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Barry Bonds cheated. A lot. And although he didn’t come clean about it, he goal was never to put forth a river of lies. Bonds only needed to not go to prison, and to not have Major League Baseball suspend him or expunge his records. He lied to make sure he got those two things, but other than that he didn’t care if the entire American public thought he was a cheater. He understood the consequences of his actions and didn’t try to change them. Within that disconnected attitude was a certain kind of honesty; an acceptance of the punishment for his actions. You could even say that Bonds has done what most people would have done if they were in his situation (his 2007 situation, not his 2000-2005 situation).

Clemens has been the complete opposite , and that’s what makes him such a jackass. It wasn’t enough for him to escape legal and disciplinary action. He needed to keep his legacy, regardless of whether or not he got that legacy cheating. And so Clemens embarked on one of the most malicious and fallacious campaigns in the history of sports.

Bonds lied in response to questions that were being forced upon him. It was a passive kind of dishonesty. Clemens, on the other hand, initiated the lying. He went out of his way to try and deceive the American people. Instead of accepting his punishment (a tarnished legacy), Clemens made a mockery of the justice system in the hope of striking his steroid use from the record. That’s the reason he deserves to go down in history as somebody even more foul than Barry Bonds.

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This may come as a shock to many of you, but apparently Troy Brown is famous enough to be the subject of a “celebrity roast”. Later today the former Marshall receiver will be honored at a roast in Huntington, just miles from the Marshall campus. Chad Pennington, Byron Leftwich, and Randy Moss are among the invited roast guests.

I don’t know if this will function like the normal Comedy Central roasts, but if it does……oh boy.

I picture the evening going a little something like this:

PENNINGTON: It’s great to see Randy Moss. I guess he must have thought there was some kind of “Losing the Super Bowl” parade here tonight. Look at him sitting down over there. It’s weird to see him so lethargic somewhere other than a football field.

MOSS: Thanks Chad. I’m impressed you’re even able to hold that drink with your right arm. That thing is flimsier than the rolling papers I currently have in my pocket.

LEFTWICH: Uh oh. Randy, if you don’t back off Chad might have to file a restraining order against you. And we all know you’re familiar with those.

MOSS: Two words. Joey Harrington. Two more words. Chris Redman.

TROY BROWN: Isn’t this supposed to be about me?

All in all it will be an entertaining evening in which Brown show his versatility by getting 14 different drinks from the bar while he is being roasted.

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It’s Wednesday, and that means its time for another patented ShakedownSports conspiracy theory. Today’s topic: Yao Ming’s broken foot.

(prepare to have your mind blown)

After leading the Rockets to 12 straight wins, the team suddenly announced that Yao will miss the rest of the season with stress fracture in his foot. That seems a little fishy. And doesn’t it seem even fishier that with the Beijing Olympics only five months away, doctors say the injury will take at least four months to heal.

Here’s the theory. Yao had been playing with the stress fracture for a while. The team knew about it, but as long as Yao was willing to play through the pain they were willing to let him keep going. The hope was that he could play through the playoffs and then have surgery after the season.

Unfortunately for the Rockets, the the Chinese government found out about the injury. A quick call was placed to David Stern in which China threatened to stop the pipeline of money coming in to the NBA if Yao were unable to play in the Olympics. No more Yao Ming lunchboxes, no Bill more Walton dubbed over on Chinese TV, no more Yi Jianlians getting shipped across the ocean. It would all be gone, and Stern would be left trying to introduce basketball to poor children in Bangladesh.

The commissioner knew he had to act fast. He canceled lunch with his old pal Russ Granik and called the Rockets. He carefully informed them of the situation and what they must do. I don’t know how Stern did it, but he managed to convince the Rockets to end Yao’s season. Perhaps he promised to compensate them with future lottery rigging, perhaps he just reminded them that this was a risk they took on when they decided to draft Yao.  In the end the Rockets did what was in the best interests of the NBA, and the best interests of the Chinese Olympic team.

I know what you’re thinking: “I have to call the Chinese embassy to complain.” Well, I’m here to help. The embassy’s number is 202-328-2500. Enjoy.

