MLB looks into allegedly disturbing makeup of Yankee Stadium pitching mounds

NEW YORK - Pitching mounds at most Major League Baseball stadiums are made out of pretty standard materials, sand, dirt, tears from the away team locker room and maybe some contaminated material gathered from a nearby EPA cleanup site if the stadium is near New Jersey, of Pittsburgh.

Here in New York, some are claiming that the pitching mounds at Yankee Stadium might be made from something a bit more sinister though.

"It's like 'Soylent Green,' that creepy future movie!" said Joe Stanton of Staten Island. "They've been culling the poor performers from their summer kiddie camp for years, grinding them up and using them for mound fill for years."

Stanton is not the only one making claims that the Yankees have been using ground up children in their pitching mounds. Records show that since 2007, more than 50 claims have been filed with MLB alleging improper materials being used in the mound. The majority of those imply or at least seem to imply some sort of ground human material is being used in the mounds at the famed stadium.

The Yankees deny any wrongdoing or anything out of the ordinary when it comes to their mounds.

"Show me one team that doesn't have ground up children in their pitching mound and I'll show you a unicorn with a pig nose and three butts," said Frank Giotella, a Yankees spokesman who has been fired since our interview with him. "How else are we going to channel the energy of the kids into our veterans on the mound?"

Other Yankees spokespersons distanced the team from the allegations, noting that MLB's investigation was not complete and they declined to comment further until the league's report is released.

The families of those alleged to be ground up and used in the pitching mound at Yankee Stadium weren't so mum though.

"Just because my little kid brother can't hit a curveball from the pro pitcher that comes to camp one day during the summer doesn't mean he needs to be killed and ground up, right?" said Julie Vellaros, a Brooklyn native who claims that her little brother went to an exclusive Yankees baseball camp and never returned. "I mean, geez, A-Rod can't hit a curveball to save his life and they haven't ground him up yet, right?"

Vellaros also claimed that after the camp her family was paid an unusual visit by Yankees personnel.

"They came and asked for any stuffed animals or other soft personal effects of my brother's," she said. "I asked them why and they just laughed and said 'Nobody likes to pitch off of a hard mound, ground up bones have to be combined with soft possessions, duh!' and they left. It was the strangest day of my life."

Before being fired, Giotella confirmed that ground up people didn't make good pitching mounds unless some of their softer personal items were included in the fill.

"Everybody knows that the best mounds are made from ground people, and the best ground people mounds are made from a delicate mix of people and their softer possessions like sheets, pillows and especially stuffed animals in the case of kids," Giotella said. "It just adds a certain je ne sais quoi and most definitely helps the home team."

The only other team MLB is investigating for unusual material in their pitching mounds is the Detroit Tigers, who have been accused of padding their pitching mounds with the crushed hopes and dreams of Detroit's residents. While the Yankees are possibly facing public backlash and legal fallout if it's found they used ground people in their pitching mound, it's unclear what rules, if any, Detroit would have broken but the MLB is still investigating the matter.

(This is obviously completely fictitious and ridiculous, in the same vein as the Onion's satirical news stories, so please don't take it seriously in any way shape or form! lol)

AL Champs, WORD!

I just got home from a neighborhood pub after watching the thrilling Rays game 7 win in the ALCS. How awesome is that!

World Series, here we come!!!!

P.S. I have a new superstition... When a friend of mine came up to the city and we went to see the D-Rays at Yankee Stadium, she brought me a Rays shot glass and mug, so I decided to bring the shot glass to the bar with me and do a shot every time the Rays scored (or did something that was just awesome, like end that eighth inning without giving up a run) in the Rays shot glass.

The bartenders look was priceless when I first explained my plan, but once he figured it out, he was cool with it... and as we all know, the Rays totally won the game!

The bar wasn't too well stocked, so eventually the shot ended up being one part vodka, one part peach schnapps and one part cranberry juice... pretty delicious if I do say so myself.

The important thing is that we won, and now I'll have to bring that shot glass to the bars with me as I watch the World Series... and see the bartenders' reactions, hehe.

