Manifesto; Steroids in the game of Baseball

       We the Major League baseball Gods and fans demand that players all around the world stop taking steroids and/or performance enhancing drugs. We feel like it’s a disgrace to baseball. Baseball has been around for hundreds of years and just now in the past 30 years or so, it’s starting to be classified, not as baseball, but as steroid baseball. Some of the greatest hitters of all time, who us fans thought were real class acts of the game, have announced they took steroids and/or performance enhancing drugs. Players like Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez and possibly many more.
    Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Alex Rodriguez have been the recognized faces of baseball for the past 20 years. These three men have changed the state of baseball forever. Barry Bonds is the all time leader in Home Runs, with 756, but now baseball analysts and journalists think that more than half of his home runs were delivered with the help of steroids and/or performance enhancing drugs, even though it appears he will never admit to it.
So it goes for Mark McGwire; in 1998 he hit 70 regular season Home Runs. This had never happened before. Not surprisingly, a couple of months later he admitted to taking steroids.
Next up is Alex Rodriguez. This summer there was a story that surfaced about a company in Florida called Biogenesis that apparently came to A-Rods house, during the offseason, and injected him with steroids. Of course A-Rod flatly rejects all the rumors and has declined to comment further. Four months, later the Major League Baseball committee found evidence that A-Rod did indeed get injected with steroids and have decided to suspend him for over 200 games. With MLB’s perplexing rule allowing a player to appeal any suspension, A-Rod has chosen to go down that road and is now going through the appeals process, while still being able to play baseball all summer.
Alex Rodriguez is the only person in Major League Baseball history to be suspended for more than 50 games due to more offenses with steroids. We the baseball Gods and fans of the world demand that baseball goes back to its grassroots way of playing before the game gets tainted forever.         We demand if you get caught taking steroids and/or performance enhancing drugs you will be given a minimum of 100 games suspension. With that punishment, if you are a first time offender, we demand that you go on national television and plead for your forgiveness. If this is your second time being caught with taking performance enhancing drugs you will sit out a 150 game suspension, plus take part in community service for at least 200 hours. Finally for your third time being caught as an abuser, you will receive a lifetime ban from Major League Baseball, plus a hearing in court as to whether you should also receive jail time.
We, the Gods and fans of baseball, strongly suggest you stop taking these banned substances before you lose your chance to ever play baseball again and even possibly, losing your freedom. We ask you this one simple question, is it worth risking your baseball career and possibly your life for one injection of steroids into your body or swallowing one pill of a performance enhancing drugs? I think most people in this world would say no, if they were being honest.
The game of baseball is supposed to be for all ages. For example when you are growing up as a young child you start off doing Tee-ball. You then slowly progress to live pitch from your Coach. Next, is possibly playing Little League baseball and getting a chance to be on national television at the Little League Championships in Pennsylvania. After that, the final two steps to make it to the MLB are High School ball and College Baseball. You are basically giving all your life to become a Major League baseball player and you have one injury and you say to yourself; “I don’t think I can come back as strong as I use to be, so I’m going to take steroids and risk throwing everything away I tried for the most.” Steroids and/or performance enhancing drugs are not worth it and should not be tolerated under any circumstance in the game of baseball!
The motto has always been for the baseball Gods and fans of the world, “IF YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE IT, WE’RE COMING TO GET IT!” This is a message for all the young kids out there who are trying to become Major League Baseball players, please stay clean and lets take the game of baseball back to what it once was. It’s crucial that we, the Gods and fans of the baseball world, teach the young, future MLB players the right way to play the game.
In this spirit we have decided to hold a summer camp in Orlando, Florida from July 6th through August 2nd that will teach you not to take steroids, what steroids can do to your body, and how to be a professional ball player in the Major Leagues. The camp is free for ages 5-12 and for ages 12-18 it will be $200 for the whole month. We hope you decide to take this opportunity to come to our camp and learn how to be a clean, drug free professional ball player. If you have any questions please contact Mr. Ryan Glover at 901-298-9876 or at his email rglover@yahoo.com.
Hopefully I will see you guys this summer in Orlando!

