Not anymore. As of Aug. 24, Bautista is just 10 home runs away from the most unlikely 50-home run season since Brady Anderson.

A player destined to be remembered only as a utility guy has turned into an All-Star, power-hitting third baseman on the verge of reaching a home run total that was all but impossible to achieve just a quarter century ago.

And the one question you have to ask is, what’s this guy on? Of course, as of now, there’s no  proof Bautista is on anything more than Gatorade and Power Bars. But you still have to wonder, right?

We can thank The Steroid Era for that cynicism. Maybe if that had existed when Anderson was turning in his career year, things would be different.

Let’s go back to Anderson. For those who don’t remember, he hit exactly 50 home runs for the Orioles in 1996, 26 more than he hit in any other season. That year, only Mark McGwire hit more home runs (52), and we now know how he did that. Those two were only the fifth players since 1965 to hit 50 or more home runs in a season, joining George Foster (1977), Cecil Fielder (1990) and Albert Belle (1995).

There were certainly questions at the time of how Anderson could have topped his career total in one season, but the word “fluke” was used more than the word “steroids.”

Not today. Not after the Mitchell Report. Not after the greatest hitter – Barry Bonds – and the greatest pitcher – Roger Clemens – of that era are facing federal indictments based on their alleged steroid use.

Before the 2010 season, Bautista, who as of Aug. 24 had 40 home runs for the Blue Jays, had a previous high of 16 home runs, which he accomplished in 2006 while a member of the Pirates.

At 29 years of age, Bautista is having a career year and on the verge of the first 50 homer season since 2007. Who saw this coming? No one, that’s who. Anyone who tells you differently – including Bautista – is pulling your leg.

It’s unfortunate for the player, but it’s a lot harder to prove he isn’t taking anything. It would be nice to think that since there is drug testing in baseball these days, if Bautista or anyone else was juicing, he’d get caught. But be realistic, there will always be ways for players to cheat the system.

Not to say that’s what is going on here, but after what has happened in the last 15 years, the questions have to be asked. It’s too bad, but MLB – owners and players alike – brought it on itself.

Technorati Tags: Barry Bonds, Brady Anderson, Jose Bautista, Mark McGwire, MLB, Roger Clemens, steroids

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that Damon has informed the Detroit Tigers, his current team, that he won’t be waiving his no-trade clause and return to the Red Sox.

Damon had until Wednesday to decide, but apparently went with his heart, which is what Detroit manager Jim Leyland told him to do.

Maybe Damon really does love Detroit, as he’s quoted as saying. But there’s gotta be more to it, considering the animosity felt by many Red Sox fans after Damon left as a free agent after the 2005 season and signed with the – gasp – Yankees. While I’d guarantee fans would cheer Damon now, he can’t possibly forget the way they’ve booed him ever since he left.

One somewhat odd aspect of this story is what Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon had to say about Boston’s potential addition of Damon.

Maddon told the St. Petersburg Times that if Damon can’t be a Ray, he’d rather he stay a Tiger. Or go somewhere else. But then Maddon followed that up with this.

“Johnny Damon is a very good baseball player. He still has a no-trade clause in his contract. I think he needs to really, really understand what a great community Detroit is. It would be a great place to raise a family, even if he explores some of the suburbs, for instance, Birmingham – it’s a beautiful little enclave over there. If you really sat down, Jim Leyland, a great manager – not that Tito (Terry Francona)’s not, Tito’s wonderful - but there’s a lot of good things going on in Detroit. I’m sure he does not want to miss it. … ’’

Someone should pass that along to the people at visitdetroit.com and get Maddon a job for the offseason.

Technorati Tags: Baseball, Joe Maddon, Johnny Damon, Red Sox, Tigers

Now, Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated is saying it was the Red Sox who claimed Damon. However, Damon has eight teams to which he can be assigned, and Boston is not one of them.

While Damon can agree to go to Boston, would he do it, considering the way the fans reacted to him leaving town after the 2005 season?

Of course, it’s possible the Red Sox put a claim in for Damon just to keep the Yankees or Rays from getting him. Damon has also said that if he’s traded, he’d like to return to Detroit next season.

At 5 1/2 games out of a playoff spot and two “ace” pitchers with ERAs over 4.5 and an injury list long enough to be its own team, even if Damon agrees to come to Boston, it’s still too little, too late for the Red Sox.

