacle, in this instance, the salary cap.

But if the Chicago Blackhawks aren't paying Cristobal Huet and he isn't playing for them, you're not getting around the salary cap obstacle. There is no obstacle. Capiche, Simmons?

Later in the evening, Simmons wondered via text message whether he Blue Jays lead the American League in baserunners thrown out at home or not. Naturally, the official account for the Pension Plan Puppets called him out on it:

"Maybe," they wrote, "as a sports journalist, you could find out for us. Would be interesting to know."

This incited Simmons to reply to the message in a manner that makes us unsure whether Steve Simmons' "Official Twitter account" is just a well-done parody.

Here's a tip to the media: you may yet be used to having your thoughts never escape the comfortable regions of your own subscriber base. While I encourage every writer, blogger, musician or anybody looking for exposure to use the social media service, keep in mind that Twitter is a place where your intellectual property, or lack thereof, is stored online. Don't try to be too 'edgy' if all you are is a lazy sportswriter, who's publication is beaten on scoops by three days.

Toronto Sun lifts Czech translation from Leafs blog

Tomas Kaberle will be traded, but that isn't really the big story here. Dave Fuller of the Toronto Sun "broke" the story on Tomas Kaberle's father suggesting that the Leaf defenseman doesn't like Ron Wilson, attributing Czech website Hokej.cz.

SUN link

But a couple of days before that, Leafs blog Pension Plan Puppets ran the same story, but it was translated into English by a Canadian living in the Czech Republic known to the PPP boys as Romdgpce.

PPP link

Here is a quote from the PPP story:

The possibility of moving Tomas Kaberle from Toronto has already been discussed for many years now and it was generally expected to happen just after the end of last year. "I have to admit that I expected it a bit too. I really don't understand Tomas staying on in Toronto," said Frantisek Kaberle senior

PPP alleges that the Sun ran the same quote without attribution, and the online version of the story has that quote deleted.

This is the Google Translation of the same quote:

A possible replacement Tomas Kaberle of Toronto is talking for several years. Všeobecné očekávání bylo, že k němu dojde právě po skončení uplynulého ročníku. General expectations were that it occurs just after the end of last year. "Musím přiznat, že jsem to tak trochu čekal taky. Setrvání Tomáše v Torontu moc nerozumím," kroutí hlavou hráčův tatínek František Kaberle starší. "I must admit that I waited a bit too. Persisting Thomas in Toronto, you do not understand," the player's father shakes his head Frantisek Kaberle older.

What are the odds that the Sun does not only employ a Czech-to-English translator, but that that translator happens to be Romdgpce?

And as I am typing this, TSN continues to quote the Toronto Sun for breaking the story.

*CORRECTION - Romdgpce is a Canadian living in the Czech Republic who translated the article for PPP blogger blurr1974*

*UPDATE - Commenter Bower Power from PPP has a side-by-side comparison of quotes.*

*UPDATE x2 - Oh boy... it happened again.*

Sportsnet One: The Phantom Menace?

Mustachioed D1 soccer enthusiast Andrew Bucholtz wrote a poignant post this morning on the availability of top-tier European football on Canadian channels, or lack thereof. Buried deep within the post is a criticism of Sportsnet One, the new flagship cable channel of the Rogers media empire, and their attempt to screw the rest of us.

Sportsnet One is essentially Sportsnet HD. It shows the Raptors, Blue Jays, Oilers, Flames, Canucks and Senators, with the hockey teams being restricted to their own markets.

So really, the only alternative programming that Sportsnet One will offer is European football, but, as Bucholtz points out,

1: Sportsnet One is available only on Rogers carriers.

2: Rogers only offers cable to Ontario, New Brunswick and Newfoundland.

For now, the only thing we'll be missing out on is Rogers' rights to Premiership games. For now. Keep in mind this summer that the Vancouver Canucks took on the communcations giant as a business partner this summer.

13 Canucks games to be broadcast on Sportsnet One

Since BC viewers are unable to get Rogers One, this means there will be pressure on Shaw, the Western Canadian cable company, as well as sattelite carriers, to carry the Rogers channel.

The Canucks generally have 11-17 pay-per-view games per season. The package is about $11 a game or $15 in HD. If Shaw begins carrying Sportsnet One at, say, $5 a month, it disguises the cost of pay-per-view games as a regular cable channel, offering nothing that the old Sportsnet didn't do already.

Good business? Hell yes. Ethical? Hell no. It's not just the Canucks, but the Oilers and Flames each have 58 games to air via Sportsnet, without the release stating how many will be reserved for the Sportsnet One broadcast.

This would be the television equivalent to money-laundering. How many Canuck, Flame and Oiler fans refused to buy the pay-per-view broadcasts because of the inherent bias of the phrase? Under the 'Sportsnet ONE' umbrella, it's just another cable channel, like TSN2.

Unlike TSN2, however, Sportsnet is not actually committed to bringing sports programming to our homes, but more determined to shut us out from it.

Canadian basketball team prepares for worlds; Canada doesn't

Last night at the Air Canada Centre, the Canadian senior men's team defeated the French national team 59-68 in preparation for the 2010 FIBA World Championships.

The FIBA World Championships, unlike the IIHF hockey championship, is not played in season, thus actually attracts pretty solid teams. The Americans, for example, are sending Kevin Durant, Andre Iguodala, Lamar Odom, Rudy Gay and Derrick Rose. The Canadians have a few notables; while Steve Nash no longer plays internationally, Joel Anthony of the Miami Heat and two Gonzaga University standouts Robert Sacre and Kelly Olynyk are playing.

So how come, for a pre-tournament game, just 2,652 spectators showed up at the Air Canada Centre?

In the wake of the World Cup and the Olympics where we sat through all kinds of faux-sports purely in the interests of national pride, having fewer than 3,000 people to support the National team is just week.

Heck--go to the FIBA.com website, and take a look at the broadcast carriers for the tournament: Click, and scroll down and you'll see that Canada doesn't even have a TV broadcaster for the tournament.

Phone calls to Rogers and TSN were, of course, not returned, but I was able to get in touch with somebody at the CRTC who said that while he had no idea what the tournament even was, there's a good chance that international basketball doesn't appeal enough to Canadians to get one of our major sports carriers to cough up cash to show the events.

"If it's expensive, they'll probably pass on it and show us poker and darts instead," he told me.

Canada had four channels which offered pretty much round-the-clock Olympic coverage. Canada had two channels which shut off their regular programming for a month to show us the FIFA World Cup. The idea that one broadcaster won't bite the bullet to show a dedicated [very] few the FIBA World Championships shows our major sports carriers their business-savvy more than it does their commitment to complete sports programming.