Baseball Players

Tough to imagine that a player who was drafted four different times, won two minor league home run derbies and hit .357 his senior year of college hadn't played a game in the major leagues until age 31. Tough to imagine that player, Dodgers outfielder Mitch Jones, spent seven years in the minor leagues and two more playing professionally in Japan. Even now that he's been called up, however, he still has goals. "I just want to be a part of the club and do things to help the club win," he said.

To Baltimore fans, Matt Wieters was Chuck Norris in a crouch. They were so excited about the 6-foot-5, 230-pound switch-hitting catcher joining the Orioles, they started MattWietersFacts.com, a takeoff on a website dedicated to the former "Walker, Texas Ranger" star. "Matt Wieters Is Such A Dangerous Hitter He Even Gets Intentional Walks In Batting Practice," the site proclaims, or "Matt Wieters Isn't Perfect . . . That Would Grossly Underestimate His Abilities." Wieters has never seen it.

Ernie Banks made 14 All-Star teams during a 19-year Hall of Fame career in which he hit 512 home runs and won two most-valuable-player awards. But he never played in a World Series. Hector Lopez played in five World Series in as many years. Yet, he never made an All-Star team.

From grand slam to grand sell, Manny's a hit on EBay. By Thursday afternoon, more than 260 dreadlocked Manny Ramirez bobbleheads were being auctioned, each going for close to the same price as four Dodger Dogs, a couple of beers and a bag of peanuts. Perhaps best known for sitting on car dashboards, bobbleheads come in many shapes and sizes.

Exactly one year ago, Manny Ramirez's arrival here left Los Angeles breathless. Today, lips pursed at another shameful revelation, those breaths are being held. Today, the celebratory thump-thump-thump has been replaced by an ominous tick-tick-tick. What in the name of chorionic gonadotropin is going to happen with this guy next? Is the taint that Ramirez and David Ortiz just brought to two of the most celebrated World Series titles in recent history going to spread to these Dodgers?

The boy walked among the men and survived quite well Wednesday. The Angels wanted a devil of an effort against the Tampa Bay Rays, and they got that and more from fuzzy-faced Trevor Bell. The 22-year-old right-hander had been the Angels' top draft pick, No. 37 overall, in June 2005. In his last season at Crescenta Valley High, he had the big-league scouts scurrying for a look. Among his most impressive statistics: 113 strikeouts and 11 walks in 80 innings. That, and a $975,000 bonus, got him a tour of various minor leagues, some of them clearly the trailer parks of baseball.

The doubters are everywhere. Never mind that Albert Pujols has never been publicly linked to anything stronger than cough syrup. You just don't do what he has done and escape suspicion. Not now. Not after Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Roger Clemens and a finger-wagging Rafael Palmeiro "He hits the ball a long way and they're going to say, 'Ah-ha, I wonder.' And it is unfair," Dodgers Manager Joe Torre said. "There's no question it's unfair." Never mind that the St. Louis Cardinals slugger has never failed a drug test since mandatory testing went into effect.

The federal government illegally seized confidential drug test results of dozens of Major League Baseball players and must now return the records, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. "This was an obvious case of deliberate overreaching by the government in an effort to seize data" it was not entitled to have, Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for an 11-judge panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. During an investigation of illegal steroid sales by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a private lab in Northern California known as BALCO, the government sought the results of confidential drug tests of 10 players, including former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds.

Scott Van Slyke can't remember the first time he entered a major league clubhouse. But he knows he wasn't much bigger than a ball bag when it happened. "I was born, basically, in a clubhouse," the 23-year-old Dodgers minor league player said. "I've always been around baseball." Same with Koby Clemens, who has a video of the first time he played at Boston's Fenway Park. "I'm like 4 or 5 years old, running down the line," the Houston Astros minor league player said. "There's priceless moments like that.

A federal appeals court appeared divided Thursday about whether key evidence in the Barry Bonds perjury prosecution should be kept from a jury. During a 30-minute hearing, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals considered a government appeal of a pretrial ruling excluding evidence prosecutors said would show that the former San Francisco Giants slugger lied under oath when he said he never knowingly used banned substances. Two of the court's more liberal judges, Stephen Reinhardt and Mary M. Schroeder, asked questions skeptical of the prosecution, while Judge Carlos T. Bea, a conservative, challenged a lawyer for Bonds.