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http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/baseball/flb/story?id=3309092

Matthew Berry claimed 75% of his bold predictions for 2008 would come true…
 
…Unfortunately for him, he was correct on just 14.8%
 
*9 right
 
*52 wrong
 
Most notably “off” predictions:
 
Troy Glaus ends the season with more home runs and RBIs than Albert Pujols
 
Nick Swisher hits 35 home runs and gets more than 120 RBIs
 
Erik Bedard finishes the season as the #1 overall fantasy pitcher
 
Justin Verlander finishes as the second best fantasy pitcher in the American League
 
Chad Billingsley finishes the year with an ERA over 4.00 and is considered one of the fantasy busts of the season
 
Manny Ramirez hits fewer than 30
 
Joe Borowski keeps his closer gig all season long and saves 40-plus games again
 
Richie Sexson bounces back
 
Dan Haren finishes the year with an ERA worse than 4.00
 
Chris Denorfia goes 20 and 10
 
WTF…..???…
 
Miguel Tejada hits 30 home runs and has a resurgence in Houston
 
Ryan Garko hits .300 and 30 home runs
 
Mark Prior wins double digit games this year and strikes out more than 150
 
Pedro Feliz hits 30 home runs
 
Shawn Hill pitches more than 150 innings with a sub 3.30 ERA and wins double-digit games
 
Yorvit Torrealba hits 15 home runs
 
Conclusion: Maybe Mr. Berry should be replaced with Mr. NuttySicilian? Or perhaps a blind, Malaysian autistic dog (just kidding, too harsh!).

That’s right…Our Yankee Bloggers post was mentioned on ESPN this morning! This is by far the most exciting news ever for this blog! I want to thank our incredible team of Yankess Bloggers (The Gorman 3) for their incredible posts day in and day our. Here, see for yourselves!

Lee has no sympathy for steroid users

On a day where Alex Rodriguez met 200 reporters to pour his heart out on his past steroid use, every spring camp had steroid clouds floating about. Unless a Cubs player is highlighted in steroid allegations, this is the only post that i will make on steroids. It is a problem in baseball, and I’m sure everyone accepts that, (well maybe everyone apart from Marvin Miller, who gave a unconvincing interview on steroids not being a problem during the Michael Kay show on 1050ESPN last week) however I’m a baseball fan, and i love the game, so i would much rather talk about the on field events rather than chime out yet another story on steroids, that people are getting very bored of hearing about.

Derek Lee, one of the most loved Cubs was asked for his opinions not only on A-Rod but on steroid users in general, and here is his reply:

“There should be zero tolerance,” Lee said. “We’ve had plenty of warnings. There’s no excuses. You get caught now, there should be no sympathy and you do your time.”

“I think a year is — if you got banned, I wouldn’t feel sorry for a guy,” he said. “Maybe if some guy got caught and truly didn’t know what he was taking, in that instance [it'd be different]. But if you’re taking steroids, there should be no sympathy.”

A scathing review by Derek Lee, who has admitted that he has been asked the point blank question of whether he took steroids, and even if he denies it, who is to believe him? Palmeiro denied it, Alex Rodriguez denied it. Every player in this era will be tarred with the same brush, if this was ‘the culture’ like Alex Rodriguez suggested in his interview with ESPN’s Peter Gammons, then who can we believe? that is the saddest part of this whole predicament, we simply don’t know who’s records are tainted and who’s are not.

Derek Lee is not the first person to come out and ask for harsher punishments, David Ortiz said that the punishment should be harder, Ozzie Guillen, the man who always has something to say also commented on it. I heard a fan call into ESPN yesterday, and her simple statement was, shut these players up!, i could not disagree more with this comment, if there are going to be changes to the punishment for steroid users, the players union is going to have to accept them, what better way to encourage this to happen than speak out agains’t the users. This ‘fan’ was telling players to be quiet, I would like them to be louder and more vocal on the issue.

With the Barry Bonds trial just around the corner, I’m afraid the steroid stories in the national and international media have only just begun.