Biogenesis update from Yahoo!: Most players will accept their suspensions, names listed.

Yahoo! Sports reports that most of the Biogenesis drug suspensions will be accepted.  A-Rod is still forecast to challenge his suspension, but that one is almost-certainly coming outside the scope of the drug agreement.

Word is that players WILL be additionally suspended "double-digit games" for refusing to comply with the Biogenesis investigation.  This probably makes Braun's 65-game suspension more of a baseline than the standard 50-gamer.

Names in the Yahoo! report include:

• Detroit's Jhonny Peralta
• Texas' Nelson Cruz
• San Diego's Everth Cabrera
• New York Yankee Francisco Cervelli
• Jesus Montero (29 games this year in Seattle, demoted to AAA -- was a Yankee in 2011) 
• Cesar Puello (Mets AA Binghamton, and there was some question as to why he was not promoted.  Biogenesis was not mentioned in a "Mets Official" answering that, but I'd have to think that's in play here.)
• Fernando Martinez (11 games this year in Houston, traded to the Yankees, now in the AAA Yankees system in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre)
• Free Agent Jordan Norberto (last pitched in Oakland in 2012, pitched 3 very ineffective outings for AAA Sacramento this year)
• and Free Agent Fautino De Los Santos (also last pitched in Oakland in 2012, bounced around several farm systems' AAA situations this year)

Anyone else beginning to think Urban Meyer got the BCS memo?

Ohio State University has suspended RB Carlos Hyde, a major contributor to their undefeated season last year, for at least three games (with "additional conditions" which must be met before he can be reinstated) for his arrest (though he was not eventually charged) for assault.

Anybody else think that, especially as the red flags continue to go up on Johnny Manziel, that Urban Meyer got the memo to clean up Ohio State's football program so they can get the shot this year against Alabama?

Hyde was the leading scorer on last year's team with 16 rushing touchdowns, and, now, I'd have to think he's probably going to transfer.

A-Roid Update, and the kinds of things that what he's been involved with MAY imply...

It appears as if we will know how Bud Selig will attempt to proceed on Alex Rodriguez in the next few days.

The AP, through ABC News, has reported that Selig will probably try to suspend Rodriguez through the Collective Bargaining Agreement, meaning his suspension is for more than just using performance-enhancing drugs.

In the report, the AP/ABC News reports:

• Numerous "charges" are going to be levied on Alex.  They include:  Obstruction of the investigation, lying in the investigation, and the open recruitment of players to Biogenesis.
• As a result, Selig may attempt to suspend Rodriguez for those offenses, which might open the door to an additional suspension for PED use later on.

And, yes, ESPN had to weigh in on it:

Much to the disgust of some, I include this for several key points of discussion:

• I find Smith's admission as to the culpability of MLB franchises in the perpetuation of the Steroid Era shocking, for it cuts right to the heart of one of ESPN's money franchises.  Yet, he does not believe MLB itself is so culpable.  For the record, I believe both MLB and the MLBPA could be actionable under the RICO Act for the stuff allowed during the Steroid Era.
• Though I disagree on the equivalence that Smith gives between A-Rod's situation and Ryan Braun's, I do actually see a point he makes:  Whatever punishment A-Rod gets, Smith does not want it to be a Get Out of Jail Free card for the Yankees.  I actually see that argument.
• Skip Clueless (Bayless) actually, for the first time, appears to make a valid point on what will and probably eventually will happen to A-Rod.  I agree that I believe Selig will go for the Disqualified List for Rodriguez -- a life ban.  I believe (and I'll explain why below) this should've happened two years ago for Rodriguez's ties to an illegal poker ring which led to 30 arrests in April, 2013.  Apparently, Russian gangsters and cocaine were involved!
• However, it's clear A-Rod would challenge such a punishment, and the word I've been hearing is the same Skip says eventually will happen -- rest of this year, all of next, career effectively over anyway.

I've been doing quite a bit of thinking over the course of the last couple of days, as we await the word on the suspension.

And a lot of it centers around that we know that the only entity Alex Rodriguez ever was playing for was...  Alex Rodriguez.

