Randy Johnson’s retirement leaves Pedro all by himself

As someone that came up in the early-90s, I have a special place in my heart for the top pitchers of that era: Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez and the now retired Randy Johnson. Sorry Roger Clemens fans (all three of you), but this is a douchebagless list I’m running here.

I’m not sure we’ll ever know if what we saw out of that group was “un-enhanced”, but all I do know is Randy Johnson led that group with some of the most ridiculous stats this game has ever seen, post-integration (and I say post-integration because I’m not impressed by what Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson did against a segregated population). And even if The Big Unit was roided out of his mind, the man struck out 372 equally roided-up guys in 2001 on the way to winning the World Series.

If it weren’t for the strike-shortened seasons of 1994-95 and battling injuries in 1996-97, Johnson could have had 10-straight years with 300+ strikeouts. As it stands, he still hit that mark in six of the those seasons and had 294 and 291 in two other seasons during that span. In other words, the man was a pitching god.

Of course, most folks in Philly will remember Johnson for making John Kruk shart in his pants a little during the 1993 All-Star Game. Just by watching that video again makes you think that standing in there against Johnson must have been like you or I standing in there against an average major leaguer. That’s just how dominating this guy was for most of his career: He turned major league hitters into bloggers.

It looks like Pedro’s all we have left, and it was a pretty nice treat to have him pitch in this town while he did, even if he couldn’t get us past the Yanks. I’d love to see him back here, but he’s definitely the last holdover from a time when pitchers were somehow putting up video game numbers on the mound against hitters with video game numbers at the plate.

Ibanez homers again, adding to suspicion that he’s not human

Raul Ibanez crushed a three-run homer in the top of the 10th inning to finish off the Mets 6-3 on Thursday, but his recent power surge is starting to raise eyebrows around the blogosphere.

Though it was originally suggested that Ibanez’s numbers were steroid-aided, his statistics are now being manipulated to imply that he is not actually human. Well-respected bloggers have indicated that he may be a cyborg assassin sent from the future to destroy the souls of Mets fans before they all turn into unbearable douchebags come September.

“If you’ll just take a look at some of the amazing stats I’ve compiled here, you’ll see that I’m trying to insinuate that Ibanez is cheating by being a robot, but I’ve left myself just enough wiggle room to backtrack and act like I’m his biggest fan,” writes an anonymous blogger from the wack-looking Midwest Tools blog. “It’s the most honorable stance to take as a respected blogger, plus ESPN was dumb enough to have me on as some kind of expert, so it was pretty much a win-win for me.”

Ibanez didn’t take kindly to the accusations and even went so far as to leave a flaming bag of his stool on the blogger’s doorstep for testing.

“Roger Maris turned into Babe Ruth when he put on a Yankee uniform but no one thought anything of it,” said Ibanez. “I’m just out there having a good time, playing hard and doing my job. It’s just kind of a dick thing to do to start trouble where there is none to begin with.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: PhillyGameday.com would like to remind the viewing public that we live in a society where you are innocent until proven guilty and that we should leave the PED suspicion to the real jackasses of the game like Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemens. Raul Ibanez is a stand up guy and should be treated as such. If he’s found guilty of PED use, this website will be the first to jump on him and treat him like unwanted, shit-stained draws, but seriously . . . find something else to write about in the meantime.

Manny’s ovarian issues highlight growing problem in MLB

Manny Ramirez will be suspended for 50 games after using a women’s fertility drug prescribed by his doctor. The Dodgers outfielder has apparently struggled alongside countless other women in this country with pregnancy issues, which places Ramirez on the growing list of major league players now known to have lady bits.

Ramirez has repeatedly denied use of any performance enhancing drugs, but will not appeal the suspension and subsequent loss of $7.7 million in salary “out of respect to the system, and let’s be real here … I was gonna hang it up for at least 50 games this season anyway, so it kinda works out,” according to Ramirez.

Alex Rodriguez was also recently caught with his vag showing by denying steroid use on national television in 2007 and admitting to steroid use on national television two years later this past February.

Rodriguez and Ramirez are only part of a larger, growing list of high-profile athletes that have traded in their jocks for tampons, including Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire. Each player was once thought to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but will now be denied entrance by baseball writers due to their lack of any semblance of male reproductive organs.

“These guys masqueraded around for years like they were in the same boat as greats like Mays, Aaron and Ted Williams, but one by one we’re finding out the truth about these frauds,” said LA Times writer Bill Plaschke. “It’s not so much the fact that they have snatches that really bothers me about it … just the fact that they lied about it this whole time, you know what I mean?”

Albert Pujols is expected to be named to the list in the coming days or years, at which time Major League Baseball will officially be forced to erase 96.2% of its record book from 1994 to 2007.