Sizemore, center fielder for the Cleveland Indians, salary was $4,766,666 last year yet called in a posse of MLB lawyers. MLB lawyers are lame to waste their time on a sophomoric act gone wrong.  Anyone who thinks digital photos don’t circulate, has rocks for brains.

I’ve had one writer after another come to me and say over the past decade, “I don’t know how they expected you to know. I was in the clubhouse every day.” And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to know. Or that I was in denial. I merely just didn’t know. So, if you’re sitting up in your office somewhere, how did people think you or others would know? When we didn’t know. And I don’t really think they were in denial. I think — I say this very candidly — in the retrospective history, it’s always easy 10, 15, 20 years later to tell somebody, “You should have known.” It isn’t only the steroid thing. It’s in anything in life. Whether it’s in political issues or foreign affairs or anything else. You can look back 15 or 20 years later and be awfully smart.

What a lame, bureaucratic attitude and excuse. No leadership. No accountability.  

Get out of your cushy office for once, Bud. 

Today, we learn that Manny Ramirez Is Banned for 50 Games after testing positive for a banned substance. This past week brought us news from a forthcoming book from a Sports Illustrated reporter that Alex Rodriquez may have used steriods in high school and as a Yankee despite his repeated denials.

Here are some funny images of the juiced athletes.  Might as well laugh at it. That the steriods thing has been going on for so long in baseball is pathetic.

The NFL so closely restricts the use of the words Super Bowl that companies resort to using euphemisms in place of the real words “Super Bowl.”

Wikipedia notes that one use of euphemism is “to avoid revealing secret, holy, or sacred names to the uninitiated.”  In the Super Bowl case it is besause companies did not pay huge licensing fees required to legally utter the words Super Bowl. 

A few examples from recent emails include these euphamistic subject lines: “This Year Watch The Game In Style!” (Costco), “Gather with friends for the greatest Sunday in Sports!” (Pottery Barn).   There are lots more. You get the point.

Funny, search Google for “the big game” and the #1 result is from WikiPedia: “The Big Game is the annual game between University of California, Berkeley (known simply as “Cal” or “Berkeley”) and Stanford University.  Contrary to local opinion, there is life beyond the Bay Area.

Who is enriched? Follow a simplified money trail.  Your tax dollars … to the government … to banks in the form of a bailout … to ad agencies … to TV … to the NCAA … to the coffers of rich college athletic programs.

In a WSJ article “The Bailout Bowl: Big-Game Sponsors Scored Billions,” we get some numbers and great quotes.

Citigroup: sponsor of the “Rose Bowl Game Presented by Citi,” recipient of $25 billion capital plus another $25 billion investment in bailout money. (Also purchaser of naming rights to the Mets’ new stadium, Citi Field.)

Bank of America: sponsor of the Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl, recipient of $15 billion from TARP.

U.S. Bancorp: sponsor of the Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl

Eagle Bancorp: sponsor of the EagleBank Bowl, recipient of $38.2 million from TARP

GMAC: sponsor of the GMAC Bowl

Capital One: sponsor of the Capital One Bowl

Some great quotes:

“Some of the advertising folks at these firms might think it’s important to put their corporate brand on public events, but taxpayers might think they’re being taken for a ride,” said Pete Sepp, vice president for policy and communications at the National Taxpayers Union.

Rep. Scott Garrett (R., N.J.) ,,, questioned why banks — which reportedly aren’t using federal funds to lend to consumers as intended — need to sponsor nationally televised sporting events. “The irony is these guys aren’t lending to people, so what are they advertising for?” Mr. Garrett said.

“There’s interestingly zero sense of shame” from banks paying for vanity advertising, said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

There has always been big money in college sports (in recent history at least), mainly for the top men’s major sports programs, primarily football and basketball. The big money part is not new.

Federal funding of college bowl games is the new twist. Hopefully, a backlash of consumer sentiment will cause these recipeients of bailout money to spend less on advertising and more on lending and shoring up their businesses.

• Washington Mutual:  hometown bank the largest banking failure in US history (for now at least)
• Boeing machinists union: on strike since September
• Seattle Mariners: lost 101 games, finished 39 games out of first place
• Washington Huskies: 0-5
• Washington State Cougars: 1-6
• Seattle Seahawks:  1-4
• Seattle SuperSonics: RIP (left town after a lame assurance they would not leave town)

Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy Corp., was the most obnoxious of the den of thieves that stole the SuperSonics from Seattle.

McClendon’s wealth came from 30 million shares of Chesapeake that he had accumulated as CEO. At the peak price of $74, McClendon was worth more than $2.2 billion. At today’s price of $16.52 he is still worth $495 million. Or he would be, if owned any shares.  

According to The Oil Drum, Aubrey has involuntarily been liquidated out of his roughly 30 million remaining shares of Chesapeake in the past 3 days due to margin calls.  Liquidated. As in flat broke. Nada, zilch, zero. 

The spirit of the SuperSonics will not be satisfied until the whole den has been liquidated.  One down, several to go.