A look at the Steelers’ Hotel Rider shows a lack of the Pittsburgh staple Frank’s Red Hot Sauce. I’ve always found that Tobasco sauce just doesn’t do it.

In other news, I visited yesterday for my lunch. Mike Mularky visited Peppi’s when he was a player and it seems Mike had problems with grammar.

Mike Mularky was demoted to Tight End’s Coach for the Miami Dolphins this season. I guess Cam Cameron didn’t think highly of the potent offense the Dolphins ran last year. I can’t blame Mularky though. Quarterbacks that he has had to work with have included: Kordell Stewart, Tommy Maddox, JP Losman, and Joey Harrington.

As much as like to play devil’s advocate, much of my feelings about sports really are objective anymore. I really don’t have many favorites or players I dislike. I truly consider myself a fan of sports in general, with a few favorite teams, but someone who can objectively watch any game. Pretending to have strong feelings for or against a player or team, is just as fun for me as someone who bleeds ______ & ______.

So, I hopped into bed last Wednesday, and for my usual nightcap I turned on the TV. ESPN2 was the station, Nationals at Giants was game. The next batter that was up: Barry Bonds. I had a feeling watching his at bat, that this would be the record breaking home run. I love this feeling in sports. Whether its a critical win or lose play, or just a magical moment like a home run where time slows down, it makes you feel like anything is possible(if you take performance enhancing drugs).

For as magical as sports make you feel, there is a lot of work behind the scenes that people don’t know of, or neglect to care about. When you leave your empty nacho container upside down, or your lbs. of peanut shells on the stadium floor, someone has to clean them up. In Baltimore, those people aren’t paid a living wage.

Camden Yards, a publicly owned stadium, employs temporary workers who work all night cleaning up garbage in the stands and the rest of the stadium. Workers arrive at a temp agency hours before their job starts, in order to get there early enough to get a place in line before the vans fill up. They get bar coded wrist bands and are driven(and charged to be driven) to the stadium where they clean all night, and are lucky to sometimes make minimum wage when travel charges and wait times are factored in. Workers are often treated miserably on the job, and even made to eat their lunches in the restrooms. This has to change.

What we learn in sports from the home run, the winning half court shot, or the unbelievable hook and lateral play, is that anything is possible. This is what makes sports such a great metaphor for life. We should support those people that are a significant piece in keeping our stadiums and our lives clean. A win in their struggle for fair wages would be a ground rule double in the battle for undocumented workers across this country.

Read more about this and the September 3rd Hunger Strike at: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/13/101320/662

Jay Bell, shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1989-1996, was taken by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 1998 Expansion draft, after spending 1997 with the Kansas City Royals. Bell scored the winning run in the 2001 World Series off of Luis Gonzalez’s single. A few years later he would retire from playing and become the bench coach for the Diamondbacks. He retired from coaching in 2006 to spend more time with his family.

There is some speculation of Jay Bell’s potential ties to performance enhancing drugs. In 1999, Bell hit 38 Home Runs. His yearly average, not including 1999, was 9.23 home runs a year. In 1999, Jay Bell hit a homer every 15.5 at bats, as opposed to his career average of a homer every 43.4 at bats.

Although 38 home runs is common among power hitters, Bell wasn’t one. His jump from an average of 9.23 HR, to 38 HR may be more drastic then any player being chased in the performance enhancing witch hunt.

0 IP, 0 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 0 K. That was the box score for a game in which Doc Ellis hit Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Dan Driessen. He walked Tony Perez, who avoided his attempts to hit him. He was pulled from the game, which explains one of the strangest box scores you’ll ever see.

Earlier in his career, he pitched the famous “No-Hitter on Acid”. Supposedly Ellis was tripping on acid when he pitched the June 12, 1970 No-Hitter against the San Diego Padres.

Dock is now a drug counselor in California.

José “Chico” Lind won the gold glove when he committed only 6 errors in the regular season. His error in the seventh game of the NLCS is what gave him his pink slip out of Pittsburgh.

After leaving Pittsburgh, he played a few seasons for the Royals, and later the Angels. In 1996 he was arrested for possession of cocaine. The following year, he was pulled over for leaving the scene of an accident. When the police approached the car, they discovered Lind was naked from the waste down and intoxicated. A search of his vehicle found seven empty cans of beer and a gram of cocaine. For this, Chico spent a year in jail.

Once he was released from jail, a cleaned-up Chico spent 3 years managing the Bridgeport Bluefish, who are now coached by Tommy John.

“Nobody told me I was in competition. If there is competition, somebody better let me know. If there is competition, they better eliminate me out of the race and go ahead and do what they’re going to do with me. I ain’t never hit in spring training and I never will. If it ain’t settled with me out there, then they can trade me. I ain’t going out there to hurt myself in spring training battling for a job. If it is [a competition], then I’m going into ‘Operation Shutdown.’ Tell them exactly what I said. I haven’t competed for a job since 1991.”

Derek Bell got paid 9 million dollars for a .173 batting average and 5 home runs.

In April of 2006, Bell was arrested after police found a warm crack pipe in the back seat of his car during a traffic stop.

Lastly, we’ll visit Al Martin. Martin was brought up to the Majors for good in 1993, as the next great Pirate. Pirates’ propaganda wanted us to believe that he would follow in the same footsteps as recently departed Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla. Martin was a capable ball player, but he was not the star that the Pirates wanted us to believe he was groomed to be.

Al lasted 7 seasons with the Pirates, and later on went to play with the Padres, Mariners, and Devil Rays. During his stint in San Diego, stories surfaced that Martin had two wives in separate parts of the country. He told police that he was under the assumption that his second marriage, performed in Las Vegas, wasn’t law binding.

Martin also lied on a radio show about playing safety for the USC Trojans in 1986. He compared an incidental collision with Carlos Guillen to a tackle he attempted on Leroy Hoard. The truth was, that Martin was never even enrolled in USC, and was in the Atlanta Braves farm system at that time.

Al Martin was later involved in a domestic abuse case with one of his wives.

Last Friday, after 25 years of almost-long-enough hair, I found a rubber band at the bar and pulled my lovely mane into my first ponytail. After having my hair pulled back for a short time, I spotted a gentleman with gumband holding back his hair. I approached the 6′5″ish mountain-of-a-man for tips on growing and maintaining this dream hair-style. I was mildly embarrassed, mainly because of the small size of my “tail”,but nonetheless engaged him in a drunken conversation about haircare, style, and poper accessories. We both agreed that I should wait a few months until it actually looks worthwhile to pull it back.

This fall, I hope to sport the ponytail non-stop. It has been my dream for almost as long as I can remember. I’ve just never been able to make it through the summer of sweat and hair in my eyes. I’ll keep you abreast of the situation. If you have had a ponytail, feel free to give me some haircare tips. I’m new to this thing.