The Debriefing: SchruteBucks XXIX

The Debriefing is a column that runs every weekday at 9:00 a.m. here on FanHouse. It goes deep into one issue and then bounces around to a plethora of smaller ones ... and does it all in a way that will make you feel like the prettiest girl at the cotillion. Bookmark this page, and visit daily.

+40,000, George Mitchell



The former Senator delivered his own SchruteBuck list yesterday (it received a little bit of media attention), except that in his report, no one actually received any SchruteBucks. There were plenty of deductions, though ... the MLB players union, MLB, Roger Clemens, and Andy Pettitte all took it hard, and probably in that order.

I can't think of a single other thing like this that's happened in sports in my lifetime. A league will acknowledge a problem they have every now and then, and say they're working to fix it ... but never has any league called this kind of press conference, shone the spotlight so brightly on themselves, and said to anyone who would listen, "Hey ... look how messed up we are."

Maybe there wasn't a ton of new information in the report. Maybe it was 300+ pages of interviews with Kirk Radomski and Brian McNamee, and then a bunch of stuff you could've found in Google searches. But it's certainly not useless.

Considering all the different ways in which George Mitchell was hamstrung (no subpoena power, no access to drug test results, and the players union actively working against him), it's rather amazing what he accomplished. He was like Tom Brady working with the Patriots receivers, pre-2007.

And he deserves all the credit in the world for framing his findings as he did. Mitchell basically said to the world, "I know that this isn't comprehensive. A lot of other dudes are cheating. I didn't find out who they are, but I found out that the problem is massive. And the important thing here anyway is that we acknowledge just how widespread this problem is, figure out how we allowed it to happen, and then figure out how to fix it."

It was all very practical, and the report he crafted serves as the perfect jumping off point to do that. Because with the national attention it garnered, it certainly can't be ignored. And it served notice to all the right parties -- the ones who allowed it to happen, and not the ones actually sticking needles in their newly-tarnished buttocks.

+20,000, Bug Selig

I actually think Selig comes out of his whole thing looking pretty good, despite the fact that Mitchell acknowledged that those who govern MLB are at least partly to blame for the mess.

Selig had previously been accused of having, in regards to this whole steroid mess, his head stuck either in the sand or up his ass, or perhaps even up in his sand-filled asscrack.

You can't really say that about him anymore. Selig basically said to George Mitchell, "Take all the time and resources you need, find out as much as you can about this thing, and then feel free to hammer me unmercifully on the biggest national stage you can find." Selig even gave him the hammer.

Mitchell obliged, and Selig's not running from it (not like he could). However, where Selig goes from here is another story entirely ...

-18,000, Bud Selig

It's a mistake for Selig not to take Mitchell's advice to forgo any punishment of individuals who have been caught in the past. In fact, this is something I wish they could have agreed on before Mitchell ever started his investigation.

If they had agreed beforehand (publicly or privately) that no disciplinary action would be taken against those players implicated in the Mitchell Report, and they made sure that the players union knew that ... maybe they'd have gotten a little more cooperation out of the players, and maybe the report could've been a little more comprehensive.

Understandably, Selig feels an obligation to punish anyone who was found to be using ... but honestly, what point does it serve? Mitchell freely acknowledged that he doesn't have a complete list of users, and if Selig were to go back and punish people, he'd just be punishing them for being unlucky enough to have a supplier who would blab. Everyone else (and again, we're acknowledging that there are a ton of them) still gets away clean.

You can't clean this up. You just paid a guy to drill you in public, to make a mess of you, and he's telling you that you can't possibly know how bad the mess is ... and you still want to go clean it up. You can't.

I know Bud Selig doesn't want to look soft, and he wants to keep up his thugged-out gangsta image ... but man, that toothpaste is out of the tube, and it's not going back in. There is absolutely nothing Bud Selig can do that would make people say, "Okay, we've taken care of the steroid era. Anyone who was guilty has been punished, and that era is again untarnished. We're cool."

