YOUR FRIENDS' ACTIVITY

    Rob Iracane

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    • Throwing Pains: Joe Mauer’s return date remains open

      mauer428Welcome to Throwing Pains, your weekly run to the hot corner hospital to see what the Rx roll call looks like. I am not a doctor and I won't even play one on the web. Nope, it's up to the players to get hurt and for me to give them my wildly unprofessional diagnoses based on a semester of high school anatomy and a cursory knowledge of how to search the WebMD website.

       

      To the DL!

      Joe Mauer, Minnesota Twins: John Shipley of the Pioneer Press caught up with the Twins star who hasn't played a game in over two weeks due to weakness in his legs. Mauer's knees were already tired in spring training and the flu he caught once the season started that caused him to lose 15 pounds only made his condition worse. With the illness kicked and his appetite returned (walleye-on-a-stick, anyone?), Mauer has only recently begun working out again, mostly training in the team pool.

      Diagnosis: Wear your swimmies, Joe, because the state of Minnesota can't afford to lose you. The team has also lost offensive

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    • E-mail fail: Yanks leak personal info of 20,000 ticket holders

      costanzaThousands of current season ticket holders for the New York Yankees got a surprise in their inbox on  Monday, giving them an unexpected glimpse into the lives of their fellow fans.

      Yes, someone in the Yankees front office unwittingly unleashed a spreadsheet containing the names, account numbers, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of every single current non-premium season ticket holder — 21, 466 names in allto a select list of recipients. The spreadsheet was an attachment to an email and has since spread all over the web.

      That means if you subscribe to any sort of ticket plan with the Yankees and you don't sit inside the premium moat, your personal information has now been divulged to the world.

      Change your passwords now, folks.

      So how did this avalanche of private numbers and addresses begin? Barry Petchesky at Deadspin has the scoop (as did Ross at NYY Stadium Insider), and there's at least one person in the Yankees front office feeling like he or she pulled a

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    • Dodgers let game slip under (and fly over) their gloves

      carrollFormer Texas Rangers president Tom Schieffer,  just selected to be the league-appointed trustee of the Los Angeles Dodgers, had to see at least one glaring mistake on his first day in charge: The team's  defense.

      But will he report it back to Bud? The Dodgers wasted a good start by Jon Garland on Monday night and blew a late lead to the Florida Marlins with two costly ninth-inning defensive mishaps, losing the game 5-4.

      Perhaps Schieffer's first order of business should be calling up Dick's Sporting Goods and ordering some new gloves for the fielders?

      With two outs in the ninth, the bases empty, and Los Angeles clinging to a one-run lead, Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton allowed the Marlins' rally to begin by walking Emilio Bonifacio. A slumping Hanley Ramirez followed with a pinch-hit single, moving the eventual tying run to third.

      But still needing just one more out, Broxton coaxed a ground ball out of Scott Cousins that was so weak and so easy you'd think even the most stone-handed,

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    • Vintage Tube: Nolan Ryan Can’t Get His Whataburger in Pittsburgh

      Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan knows beef and he has a sad story that fans of regional hamburger joints like In-N-Out and Shake Shack know all too well.

      Burger aficionado leaves home, only to find that he can't find good burgers anywhere. In this 1989 advertisement-slash-video confessional for the Texas-based Whataburger chain, we learn of Nolan's long-faced longing for Whataburgers when he's on the road in dreary places like Pittsburgh.

      The jalapeños helped Nolan Ryan get more oomph on his fastball? Sounds like a PEV (performance-enhancing vegetable) scandal in the making!

    • Throwing Pains: Victor Martinez’s groin leads the Rx roll call

      victorWelcome to Throwing Pains, your weekly run to the hot corner hospital to see what the Rx roll call looks like. I am not a doctor and I won't even play one on the web. Nope, it's up to the players to get hurt and for me to give them my wildly unprofessional diagnoses based on a semester of high school anatomy and a cursory knowledge of how to search the WebMD website.

       

      To the DL!

      Victor Martinez, Detroit Tigers: Detroit's catcher-slash-DH aggravated his already aching groin during Monday's game in Seattle while advancing to second on a single. After moving to the 15-day DL, he was replaced on the roster by catcher Omir Santos, who missed nearly all of spring training with a broken toe. Keep your catchers healthy, Jim Leyland! They are the only folks on the team willing to spend half the game squatting.

