Four Additional Indications 2016 is getting off to a predictably chaotic start in the sports world...

• To their credit (and I do mean this by the Rafael Palmeiro Principle!), Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Howard have officially sued Al-Jazeera for the report they did on PED's and HGH that has implicated (in one form or another) Peyton Manning.  (Deadspin)

Good.

I do mean this.

My "Rafael Palmeiro Principle" (named after the roid cheat who said a lot of tough bluster about not using PED's before he was exposed to have done so!) is that if an outlet is going to claim with credibility that you are using PED's, and you aren't, you have one option:  SUE THE LIVING FUCK OUT OF THEM.

So we'll see where that one goes, but I am actually pleased to see that they are willing to actually pull the trigger and do it.

One other interesting note:  The Diana Moskovitz article actually is one of the first I've seen that mentions that the implications of Peyton Manning receiving HGH at his house may actually be for his WIFE'S medical treatment, which Manning says is none of our fucking business.  (And if it is for his wife, he's right!!)

In a related note:

• There is MURMURING, at this point, that the next major sports star to get implicated by the Al-Jazeera story may end up being...  Derek Jeter! (Deadspin)

This one would be one of those "last bastion of faith" moments, as Jeter was (rightly or otherwise) made to be the honorable Captain of the Yankees for so many years.

However, the New York Times and Michael Powell decided to follow the trail of this Al-Jazeera story a bit, and found most of the people involved were tied to a single fitness trainer from Sarasota, FL -- one Jason Riley.

A Jason Riley that Ian O'Connor of ESPN said "reshaped Jeter's body and game" in 2010, allowing him to play the last few years of his career.

A Jason Riley who is business partners with the lynchpin of this entire situation, Charles Sly.

Keep an eye on this one.

• Tomorrow is the big day that Ken Griffey, Jr. gets the call from the Baseball Writers Association of America to go into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Yay.  Wonderful.  If there are any clean athletes of the era that aren't the "anabolic cheeseburger" type (those who may have bulked muscle, but, in doing so, never missed several turns at the buffet in doing so), Griffey is one of them.

That said, that's not the chaotic and stupid part:

•  My External Bullshit Detector (my anonymous friend, who's also a huge baseball historian) tipped me off to this (and the other stories on this list), but I can't find precisely where on this one.
• There is a straw poll of about a third of the writers with ballots for the BBWAA, and that claims that both Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens scored fairly close (on the ballots of the straw poll) to the 75% mark to get induction (even though it would appear they are far enough away that they won't get in this year).

Here's the worst part of it:  I've talked to more than one person who now believes the BBWAA is going to put in probably the closest to the line -- a person more than a few people believe may have been on PED's in his career.  Mike Piazza is believed to be on the 75% line, while there are some who think Griffey might break the record for highest vote percentage ever.

There is even a murky belief Piazza admitted taking Andro in a biography.

Again, keep an eye on it.

And in social media sports chaos:

• Shaun Smith, last playing for the Chiefs, decided to talk about Kansas City's upcoming AFC playoff game against Houston on his Twitter account. (Deadspin)

All fine and good to this point.

• He got the inevitable trolling, almost certainly from Texans fans and little kids with no life.

Not so fine and good.

But what's also not so fine and good was what he did about it:



And then, after he deleted it (picture is from the Deadspin article), noted to another Twitter idiot that it is in fact legal:  He does have a license to carry.

That said, why would you cover it up with a Past Due bill notice?  *shrug*