Let's put some facts together:

• We know that both A-Rod and Jason Giambi admitted to PED use in the years 2001-2003.
• Major League Baseball was actually cautioning Rodriguez to steer clear of such poker games as far back as 2005!  (Source:  Time Magazine)
• The poker games in New York (which went all the way into 2013) were "A-list" and "high-stakes" affairs.

Where am I going with this?

Somewhere which, if eventually proven true, would make Shoeless Joe Jackson look sane.

I'm going to forward a theory.  Yes, probably a conspiracy theory.

But if it's right, it would explain a lot of things, including what kinds of things are going on with some very compromise-able athletes.

Let's take a look at the 2004 ALCS, the classic "first ever comeback from 3-0 down" series.

A-Rod was 8/31, 2 doubles, 2 homers, 5 runs batted in.

Giambi, recovering from a benign tumor (related to his PED use, perhaps?), did not play.

I hearken back to Stephen A. Smith effectively accusing the New York Yankees franchise of turning the other way on PED use for the benefit of their team.

But it wasn't until 2009 (the one Yankees championship they got for the ~$2,000,000,000 they've spent the last decade, according to Smith) that Rodriguez seemed to finally shed the choker label.

So it makes one ask the question that I seem to be the only one who still asks, at least of those who write things:

Am I the only person who recalls the A-Rod poker investigation, and openly wonders why it got swept under the rug so quickly?

Especially on the latter, I do begin to wonder if it's because he wasn't the only Yankee involved in it!

The only reason that people knew about A-Rod's poker habits was that it was getting press in the likes of Star Magazine (which the Time article, linked above, referenced).

What if he wasn't the only Yankee playing, and it was 2004, and people were losing to the likes of these Russians who were running the games?

We already know of at least two Yankees who were on performance-enhancing drugs.

What if that entire 3-0 -> 4-3 situation was a manipulation because of the conduct of not only Rodriguez, but of a number of other compromise-able New York Yankees?

We may well never know the truth (because no one would dare say it -- no one dares piss off the Russian mob, and it's a Federal crime anyway), but it is the kind of thing that A-Rod's conduct does bring into the equation.

More American Exceptionalism *guffaw*

CONCACAF Gold Cup Final.

Annual (except for the World Cup year) national-team tournament for the North and Central American soccer region.

Finals:  USA vs. Panama, in Chicago.

69th minute, and if someone can please explain to me how the linesman and referee "missed" this one except for having the USA win the tournament on home soil (especially since the opponent was not Mexico!), I'd love to hear it.

From the official US Soccer YouTube:

That was the only goal of the match.

United States wins the CONCACAF Gold Cup, 1-0.

More and more evidence that "school" and "athletic factory" are two equivalent concepts...

Biogenesis fallout has included an Outside the Lines article on Friday which indicates that the Florida Biogenesis clinic, tied to numerous athletes with illegal performance-enhancing steroids and other illegal drugs, has been catering to high-school sophomores, juniors, and seniors (16 and 17 year olds, at least), many of them with the full knowledge of their parents.

Several of them were even seen being taken to the clinic by their fathers!

The head of Biogenesis, Tony Bosch, is not licensed (hence, illegal in and of himself), and HGH and other illegal performance-enhancing steroids were documented as being dispensed.

Should this be surprising to anybody, disgusting as it is?

First, let's get this out of the way right now.  In light of some of the recent developments (starting with Ryan Braun's "suspension"), Victor Conte (the founder of the infamous BALCO Labs) stated to FOX Sports' JT the Brick on July 23 that he believed that close to half of all professional athletes were on illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

Would it be too large a leap to basically say that our sports culture in this country, should this even be close to true, is inextricably tied to drugs, and that drugs run sports, at all levels?  A number of years ago on 20/20, Conte said that the only option people had was to legalize PEDs, because that would be the only way to ensure any part of a level playing field.

Second, an answer to the last question of the article:  Porter Fischer, a former Biogenesis employee, posed the question "What kind of parent wants their child taking this kind of stuff?"

A parent who wants a child in the NFL.

A parent who bore the child to "take care of them" in their old age.

