(Get) A Sporting Life

I wouldn't have thought the Ryan Braun debacle could have gotten any worse for baseball and for Braun himself. It just got a lot worse : National League MVP Ryan Braun's 50-game suspension was overturned Thursday by baseball arbitrator Shyam Das, the first time a baseball player successfully challenged a drug-related penalty in a grievance... During the hearing, Braun's side challenged the chain of custody from the time the urine sample was collected by Comprehensive Drug Testing Inc. to when it was sent, nearly 48 hours later, to a World Anti-Doping Agency-certified laboratory in Montreal, two people familiar with the case said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because what took place in the hearing is supposed to be confidential. The sample was collected on Oct. 1, a Saturday and the day the Brewers opened the NL playoffs. The collector did not send the sample to the laboratory until Monday, thinking it would be more secure at home than at a Federal Express office dur...

I haven't seen enough A-10 basketball this year to be sure, but based upon today's SLU/Dayton game it seems pretty dire. It is being officiated like an NHL game. Whenever the Bills get a lead the refs make calls (or don't make calls as the case may be) in order to "keep it close." As it is, if the Bills could hit their free throws they should win by 15. Based upon how the two teams have actually been playing, the Bills ought to win by 25-30. That they will win by under 10 is chalked up in equal parts poor free throw shooting and uneven officiating.

....Jaro Halak and the St. Louis Blues? Holy shit. This isn't the prettiest offensive team you will ever see, and that lack of goal scoring could bite us in the ass in the end... but in the meantime, the Blues play killer defense and the goalies stop most everything they see. Welcome back winning hockey in the STL! It's been awhile.