He's better off spending his time taking Mitchell's advice to form an independent group to make sure that baseball yanks their head out of their sandy asses and starts to build a cleaner future.

+10, Roger Clemens

It was Roger Clemens, though, who was responsible for my absolute favorite part of the day. The report goes into great detail about how Roger Clemens had some guy inject Winstrol, among other things, into his dishonest ass. The guy who's always acted so noble, and like one of the game's grand keepers of tradition and integrity, is forever black-marked. He's stuck in a bag with Barry Bonds for the rest of baseball eternity. That makes me giggle.

But that wasn't my favorite part of the day. It didn't come until later, and it was Clemens' reaction, via his attorney:

"Roger has been repeatedly tested for these substances and he has never tested positive. There has never been one shred of tangible evidence that he ever used these substances and yet he is being slandered today."

One of the other things about which the Mitchell report went into great detail? That Major League Baseball's current method of testing DOES NOT WORK. I love that Clemens' first line of defense is the system that was just exposed publicly and thoroughly for the fraudulent, toothless, garbage that it is. It's like being busted for a racist hate crime, and then saying, "Well, Mark Fuhrman thinks I'm clean."

-56,000, The New York Knicks

There are players in the NBA who are good enough to show up at practice and not bother to put their car in a parking space. Some guys are so important to the team that if they want to ignore the yellow lines and park their car across three handicapped parking spaces ... well, it's not ideal, but they can probably get away with it.

None of these players, however, play for the New York Knicks. In fact, most of these bastards should be showing up to the Garden early on game night and parking cars for season tickets holders.

The New York Times yesterday had an article comparing the Madison Square Garden lifestyles of the Knicks players and the New York Rangers players (via TrueHoop). The Rangers are all wonderful people and ride the subway to work, and that's terrific and all. But I'm really having trouble with the fact that the Knicks can't be bothered to park in parking spaces.

Rangers forward Brendan Shanahan has the breakdown:

"The difference is, we're in parking spaces and they just park anywhere. We actually park in the lines. They just pull up to the door and get out of the car."

It honestly irks me. It's one thing to suck so bad at your job ... but the idea that these oblivious dilbags can be so bad at their job, and still act as if they're so far above the very idea of parking, a fundamental facet of society that we all live with, unquestioned ... I'm just enraged.

This probably isn't a good sign for my own character, but this bothers me more than anything else the Knicks have done, sans sexual harassment ... and this might be worse, but I probably wouldn't be bothered nearly as much if I learned that the Celtics, Pistons, Mavericks, or Spurs did the same thing.

Something tells me that they don't, however.

-127,000, Greivis Vasquez

He's a sophomore guard at Maryland, and he's probably a decent guy ... I don't know. I have no quarrel with him, even though Maryland's lost three of four (including games to Virginia Commonwealth and Ohio). I just don't think I'm ready for a trend of highly-stylized and decorative facial hair.

Via Mister Irrelevant, I'm not ready to deal with this:



This could spark a disturbing trend ... God knows what could happen from here. I'm picturing Tiger Woods with little Nike logos on his cheeks ... Peyton Manning with the word "Chesney" stretching from ear to ear ... Gilbert Arenas with entire blog posts shaved into his face, so people are always asking him to stop so they can read them ... Peter King's SI headshot with a miniature portrait of Brett Favre shaved into the side of his face ... Arthur Blank with "**** My Life" shaved into his mustache.

It's dangerous territory, Grievis. I hope you know what you're doing.

For the Scrapbook ...

Yesterday's MVP

Mario Williams. FanHouse's Stephanie Stradley sure picked a good time to go off on the media for their treatment of Mario Williams. Last night, on the first nationally televised game in Texans history, Williams racked up 3½ sacks on Jay Cutler (and did so while wearing stunning red pajamas), pushing his total on the year up to 13, just half-a-sack short of league leader Patrick Kerney.

