Nobody with a brain in their head is remotely shocked that Sammy Sosa’s name is allegedly on the list of 104 dopes who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003.  Yesterday, the New York Times broke the news of Sosa’s name on the list, and the timing appears to line up with Sosa’s announcement two weeks ago that he was retiring.  In other words, somebody heard Sammy say that nobody had any proof that he cheated, and decided to give some.

We know Sammy didn’t actually retire, he just finally took the hint after two years of no one wanting to pay him to try to play baseball anymore.

The best thing to come of this “revelation” is that when Sammy is eligible for Hall of Fame voting in three years he won’t be able to claim that nobody could ever prove that he cheated.  I was getting tired of that argument in advance of him actually using it.

I’m as guilty, probably more than most, as anybody of turning a blind eye to the ludicrous physical changes that accompanied Sosa’s rise from talented, undisciplined, downright dumb underachiever to talented, feared slugger (still, downright dumb) that happened just before the 1998 season.

Part of the reason was that the Cubs’ archrivals, the Cardinals, had a slugger of their own, so cartoonishly out of proportion to be believed.  Hey, if the Cardinals have a guy happy to almost guarantee premature death and testicles the size of raisins, why shouldn’t the Cubs?

Don’t let the Chicago media fool you, either.  The ones who are happily dancing on the news of “proof” that Sammy did what we all had assumed long ago, aren’t happy because they have staked out the moral high ground.

No, guys like Barry Rozner are glad because they’ve had an axe to grind about Sammy for years.  He was a prick to them, so they’re happy he got his.

Yeah, bask in your victory.  It’s not like Sammy made approximately $110 million bucks in salary from 1998 on, or anything.

If anything should really bother Sammy about this whole thing, it’s not that this seals his fate regarding the Hall of Fame (but he was never getting in anyway), it’s the reaction of baseball fans, especially Cubs’ fans, to this news.  Nobody is shocked, and few give a shit.

The naive among us might still claim that you and your churlish chum from St. Louis “saved” baseball in 1998, while most are going to look back on the era that started that year with more than a little bit of embarassment.

Tough shit, buddy.

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Since our little shit storm of a couple of weeks ago with Dave Kaplan and the unctuous Jimmy Greenfield over at the new blogs at the Chicago National Organization of Women’s .com Web site, I haven’t paid much attention to how things are going over there.

The answer?

Oh, he’s still posting.  Not that anybody has noticed.

As of this morning the TEN blog posts that Kaplan has made that are on his front page have garnered a total of 15 comments.

Seven of those are on one post (the one where Kap throws a fit that the Cubs sent a scout to watch Pedro Martinez throw).  Four are on a post about Derrick Rose’s “gang signs” photo.  So that’s eight posts with zero or one comment.

Granted, the site is still in its Beta stage and they haven’t even moved the one that will be worth reading over there yet.

But come on.  These are the Interwebs.  People will read anything.  Even the worst blogs of all-time get comments.  Don’t they?

It’s not like the Tribune isn’t promoting it.  I found it for chrissakes, and there isn’t a damn thin on there that’s worth reading yet.  There’s an embarrassing Cubs blog by the embarrassing “Cubbie Julie” there’s that idiot who does the minor league page where he just goes through the box scores and tells you that Wellington Castillo got a single and walked in a 0-4 loss.  Yes, he always puts the Cubs or Sox affiliate’s score first, no matter if they won or not.

By the way, you know one of their blogs that wishes it had Kap’s traffic?  The Red Eye one.  If a post shits in the woods and nobody comments on it, does it make any noise?  It’s not like they have a print companion to help plug it.  Oh, that’s right, nobody reads that thing, either.

Keep up the good work, gang!  Maybe David Hernandez will buy you out and pay you all big money!

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Speaking of that, Chicago Sports Webio is now dead.  Chester and Boom Boom (I’m embarrassed even typing that) signed off yesterday and there’s no word about whether or not anyone will try to come in and save the doomed-from-the-start-even-without-the-Ponzi-scheme-aspect venture.  Hernandez is missing.  Matt Weber explains wha’ happen?  And what is this blog (is it even real?) that was convieniently pointed to from Mike North’s own Web site?

It will be interesting to find out what the Norths knew and when they knew it.  Check out this gem from Lewis Lazare’s piece in today’s Sun-Times about the due diligence Mike and Be-Be North did on Hernandez before they got into business with him.

North and his wife Googled Hernandez on the Web and found nothing that raised concerns, so deals were done.

Holy crap.  Even Jesse Rogers isn’t that dumb.

This idea was never a good one, even if their investor hadn’t been a crook.  And the fact that he was overpaying for mediocre talent (like Weber, George Ofman, Rogers, Fred Huebner, etc., not to mention whatever the deals North and Dan Jiggetts had) should have been a red flag.  As Weber noted in his own blog post, he was being paid three times what he was at the Score.  Why?  How many of us even knew who Matt Weber was?

Chicago Sports Webio claimed they were getting 7,000 to 10,000 hits per day after two and a half months on the air.  Even if true, that’s not good for a company paying out what they were paying for ‘talent.’  That’s not good for any site.

Internet radio is an idea that one day might work, but we’re not even close yet.  It’s going to take two pretty big things to happen.  First, cars are going to need to be WiFi enabled.  With the auto industry in the great shape that it is, even if they all decided to make that a standard feature on new cars within the next few years, it’s going to take a considerable amount of time for enough of those cars to be on the road to provide you with an actual audience.  And that’s assuming that a way of providing a seamless, free WiFi network across the country happens at the same time.

Until then, you just have an extremely limited audience.  And then when you provide less than interesting programming, you’re doomed.

Right now, the poor saps who worked at Chicago Sports Webio are hoping someone comes in and buys the company.  But honestly, if anybody actually did, you’d have to assume they were running some sort of scheme, wouldn’t you?

And if they weren’t, you’d have to figure you could run one on them and get back to even!