Why doesn’t anyone care about the Champions Tour? I realize most people could probably go down the PGA Tour Schedule and classify it something like “Tiger, Boring, Tiger, Tiger, Boring, Tiger, Boring, Boring, hey look, Tiger plays in that one too!”

But even among golf fans, the Champions Tour events are largely ignored. Is it because by the time these heavyweight players have been mostly relegated to the “Geezer Tour” fans figure it’s lost some of the excitement and glamour?  I think ChiChi doing the ChaCha over there on the left in his sassy green pants begs to differ. You can’t even make the argument that it’s golf-lite or anything like that, since I seem to recall a certain 60-year-old recently holding his own with the kids for about 98 percent of a major tournament. Not to mention that this Greg Norman guy was close to doing the same last year. (And choked of course, but 1980s Norman choked too, it’s not a sign of aging.)

Champions Tour events are more like a gathering of all the best we’ve seen over the past couple decades. It’s The Beatles’ No. 1’s album. It’s the best of Aerosmith or The Police, except without the remastering. These are the masters. And really, what other sport is lucky enough to have the opportunity to relive history like this, even after Tiger and Phil and a slew of Asian teenagers have swooped in to take their place on the main stage? Imagine how much interest this concept would gather in other sports:

Football Let’s try this for a warm-up exercise. Raise your hand if you hate the Dallas Cowboys. Raise your hand if you hate the Denver Broncos. Ok, hands down. Now raise your hand if you’d like to see the early 90s Cowboys take on the late 90s Broncos. What, there’s still some hands down? Fine, raise your hand if you’d rather see that than watch the Detroit Lions get slaughtered again on Thanksgiving Day.

I thought as much.

Basketball If you were both alive and able to create memories when the Detroit “Bad Boys” had their run over Jordan’s Bulls and the Bulls saw their ultimate retribution come to pass in the following years, consider yourself lucky. Those were great times for the sport. But now we’re a mess of tattoos and a wedding dress, a failed baseball career, a sexual harassment suit (and maybe a couple other interesting lawsuits) later. Someone set up a rematch, same guys, same teams. This has the potential to be the greatest battle since “Bring It On III.”

Hockey Actually this might be a moot point once we get to hockey. Claude Lemieux came back last season? Theo Fleurry this year? I’m pretty sure Chris Chelios died five years ago and continues to shop out his reanimated corpse instead and no one ever noticed. The only difference here is that while it’s fun to see the old favorites strap on the pads and take to the ice again, most have proven that they can’t exactly hang with the young dogs anymore.

Baseball Well…the thing about baseball is that the further we reach back, the more we find out about them dipping into the Sauce. And I’m not talking about liquor. Or Hollandaise. I’m not denying that a meeting of Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Jose Canseco wouldn’t be entertainment, I’m just not sure an actual baseball game would ever break out.

The point is this with the Senior PGA, here’s a group that chooses not to just kick back in their mansions or their vacation homes in the Caribbean when they retire at age 50. This is a group that truly enjoys what they do and still do it pretty damn well. If only we, as spectators, were so lucky in all sports.

Manny Ramirez‘s return to Chavez Ravine on July 16 was overwhelmingly (and unsurprisingly) positive. Why not? They cheered Bonds in the Bay Area. Missourians still dig Big Mac (and Big Macs). They cheered Alex Rodriguez in the Bronx. Heck, New Yorkers even cheered Sergio Mitre after he threw 5.2 innings in a winning effort on Tuesday. The bottom line is that fans – generally speaking – want their players to be clean and awesome, but when push comes to shove, they’ll settle for just awesome.

And maybe at the major league level that’s actually okay to do – no matter what fans are told they’re supposed to feel about it. What have steroids been proven to do? The answer after all the bluster of the last half-decade, is not too much. Sure some of the superstars that have been decidedly guilty (if not proven so) for PEDs have seen a dramatic dropoff of their statistics after the point in which they were slammed. Miguel Tejada, Jason Giambi and Sammy Sosa all come to mind. But two of this season’s biggest stories have been Alex Rodriguez’s admitted use of steroids and Manny Ramirez’s 50-game suspension for taking care of her uterine wall.

Rodriguez missed 28 games at the start of the season because of a hip injury unrelated to the steroid scandal (supposedly) and Ramirez returned from his suspension at the beginning of this month. So how much different are those dirty rotten cheaters’ numbers been this season than their career averages? Again, not too much.