Williams, despite some early struggles, has developed into a full-fledged stud at his position. Meanwhile, neither of the guys that the Texas were criticized for not taking, Reggie Bush and Vince Young, can say the same thing. Not yet, anyway.

Hindsight's 20/20 and everything, but ... the second-guessing might not be so easy to do if the initial criticism wasn't so harsh as well.

Sage Rosenfels has a decent game, and Andre Johnson was fantastic working underneath. The run game made all the difference in the world, too ... Ron Dayne and Darius Walker combined for 24 carries and 133 yards, while Selvin Young and Travis Henry managed just 18 carries for 61.

The play of the night, though? Broncos TE Tony Scheffler, courageously scoring the lone Broncos touchdown of the evening while being chased by large men in red pajamas.

Yesterday's Sad Sack (So to Speak)

Doctors Who Do Not Treat Rod Benson's Balls With Enough Respect. There's a right way and a wrong way to handle balls. You might want to act like you don't know this ... but you know it, I know, and doctors should damn sure know it.

Anyway, for the uninitiated, NBA D-Leaguer Rod Benson is a pretty prolific blogger. Life in North Dakota for a Developmental League player offers no shortage of stories to tell ... especially when you've taken six physicals since June.

Via The Postmen comes this story at the Yahoo! NBA Experts Blog, by Benson, about a physical that he had received recently.

This physical was actually really short because they just used all the information from the Nets physical that I did in October. I just laid back on the examination chair while he checked my ears and whatnot. The doctor didn't even check my knees. Then, all too suddenly he says he has to do the testis check. Fine. Whatever. He wouldn't be the first doctor to tell me to pull my pants down. He would, however, be the first doctor NOT to ask me to. He literally strapped his gloves on while I was lying back on this chair, and put his hands down my pants to do the check.

Of course there were issues with this. Namely the fact that there were things in the way of his objective. I was laying down in a lawn chair-style seat in the mummy position. How in the world was he going to do this? I'm used to standing up, giving the doc a little room to operate, then getting on with my life. Mr. Unorthodox here wants to do this the hard way. It was like trying to get socks out of your duffle bag without taking out the clothes on top. All you end up doing is making the whole process more tedious and messing up your perfectly folded clothes, if you know what I mean. I sat there terribly uncomfortable as he attempted to navigate my "duffle bag" with his latex covered fingertips. Maybe I'm a little sick these days, but I distinctly remember thinking that I needed to blog this out. Maybe that's just where I'm at with all these mishaps during physicals.

"Let me just get this guy out of the wayyyy." His words interrupted my blogging thought process and fast forwarded my mind into panic mode. "There, got it. Now cough please."

You know when you get nervous and your voice cracks? My cough had that same nervous sound to it. There was just way too much going on right then for me to fully comprehend it. Luckily it was over from there. He took off his gloves, shook my hand and left the room. The only thing left was to clean the latex dust off of my "socks." Gross.

I don't have much to add to that. I'm sorry about your duffle bag, and next time, you might wanna pull that belt really tight so he has no choice but to ask for access ... then you can give it on your own terms. And again, I'm really sorry.

For Those Who Admire the Female Form ...

The Evening's Agenda

Deserving Of Your Full Attention ...

8:00, ESPN2. College Football. Appalachian State vs. Delaware. I kind of wish this was on a Saturday afternoon, so it could be treated like a bigger deal. I'm just a sucker for championships that are actually decided, I guess.

Other Stuff ...

7:30, ESPNU. College Soccer. NCAA Cup Semifinal. Massachusetts vs. Ohio State.
8:00, Big Ten Network. College Basketball. Drake @ Iowa.
8:00, NBC. Movie. It's a Wonderful Life.
8:00, Fox Soccer. MISL Soccer. Detroit Ignition @ Orlando Sharks.
8:00, ESPN. NBA. Magic @ Bobcats.
9:00, Bravo. Movie. The Godfather, Part II.
10:30, ESPN. NBA. Lakers @ Warriors.