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Judge Will Not Reveal Names Of MLB Steroid Users

AFP

A federal judge ruled Friday that the names of up to 23 Major League Baseball players who could be linked to the latest US steroid scandal will remain private.

US District Judge Thomas Platt ruled that while the names are available to former US Senator George Mitchell, who heads an investigation for Major League Baseball, they will not be revealed to the public.

The names are those who former New York Mets clubhouse visitor Kirk Radomski says he supplied with performance-enhancing drugs. Two newspapers had hoped to unseal the names, saying giving them to Mitchell was making them public.

Radomski agreed to a plea deal in April requiring him to cooperate with Mitchell’s panel, which was assembled 18 months ago to look into doping allegations against major leaguers over the past decade or so.

In the written decision, the court ruled that people whose names were not made public remain crucial in the ongoing investigation, as do people linked to those named.

A grand jury in San Francisco continues to investigate all-time US major league home run king Barry Bonds on tax and other charges related to the BALCO steroid scandal.

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Tom Glavine earns his 298th win

Tom Glavine earned his 298th win with a superb performance, and Lastings Milledge’s tiebreaking single with two outs in the eighth inning sent the New York Mets to a 2-1 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday night.

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Glavine (8-6) allowed only two hits, including Brandon Phillips’ homer, in eight innings. He struck out five and walked none, improving to 27-12 against Cincinnati. The two-time Cy Young Award winner is closing in on becoming the 22nd major league pitcher to win 300 games.

Shawn Green hit an RBI single and scored the go-ahead run for the Mets, who won for the fourth time in 11 games this month.

Phillips opened the second with his 19th homer and second in two games. He hit a first-inning grand slam and drove in six runs during Cincinnati’s 8-4 victory Friday night.

The Reds fell to 6-3 since interim manager Pete Mackanin replaced the fired Jerry Narron on July 1.

Matt Belisle held New York in check for seven innings, nearly preventing Glavine from taking home a win. The right-hander stranded eight runners before the Mets came through against reliever Mike Stanton (1-3).

Green hit a two-out double in the eighth and Milledge bounced the next pitch up the middle to give the Mets a 2-1 lead. Glavine was then lifted for a pinch-hitter, and Billy Wagner worked the ninth for his 19th save in 20 chances.

David Wright singled leading off the sixth, stole second and scored on Green’s two-out single to tie it 1-all.

After Phillips’ homer in the second, Glavine retired 16 in a row before Ken Griffey Jr. singled down the right-field line with one out in the seventh. Griffey was erased on a fielder’s choice by Phillips, who was thrown out trying to steal second by catcher Paul Lo Duca.

Belisle scattered nine singles, but the only one that did any damage was Green’s broken-bat hit. He struck out six and walked two.

Glavine was helped by two excellent defensive plays in the sixth. Second baseman Ruben Gotay went far into right field to catch Belisle’s blooper, and shortstop Jose Reyes scooped up a grounder that third baseman Wright was unable to reach. Reyes threw out Ryan Freel to end the inning.

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Cool Story About Jose Reyes

AP

NEW YORK — There are nights, Jose Reyes says, where he’ll lay his head down, say his prayers, ponder everything that has happened in life and softly weep.
Reyes, the dazzling New York Met who leads the National League All-Star balloting at shortstop, finds it amusing such a big deal is made about his perpetual smile. He can’t believe the fuss they make about his endless energy and ceaseless enthusiasm.

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“If only they knew,” Reyes says, softly.

This passion and zeal everyone sees in perhaps the best leadoff hitter and base stealer in the game are simply the byproduct of a man celebrating life, each and every single day.

“I never thought this stuff would happen to me,” says Reyes, batting .319 with 52 runs and a major league leading 38 stolen bases in 73 games entering Tuesday. “You kidding? To come from where I did and be where I am now.

“I can’t even say this is a dream. It’s too big to be a dream.”

Reyes, 24, grew up in a one-room bungalow with his baby sister, Miosoty, and parents in Villa Gonzalez, Dominican Republic. His parents, Jose Manuel and Rosa Ligia Toribio de Reyes, ran a bodega next door. There was always food on the table, Reyes recalls, but he slept on a mattress on a concrete floor. The roof was tin. The back door was a curtain. The bathroom was a shack in the backyard.

“We didn’t have much, but we always had each other,” he says.

From those humble beginnings, some say Reyes has developed into the best shortstop in the game.

“He makes such a huge difference in every game you play against them,” San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy says.

Only Reyes, last season, and Honus Wagner in 1908 and Willie McGee in 1985 have hit .300 with at least 10 home runs, 15 triples, 20 doubles and 50 steals. Reyes is on pace to do it again this year.

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“You haven’t seen anything yet,” says Mets third-base coach Sandy Alomar, who had a 15-year big-league career. “He not only is the best all-around shortstop right now, but he may be the best shortstop to ever play this game.

“I’ve seen some great players in my time. Omar Vizquel (of the San Francisco Giants) may be the best defensive shortstop I’ve ever seen. But never have I seen anyone in my life with the package this kid has got. This kid is going to be the biggest star in baseball.”

Putting parents first

Reyes, it would seem, is well on his way to his dream of making his parents proud. “I wanted to make their lives easier. They did so much for me. I wanted to do everything for them.”

Reyes signed with the Mets for $22,000 at 16 and remembers giving half his bonus to his parents. They refused to relocate but instead had a three-bedroom home built next door, with a tiled roof, ceramic floors and indoor plumbing. The dirt road in front of their home is now paved. The bodega has been renovated.

The big surprise, however, awaited them when they arrived last Wednesday from the Dominican to spend their summer vacation.