Ramirez’s 2009 statistics if averaged out over the course of a full season:

G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
156 642   510   113   174    43     4     39     131    –     –   117   96    .340   .470    .666   1.136

Now, here are Ramirez’s numbers from his previous (presumably steroid-riddled) 15 seasons in the league:

Stat compilation courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com

G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
157 682   547   97     138   19      0     45     131   14    2    121   109   .252   .397    .535    .932

Now, here are Rodriguez’s numbers from his previous (presumably cheat-filled, frosted-tipped) 14 seasons in the league:

Stat compilation courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com

Not all of Rodriguez’s stats are on par, but the big ones that get the headlines (and asterisks) are. He’s running less and earning fewer runs, but that isn’t necessarily even in Rodriguez’s control. What is in is control are homers, RBIs and his patience at the plate all of which surpasses even his 162-game averages (and few superstars still play all 162 games these days). Again, the aspects of Rodriguez’s game that would conceivably be punctured by a leak in the steady flow of steroids simply have not been affected.

One can extrapolate from these numbers that this is why an overwhelming amount of fans can’t be bothered losing sleep over this ongoing ruination of the game. If one believes Ramirez and Rodriguez are no longer using steroids (it would be simultaneously shocking and appropriate if they were), then one has to wonder at all the “fake and liar” talk is about that surrounded these two superstars. What were they lying about? Because it doesn’t appear to be statistics related. And judging by the applause those two players got in their first home games following their shamed revelations, the stats are really all anyone cares about.

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Photos courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images

Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images

For as few people who talked about Jonathan Sanchez’s near-perfect no-hitter 13 days ago, the crush of baseball fans discussing Mark Buehrle’s perfect game evens things out a bit.

Not only is Buehrle the 18th person to throw a perfect game (17th to do so in the regular season), the sixth to throw both a no-hitter and a perfect game and the first to do it for either Chicago team, but Buehrle’s game also had what may be the greatest catch in baseball history, considering the direct impact it had on the game’s outcome. DeWayne Wise just bought himself a season’s worth of goodwill on the south side of Chicago after pulling Gabe Kapler‘s no-hitter-ruining homer back into the ball park. Sox manager Ozzie Guillen put Wise in as a defensive replacement for just the final inning. I’ll let some other less clever bloggers make the “Wise choice” pun.

I’m above such silliness.

Great catch. I’ll listen to Willie Mays‘ catch in the ’54 World Series as being better but … yeah, that’s about it.

That catch was astounding enough that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that play becomes more famous in retrospect than the perfect game itself. True, Wise’s leap will forever be handcuffed to the context in which its greatness was born but the replay ability of that moment might render it more recognizable; not unlike Mays’ catch being shown outside the context of that World Series.

Now go wipe the shaving cream off your face, ’cause there are some other facts that need to get sorted out after the jump:

• Even though Buehrle has only has one perfect game to his credit, he’s also the only pitcher in history to face the complete game minimum of 27 batters on three separate occasions: Thursday’s game (obviously), his no-hitter two seasons ago (he walked Sammy Sosa and picked him off later in the inning – classic Sosa!) and July 2004, when he threw a two-hitter in which both batters were retired on double plays.
  

• Sandy Koufax is the only other pitcher to toss two complete game no-hitters while facing the minimum 27 batters.
  

• Josh Fields hit a grand slam in the third inning of Buehrle’s no-no, which was only the third no-hitter in which one of those had ever been hit. What makes this noteworthy is that Buehrle’s first no-hitter was one of the other two games. Jermaine Dye hit the salami.
  

• Both of Buehrle’s no-hitters lasted exactly 123 minutes. Of that 2:03, he was only on the mound for 32 of those minutes.
  

• The oddest stat of all: The ump behind home plate of this game was the same ump behind home plate to call Buehrle’s first no-hitter. Both the ump, Eric Cooper, and Buehrle wear No. 56.
  
  

This last bit begs the question, if you’re Eric Cooper and it’s the seventh inning of Buehrle’s second no-hitter on your watch, do you subconsciously expand the strike zone because you’re only human and can’t help but tingle at the idea of being a part of a perfect game? Or do you shrink the strike zone the same way a scrupulous coach/father avoids playing favoritism with his kid – by being a bit harder on him than all the others?

Or is it possible that umps can remain totally unfazed for the duration of the game?

Now that the bombshell mildly notable item that Sammy Sosa juiced has soaked into the core of your being, it’s time to start hunting for witches.

If you believe clean players ever existed, where were they in all of this? I’m aware of the brotherhood teams and organizations have, but think of the hundreds of players to go in and out of the league, isn’t it strange that no one but Jose Canseco – the poster child of steroid abuse – had anything to say about it?

Even more strange are the reactions of baseball personalities around the league after a revelation like Sosa’s has been made.

“That’s not that surprising at all,” Houston first baseman Lance Berkman said. “There are just certain guys that you pretty much know without coming out and making an…accusation, but it does not surprise me, not even a little bit.”