But the real most important thing of course is Go Rays! Word dizzle!

Back from Texas, but not without my hotel spoils...

Ahh... the spoils of any long hotel stay. I know, I'm a weirdo, but I love to horde hotel toiletries. There are worse habits, right?

As for a last interesting Texas thing... I originally rented a car in Fort Worth, Texas, and then drove it down to the Houston area where I spent the rest of my time. So I wasn't sure exactly where I was supposed to drop it off in Houston since there are all kinds of rules and potential fees associated with "one-way" rentals. So as I'm combing my rental agreement, I notice some fine print on the very bottom...

"For rentals originating in the City of Arlington: The City of Arlington
requires that an additional tax of 5% be imposed on each motor vehicle rental for the purpose of financing a portion of the Dallas Cowboys complex development project approved by the voters of the city on November 2, 2004."

While different, creative public funding methods are not uncommon for stadiums and such, it still made me laugh a little bit. I'll have to ask my friend from Arlington if she remembers voting on the issue.

Of note, I went to a Rangers game while I was briefly in Fort Worth and it's right by the new Cowboys stadium under construction and that thing is looking pretty schnazzy (and expensive looking).

At least in Tampa when they got the voters to approve sales tax increase to support the new stadium (Raymond James), they included money for schools and etc., too... since when they previously put just the school tax to a vote without the attached stadium tax, the vote failed... which is kind of sad, right?

So they practically had to trick the citizens into supporting education by sneaking it into a vote on a new football stadium. That way the folks who wanted a new stadium, but hated children voted yes and the people who didn't want a stadium but knew it was the only way to get the education money also voted yes.

And folks wonder why other countries may be giving us a run for our money in the global economy in a lot of ways, hmmm...

Anywho... so my cable was out when I got home... an I'm still not sure why. It has just solidified my decision to just stop paying for cable, since I don't watch enough TV to warrant it.

I had read on the Houston Chronicle's site while in Texas that CBS was going to start putting full episodes of classic shows on YouTube, and for some reason I was thinking I had read that included Knight Rider. I was mistaken. It was in fact MacGyver I was thinking of... so when I looked for some full Knight Rider episodes, this is what I found instead...



I remember people saying something about a burlesque dancer being on the "America's Got Talent" show, but I didn't remember the Knight Rider strip. Classy.

Heck, in all honesty, the clip was probably better than watching a whole episode anyway... it had the awesome music, KITT, the Hoff and a stripper all packed into under two minutes.

So while there were no full Knight Rider episodes... I eventually found the MacGyver episodes but they didn't have the one where he ends up in medieval times and hangs with Merlin (which I swear was always the one on TV when I was home sick from school), so I decided to skip on watching one of MacGyver's ingenious escapes and looked to see what other shows they had... and they totally have original Star Trek episodes, which is kind of neat.

I watched the one where they end up in the 1930's. A classic of course.

I think on of my favorite parts has to be where Kirk explains Spock's appearance to a cop by saying he is Chinese and his ears are pointy because they got caught in a mechanical ricepicker when he was a child. The political correctness was overwhelming.

Back in the city...

So my Texas-sized adventure has officially come to an end.

I've left the endless miles of industrial refineries as far as the eye can see to come back to endless hives of apartments as far as the eye can see.

So I just got home from the airport... and I'm pretty exhausted, so I'm just gonna follow the Rays game and hit the hay. (A win tonight means we go to the World Series! Word?!?!)

Well, g'night!

Plus, what the heck... here's a few seemingly appropriate Overheard in New York quotes just for fun since I flew into LaGuardia...

Pilot flying into LaGuardia: If you look out the right side of the plane, you can see the beautiful, famous downtown skyline of Manhattan. [Pause.] And if you look out the left side... [pause, sighing] New Jersey.

--LaGuardia

----------

Flight Attendant: Thank you for flying US Airways, and have a happy... happy... what the hell holiday is this? Columbus? Psssh, that ain't no holiday. Have a good week!