Technorati Tags: Baseball, Johnny Damon, MLB, Red Sox, Tigers

• Not the way Boston wanted to start the second half, losing to Texas 7-2. After overachieving for most of the first half, the Red Sox look to really be in trouble. One good reason: someone said to me last night that he had never heard of some of the guys on the roster. My response: welcome to being a Pirates fan.
• The Celtics finally announced Paul Pierce’s new four-year contract, and Boston’s captain had something interesting to say about the direction of the team. Although it was nice they kept himself and Ray Allen, Pierce commented on how the Celtics seemed out of the loop with all the big free agent signings and now there were “slim pickins” among free agents. So after the team had locked up the Big Three, who did Pierce expect them to go after? And what money were they going to use to sign someone?
• John Daly is among the leaders after the first round of the British Open and all anyone can talk about is his pants. Given his history, we should be happy he’s wearing some.
• Remember, if you’re going to be a cyclist, you can’t headbutt the competition, even if you’re doing it to help your team captain. Mark Renshaw learned that the hard way at the Tour de France, when he was tossed out of the race for headbutting Julian Dean. One other possible reason for Renshaw’s actions: he is from Australia and Dean is from New Zealand.
• The MLS has said it won’t allow US World Cup hero Landon Donovan to be loaned to anyone outside the league. Meanwhile, Donovan has denied the reports that he has a British “love child.”

Technorati Tags: Celtics, golf, John Daly, Landon Donovan, Paul Pierce, Red Sox, soccer, Tour de France

• The Red Sox moved closer to getting Manny Delcarman, Clay Buchholz and Josh Beckett back from injury. All three will make rehab appearances in the next three days. Barring set backs, it’s not impossible to think all three will be back before the trade dealine.
• While there’s been talk of potential trades for the Red Sox, another AL East made a deal on Wednesday. The Blue Jays sent shortstop Alex Gonzalez to the Braves as part of a five-player deal.
• The Celtics introduced Jermaine O’Neal and announced the re-signing of Ray Allen. The team is said to still be looking to add big men, along with former Gonzaga star Adam Morrison.
• Speaking of the NBA, Billy Hunter, the executive director of the players’ association, says the union doesn’t believe commissioner David Stern when he claims the league lost $370 million. I find it hard to believe when LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh just signed for a combined $327.7 million.
• If James, Wade and Bosh are going to win a NBA title, next year might be the time to do it. With the league’s current labor deal set to expire in 2011, there could be a lengthy lockout.

Technorati Tags: David Stern, Dwayne Wade, Jermaine O'Neal, Josh Beckett, LeBron James, NBA, Red Sox, trade deadline

But the one thing everyone will be talking about in the days and weeks to come is Armando Galarraga. Or worse yet, Jim Joyce.

The scene: Two outs in the bottom of the ninth in a game where the Tigers lead the Indians 3-0. All Galarraga, a 28-year-old pitcher from Venezuela, had to do was get one more out to complete the 21st perfect game in MLB history, and the third this season.

Cleveland’s Jason Donald hit a ground ball that Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera fielded well away from the bag. He threw to Galarraga covering first and, as every replay of the play shows, Galarraga beat Duncan to the base.

But Joyce called him safe.

Good-bye perfection.

After the game, Joyce watched the replay and admitted his mistake. Not a lot of umpires – or people, for that matter – would do such a thing, but it sounds like Joyce is that type of guy.

Without a doubt, we’ll hear a lot in the following days about instant replay in baseball and the quality of umpires in this era.

But what Major League Baseball should not do is perhaps the most obvious, and sentimental, move  it could make: overrule the call and award Galarraga the perfect game. There are already those who feel it should happen, but it really shouldn’t.

Of the 20 perfect games, 11 happened prior to 1986 – the year the NFL first adopted instant replay, which we will use as a reference point. That means if Joyce’s call happened in one of those first 11 games, we would never even know it was wrong because the technology wasn’t there.

But now it is available, and if Joyce had been allowed to use the replay during the game that would be one thing; but to use it after the fact is not right. By not using instant replay in the game, MLB runs the risk of human error on every single call. That’s what this was, human error, and as egregious as it is, it’s part of the game.

And what if the play had happened in the first inning? Maybe there would be some angst, but definitely not the outrage there was on Wednesday night.

Two other things I’d like to point out that have nothing to do with the call:

1. Why was Cabrera fielding that ball? If you watch the replay, the ball was practically hit to the second baseman. If Cabrera had correctly fielded his position, Detroit second baseman Carlos Guilen fields the ball and likely gets Duncan without incident.
2. Galarraga had just three strikeouts, but threw 66 of his 87 pitches for strikes. Think about that for a moment. The strikeouts accounted for nine of his 66 strikes; 24 of them were strikes that were hit for outs and one was the ball Duncan hit that should have been an out. That means that he threw 53 pitches that weren’t put into play. All that while Daisuke Matsuzaka was throwing 109 pitches in 6 2/3 innings.

