Maybe Russia’s newest resident, Edward Snowden, can report on this while he’s visiting?

AP:

Russia will enforce a new law cracking down on gay rights activism when it hosts international athletes and fans during the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, the country’s sports minister said Thursday, appearing to contradict assurances to the contrary from the International Olympic Committee.

Russia’s contentious law was signed by President Vladimir Putin in late June, imposing fines on individuals accused of spreading “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” to minors, and even proposing penalties for those who express these views online or in the news media. Gay pride rallies also are banned.

“An athlete of nontraditional sexual orientation isn’t banned from coming to Sochi,” Vitaly Mutko said in an interview with R-Sport, the sports newswire of state news agency RIA Novosti. “But if he goes out into the streets and starts to propagandize, then of course he will be held accountable.”

Mutko emphasized that the law wasn’t designed to punish anyone for being gay or lesbian. But like the Russian lawmakers who authored the bill, Mutko said athletes would be punished only for propaganda, a word that remains ambiguous under the new law.

“The corresponding law doesn’t forbid non-traditional orientation, but other things: propaganda, involvement of minors and the youth.”

The law specifies punishment for foreign citizens, to include fines of up to 100,000 rubles ($3,000), time in prison for up to 15 days, deportation and denial of reentry into Russia.

The rest here.

Take it away, Ken Rosenthal:

As a regular at Baseball Think Factory was quick to observe, “If you’re getting Hoes, asking for ‘another piece’ usually costs extra.” (Hey, now.)

Actually, 23-year-old outfielder L. J. Hoes (.300/.374/.397 in 357 Triple-A plate appearances) seems to be a pretty good get for Houston in exchange for starter Bud Norris.

Meet 22-year-old Astros newbie Jonathan Villar, who swiped home last night in Camden Yards off unsuspecting Orioles southpaw Wei-Yin Chin:

Baltimore came back to win, 4–3, thanks to Chris Davis’s two-run blast in the sixth inning, his 38th home run of the season.

More here.

Whenever athletes test positive for steroids, the excuses come flying. My least favorite has always been that they didn’t knowingly ingest steroids or other banned compounds. Somehow, the vitamins or protein shakes must have been tainted.

I’ve been responsible for many different aspects of managing the use of pharmaceutical products for years and I have always found this excuse to be laughable.

Until now.

On July 26, the FDA released a statement warning consumer that a vitamin-B supplement has been shown to have two different anabolic steroids — methasterone and dimethazine.

The FDA started looking into Healthy Life Chemistry By Purity First B-50 when it started receiving complaints from users. These included fatigue, cramping, and muscle aches called myalgia. More concerning were changes in liver tests and cholesterol levels. Also, women using this supplement reported unusual hair growth and missed menses. Men reported low testosterone levels — taking steroids reduces the body’s usual testosterone production — and sexual dysfunction.

Anabolic-steroid use has been linked to liver failure, breast enlargement, and testicular shrinking in males and to masculinization in women. It is also believed to alter cholesterol metabolism and increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. Obviously, the fact that consumers are unwittingly being exposed to dangerous steroids is a public-health problem, but I am concerned about another issue: drug testing in professional sports.

The FDA statement just gave a get-out-of-jail-free card to every athlete who has an unexplained test that is suggestive of steroid use. Every athlete will now be able to claim, with the FDA and therefore the U.S. government on his side, that he was the victim of tainted vitamins.

The sports leagues have only one way out that I can see: quickly get the same lab that does their urine testing to do a series of quality tests on common supplements and create a partnership with a few manufacturers whose products can be consistently shown to be pure. Add these to the drug testing policy — any supplements not explicitly covered by the policy should be assumed to be dirty and used at the player’s risk.

These changes need to happen quickly. Every lab with aspirations to be like BALCO or Biogenesis is advising its clients today on how to start adding more steroids into their training regimens and where to get some dirty vitamin B.

Los Angeles Times:

Huntington Beach is cleaning up Monday morning after a fight broke out following the U.S. Open of Surfing, leading to a two-hour confrontation between police and unruly beachgoers.

Eight people were arrested and several officers were injured Sunday night. Police in riot gear used tear gas and nonlethal rounds to disperse the crowd, which tipped over portable toilets and smashed storefront windows.

