The Mariners, who really know how to spoil a good ballgame — peanut enthusiasts, PDA lesbians and sufferers of Richie Sexson know what time it is — are throwing more cold water on fun this spring.

The M's prohibited Ichiro Suzuki from pitching in the upcoming World Baseball Classic.

Those rotten...

Wait. What in the name of Bill Caudill...? Ichiro, the outfielder, pitching?

Ichiro pitch-i-ro!

It's the truth. He reached 91 mph on the gun, also throwing some forkballs (natch) during a 56-pitch bullpen session a couple of days ago.

Said Ichiro: "I'm here today for a purpose. This isn't just playing around. I'm not here to relax."

The story first launched at NikkanSports.com (in Japanese) and then by SimCentral and U.S.S. Mariner (in English). Then the team found out.

From the Seattle Times' Mariners Blog:

"He's not going to pitch,'' Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik said.

New M's manager Don Wakamatsu told MLB.com he hoped the reports were more "propaganda than real," adding,

A few gossipy links to start your day ...

• Roberto Alomar, via his Web site, denied the claim in a lawsuit filed by ex-girlfriend Ilya Dall that, among other shocking charges, he has AIDS. The 12-time All-Star, who is 41 and retired, says he is in "very good health" (in two languages!). But did you remember that he almost made the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays roster in '05? [RobertoAlomar.com]

• Alomar's current girlfriend also refutes the meat of Dall's charges on Puerto Rico TV. In a story that contains nearly every tabloid cliche, Maripily Rivera calls the AIDS claim, "a vile lie." The story also says Dall's $5-million Queens mansion was paid for by Alomar. [N.Y. Daily News]

• Rivera is a model who has her own sunglasses line. [Maripily PR]

• Yesterday, Inside StewDition Big League Stew published the horrifying allegations. [BLS]

• Fake Joba Chamberlain avoids jail time for Yankee impersonatin'. Is it now illegal for Frank Caliendo to pull off a Joba impression? [Y! Sports]

• Real Joba

Hey, a story that doesn't stink of drugs or plea bargains.

That's not to say something doesn't smell.

Adam Dunn and the Nationals agreed on a two-year contract today, Nationals Journal reported first.

Great signing for the Nats, AKA the Cincy Reds on the Potomac, and they also could also use a second baseman, three or four starting pitchers, a bullpen, another bat and... wait a second.

Two years!?!? For a full-featured free agent with very few warts (aside from his so-called defense and whatever J.P. Ricciardi says), it's a very short contract. Guys with Dunn's credentials usually get four or five years, at least.

Two years, $20 million, it's now coming in. Dunn earned $13 million this past season.

Two years. And a $3-million pay cut.

The economy is in the gutter and Adam Dunn isn't Manny Ramirez, but raise your virtual hand if you detect an odor. Are you smellin' the cologne of "collusion"?

Known to friends as "Big Donkey" (is he a Democrat?), Dunn has hit exactly 40 homers in each

The Stew continues its all-new tabloid format with the revelation that Darryl Strawberry and the Mets of the 1980s played hard and partied harder.

OK, that's probably not a Muppet news flash in itself, but Page 6 and other outlets report that Dar-ryl, Dar-ryl will be publishing a tell-all autobiography that comes out in April.

Titled "Straw: Finding My Way," the book promises to further define the Amazins of the time as "[An] infamous rolling frat party... drinking, drugs, fights, gambling, groupies."

Sure, the five major food groups.

Ballplayers were so much more flamboyant about their rule-breakin' in those days. The BALCO and Yankees scandals of today and recent history can't compete with the old Mets on style points.

Can you imagine having a locker next to Lenny Dykstra? So many stains on the carpet, each of a different origin.

As for the Straw book, can these pages go any deeper than Bob Klapisch's "The Worst Team Money Could Buy"? or Klapisch's "High and Tight" — which profiles

A wonderful week for Major League Baseball continued Wednesday with the news that Astros infielder Miguel Tejada pleaded guilty to charges of lying to Congress about the use of performance-enhancing drugs within his sport.

It's a misdemeanor, and he could get a year in jail, but he is expected to get less time, or no time plus probation. The Stew posted the charges in greater detail yesterday.

To recap the past few days: the game's premier player, Alex Rodriguez, admitted to using steroids after someone illegally leaked his name from a list of 104 players who tested positive for PEDs; Tejada, a former MVP, lies to Congress.

Then there's the mind-blowing Roberto Alomar story, which at least has no steroids.

Same goes for former No. 1 overall pick Matt Bush, who simply beat up some teen-age lacrosse players in a drunken, expletive-filled rage, allegedly.

What's next? Federal charges for Roger Clemens? (Yes, probably.)

If there really is no such thing as bad publicity, this is the best

This sounds like a story arc from the old primetime soap "Dynasty" after the show jumped the shark.

But it's Roberto Alomar, a probable Hall of Famer, so here we go.

The New York Daily News reports Alomar's former girlfriend claims in a lawsuit that he insisted on having unprotected sex with her while knowing he had AIDS.

Whoa. It's not quite the same "whoa" felt after learning about Magic Johnson in 1991, but it's a big "whoa."

Ilya Dall filed a $15-million suit against Alomar on Jan. 30. Dall has tested negative for HIV, but in the suit claims "Alomar caused her emotional distress and exposed her children to the virus." She and Alomar ended a three-year relationship in October.

As if those details aren't shocking enough, from the Daily News:

In April 2005, Alomar told Dall he was suffering from erectile dysfunction and confided "he was raped by two Mexican men after playing a ballgame in New Mexico or a Southwestern state when he was 17," the suit says.

Whoa, again.

The Daily News

A few smoky links to start your day ...

• Union chief Donald Fehr says it is "unlikely" that any more names on the list of 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003 will be released because "Whatever rights individual players had under those agreements have to be respected." [L.A. Times]

• Y! Sports Jeff Passan thinks Fehr and Bud Selig should not "walk" away in the wake of A-Rod's admission. [Y! Sports]

• Lance Berkman can't make up his mind. He finds it "deplorable" that the confidence of the drug testing was violated but — as someone who claims to never have done performance-enhancers — he still really "would like to know who has" come up positive. And he thinks other players want to know, too. [Houston Chronicle]

• Some Angels fans are excited that Bobby Abreu, and not Manny Ramirez, is signing with the Anaheim American League club. And they've got bad Photoshop to prove it. [Halos Heaven]

• B.J. Upton is famous enough to appear in an Adidas commercial

Thanks to SportsRadioInterviews.com, you Internet consumers who crave A-Rod content (sick, sick people) could listen to, quite literally, 6 billion interviews with people talking about Alex Rodriguez.

UPDATE Feb. 11: SportsRadioInterviews.com brings two more pages of links to audio of people talkin' A-Rod.

Part II includes comments from Fay Vincent and Marvin Miller. Fancy.

Part III includes David Wells and John Cena. What? Wrestlers and steroids? C'mon.

People can't stop talking about A-Rod, and we the media can't stop talking about people talking about A-Rod.

Back to the original post:

Want to hear the actual A-Rod interview, because the transcript didn't do it for you? Go here.

Want to hear Peter Gammons talk about the interview, because the actual interview didn't do it for you? Can't. The link is broken. The link is fixed.

Want to hear Mark DeRosa, an actual player and not a simulation, talk about the A-Rod interview? Go here. [Bonus: former Bears receiver Tom Waddle is asking