--LaGuardia Airport

----------

AirTran flight attendant over intercom: We hope you ladies and gentlemen had a nice flight, and we ask that you all press your faces against the windows so Delta can see what a full flight looks like.

--LaGuardia

A friend from home, Law and Order, the Vag-ankees and toilet water definitely make for an interesting weekend...

So this weekend was definitely an interesting one.

First, on the way back to the office from lunch Friday, I noticed some commotion on the steps of the courthouse across the street from my office building. Upon further inspection, they were totally filming some "Law and Order" action since its steps are the ones you always see people on in the show.

Unfortunately I didn't see anybody I recognized, but whoever was there got
some schnazzy looking director's chairs to chill in.

It looks like they were filming some sort of press conference. You can't really see it in the picture, but the people were crowding around a guy standing at a podium.
So that afternoon, a friend of mine from back at USF flew in, which was cool. I hadn't seen her since last winter, so it was fun to catch up. We went to see the D-Rays at Yankee Stadium... twice! Granted the first time, our game got rained out... so we had to go back Saturday night.

The game was a lot of fun (though we lost), but it's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get, right? As she'll probably tell you, I won on that front.

They had the final destination of this year's Vag-ankees team on
display right in the stadium.
P.S. Along with both being mature and taking the high road we found ways to include "gay" in every Yankees player's name (Bobby A-gay-u, Gay-Rod, Robinson Gay-no, etc... sometimes I miss middle school)... We also determined that the Devil Rays need to draft Oroku Saki and put him in the infield to complement Akinora Iwamura.

Though, unfortunately Saki might be on the DL for a while after getting jumped (like out of nowhere and for no reason!) by a group of crazy teenagers...



Sidenote... On the way to the game, we passed a bunch of kids playing in a spraying fire hydrant, which I always thought was strange. For a little while there in the middle of the summer, I saw kids playing in gallons and gallons of spraying hydrant water almost daily. Heck, in Florida we had lawn watering restrictions, so it's always crazy to me to see that.

Every time I see it though, part of me is just waiting for someone to come out of nowhere and start beating the crap out of someone on the street, a la "The Godfather."



That's why whenever I see the whole fire hydrant thing... I keep aware of my surroundings.

Anywho...

So, along with baseball, we did some barhopping and wandered around midtown and just had an overall good time. We even caught Brutus the Buckeye being naughty...

Maybe they were a bit distracted
during the USC game, hmmm...
So God decided to make sure the weekend stayed interesting even after my friend flew back to Tampa, I kept busy all day Sunday in the bathroom... since that afternoon my toilet clogged and flooded out the bathroom... twice. The room filled with toilet water, I cleaned it up, then it filled again. That was weak... and gross. I'm pretty sure my neighbors heard me yelling obscenities as it flooded the second time. I was quite pissed.

Don't worry, I have no pictures of that to post, as it wasn't too pleasant.

It was extra weak because it made me miss the WNBA game I was going to go to to get Bill Laimbeer's autograph at. I guess that will have to wait until next year.

I've never been to a WNBA game, and while I've heard people talk trash about them I'd venture to say they are probably more fun than being on your knees cleaning up toilet water.

On another interesting note, my work is going to send me to Texas for either a couple of weeks or a whole month to help with Hurricane Ike related work... so that should be interesting. I'll probably leave by the end of the week. I'm not quite sure yet how exactly that will impact the posting and such, but we'll see.

I'm really excited, I think it will be interesting...

A Real "KFC" - a Kentucky Fried Call to action!

I stumbled upon this today and just about messed myself...

KFC has an ongoing petition online to get a real Col. Sanders stamp!


Then I won't have to affix miniature portraits of him over those dumb Liberty Bells myself when I mail my letters anymore.

The Liberty Bell, I mean come on. Who thought of that one anyway? It's old, busted and definitely did not provide the world with the best fried chicken recipe known to man. Hopefully this petition will help rectify that situation.

So I went and saw a Mets game at Shea Stadium with a buddy this weekend, which was pretty cool. They'll be tearing it down after this season, so I wanted to see the old girl before she gets busted up like the Phillies' potential shutout Sunday. Just because we got served, doesn't mean I won't talk trash. We played the Phillies and indeed got poned, but it was still fun.