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The University of New Mexico athletic department has a new sponsor—-Route 66 Casino Hotel. The five-year, $2.5 million deal means that Route 66 will be the “exclusive gaming sponsor for the Lobos athletic department.”

This is great news. One of the hardest things for an athletic department to do is commit to just one gaming sponsor. Usually some of their people are more inclined to go to the racetrack and some are more inclined to spend their time in casinos. And what about the people who prefer more of an online experience? It can be impossible to find one sponsor who can provide all those things. That’s why it’s so great New Mexico found a gaming sponsor for everybody. It’s a momentous day for college athletics.

Unfortunately, there are some crazies out there who think it’s inappropriate for casinos to sponsor college athletic departments. What these crazies need to do is break out of their archaic, irrationally conservative, anti-gambling mindset and realize that Route 66 has just as much of a right to sponsor college athletes as Nike or Adidas. This is a great partnership that will do wonders for these kids.

On a completely unrelated note, I wouldn’t recommend betting on New Mexico to cover the spread any time in the next five years.

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(Every week there are a number of stories slip through the cracks here at ShakedownSports. These are just a few of them.)

–Last Tuesday Kevin Durant was booed when he went home sick just before tip-off. Oh also, it was “Kevin Durant Bobblehead Night.” Durant then made things even worse when he later revealed he went to Oklahoma city to receive treatment.

–On April 11th the Rocket will unveil a monument honoring Hakeem Olajuwon. Just one week later, in a much less publicized move, the Blazers will name a lower concourse restroom stall after Sam Bowie.

–The NFL’s competition committee is discussing the possibility of giving one defensive player on each team a radio receiver in his helmet. I’m not so hot on the plan. Don’t Ray Lewis and Joey Porter already hear enough voices in their head?

–Attention San Diego State fans: Your dark days are over. DirecTV has reached a deal with the Mountain West Conference to carry the conference’s new television network. Finally, a reason to be happy I have Comcast.

–The Falcons won their draft coin toss. They will now pick 3rd and the Raiders will pick 4th, but the important thing about the coin flip is that it won Michael Vick three cartons of cigarettes.

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This is China’s new Olympic swimming venue. As Borat says, “It is nice.” And by the way, we’re only 168 days away from the start of the Beijing Olympics—also known as the time when China’s genetically engineered HGHletes will shame America by winning gold medals in every single event. It should be a good time.

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…Shaq looked pretty good in his Suns debut last night. And by “pretty good” I mean “not fat.” It was like 1995 inside his jersey. And keep in mind that this is only his first game. By the time the playoffs roll around he’ll be a dead ringer for Boris Diaw. Shaq wasn’t able to lead Phoenix to victory, but he did flash signs that he can be the defensive force the team needs.

…Jason Kidd also made his debut last night. The results were inconclusive, but Dirk Nowitzki had a nice game, and that’s the most important thing—that Kidd can make him and MVP-type player again.

…The Orioles can’t catch a break. It looks like Troy Patton (the key guy in the Miguel Tejada trade) might have a torn labrum. At least his past steroid use wasn’t documented in an official report.

…I love Coby Karl—mostly because the guy went from walking on at Boise State to playing in the NBA with only minimal help from his NBA-coaching dad—but here’s another reason. On Tuesday Karl played 37 minutes for the Lakers D-Leauge team. Immediately afterwards the Lakers called him up and he scored five points against the Hawks in a game that same night. Color me impressed. I can’t even play back-to-back pickup games without getting fatally winded.

…Do you ever wonder what happens to the sod from the Super Bowl? Some lucky high school gets it. That means 10 years from now some skinny 9th grader will get tackled to the turf, and there lying beside him will be Tom Brady’s long lost infallibility.

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The Baltimore Ravens are being sued, and surprisingly it’s not by the family of Knute Rockne over the team’s bastardization of the forward pass. A Baltimore man named Frederick Bouchat is once again suing the team for stealing his logo design. Bouchat also sued the team last year, but while the judge ruled the Ravens infringed on his copyright, he was not awarded any monetary compensation. Now he’s suing the Ravens, the NFL, NFL Films, and the Baltimore Sun—all are organizations he claims are profiting for his design.

