EVEN if you knew nothing about Rick Dutrow’s shady past, Big Brown’s trainer can give you the present-tense creeps.
Two Saturdays ago, before Big Brown’s run-for-fun in the Preakness, NBC’s Bob Costas, during a stable-side interview with Dutrow, said that while the steroid Winstrol, which Dutrow uses on his horses, is legal in thoroughbred racing, there’s a move on to ban it.
“Oh, that’s fine, whatever the guidelines are we’re going to follow them,” Dutrow said. And that would have been fine. And enough. But Dutrow volunteered more:
“I wouldn’t even know what Winstrol does with a horse. One of my vets talked me into it five, six years ago. I’ve been giving each one of [my horses] one shot on the 15th of every month. I can’t say it helps. I know it doesn’t hurt. But it’s not an issue for our stable.”
Say what? Is it within the realm of possibility that the trainer of the horse that this Saturday tries to become the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years has no idea what’s being injected into his horse, nor what the injected substance is designed to do?
Over the last week, I repeated Dutrow’s words to career horse racing people, including a trainer and an equine veterinarian. None said they were overly troubled by the use of Winstrol in racehorses. But all classified Dutrow’s claim of total ignorance about the steroid to be inconceivable and preposterous.
Winstrol is a synthetic, muscle-building, liver-toxic steroid that’s known to increase red blood cell production and bone density in animals.
Heck, based on Dutrow’s claim, I know more about Winstrol – what he has his horses injected with monthy – than he does. And that’s also inconceivable and preposterous.
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During an interview last week with Charley Steiner on XM Radio, Bud Selig said, “I really am a traditionalist because I think it is right to understand the history of this sport, to be very careful any time you make a change.”
Good grief. Under Selig, baseball has sold not just its authority to TV, The Game’s grasp of minimal common decency also has been sold at auction. ESPN, at the last minute, now directs MLB to change Eastern Time Zone Sunday afternoon games to 8:05 p.m. starts, and this man has the gall to call himself a traditionalist.
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ABC/ESPN must be going green. That was a re-cycled feature it aired, Wednesday, at halftime of Pistons-Celtics. Not only was the piece on Richard “Rip” Hamilton and his facemask an old story, so was the tape. That feature was first seen on ABC and ESPN during the 2006 season.
The tell? Hamilton, seated in a one-shot while explaining how he came to always wear the mask, hasn’t worn cornrows in two years.
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So you’re Willie Randolph and your team, win or lose, doesn’t play very hard or very smartly. But you can’t help but notice that some of your players have devoted much time and energy to perfecting home run handshake routines. And the most consistent hustler on Mets’ telecasts remains Giuseppe Franco.
Everything and everyone attached to ESPN are in on the ESPN sell. John Ireland, speaking about Kobe Bryant and his opt-out contract clause, Friday on ESPN2 said, “We brought it up once a day on my radio show on 710-ESPN, here in L.A.” Oy.
Wake Forest, tough academic school, has eliminated SAT and ACT scores as an entrance requirement. It claims that standardized testing is no judge of talent and shorts those who participate in extracurricular activities. Look for Wake to get stronger and stay stronger in football and basketball.
When play stops during its coverage of the Stanley Cup Finals, NBC often removes all the reading material to reveal a glorious, full-screen view of the ice. As soon as play resumes, however, the clutter, so much of it useless, is returned. Out of 60 regulation minutes, couldn’t we get, say, just three minutes of the unfettered, full-screen view? Just three minutes out of 60?
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Reader John Siciliano of The Bronx suggests if John Sterling and not Red Barber had worked the 1947 Dodgers-Yankees World Series, the classic radio call of Al Gionfriddo‘s catch of Joe DiMaggio‘s shot to deep left would have been lost to mindless and repetitive self-promotion.
Barber’s call: “Swung on . . . belted! It’s a long one, deep into left-center! Back goes Gionfriddo. Back, back, back . . . He makes a one-handed catch against the bullpen! Oh-ho, doctor!”
Sterling’s call very likely would have been: “It is high! . . . It is far! . . . It is . . . caught.”
Provided Sterling got the “caught” part right.