The new stadium, Citi Field (nice ring to it, right?), is right next door. You can actually see it on the right of the picture. I guess the name is better than something like "McDonald'" field, or something blatant like that. If you're not reading it, it's not obvious that the name is in reference to Citigroup.

I really wanted to get my picture taken with Mr. Met, this is about as close as I got to meeting him...

I know, it looks like a snapshot from the Zapruder film or something. And yes, in case you're wondering, Mr. Met is armed in this photo and taking aim at fans... with a shirt cannon.

I wonder if he shot a shirt point blank at the guy who wrote this fascinating article about him. We still love you Mr. Met, no matter what your lifestyle choices are.

Also, an old friend from the Oracle is in town and working Fashion Week, which is really cool. We watched the USF-UCF game in Times Square and played catch up, which was a lot of fun.

UCF fans (NSFW - definition 2, hehe...) can't quite figure out that they just can't win and have apparently resorted to threatening our QB... they really are just the pinnacle of class... ridiculous.

The friend who's working Fashion Week is blogging about the experience, so you should check it out... I'll put it in the little blogroll to the right.

Oh yeah, so my brother and his wife got me an iTunes gift card for my birthday, so now whenever I hear some random song anywhere, I can go pick it up and still have money left for the next song that gets stuck in my head... today I used it to buy my favorite Aretha Franklin song ever... "Freeway of Love." I've been told she has a couple others, but this one is where it's at...

Aretha Franklin - Freeway Of Love

Word... that ish takes a little while to load, but believe me it's worth it...

P.S. My library is lame, the outside book drop is locked shut and you have to wait in line to return books. There is no drop off place even inside. That's some white wheat right there. They also have pretty limited hours... which can cause trouble... oh well.

I'm a member of the 21st century again, hooray!

So my apartment is now hooked up to the Internet... so that's a big plus.

I did my last post sitting in a downtown Starbucks with my little white Macbook... yeah, I was totally that guy.

Getting hooked up to the Internet is pretty much my big news of the day. I did some wandering around my new neighborhood and found if I go about six blocks south I hit an area packed with stores, restaurants and pretty much anything else you can think of. I even found a Staples... right next to a little titty bar... well, actually judging by the signs it looks more like a big titty bar, but whatever.

Come to think of it.. immediately north the Staples is an elementary school and playground and immediately south of the Staples is the bar... hmmm. I wonder if they have guest speakers for sex ed?

Sidenote... the playground is open to the public and along with basketball courts, which are always fun, they have some mad crazy four-square areas painted. Mmmm... four square.

I also picked my favorite nearby (within a block or two) restaurant, aptly named "No. 1 Restaurant." They specialize in Chinese and Tex-Mex. Makes sense, right? They share very similar cultures and cuisines, right?

It is run by a Chinese family, and I've had their Chinese a couple of times and been pleased. Originally I hesitated to order from the Tex-Mex side of their menu, but today I tried a shrimp burrito from there and it was honestly pretty damn good. I thought it was better than Chipotle.

Their main competition was disqualified. I'm pretty sure I brought a cockroach home with me from the Chinese restaurant across the street from them. I've only seen one roach in my apartment so far and it was wandering around the bag I brought home from there... I haven't been back since.

I also walked to the George Washington Bridge... which I could walk across to New Jersey if I ever had the urge for whatever reason.

I thought this was kind of funny when I saw it... it kind of ties back to my last post, about the All-Star Game. I saw this clip in a post on a sports blog done by the New York Daily News and thought it was pretty funny.

Apparently Mr. Met wasn't too excited about Yankee Stadium hosting the big game and decided to make his feelings known during the parade through downtown...



Also, I saw a few more of those "rodenticide" posters today, all at Penn Station and all saying the station had been sprayed just last week... so maybe that's why I hadn't seen them before. That's the only other place so far though.