A parent who wants "The Good Life", and wants his child's work to provide it for him.

Do you really want me to go on, Mr. Fischer?

Basically, a parent who wants to whore their kid.

It would not be a huge leap, especially for the types of families in Florida who've been effectively financed through illegal drug and gang payments to their sons for playing youth football games that the gangs and drug lords gamble on, to state that the kids were born simply to make a few extra bucks, be it on the welfare check or on some other means.

Many of these boys might well have been playing some form of professional for-pay football for several years, and that's if we are to believe they've only been at Biogenesis at 16 and 17 years old.

So it would not surprise me at all that parents were openly taking their kids to be drugged with this shit.

Hell, most people in this kind of sports today would say that it would be the only way to be competitive, and, in fact, it would be too dangerous to play football without using PEDs.

Several big Biogenesis developments are due soon:

• One report (hat-tip to my anonymous friend) indicates the rest of the baseball suspensions may come out, and that Alex Rodriguez will have his career materially ended this week.  The suspension for A-Fraud/A-Roid appears to be at least a full season plus the rest of this one.
• The whistle-blowers who aided in the OTL report indicate they have clients in the NCAA, NBA, boxing, tennis, and MMA.

But Awful Announcing does pose a real question:

Does anyone really care?

First off,  I think it's stronger than Matt Yoder puts it in the article:

"The groupthink on this basically goes like this - A) We don't care about steroids, B) We just want to enjoy baseball in peace and don't care who or who isn't cheating and/or C) Quit trying to scare us about scary drugs."

Especially if Conte's statement is close to true, there would be no meaningful sports at all in this country, at basically any level, without performance-enhancing drugs.

That, in fact, drugs run sports, and drugs ARE sports.

(And then you combine this with the news that OTL itself is being demoted to ESPN2 with a less-than-favorable timeslot (effectively, so it's ratings can disintegrate to the point of cancellation), because we can't have this degree of truth without basically being forced to disintegrate the entire Sports Machine out there.)

Second, when you combine this with the complete animal-pack/gang mentality of many fans, especially those who will swear fealty to their sport above their own lives (much less anyone else's!), you get to a very ugly conclusion that, given the choice, most fans would literally trade anything (their own lives, their friends, the sanity of any or all of the above, that the team is on illegal drugs, taking illegal payments, fixed games, etc. and so forth and so on) just to get that one championship high that will make everything better in their lives -- increase their pay, improve their love life, etc. and so forth -- or so they think.

When you get that kind of morality going on, it becomes easy to see where fans would openly and deliberately interfere with their own and everyone else's lives just to get the one thing which identifies them, Sports Fan Syndrome, as Howard Cosell put it.

So look at this in that realm:  Parents literally whoring their kids and pumping them with PEDs to try to get them to The Show so that they can "get paid", as it were...

At that point, little to nothing should surprise you.

USA Today: A-Roid will not plea. CBS Sports: Life ban still on the table.

Put together into one post at SB Nation is the impending :thunder" that the "lightning strike" of Ryan Braun's suspension yesterday is what everybody's waiting for.

Alex Rodriguez will not plea to anything, will appeal any suspension, and still faces a trip to Baseball's Disqualified List.  The first two courtesy of USA Today; the third courtesy of CBS Sports -- links in the SB Nation article.

Maybe we aren't as far away from flare- and fire-throwing and gunfire as I'd like to believe!

Ugly incident in Florida.

End of an elite soccer tournament for youths at Walt Disney World.

Orlando Football Club/QPR Academy has just narrowly defeated Pachuca Academy of Miami in the championship match.

All Hell broke loose from there, according to Yahoo! Sports.

Apparently, Pachuca players decided to attack the Orlando players, and parents got involved.

A full-scale soccer riot at Walt Disney World.

One guy's pacemaker got set off by several punches to his chest, and reports are the grandfather for which this occurred was also fighting the other team.

A massive "He said, she said." has broken out, with both sides accusing the other, and even the Race Card getting pulled, as many Pachuca players believed they were being targetted for being Hispanic.

What??  This another Black vs. Hispanic thing?

Video is up with the link from local television.