Technorati Tags: Armando Galarraga, Jim Joyce, MLB, perfect game

• This is going to be the biggest free agent summer in NBA history. So why shouldn’t the big names get together and discuss where they all might want to play? Well, they’re not, so says the agent of Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. So when Wade, Bosh, LeBron James, Amare Stoudemire and Joe Johnson all end up playing for the Heat or the Cavaliers or the Nets, it will just be coincidence.
• In other NBA news, the finals actually start this week, just 50 days after the end of the regular season. And to get you ready for another Lakers-Celtics series, Ted Green tried to get Lakers fans to renew their hatred for everything green. And of course he failed.
• The Flyers trail the Blackhawks 2-0 in the Stanley Cup Finals, but it’s been Philly’s Chris Pronger who may be making the most noise. Pronger isn’t doing anything different on the ice, at least not until the end of the game, where he has scooped up the game puck and taken it with him. How dare he steal the Blackhawks memories.
• Phillies’ starter Jamie Moyer is on the verge of becoming the all-time home run king among pitchers. Home runs allowed, that is. Considering that Moyer started pitching the same year that both the Challenger and Chernobyl went boom, I’m not surprised. In fact, Moyer made his Major League debut the day before the Celtics drafted Len Bias.
• And how’s this for fast news? NBA Rookie of the Year Tyreke Evans was pulled over after driving over 100 miles per hour on Interstate-80.

Technorati Tags: Blackhawks, Chris Bosh, Chris Pronger, Dwayne Wade, Flyers, Jamie Moyer, LeBron James, NBA, Stanley Cup

• By now, everyone has heard about Steve Consalvi, the 17-year-old Phillies fan who ran onto the field during Monday night’s game and was tasered by the police. Well, it didn’t take long for another fan to see if it would happen to him. This time a 34-year-old fan ran on the field Tuesday night and was apprehended by police without the use of a Taser. He’ll be charged with defiant trespass, disorderly conduct and narcotics possession, which means he was dumb enough to run onto the field with some kind of drug in his pocket. Only in Philly.
• On a sad note, longtime Tigers announcer Ernie Harwell died on Tuesday at the age of 92.
• I doubt we’ll ever know for sure if the Bruins’ Marc Savard really did bite the Flyers’ Dan Carcillo during Game 2 of  their series Monday night. Carcillo is still upset about it, calling what Savard supposedly did cowardly. He must not remember earlier this season, when teammate Scott Hartnell was accused of biting Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang.
• There’s no place for biting in any sport, but what did Carcillo expect to happen when he went after the head of a guy who just returned from a serious concussion? He’s lucky no one else came in to take off his own melon.

Technorati Tags: Bruins, Dan Carcillo, Ernie Hartwell, Flyers, Marc Savard, Phillies

I’ll start with just this: 20-0.

No, it’s not a football score. It’s a baseball score. A baseball score that has done something that I thought no baseball score could have done to me.

Before we go too far, let’s get some background.

I first became aware of collegiate and professional sports sometime in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Don’t ask me when specifically, I don’t know the answer.

I remember watching part of the Penguins’ Stanley Cup championships in 1991 and 1992. I remember watching the Steelers playoff loses in 1992 and 1993 and 1994 and, of course, in Super Bowl XXX.

And I remember not being old enough to stay up to watch the Pirates when they were playing the Reds, and later the Braves, in the NLCS.

In fact, I remember the morning after Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS. My Mother woke me up and I looked hopefully at her, and saw the sad look on her face. At the time, I thought she was sharing my disappointment that the Pirates had lost yet again; now I understand she was showing her hurt for her 11-year-old son’s disappointment.

There are three other moments I can pick out of my early sports memories.

One was the 1990 NFC Championship game. I remember my Father rooting hard against the 49ers, hoping that they would miss out on the chance to win a fifth Super Bowl and break the record they held at that time with the Steelers.

At one point, I asked him what he exactly he wanted to see happen in that game. He responded, not only did he want the 49ers to lose to the Giants, but he wanted them to knock out Joe Montana. Sure enough, Montana was sacked late in the game by New York’s Leonard Marshall and suffered an elbow injury that kept him out for most of the next two seasons.

Memory No. 2 came in November of 1989, during what had been to that point, the annual Pitt-Penn State football game. Sometime during the game, an announcer made note of the rivalry being up in the air, and again, I asked my Dad why. They were no longer going to be independent, was his response. Penn State was set to join the Big Ten in 1990 and the Big East, with Pitt as a member, was to start football in 1991.