“You think the sun’s going to rise in the east tomorrow,” former Cubs announcer Steve Stone replied when asked if he suspected Sosa of steroid abuse. “Nobody really questioned who was doing what and it wasn’t my job as a broadcaster to ever question who did what.”

I’m not suggesting Berkman or Stone or anyone else ought to have talked to the press and made accusations that they couldn’t back up with proof. But these guys were basing their (ultimately correct) hunches on something. And it is that something that Major League Baseball has not sought after.

Also, is Stone’s position acceptable? He’s right that calling out his suspicions of steroid abuse isn’t what he’s paid to do. But if an international affairs news editor sees that the local news editor is printing false information, does he hold his tongue and risk a severe weakening of the overall product (the newspaper) because, hey, local news ain’t my division, man.

Sometimes to do your job right, you have to do more than is expected. Ironically, a bastardized version of this philosophy probably compelled a handful of the steroid users to start using steroids in the first place. This massive wave of silence by everyone makes it appear as if everyone thinks it’s not a very big deal. And if steroid usage in MLB isn’t a very big deal, isn’t that something MLB should concern itself with?

There were 135 players implicated, named in the Mitchell Report, suspended or confessed to having used steroids. The team pictured above – the 2001 Texas Rangers – watched 23 of those PEDestrians waltz on through the Arlington clubhouse. At what point does our suspicious glare stop resting on just the players and start inquiring as to who else on the 1998 Rangers or the 2001 Rangers or the 2003 Rangers knew about their star players? Every major league ball club had at least nine players on that list of 135 in their clubhouse at some point in their career, but why did, say the Houston Astros, the closest neighbors of the Rangers, manage only nine players? (Admittedly four of Houston’s players Ken Caminiti, Miguel Tejada, Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens are big-time names in this scandal, but still…)

The Yankees had 27 of the 135 names in the clubhouse. The Mets? It had 23 of the named players, same as the Rangers. San Diego and Anaheim? They had 21.

So what?

So why haven’t we heard about the organization’s management? It’s more than plausible that the same organization that brought Rafael Palmeiro, Sosa and Tejada together in 2004 and 2005 were aware of something others weren’t. Sure, it could have been a coincidence. The fact that Canseco and Mark McGwire were on the A’s shooting steroids into each other’s butts 15 years before Tejada and Jason Giambi did it for the same team was probably a coincidence. But some of these things are not coincidences.

There are a lot of innocent people keeping their mouths shut. They’ve been keeping their mouths shut for a long time. Make sure you blame them too, right along with Barry Bonds, Bud Selig and Florida pharmacists. It’s easy to plead blind and dumb because it’s hard to disprove.

But take a look at the above picture from 2001. Four of those five guys are on the list of 135. And in 2000, there were two others on that Texas team (Dave Martinez and David Segui) and the year before that? Two others (Juan Gonzalez and Greg Zaun). And what about the year after this picture? Yup. Two more (Ismael Valdez and Todd Greene). That’s a locker room epidemic. And there ain’t no way everyone else in that locker room and in the owner’s box walked blindly through a lineup full of cheaters.

As a diehard Cubs fan, I’ve been pelted with questions about Sammy Sosa’s retirement announcement all week. I say pelted because every inquiry leaves an emotional welt, like pops from a paintball gun.

I never liked Slammin’ Sammy. Not in the ’98 home run race with Mark McGwire, not in the ’03 fungo bat incident and certainly not when he magically forgot how to speak English in front of Congress. I don’t dislike Sosa because of his assumed – but never proven (UPDATE: Proven) – steroid use. I didn’t like him before that was on anyone’s radar. Sosa was a garbage-time stat collector with a penchant for striking out when the Cubs really could’ve used a sac fly (he led the league in K’s in three different seasons and led the Cubs in Ks from 1997-2003). Of his 609 home runs, 326 of them were solo shots. 130+ of them came when there was a 4 or more run difference.

So, no. I’m not sad he’s retiring officially. I wasn’t sad when he unofficially retired in 2007 or the numerous semi-retirements he’s had since 2004.

But if there is anything I will miss about Sosa, it will be his sprint out to right field as Cubs announcer Wayne Messmer announced “Play Ball!” at Wrigley Field. He looked like a bull, and came charging out of the dugout like he knew something we didn’t. As the team’s star for much of the 90s, seeing him barrel into the outfield always seemed to come with a promise of something glorious.

Perhaps that’s why I never liked Sosa. Because every sprint promised something glorious. And for all its late 90s bluster, he never delivered. But Cubs fans always go back for more, don’t they? And Sosa’s gallop never ceased to fill me with hope. I waited as calmly for Sosa to be great as he said he’ll wait for an induction into the Hall of Fame. I suspect both will yield the same results.

So there you go. I’ll miss hoping for something great from him.