The movers should bring my stuff Saturday (Oops, I had Friday in my original post... I guess it was wishful thinking, hehe), which I am so excited about. I can't wait to have a bed! A couch! My bar! A microwave! A damn shower curtain! My bar! The list could go on and on. I can't wait to start getting my place all organized and not spend my evenings on the hard floor.

That means the doors will be open to anyone wanting to see the big city pretty soon!

The MLB All-Star through the eyes of a commoner - a photo essay

So I got home from work Tuesday and figured, "What they hey... why not hop a subway train over to Yankee Stadium where the All-Star game is tonight?" I decided to throw on a Devil Rays shirt and go check out the scene since I hadn't seen the stadium and the area around it yet. No matter what I figured it would be pretty neat... despite being a lowly commoner with nowhere near the means to be allowed anywhere near an entrance of course. Oh well...I mean, how often am I going to be a 15-minute train ride from the All-Star game, right?





So I hop on the train and it literally was only like 15-20 minutes max to get to the Yankee Stadium station. So that was pretty neat. You can see that they support everybody's favorite Belgian brewer, :(, on their sign. I read today that they might sell off Bud's theme park assets, including Busch Gardens... which is just plain sad. Oh well...

Sidenote, some of the people exiting the station were really weirded out that I was taking pictures of "them," even though I was just being an uber-tourist and taking pictures of the Yankee Stadium's subway station entrance/exit.

The station itself was not too different than any other station... save for one thing that sort of caught my eye...





I have never seen one of these at any other station, not even the main touristy ones like Times Square or at the main West Side stop for Central Park. Apparently the Yankees are just that special that their stop gets to be rodent-free?

I wonder if there are signs like that near Shea Stadium? I bet not... how could there ever be any rats in Flushing anyway, right?

I guess it's all kind of a moot point anyway, I haven't seen any rats in any subway stations or on any tracks yet... oh wait... except for the PATH Train tracks in Jersey. The PATH is the subway that connects New Jersey to Manhattan (remember Journal Square?... I vaguely do). I saw lots of mice on the PATH track at Newark Penn Station.

Don't tell me you're even the slightest bit surprised at the only place I've seen subway rodents so far... because I know you're not.





So back to the game (or outside at least for commoners like myself). New York's finest were out en masse for the All-Star game. They were everywhere, literally in the hundreds. I couldn't get a picture to convey the massive police presence. There were also rows and rows of police cars and police vans on lots of nearby streets too.





It wouldn't surprise me if there was a lot of crime in other parts of the Bronx last night, since it seems every cop in the Bronx got pulled for "show of force" duty at Yankee Stadium.

Not that I would have been able to afford one, but that many cops make buying a scalped ticket not the most appealing thing. I did see a deal go down though at one point... it looked like enough cash changed hands to fund a small Colombian guerilla force. One guy offered me a ticket for $675. I almost debated the idea of skipping food and beverage for the next month or so... key word being "almost."

There were tons of people trying to get tickets. One guy asked someone heading into the game for a ticket, and the guy on his way in jokingly said "maybe for $5,000." The guy wanting a ticket said "sure," totally stunning the first guy... who thought about it for a good bit but decided to go in the game and not ditch his family... which could have made for an awkward All-Star game experience for all parties involved.

For non-ticket-having folks like myself there were some neat things and free stuff... most notably gobs of free candy. "The House that Ruth Built?" ... sure, Baby Ruth.

Baby Ruth was out in force with people like this guy giving out Baby Ruth's by the handful... it was awesome.





I don't want to know how many I had, but I do know my stomach was getting a little off... though that definitely could have been a result of being surrounded by thousands of Yankees fans... either way...

I did see a couple of other Devil Rays fans pass by in the throngs, which was kind of neat.

The area around the stadium had plenty of bars and memorabilia stores and such. I like when a stadium has an actual district around it to keep folks busy and entertained. There was one store selling baseball cards including various Rod Carew cards for $20-$30... weird... he's inescapable.

There was also a little fanfest kind of area set up with plenty of ways to drop some cash, but I just wandered and snapped a shot. At least there was a kind of cool mural behind it.