Tayshaun Prince situation

Coming off the heels of a tremendous preseason performance from Quincy Pondexter in which he showed growth in his game, reports are beginning to surface that Q may indeed be the starting small forward for the Grizzlies come October 30th against the Spurs. But what will that mean for Tayshaun Prince, who according to Ron Tillery of the Commercial Appeal has yet to play this preseason due to a stomach bug?

There are rumors going around that ESPN are reporting that the Grizzlies are trying to trade the veteran Prince sometime through the season. Questions will be asked like, "why trade a guy who you got not even a year ago"? "why trade a guy who got you to the Western Conference Finals last year"? Trust me all fare questions to ask but the NBA is a business, Quincy is in his prime right now and has showed amazing growth this preseason. On the other half with Prince, he is 33 and in his last year under contract for the Grizzlies.

All will be answered soon when the NBA season tips off in 5 days! Grizz nation signing off!

10 days until the season starts

The season finally begins in 10 days for the Memphis Grizzlies. They will start there season on the road vs the San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs are the team who knocked off the Grizzlies last year in the Western Conference Finals. Big expectations surround the Grizzlies this season. People have questioned this offseason was it the right move to fire there Coach, Lionel Hollins. The front office in the long run it was the right decision. They decided to hire the lead assistant to Lionel, Dave Joerger.

The team itself though pretty much stayed the same. They resigned starting shooting guard Tony Allen and signed back up shooting guard and one time Grizzly Mike Miller. Questions still surround the team like, "Are they deep enough to make a run for the title"? "What happens if Marc or Zbo gets injured"? All fare questions to ask but what it will come down to the most is, was it the right decision to fire there past Coach, Lionel Hollins and bring in rookie NBA head coach Dave Joerger. All these questions will be answered in 10 days when the Grizzlies take on the raining Western Conference Champion, San Antonio Spurs.

Grizz Nation signing off!!

Preseason

The Memphis Grizzlies have finally kicked off there Preseason. Last night at the FedX Forum they took on the Dallas Mavericks. They lost the game 95-90 but it was a well tough game though out. The leaders last night for the Grizzlies in points was Jon Leuer, he also had the most minutes played. For the Mavericks it was Dirk Nowitzki.

The next preseason game for the Grizzlies is this friday night vs the Milwaukee Bucks. Unfortunately I won't be able to make the game but that Sunday night they play Maccabi Haifa at 5pm at the Forum and I will be their. Expect a play by play blog the following week!

Signing off now.....Grizz Nation!!