      Diagnosis: The other Tigers catcher, Alex Avila, has already clobbered three home runs this year and Magglio Ordonez essentially has no regular gig, so he can fill in at DH. Detroit will

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    • Barry Bonds found guilty on obstruction of justice charge

      bondsguiltynewer

      After 3 1/2 days of deliberating, the jury for the Barry Bonds perjury trial has reached a verdict, but only on one out of four counts: The all-time leader in home runs has been found guilty of obstruction of justice. {YSP:MORE}

      The jury has said it is split on the other counts that Bonds was charged with and are therefore deadlocked. Three of the four counts charged Bonds with lying in front of a federal grand jury: once when he said he never knowingly got steroids from his trainer Greg Anderson, once when he denied getting HGH from Anderson, and once when he claimed that nobody but his doctors injected him.

      The fourth count, however, was for the more benign-sounding obstruction of justice. On this, the jury agreed with the government's case that Bonds was slippery and evasive in his answers. Strange, then, that it could not agree on whether he lied to the grand jury but that it figured he was probably being vague and stonewalling

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    • Leftovers! Our second list of the newest MLB concessions

      Spitzer

      Baseball fans, it seems, are a hungry bunch.

      I say that because it apparently wasn't enough for us to list the top 10 new concessions around the big leagues, no sir. In the nearly 300 comments left by readers on our original post, we've been pointed toward many more tasty ballpark treats that are brand new for 2011.

      So, as a public service, we'll share the fruitful harvest with you, dear reader. Here are even more NEW concessions that ticketholders can eat when they're out at an MLB game this season. And don't forget the Tums, pal.

      Chicken and waffles, Progressive Field, Cleveland: While I haven't had the chance to try this pairing in the Cleve, I did try the chicken and waffles at Nationals Park during the 2010 season. Verdict? A rubbery chicken cutlet and a cold, soggy waffle does a great injustice to an otherwise classic dish. {YSP:MORE}

      NESN TV's on-field reporter Heidi Watney did get a chance to try it while the Red Sox were in town last week, though, and her review of the combo,

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    • Everything You Need to Know About the Bonds Trial: Day 11

      Bonds781

      It is said that every good thing must come to an end.

      Bad things must come to an end, too. And luckily, for us, this bizarre Barry Bonds perjury trial we've been covering for the past three weeks is drawing to a close.

      On Thursday, lawyers from both sides stepped up to the plate, puffed their chests out, drew a deep breath, and traded long-winded closing arguments before a jury that must be ready to get back to the quotidian ways of their normal lives. Has anyone ever stopped to consider these poor folks are missing the entire season of "American Idol"? {YSP:MORE}

      Thursday's Main Event: The prosecution led off the day by telling the jury that Bonds could have avoided this pickle by simply telling the truth. Because remember: Barry is not on trial for taking steroids, he's on trial for allegedly lying about maybe taking steroids.

      Attorney Jeff Nedrow continued by listing the witnesses they called who either saw trainer Greg Anderson inject Bonds with 'roids, received the 'roids

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    • Everything You Need to Know About the Bonds Trial: Day 10

      Bonds

      Any chance that Barry Bonds' crack legal team of hired guns would call Bonds himself to the witness stand were crushed on Wednesday when the defense decided not to call a single witness and close its case on the spot.

      I say that stinks! We all missed our chance to see courtroom sketch artist Norman Quebedeau do a post-impressionist sketch of Barry trying on a size 7 1/4 cap. From what I learned in high school, if the hat does fit, you must acquit, I think. {YSP:MORE}

      Wednesday's Main Event: The defense implied earlier it might call Steve Hoskins, Bonds' former friend and gofer, back to the stand but relented. The defense probably thought it would be a bad move to give Hoskins a chance to redeem himself from what was perceived to be poor testimony that did not help the government's case.

      They also neglected to call two federal agents who were involved in an FBI probe of Hoskins for allegedly forging Bonds' signature on some memorabilia to make a quick buck. Again, they consider Hoskins

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    • Everything You Need to Know About the Bonds Trial: Day 9

      bonds461

      Just when we thought the Barry Bonds trial was moving along quite swimmingly, a roadblock arose in the least expected of places: Inside a juror's gall bladder. The jury was excused from the courtroom on Monday because Juror No. 9 was out sick with gallstones. Essentially, nothing of note arose from witness testimony on day No. 8 because there were no witnesses called.

      However, with the jury dismissed from the courtroom, one important discovery was unveiled on our lost Monday. The prosecution revealed that they had found a missing conversation between Bonds' former buddy Steve Hoskins and Dr. Arthur Ting, Bonds' orthopedic surgeon. During his testimony, Ting claimed he spoke with Hoskins only once and never about steroids, but if this audio snippet showed otherwise, it could negate Ting's otherwise bad testimony and strengthen the government's case.

      On Tuesday, we would find out if Bonds could be sunk by this surprise evidence. {YSP:MORE}

      Tuesday's Main Event: In a word, no. The

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