Huntington Beach Police Lt. John Domingo said city signs and vehicles were also damaged.

Video of the rioting shows people in the crowd rocking city vehicles while others jump-kicking or shoving portable toilets onto their sides.

Kyle Calder told KTLA the melee started when someone was hit with a ketchup bottle from a second-story restaurant. The person threw the bottle into the crowd, triggering a fight that expanded into a small-scale riot.

“That’s when the cops came and everything went mayhem from there,” Calder said.

The rest here.

And do check out the slideshow of pictures from the riot. Do these morons really thing the police won’t be able to identify them because of a bandana? 

Via Crain’s Detroit Business:

The public will pay nearly 60 percent of the cost of the proposed $450 million Detroit Red Wingsarena in downtown Detroit under a plan disclosed Wednesday.

Property taxes would pay for $261.5 million (58 percent) of the building’s construction cost while the team’s ownership would provide $188.4 million (42 percent), according to details provided by the state.

Those are July 2013 dollars based on bonds with a 5.91 percent interest rate. 

Those are some of the details that emerged Wednesday during a presentation provided to theMichigan Strategic Fund board, which approved the sale of $450 million in 30-year tax-exempt private activity bonds for the project.

Olympia Development of Michigan gave the fund board data that showed a breakdown of the project’s costs.

Olympia, which will operate the arena under a 35-year concession agreement with Detroit’s Downtown Development Authority, is the property development arm of Mike and Marian Ilitch’s $2 billion Detroit business empire that includes the Red Wings, Detroit Tigers and the Little Caesars pizza chain.

The hockey arena, which would be finished by 2017 and replace city-owned Joe Louis Arena, is part of a wider $650 million plan to create a 45-acre district that includes retail, residential, office and restaurant space on the venue site, located west of Woodward Avenue and I-75.

The rest here.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• Albert Pujols’s season may be over, reports Sports Illustrated’s Brian Kotloff:

After aggravating the foot injury that has plagued him all season, Albert Pujols was placed on the 15-day disabled list on Sunday with a partially torn plantar fascia ligament in his left foot.

 

Pujols has been told that the injury will cause him to miss the rest of the season, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Tim Brown.

The 33-year-old, who is owed $212 million from 2014 to 2021, has played through plantar fasciitis throughout the year, but had to be removed from Friday’s game after a ninth-inning single.

• The crowd that gathered under Cooperstown’s gloomy skies on Sunday afternoon saw three men – Jacob Ruppert Jr., Hank O’Day, and James “Deacon” White — get posthomously inducted into the Hall of Fame.
• The Yankees acquired Alfonso Soriano from the Cubs, reportedly over the objections of general manager Brian Cashman, and in his debut on Sunday afternoon the 33-year old outfielder went 4 for 5 and drove in the winning run with a ninth-inning single. Other trades of note, via MLB Trade Rumors, included the North Siders’ dealing starter Matt Garza to the Rangers and Brewers’ sending reliever Francisco “K-Rod” Rodriguez to the Orioles.
• ESPN Sweet Spot’s David Schoenfield opines that the Phillies ought to trade Chase Utley before the July 31 deadline.

• In the debut regular-season match-up between two Korean stars, Hyun-Jin Ryu walked Shin-Soo Choo to lead off the game, but the Dodgers eventually notched a 4-1 victory over the Reds on Saturday evening.
• In his piece entitled “The Biggest Comebacks in the Wild-Card Era,” Baseball Nation’s Grant Brisbee highlights the folly of certain teams in 2013 that believe they have a realistic shot at making the postseason.
• Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald, who had broken the story that Marlins hitting coach Tino Martinez had verbally and physically abused players, subsequently reported that the former big-league first baseman has resigned.
• You will not be disappointed reading in the Hardball Times Shane Tourteliotte’s recap of one of the zaniest games ever played:

The 27th anniversary of one of my favorite crazy games passed two days ago. It happened on July 22, 1986, between the Cincinnati Reds and the New York Mets. This Mets team had a certain penchant for playing crazy games. The previous year, they had a 19-inning marathon in Atlanta against the Braves, a Fourth of July game that ended at 4 a.m. on the fifth. Our Chris Jaffe has memorably declared it to have been the ultimate fan experience, the greatest game ever. . . .

