Wouldn’t it be interesting if “Gary was being Many” and “Many was being Gary”??

So before yesterday’s game, Gary Sheffield asked the Mets for a contract extension, the club rejected the request so Sheffield threatened to leave the team and head home. Baseball has two charters being themselves – “Many being Many”, and “Gary being Gary.” Wouldn’t it be interesting if “Gary was being Many” and “Many was being Gary?”

Here’s how the conversation actually went between Gary and Omar Minaya.

“Omar, if you don’t guarantee me a job for next year I’m going to take my 40 year old ass, go home and sit in my bedroom and hold my breaff. You don’t believe me I’ll do it!”

Mets pitcher Tim Redding actually claims he heard Sheffield had been released. Obviously that didn’t happen, because he pinch struck-out last night. That was just wishful thinking for Redding because he knows that he’s next to be released and he was lucky that Livan Hernandez got released and not him.

Sheffield had been part of the original lineup for Thursday night's game against the Braves, but Jerry Manuel said that Sheffield had pulled himself to clear his head.

Clear his head? How do you clear an empty space?

In large part Sheffield has been a good soldier with the Mets. But it was only a matter of time. He’s ultimately had a problem everywhere he has gone, and this was going to be no different.

He’s had a nice offensive career. You wouldn't have thought it in the late 80's, but Gary certainly ended up having a better overall career than his uncle Doc Gooden. That's Gary and uncle Doc in the picture up there 20 something years ago.

He’s got a few obstacles in his way to make the Hall of Fame though. The steroids are a given, but everyone was doing them, so I’m not sure that will hurt him too much. But the things that have come out of his mouth may make it tough. For me, I found it hard to be a Sheffield fan over the years ever since he was a rookie in Milwaukee and he threw the ball away on purpose because he wasn’t happy. That’s messing with the game and in my eyes isn’t much different then betting on the game AGAINST YOUR TEAM. Not even Pete Rose did that.

Whether he plays next year or not, he does have some impressive stats. Should he be enshrined in the MLB Hall of Fame? You decide……

Career BA of .292, .393 OBP, .514 SLG 509 HR’s, 1471 RBI, 1635 RS, 104 SB’s

In short, over 20 + years he’s averaged .292 BA / 32 HR’s / 106 RBI / 103 RS

Not bad. - Paul Leume

Paul Leume is a MLB columnist from Montreal, Canada. Paul, a one-time beat writer covering the Montreal Expos for the Montreal Gazette is a proud grandfather of 3 girls and now spends his time offering his thoughts and prospective on Major League Baseball on a variety of blogs and websites throughout Al Gore’s internet.

Asterisk Lovers: Baseball’s Version Of The Trekkie

Even though baseball’s steroids era is reportedly behind us, we can’t escape hearing about it. Alex Rodriguez’ use of PEDs as a Texas Ranger dominated the news coverage this past off season and in addition to a toxic turn to the Manny Being Manny saga, we’ve been treated to stories about Sammy Sosa’s reputed failure of a drug test, the potential for Roger Clemens to face perjury charges for lying to a Senate subcommittee and Rafael Palmeiro continued protestations of innocence about knowingly taking performance enhancers. If you just pay attention to the headlines on the news and ESPN, the conventional wisdom seems to be that we all detest steroid users, fear that they will ruin the purity of the game and that must diligently root them out lest our untainted sport be tarnished forever.

Except that doesn’t seem to be true does it? When the All Star voting results were first released, Manny Ramirez – who at the time was serving a 50 game suspension for violating MLB’s substance abuse policy – sat in 4th place, just a few thousand tallies away from being in the starting lineup; Yankee fans, who claim to be the standard bearers of baseball tradition, haven’t turned on their team despite the fact that between Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Jose Canseco, Kevin Brown and now A-Rod, they have employed a great number of this decade’s most notorious steroid users; Giants fans still talk fondly about Barry Bonds and his mammoth moon shot home runs and for most, the great memories of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa’s momentous home run chase of 1998 haven’t diminished one iota in light of recent revelations.

Quite simply, the giant majority of baseball fans, the ones that fill the bleacher seats of every ball park in the county, couldn’t care less about who took what and when they took it. They just want to see baseball played by those who play it best. It’s an extremely vocal minority, consisting mainly of sportswriters and congressmen looking for headlines, that puts up this grand façade of moral outrage over steroid use in baseball. Whether it’s recognition that MLB implicitly condoned PED use through its knowing inattention to what was going on in its locker rooms or an admission that HGH won’t make your timing any better regardless of how long it keeps you on the field, your average fan couldn’t give a rat’s ass over steroid use and, the enjoyment over a new way to A-Rod notwithstanding, has moved on.

The biggest whiners over steroids point out that baseball’s sacred record book has become tainted, usually pointing to Barry Bonds’ home run records when they complain about the need to have an asterisk next to them. This subsection of fans persist in this belief despite the fact that there’s been no credible evidence linking Bonds to HGH use; in America’s Pastime, the National Credo of innocent until proven guilty apparently has no utility. Babe Ruth’s records came in an era when the Negro leagues existed and African-American ballplayers, among the best baseball players of that time period, were banned from baseball. Yet no one wants to put an asterisk next to the Babe’s records. It also never stopped the debate over whether he or Hank Aaron was the greater power hitter. The steroid era won’t stop the debate either.

The fans who squawk about asterisks are like Trekkies moaning about the continuity errors between Star Trek (2009) and the TV series from the sixties. They are geeks without perspective and don’t represent the rest of us. MLB knew very well what substances were being ingested by and injected into their ball players. Until recently, they turned the other cheek. (Pun partially intended). Ethics being a different discussion, none of baseball’s rules could have been violated as there were no rules to violate. Asterisk-geeks will have to live with the fact that the statistics accumulated by Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Roger Clemens were all amassed according to baseball’s lax rules. You can always have your opinion about their legitimacy but asterisks are just stupid.

Baseball debates have always been fueled on the comparison between the differences in the game at various points in time. Bob Gibson’s 1968 season necessitated the lowering of the mound, the introduction of the designated hitter took away an easy out from American League pitchers and the advent of the closer completely revised the role of the starting pitcher. While the steroids era and its effect on individual statistics can never be ignored, it’s a talking point not a plague and it’s time for the majority of clear headed folks to start treating these asterisk proponents like the pointy-eared, Vulcan speaking oddities that they are. - David Schultz

For more years than he can remember, Schultz’ musings on rotisserie baseball have graced rotoworld.com. Depending on your viewpoint, he either anchors or weighs down 'The Week That Was' column that he is told appears on USA Today and NBC Web Sites. His ramblings can also be found on Earvolution.com and jambands.com.

He needed a day off!?

A day after hitting a home run against the San Diego Padres, Manny Ramirez sat out of yesterday’s game. Why? His legs were sore.

Are you kidding me? Your legs are sore!? You had 50 games off, you played two games and your legs are sore! It’s your third day back and you need a day off!? Did getting your hair done last week somehow put too much stress on your legs?

This takes ‘Manny being Manny’ to a new level. Moreover, manager Joe Torre will now ration Manny’s playing time until the All-Star break. No one will ever question his ability to hit a baseball, but I can’t take much more of this guy. – Vincent Purosi

The above post was sent in by reader Vinnie Purosi who must have been shunned ny Manny for an autograph at some point.