The new stadium being built is right across the street from the old one...





Hopefully I'll be catching some Devil Rays games there in the future (I already have plans to catch one at old Yankee Stadium before it's demolished), but who knows how much tickets to the games at the new stadium will cost, especially since George Steinbrenner is apparently greedy (shocker, right?)... Apparently some folks, like this guy wandering around the throngs, aren't too pleased with the idea of replacing the old Yankee Stadium... oh well..





So after wandering around I decided to find a bar near my apartment and watch the game since one of the biggest names in the game is from Washington Heights... Manny Ramirez... who is affectionately nicknamed ManRam... which I maintain is the worst nickname ever, but whatev I suppose...





So I wandered to the "dos por uno cervesas" bar down the street and parked myself for the game. It was actually pretty fun. They spoke all Spanish for about 90 percent of the time. However, I was able to gather that they, like all good-hearted people, hate E-Rod. They say he should help the Domican Republic more after natural disasters, like many other big-name players do... they also hate him for the other normal reasons too.


One guy, for whatever reason started talking trash about Julio Lugo, which was pretty funny... and especially random since he wasn't in the All-Star game... he didn't speak English, but I could talk with him a little in Spanish and gather that apparently Lugo hits into too many double plays for his liking... and he hates him with a passion because of it.

We bonded over me being a Devil Rays fan... though Navarro totally made me look like a bitch with all his "awesome" plays and strikeouts... oh well... I've been a Rays fan long enough that I'm used to a little ribbing.

Overall it was fun, and the guys were all nice and I think it will be a good place to hone my Spanish skills.

Anyway... dinner time... I think I'll grab something in Chinatown, mmm....

"We don't have 2 take our clothes off 2 have a good time."

It's true. Jermaine Stewart is not a man you want to argue with.

I really can't remember the last time I heard the whole Jermaine Stewart classic ode to platonic love, but sure enough it came on in the Hell's Kitchen bar I watched the Red Sox game at. I think the bar was close enough to Times Square that there were enough tourists that I didn't get shot for rooting for the Sox (we lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks - 2-1).

You have to admit, it's a fun eighties ditty. Also, hopefully this post will offer some sort of explanation to the people I randomly texted when this song came on. I think I may have even texted some of the gals that I got numbers from in Chinatown in D.C., oh well... everyone can appreciate a good Jermaine Stewart reference, right? It is just a really fun song. Listen to it twice, and tell me you're not singing along with the chorus the second time you hear it. Word.

Sidenote about the Hell's Kitchen bar. These kids came in, and the leader pulled up to the bar and told the bartender in a serious tone "Give me the usual."

The bartender then proceeded to card him, he gave her his driver's license with a 1992 birth year and she laughed just about to the point of crying. They didn't stay too much longer. It was a pretty goofy scene, where everybody at the bar had a good laugh.

So... anyway... along with my adventures with Jermaine Stewart in Hell's Kitchen (how often do you hear that?... I love New York City.) I also had my first day of work.

I found the place alright in the morning, since I had done a couple dry runs. I did get a bit mixed up around the street "People with A.I.D.S. Plaza," literally... but I got situated soon after that. Near City Hall especially, parts of streets in New York have some strange and really specific names...

My boss called in sick, so I didn't have too much direction once I got into the office, but that was good because it let me do more apartment hunting stuff.

The people in the office were really nice, but weren't too talkative... we'll see if that can be cured.

So, I met this nice girl briefly on the elevator in the morning and we chatted a bit. She seemed really nice. The next time I bumped into her was in my brief tour of the other offices, and apparently she works in the EEO office... so... I'm kind of torn. Would it be kind of a moron move for the new guy to start hitting on someone in the EEO office? Maybe I'll see how to do one of those polls like "worldlyjen" did on her blog... we'll see...

She's not on my floor of the building, so I probably won't run into her again too soon... but if I do, we'll see what happens... I asked her about lunch in Chinatown and she recommended a restaurant called "Big Wong." It was actually pretty good.

Well... one day down.... we'll see how day two goes...