Clipmarks | reimers's 'baseball' clips

Puerto Rico corpse kept upright for 3-day wake

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:07:54 GMT

clipped by: reimers

A Puerto Rican man has been granted his wish to remain standing—even in death. A funeral home used a special embalming treatment to keep the corpse of 24-year-old Angel Pantoja Medina standing upright for his three-day wake.

Dressed in a Yankees baseball cap and sunglasses, Pantoja was mourned by relatives while propped upright in his mother's living room.

His brother Carlos told the El Nuevo Dia newspaper the victim had long said he wanted to be upright for his own wake: "He wanted to be happy, standing."

The owner of the Marin Funeral Home, Damaris Marin, told The Associated Press the mother asked him to fulfill her dead son's last wish.

Pantoja was found dead Friday underneath a bridge in San Juan and buried Monday. Police are investigating.

Big Stars Named in Mitchell Report

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:24:04 GMT

clipped by: reimers
clipper's remarks: Eric Gagne, Jason Giambi, Troy Glaus, Gary Matthews Jr., Jose Guillen, Brian Roberts, Paul Lo Duca and Rick Ankiel were among other current players named in the report. Some were linked to Human Growth Hormone, others to steroids.

Clip Source: sports.aol.com

NEW YORK (Dec. 13) - Roger Clemens, Miguel Tejada and Andy Pettitte were named in the long-awaited Mitchell Report on Thursday, an All-Star roster linked to steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs that put a question mark - if not an asterisk - next to some of baseball's biggest moments.

Barry Bonds, already under indictment on charges of lying to a federal grand jury about steroids, and Gary Sheffield also showed up in baseball's most infamous lineup since the Black Sox scandal.

The report culminated a 20-month investigation by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, hired by commissioner Bud Selig to examine the Steroids Era.

"Everyone involved in baseball over the past two decades - commissioners, club officials, the players' association and players - shares to some extent the responsibility for the steroids era," Mitchell said. "There was a collective failure to recognize the problem as it emerged and to deal with it early on."

Tags: baseball, steroids, scan

Yanks talking to A-Rod

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:52:14 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: sports.espn.go.com

The New York Yankees began direct contract dialogue with third baseman Alex Rodriguez on Wednesday.

Rodriguez and his wife Cynthia met with Hank and Hal Steinbrenner in Tampa, Fla. Negotiations -- which never really got started last month -- are now progressing and a deal could be reached within the next few days.

Tags: sports, baseball, yankees

Federal Grand Jury Indicts Barry Bonds

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 22:29:40 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: www.nbc11.com

Baseball superstar Barry Bonds was charged Thursday with perjury and obstruction of justice, the culmination of a four-year federal probe into whether he lied under oath to a grand jury investigating steroid use by elite athletes.

The indictment comes three months after the 43-year-old Bonds, one of the biggest names in professional sports, passed Hank Aaron to become baseball's career home run leader, his sport's most hallowed record. Bonds, who parted ways with the San Francisco Giants at the end of last season, also holds the game's single-season home run record of 73.

While Bonds was chasing Aaron amid the adulation of San Franciscans and the scorn of baseball fans almost everywhere else, due to his notoriously prickly personality and nagging steroid allegations, a grand jury quietly worked behind closed doors to put the finishing touches on the long-rumored indictment

Tags: steroids, bonds, baseball

Bush biographers mixed on script for Oliver Stone's 'W'

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:05:57 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

President George W. Bush is a foul-mouthed, reformed drunk obsessed with baseball, Saddam Hussein and a conflicted relationship with his dad. Or at least that's how he's portrayed in the script for Oliver Stone's upcoming feature "W."

But how accurate is that depiction?

Reactions to the script from the biographers were mixed. They said specific scenes are largely based in fact but noted that the screenplay contains inaccurate and over-the-top caricatures of Bush and his inner circle.

"It leaves you with the impression that the White House is run as a fraternity house with no reverence for hierarchy, the office itself or for the implications of policy," said Robert Draper, author of "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George Bush." "Everybody calling everybody else nicknames and chatting about whether to go to war as if they were chatting about how to bet on a football game really misses the mark of how many White Houses, including this one, are run."