I can’t think of any situation to better illustrate the recent struggles of a franchise. Six years ago nobody would have dared to sue the Ravens. The fear of Ray and Jamal Lewis showing up at your door with machete’s on their belt would have been enough to scare anyone into keeping quiet. Not anymore. The Ravens have lost that crazy, unpredictable, maniacal aura. It’s gone.

As for the actual lawsuit, would it really be so bad for the Ravens to give the guy a million dollars to keep quiet? The team gave $25 million Elvis Grbac—the least they could do is give some cash to the guy who unofficially came up with their logo.

If Bouchat doesn’t get anything form this most recent lawsuit, it’s time to give up. Right now Roger Goodell is busy tending to more important things, but if Bouchat isn’t careful he’ll wake up one morning in a ditch wearing nothing but an official pair of Baltimore Ravens Crocs. You do not want to mess with the NFL. The league has more power than the Chinese government.

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Last off-season Drew Rosenhaus made a big fuss about NFL players being franchised. At the time he was representing Lance Briggs in a bitter contract negotiation with the Bears, and to help out his man he appeared all over TV to explain how the franchise tag was just an intricate way for teams to avoid giving players long term contracts.

It seemed clear to me that Rosenhaus was just another agent pumping out carefully worded half-truths in order to get his player more money. Since I generally believe that the owner is always right and the players and their agents are greedy, money-grubbing whores (and that Donald Fehr needs to get beaten up by a horde of angry homeless people), I figured there was no way Rosenhaus of all people would be the agent to have a legitimate beef. Now I’m reconsidering.

In the last two weeks Eagles tight end L.J. Smith and Bengals lineman Stacy Andrews were both franchised. Each player is now guaranteed a one year contract that’s the average yearly salary of the five highest paid players at their positions. Think about the previous sentence for a second. It means that for a franchise player to not be overpaid he must be one of the top three players at his position. Interestingly, L.J. Smith isn’t even one of the 10 best tight ends in the league and Andrews isn’t even penciled in as a starter for the Bengals (nor are there more than two images of him on the internet in which he’s even wearing a helmet). Both teams are admittedly overpaying these players by astronomical amounts.

So why are they doing this? Drew Rosenhaus has the answer. By franchising Smith and Andrews the Bengals and Eagles can avoid giving them much riskier long term contracts. The teams overpay this year, but because they have the cap room and are getting another year to evaluate the players, it’s the economical move (and because nobody will give up two first round picks, the teams don’t have to worry about somebody else offering their franchise players long term deals.)

I’m now ready to admit it. Rosenhaus was right. The players are getting screwed. The fact that L.J. Smith was franchised should be a blaring siren to players, agents, and fans that the tag is being abused. Teams are simply using it as a way to avoid giving players the security of a long term contract. L.J. Smith might be happy right now (”guess what mom? somebody thinks I’m one of the 5 best tight ends in the NFL!!”), but when he’s out of the league in two years he’ll wish he had been offered that 5-year deal with $10 million in guaranteed money.

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(Every week there are a number of stories slip through the cracks here at ShakedownSports. These are just a few of them.)

–Florida State put its sports teams on two years of self-imposed probation as punishment for the entire football team cheating in class. Nevertheless, Florida State administrators are not too concerned—they say they know a guy who can help them serve two years of probation in only three months.

–Philadelphia appears to be on the verge of finally getting an MLS expansion team. Fans are already putting together a guide on how to boo the team in 23 different languages.

–Ryan Dempster announced that he believes the Cubs are going to win the Wold Series. Right. And Aramis Ramirez is going to be honored by Bud Selig for his prowess as a cockfighter.

–Forget about Roger Clemens—Matt Herges and Glenallen Hill admit to taking steroids!! I’d like to believe them, but part of me thinks they’re only pretending to come clean so they can be introduced to the titillating Virginia Foxx.

–Nike and Steve Nash announced plans to release a new shoe (the Nike Trash Talk Shoe) made partly from pieces of manufacturing waste. Among the different materials in the shoe will be scraps of leather waste from a factory floor, ground up rubber from recycled shoes, and what remains of Marcus Banks’ NBA career.

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