Reyes and his girlfriend, Katherine, whom he met his rookie season, didn’t take his family to the two-bedroom, Bayside, N.Y., apartment where they lived the past few years.

They drove out to Manhasset, Long Island, pulled up in front of a $3.25 million, two-story, six-bedroom, 4½-bathroom colonial.

They were home.

His mother cried, Reyes says. His father couldn’t move, let alone speak. The unpacking of suitcases in this 5,600-square foot home, purchased in February before spring training, could wait.

Reyes, perhaps the most electrifying player in baseball, had indeed arrived.

In a town populated with New York Yankee stars Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemens, it’s a feat to even be noticed. Fans wearing No. 7 in New York these days are not paying tribute to legendary Yankee outfielder Mickey Mantle, but to Reyes.

“They better notice him because everyone else in the game does,” Detroit Tigers shortstop Carlos Guillen says. “Forget his age. He’s already the best shortstop in the game.

“Can you imagine what he’s going to be like when he gets some experience?”

Skipping the hype

Reyes, who felt guilty for buying a necklace and a watch for himself after signing his four-year, $23.25 million contract extension last year, refuses to get caught up in the hype. He usually is taking extra batting practice when the Mets’ clubhouse door opens to reporters before a game. He is often working out when the game ends.

Please, he asks the local media, stop the comparisons to Jeter and A-Rod on who is the finest player in the New York.

“I appreciate people saying that,” Reyes says, “but come on, Derek Jeter? He’s got four World Series rings. I’ve got none. I haven’t done anything yet compared to him.

“This game is all about making your team better. If you play good and your team wins a championship, you’ve done your job. And no one has done it like Jeter.”

Yet Reyes is special. Henderson predicts Reyes will join Bobby Bonds, Tommy Harper and Alfonso Soriano as the only leadoff hitters to steal 30 bases and hit 30 homers in the same season. Mets hitting coach Rick Down goes a step further and predicts Reyes will become the first to reach 200 hits, steal 100 bases, walk 100 times and drive in 100 runs.

Mets general manager Omar Minaya says the city one day will belong to Reyes, the switch-hitter who wears No. 7, Mantle’s jersey number.

“He is what New York is all about,” Minaya says. “When you think of New York, you think of energy, you think of aggressiveness and you think of joy. That’s Jose Reyes. He is New York and living the American dream.”

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The Mets Beat Clemens in Subway Series

NY Mets 2
NY Yankees 0
Fri, Jun 15 – Final

Here is the upcoming schedule

NY Mets at
NY Yankees
Sat, Jun 16 – 1:05 pm EDT
T. Glavine vs. T. Clippard

NY Mets at
NY Yankees
Sun, Jun 17 – 8:05 pm EDT
O. Hernández vs. C. Wang

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Delgado Does It

MLB.com

NEW YORK — On a night when the knocks were few and far between, it only made sense that the Mets needed just one hit to win.
Carlos Delgado launched a walk-off homer to right to finally end a game the Mets were on the verge of losing, topping the Giants, 5-4, in 12 innings.

The blast came after the Giants had taken the lead on an RBI groundout in the top of the 12th. The Mets battled back, tying the game on two balks before Delgado drilled his game-winner with two outs.

The hit was one of the few the Mets could muster after being stymied early by Giants rookie Tim Lincecum with one-third of their Opening Day lineup now on the DL. Not that it would have mattered, as the 22-year-old right-hander mowed down each of the first 11 batters he faced.

But Mets starter Oliver Perez was equally as steady, allowing two solo homers in the first and then settling down to retire the next 14 straight. The young lefty allowed three runs in seven innings, limiting the Giants to just three hits after the first.

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Carlos Beltran finally broke through off Lincecum with a walk in the fourth, and Delgado followed with towering homer to right to tie the game at two.

The teams then traded runs in the middle innings, the Mets scoring on a sixth-inning Beltran double and the Giants tying it back up on a seventh-inning Daniel Ortmeier homer.

David Wright almost ended things twice, first sending a double off the tip of the wall in the ninth, then scorching a bases-loaded liner into the outstretched glove of Randy Winn in the 10th. But in both cases, the Giants survived to keep playing.

The Shea Stadium Flashlight Guy

Associated Press

NEW YORK — A New York Mets fan has been ejected from Shea Stadium for three years after pleading guilty on Tuesday to shining a high-powered flashlight at an Atlanta Braves pitcher and shortstop during a game there last month.

Frank Martinez, 40, of the Bronx, also must spend 15 days behind bars as part of his sentence for interfering with a professional sporting event.

“In a game in which the ball can travel upward of 110 mph, the defendant’s actions were dangerous to both spectators and players,” Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement.

Authorities said that on the evening of April 20, while seated behind home plate, Martinez turned the beam on Braves pitcher Tim Hudson and shortstop Edgar Renteria. The Braves were leading 7-0 at the time.

Renteria complained to umpire Paul Emmel, who called time out and alerted security. The security officers removed Martinez and found “a small, streamline flashlight” in his backpack, authorities said.

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NY METS BEAT CARDINALS 10-0

Excerpt of AP – John Maine kept the Cardinals’ bats quiet with seven innings of one-hit ball and Carlos Beltran homered twice and drove in four runs, helping the Mets sweep the World Series champions with a 10-0 victory Wednesday night.

Jose Reyes also homered and had three RBIs for the Mets, who were 8-1 to start last season en route to an NL-high 97 wins before they were eliminated by the Cardinals in the NLCS. Playing for much lower stakes but making a statement nonetheless, the Mets outscored the Cardinals 20-2.

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