Profile Blog; Eric Sebastian

  Eric Sebastian was born February 16th 1972 in Columbus Ohio. He grew up loving Ohio State basketball and football. His father had season tickets for the Ohio State basketball team. He remembers especially one night when he was around 7 years old his first ever game at Ohio State. It was against Ohio State’s biggest rival, Michigan. He said it was so loud and amazing he had to cover his ears for most of the game. His biggest dream growing up in Ohio was hopefully getting to play basketball for the Ohio State Buckeyes.
He moved to a little town close to Dallas Texas when he was 11. He knew his options were slim now but he still hoped one day he could return to Ohio State and play basketball. It was his junior year in high school and he was playing basketball for his high school team in Dallas and his dreams and hopes came to an immediate halt; he tore his ACL going up for a dunk. Eric knew now that any hope of trying to get a scholarship from Ohio State to play basketball was dead. His knee was absolutely torn up and his dreams were destroyed.
It was his senior year in high school and Eric still wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life. In his heart he still thought he had a chance to play basketball but he knew every day that was really just turning into a dream. So one night him and his family sat down to discuss his college plans and his lifetime goals. Eric was still completely uncertain what he wanted to do until his dad brought up a great idea. He told Eric that since you love sports so much why not go study Sports Management at Southern Methodist University so you can be around basketball all the time. Eric agreed with his father and decided to attend SMU in the fall.
Eric loved his time at SMU and being apart of SMU basketball. His senior year he got asked by SMU’s basketball coach, Larry Brown, if he would like to join the staff as a player assistant and help the players. Eric’s days of being a college student were coming to an end and he didn’t have any jobs lined up or even any internships. He started to panic and wasn’t sure what he was going to do with his life until one Saturday afternoon.
That Saturday afternoon in July he received a call from the Jerry Jones, the President and General Manager of the Dallas Cowboys. Jerry asked Eric if he would like to join the Dallas Cowboys media relation’s office as an intern that coming fall when the Cowboys were going to start the season. Eric didn’t hesitate; he took the job and started working that fall. Eric was more than happy to finally have a job in sports but he knew he wanted to be around basketball and not football on a daily basis. He was starting to think would his dreams ever come true.
One year past and his time with the Cowboys was up. Jerry Jones decided to offer Eric another internship with the Cowboys for the following season but Eric declined. He decided to go for his goals and do everything in his power to get to the NBA some how and work for an NBA franchise. That night when he got home he started calling all the NBA teams asking if they had any jobs or internships in their media relations department. He didn’t get through to any teams; he left voicemails for all 32 teams hoping to get a call back from just one. Two nights later the Denver Nuggets called him back and said we have a job here and we would like you to come for an interview next week.
He arrived in Denver that Friday night for his interview the next day. Eric decided to go down to the bar that night and relax and get prepared for his interview tomorrow morning. When he got down to the bar he saw this beautiful lady sitting by herself, Eric decided to go up to her and talk to her. They had a couple of drinks and agreed they had to do this again very soon.
The next morning he headed down to the Nuggets organization for his interview. The Nuggets absolutely fell in love with Eric and gave him the job. That night he called Natalie (the lady at the bar) and asked her if she would like to go out and celebrate with him. She said yes and amazingly 5 months later they got married.
Eric worked with the Denver Nuggets media relations department from 1994 through 2009, including a six-year stint (2003-2009) as the department’s Director. In those 14 years he helped the Nuggets direct several successful campaigns for players receiving NBA All-Star and All-NBA honors, including Marcus Camby who earned the 2006-2007 NBA Defensive Player of the Year award. He also worked on statistical projects for the Nuggets Coaches and Management and assisted in the process of free agent recruiting. On a regular day-to-day basis he got to see some of the greatest players and coaches throughout the NBA including Denver’s own Coach George Karl and Nuggets NBA-All Stars Chauncey Billups, Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson.
One January night in 2009 he received a call from his college roommate Jack Murphy (lead assistant to Coach Pastner) asking Eric if he would consider leaving the NBA and come to college to become the Memphis Tigers basketball Director of Operations. Eric was very hesitant at first, because he loved his current job with the Nuggets. The team was on a 7 game winning streak and getting closer and closer to reaching the playoffs. Eric told Jack to give him a week and I’ll get back with you. Three days later Eric received another call, this time from the Coach himself Josh Pastner. Coach Pastner repeatedly told Eric that Memphis wants you here, the fans want you here and especially I want you here. Eric took the job and is still to this day the director of operations at the University of Memphis.
His role with the Tigers is much different than it was with the Nuggets. In his role with the Tigers, Eric deals with all of the program's external and internal operations. He actually gets to attend all the Tigers games at the Forum and most of them on the road. He helps the players on and off the court if they need him and most of all, he helps Coach Pastner with recruiting every year.
He loves his job now with the Tigers and he hopes he can help bring a National Championship to the University one day, but he hopes down the road he can get back into the NBA as either a General Manger or an Assistant Coach. Eric and his wife Natalie now have two sons: Kade and Braxton. Braxton, the older one of the two also has the same dream as his father, to hopefully one day become a General Manager in the NBA or even take over his dad’s job at the University of Memphis.