What did this game have that was so bonkers? All will be revealed in good time, but I can offer a few teasers. It had one of the most serious brawls baseball has seen in the last half-century, one that spelled the beginning of the end of the career of a well-known player . . . who wasn’t even in it! It had two ejections in two separate incidents even before the brawl. It boasted protests lodged by both managers. And most notably, it had a lineup manipulation so astonishing, it got several paragraphs of analysis in The Book. The authors concluded that, yeah, it wasn’t a bad idea.

• Ben Horrow of Beyond the Boxscore gives major props to Ross Ohlendorf for embracing the “long man” role in the Nationals’ bullpen and, in particular, his recent, impressive six-inning, two-run relief appearance against the Dodgers.

• David Ortiz lost his cool on Saturday evening after a seventh-inning strikeout. After taking his frustrations out on a dugout phone, here is the brief, profanity-laced exchange between Big Papi and teammate Dustin Pedroia, who nearly got cut by the rain of bat shards.
• Speaking of Pedroia, Fangraphs’ Dave Cameron explains why the Red Sox were smart to give the dimunitive yet powerful second baseman a $100 million, seven-year contract extension.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Phil Woosnam, the man who set the foundation for David Beckham and others in the United States, died last week at 80. Born in Wales in 1932, he had a teaching career before turning professional at 26, playing for Manchester City. He later went on to play for West Ham United and Aston Villa, among other clubs, ending his playing career with the Atlanta Chiefs. He served as head coach of the U.S. National Men’s Team in 1968 and then, from 1969 to 1983, as commissioner of the North American Soccer League. During Woosnam’s tenure with the NASL, soccer greats such as Pelé, Bobby Moore, Johan Cruyff, and Franz Beckenbauer came to play in the U.S. He was also instrumental in helping the U.S. win the bid for the 1994 World Cup.

A couple of days ago we posted this story on a young Ohio State football fan who named his brain tumor “Michigan,” because why wouldn’t you name cancer the thing you hate most?

And here is the fantastic response from Michigan’s coach, Brady Hoke:

Michigan football coach Brady Hoke has no problem with Grant Reed comparing his team to cancer.

In fact, he’s thrilled about it.

Mainly because Reed, a 12-year-old Ohio State fan who named his cancer tumor “Michigan,” is following through on his promise.

He’s beating “Michigan.”

“Well, number one reaction is we were glad,” Hoke said Wednesday during the first day of the Big Ten media days in Chicago. “We were excited for that young man. And being a father, our children are so important and you try and put yourself through what that family has gone through.

“So him beating Michigan, in this context, we were all for it.”

Hoke recently offered Reed and his family four tickets to this year’s Michigan–Ohio State game on Nov. 30.

The rest here.

Life News reports:

Reports surfaced today that NBA player J.J. Redick and his then-pregnant ex-girlfriend, model Vanessa Lopez, had an odd legal contract that called for her to have an abortion. Reddick would then pay her to pretend to stay in a relationship.

It was drafted by the Orlando Magic in the 2006 NBA Draft and now plays for the Los Angeles Clippers after spending time with the Milwaukee Bucks. On June 26, 2010, Redick married longtime girlfriend Chelsea Kilgore.

The alleged contract was reportedly drawn up in 2007 and it had Reddick agreeing to continue to date Lopez in exchange for aborting their baby.

The rest here.

Just six minutes into a friendly match between Bournemouth FC and Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo blasts a free kick over the goal and into the crowd, breaking the wrist of an eleven-year-old boy. The kid stayed for the whole match anyway, and Ronaldo apologized by sending him a signed jersey afterward.

Ryan Braun has been suspended for the balance of the 2013 season, the first casualty in a peformance-enhancing-drugs investgation centered around an anti-aging clinic in southern Florida.

MLB Commissioner Bud Selig announced Braun’s penalty Monday, citing the outfielder for multiple unspecified “violations” of baseball’s drug program and labor contract. Braun will miss the Milwaukee Brewers’ final 65 games without pay, costing him about $3 million of his $8.5 million salary.

