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Recent articles...

Dwyane Wade - " COOL?"..............
05/19/2012 @ 06:24 AM
Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade throw tantrum during Game 3 nd it's all caught on national television....

"Clemens & Sleeping Juror's".................................
05/15/2012 @ 09:53 AM
The Judge dismissed a second juror for sleeping....

"BASEBALL in IRELAND?".................
05/13/2012 @ 08:55 AM
Did you know there's an organized baseball league in Ireland? I never did and the American games spreading across the Irish Nation.

"Let's Go To The Game!"...................
05/11/2012 @ 10:11 AM
Taking your kids to a pro game these days near impossible for the average working stiff......

"Defining Seasons"" ............................
05/10/2012 @ 07:27 AM
In my generation there was a time when you could tell the change of seasons by what sport was playing...now, forget it....

'"God Protect's Fool's and Drunk's!"................
05/09/2012 @ 07:12 AM
That expression most of us have heard before certainly can be applied to baseball's Josh Hamilton.....

"WHO CAN PITCH?"......................
05/07/2012 @ 07:48 AM
The Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles played 17 innings of baseball last night and both managers stood in their dugouts and shouted, "who the hell can pitch?"

"JUNIOR, WHY YOU NEVER TELL ME?"....................................
05/05/2012 @ 07:04 AM
The suicide of NFL's most dominant linebacker Junior Seau once again puts the spotlight on suicide's of our pro athletes.

Mariano Rivera - "tough act to follow".........
05/04/2012 @ 07:50 AM
New York Yankee closer Mariano Rivera may be out for the rest of the season. Shagging fly balls prior to last nights game in Kansas City, Rivera suffered a torn ACL to his right knee.

"STOP THE MADNESS" .........................
05/03/2012 @ 07:29 AM
Former MLB great Roger Clemens is back in court with his pal Andy Pettitte being used by Federal prosecutors to "hang" his baseball friend. Stop the "charade."

"SCORECARDS", get your scorecards here !.......................

Posted on 01/27/2012 @ 06:57 AM

When you walk into a Major League Baseball stadium what's the first sounds you hear? Who's the first person you see? Isn't it a stadium employee with a loud voice screaming, "Scorecard, scorecard, get your scorecards. You can't tell the players without a scorecard!" Well, even with the scorecard you can't tell. The Cleveland Indians have had a player, a pitcher, on their club for the past 11-plus years known as Fausto Carmona. He's just been arrested in the Dominican Republic on false identity charges. Carmona's real name is Roberto Hernandez Heredie. He's also 3 year older than the Indians believed, he's 31. In the Cleveland media guide his date of birth is shown as December 7, 1983, age 29. The Indians payed him $7 million dollars to pitch last season.

Carmona was arrested outside the U.S.Consulate in Santo Domingo. Cleveland players report to spring training in the next few weeks and it's unlikely Carmona's (or Roberto Hernandez Heredia) case will be heard by then. Club officials say they'll continue to refer to their jailed pitcher
as "Fausto Carmona."

Most of us remember ten year MLB veteran Leo Nunez of the Florida Marlins coming forward last season to announce he was playing and living a lie. His real name, Juan Carlos Oviedo. The Marlins paid him $6 million as their closer. Latin players make up 29% of Major League Baseball's rosters. (Latin players in the minor-leagues even higher.) In the last two decades the number of Latin players in MLB jumped from 13% in 1990 to 28.3% on Opening Day a year ago. More major league players come from the D.R. than any other Latin American country. Ozzie Virgil was the first Latin player from the Dominican Republic to make the big leagues in 1956. Latin players will soon make up 33%(a third)of all players in baseball.

9/11 triggered an immigration crackdown that virtually overnight made Latin players who came into baseball on fraudulent documents "nervous." Some came forward a dozen years ago but hundreds didn't. Since the immigration crackdown MLB found about 550 cases of fraudulent identity - either false birth dates or names, 99% of them from the Dominican Republic. Cleveland's Fausto Carmona just the latest to be busted.

This isn't exactly a new problem for baseball. The Marlins Nunez and now Carmona duped baseball for more than a decade. MLB always knew Latin players were "fudging" documents for a variety of reasons. One being, younger players always received bigger bonuses or contracts. In 2008 MLB offered amnesty to foreign-born players who admitted falsifying documents. Obviously Nunez or Carmona didn't come forward. Ask yourself this question. If Nunez didn't come forward on his own last year would the Marlins have blown the whistle on him? Marlin officials knew he was living under a false identity before he admitted it to authorities on September 7th. Why did the Marlins remain silent? Club officials, or MLB, never have explained their silence.

Since 1956, when young Ozzie Virgil left his D.R.home for major league baseball,, MLB and their scouts "looked the other way."MLB encouraged deceit. They always have known about documents being falsified. The Dominican Republic is the largest source of major league talent outside of the United States. How much is it in the the teams' interest, then, to be diligent about documents from foreign-born players? Who's going to "pass on" the next Dominican star just because all the i's aren't dotted on his paperwork?

If someone told you that changing your name, lying about your age, could lead to millions of dollars, and, take you, your family out of poverty and squalor,"would you do it?"
Wouldn't you at least think about it?... (Forgive me, it's a dumb question.)

"SCORECARDS, SCORECARDS, GET YOUR SCORECARDS HERE, YOU CAN'T TELL THE PLAYERS WITHOUT A SCORECARD!".....................

Larry Upton
"Upton on Sports"-source:espn/latimes/foxsports/