(Tangent alert! I’m proud to say I was at the final Pitt-Penn State game at Three Rivers Stadium on Sept. 16, 2000, and I still remember Rod Rutherford running in the game’s lone touchdown. And I will always remember Pitt 12, Penn State 0.)

Finally, memory No. 3 comes to us courtesy of SportsCenter (or maybe Baseball Tonight). In an interview after the 1992 baseball season, Pirates star and free-agent-to-be, Barry Bonds, was asked where he might end up the following season. At some point he mentioned how he’d love to return to Pittsburgh.

And then this happened not too long after.

What 11-year-old wouldn’t want to believe the words coming out of his favorite superstar’s mouth?

Baseball used to be a big deal to me. As a kid, it was the sport I played the most. In third grade, when asked to draw a picture of myself performing my dream job, I drew a picture of myself batting for the Pirates. One summer in college, I purchased a (small) season ticket package to Pirates games.

Now? Baseball is something to keep an eye on between the end of hockey season and the start of football. And in recent years, the only thing worth following with the Pirates was who got traded and to where and for whom.

Maybe as a sports fan, I’m spoiled by the other teams I follow. Just look at 2009 – Steelers win the Super Bowl, Penguins win the Stanley Cup, Pitt basketball makes the Elite Eight for the first time, and Pitt football comes within one point of a BCS Bowl.

Do I even have a right to be upset that the Pirates set an American professional sports record in 2009 by losing for a 17th straight season?

Probably not. But after 20-0? After the worst Pirates’ loss in their 124-year history, I finally FEEL about baseball.

And what I feel, as a fan, is hurt.

I hurt because the closest this team has come to the playoffs in the last 18 years was in 1997, when they were four games UNDER .500.

I hurt because the best lineup this organization has had since then was in 2003, when it consisted of Brian Giles, Jason Kendall and Aramis Ramirez, along with Kenny Lofton, Reggie Sanders, Matt Stairs, Randall Simon, Jack Wilson and Rob Mackowiak.

Laugh all you want, but that’s the best lineup the Pirates have put together in almost two decades, and management matched it with a starting rotation of Kip Wells, Josh Fogg, Kris Benson, Jeff D’Amico and Jeff Suppan. Ugh. No wonder they had a fire sale that season, which brings me to …

I hurt because they gave away Ramirez, their best prospect and home-grown talent since Bonds, for nothing.

Their next best player, Giles, went for two guys with promise – Jason Bay and Oliver Perez. After an impressive rookie year, Perez flamed out. As for Bay …

I hurt because the Pirates traded Bay  for Brandon Moss, Andy LaRoche, Craig Hansen and Bryan Morris. One of those guys is no longer a Pirate, one is hurt and may never play again, one can’t get past Single-A ball and one has been a huge disappointment while he keeps third base warm for Pedro Alvarez, who will probably be traded for three or four players who will probably never amount to anything.

The sad thing is, it wasn’t always like this. For the better part of the 1900s, Pittsburgh was a baseball town.

Consider that from 1900 to 1973, the Pirates won eight National League pennants and four World Series while the Steelers won one playoff game.

Two of the greatest players in history – Honus Wagner and Roberto Clemente – played in Pittsburgh. One of the greatest moments in the sports’ history – Game 7 of the 1960 World Series – happened in Pittsburgh.

And now, in 2010, we get 20-0, the franchise’s worst loss in 18,813 games.

Somewhere inside of me, an 11-year-old boy weeps for the memory of glory passed and the utter disappointment at it never returning. The adult on the outside usually does a good job of blocking out that boy, but on a night like this, it’s hard not to.

Technorati Tags: Aramis Ramirez, Brian Giles, Jason Bay, Pirates

• The Celtics will be without the services of Kevin Garnett for Tuesday’s Game 2 against the Heat. Quentin Richardson, whom Garnett was accused of throwing an elbow at, offered up no apology for his role in the scuffle. And for some reason, Chicago’s Joakim Noah decided to throw out his opinion.
• Perhaps the scariest thing for the Celtics is that Garnett’s spot will be filled by Glen Davis. The question is, which Big Baby will show up? The one who averaged 15.8 points and 5.6 rebounds in last year’s playoffs, or the one from this season, who averaged 6.3 points and wanted to be known as “Uno Uno?”
• Despite their mistakes, the Bruins return to Boston for Monday’s Game 3 tied 1-1 with Buffalo. Don’t expect the Bruins to maintain home-ice though, even though the crowd should be electric. Their 42 points at home was 25th in the NHL, and all five teams below the Bruins missed the playoffs.
• Is it too early to panic regarding the Red Sox and their offense? OK, we’ll give it a little more time.

Technorati Tags: Big Baby, Bruins, Celtics, Kevin Garnett, Red Sox