“I wish to apologize to anyone I may have disappointed,” Braun said. “I am glad to have this matter behind me once and for all, and I cannot wait to get back to the game I love.”

Under the agreement reached by MLB and the players’ association the specifics of Braun’s admission won’t be made public. The sides also wouldn’t say whether this counted as a single violation or more under baseball’s drug agreement.

The 65 regular-season-game penalty — technically, Braun is also prohibited from playing in the postseason, but the Brewers stopped playing meaningful games by Flag Day — is the third-longest PED-related suspension in MLB history.

In his written statement, Braun did not apologize to any one person in particular, not even to Dino Laurenzi Jr., the individual working on behalf of MLB who collected the urine sample of the Milwaukee left fielder on October 1, 2011. That sample tested positive for elevated testosterone, but Braun escaped punishment on a technicality. Michael Rosenberg of Sports Illustrated explained:

There was a slight delay between when he submitted his sample and when it was sent to the lab. Laurenzi had kept it in his house; the sample had been collected on a Saturday, and he didn’t think it would be shipped until Monday. . . . Braun fought the suspension, which was his right, and an arbitrator ruled in his favor.

Braun’s comments were not exactly libelous — he was noting, correctly, that a compromised sample could result in a positive test — but he did it in a very public and very ham-handed way which gave the clear implication that he thought Laurenzi could’ve tainted his sample. That was a bit much then — most people realized he was making a procedural, not a substantive defense — but now his comments are laid bare as gratuitous and low rent.

More here.

From ESPN:

Leading statistician and best-selling author Nate Silver will join ESPN later this year, bringing his unique brand of creativity, journalism and statistical analysis through his award winning website, FiveThirtyEight.com. The site’s new incarnation will allow Silver to return to his sports roots while expanding his approach to numerous disciplines, including economics, culture, science and technology, and other topics. FiveThirtyEight will also continue to provide data-driven coverage of politics, including forecasts of the 2014 and 2016 elections. The site will extend ESPN’s leadership in using data and analytics in its cross-platform storytelling.

Silver will serve as the editor-in-chief of the site and will build a team of journalists, editors, analysts and contributors in the coming months. Much like Grantland, which ESPN launched in 2011, the site will retain an independent brand sensibility and editorial point-of-view, while interfacing with other websites in the ESPN and Disney families. The site will return to its original URL, www.FiveThirtyEight.com.

The full press release here. 

Reports are that the shortstop, Mattingly Romanin, is doing fine. Which is good becasue now we can laugh as much as we want at the video:

This morning’s Reveille has been rained out. (Actually, blame goes to an overseas flight that arrived at Dulles on the late side.) It will return next Monday.

Via The Telegraph: WWE embarrassed as wrestling match outcomes leaked online

What’s more embarrassing is that some Americans didn’t know this already. 

No, it’s the Birdman of Bognor. In West Sussex, England, the International Bognor Birdman Contest was held, in which competitors jump off the pier and glide into the sea. The competitor to cover the longest distance wins.

During English soccer club Arsenal’s tour in Vietnam, one fan ran alongside the team bus and also hitched a ride on a moped for five miles, for which the super-fan was rewarded by being welcomed onto the team bus where he posed for pictures with the team and the manager. If there’s a Fan of the Year Award, it should go to him.

Golden Beach is known in Florida for its really, really rich residents and speed traps. Now people in Golden Beach can get a ticket from a really, really rich cop: Shaquille O’Neal.

Here’s a post I wrote on Golden Beach and its police department when President Obama was in town for a fundraiser. I wonder if Shaq will draw get-the-police-cars-washed duty as the newest member of the force?

Don’t count on me for in-depth analysis of last night’s All-Star Game from Citi Field in Queens, as I am seven time zones away and was fast asleep during this year’s “This Time It Matters” affair.

NBC Hardball Talk’s Craig Calcaterra has a handy recap of the 3–0 American League triumph — interestingly, Joe Nathan earned the save, yet Mariano Rivera took home MVP honors for pitching a scoreless eighth inning — but those with video cravings should check out links to see Prince Fielder chugging around the bases in the ninth, Robinson Cano getting drilled in the knee with a Matt Harvey fastball in the first, and Manny Machado showing off his arm from the outfield grass behind third base in the seventh.