One hundred and eight players, almost a tenth of the league, received medical exemptions due to their attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders. That's up slightly from last year, and up from 28 players in 2006. Completely coincidentally, MLB's stimulant ban went into effect in 2006.

While ten percent sounds like a realistic number of ADHD sufferers among Park Slope's helicopter parents, only about 4% of children are affected, with more than half outgrowing it by adulthood. Additionally, these are major league baseball players, who are loath to admit to any psychiatric disorder, and probably would have had a tough time excelling in life as they have had they been serious sufferers.

Besides those 108 players, 12 more without an exemption tested positive for ADHD drugs.

Is there something unique about the sport of baseball that attracts individuals with ADD? I suspect not. It seems to me an excessively high number," said [Dr. Gary] Wadler, chairman of the committee that determines the banned-substances list for the World Anti-Doping Agency.

On the bright side (if you invest in a designer steroid lab), only one player tested positive for steroids in 2009. And, from the Times article,

Two players received exemptions to use performance-enhancing drugs because of hypertension, two for low levels of testosterone, one for narcolepsy, one for obsessive compulsive disorder and one for postconcussion syndrome.

Any guesses?

Number of M.L.B. Players Given Drug Exemptions Up Slightly [NY Times]

Allan Huber Selig gave us the Wild Card, two new teams in the Sun Belt, and landed MLB hugely impressive TV deals. Is that enough to overcome the myriad fiascoes? Let's take a stroll down memory lane...

•Led a secretive group of owners ("The Great Lakes Gang") in pushing for commissioner Fay Vincent's ouster. As the most vocal, he became de facto acting commissioner.

•After one year in office, rescinded George Steinbrenner's lifelong suspension. Denied that the fact that the suspension was handed down by Fay Vincent had anything to do with it.

•Upheld, to this day, Pete Rose's lifelong suspension, despite overwhelming public opinion. Denied that the fact that the suspension was handed down by close friend Bart Giamatti had anything to do with it.

•Oversaw the 1994 strike.

•Opened the door for replacement players.

•Gave us interleague play, which, for every White Sox/Cubs game gives us Pirates/Rays and Padres/Athletics games.

•To compensate for 1998's expansion, one AL team had to move to the NL, with a considerable financial advantage. Selig's Brewers were selected.

•Though acting commissioner for the past six years, Selig continued to operate the Brewers. Upon officially being named commissioner, Selig transferred his ownership interest to his daughter. Many suspected he continued to make decisions for the team up until their sale in 2004.

•Threw daughter under the bus, claiming the Brewers' disastrous performance under Wendy Selig-Prieb is proof that he was no longer running the team after 1992.

•Helped to write the hagiographies of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds. Perhaps they should have been fact checked first.

•Saw the NFL institute an almost-total instant replay policy in 1999. Nine years later, introduced instant replay only for home run calls.

•Two days after the thrilling and inspiring 2001 World Series, held a vote on contracting the Twins and Expos. Was charged with racketeering and settled the case outside of court. Got the Expos moved anyway.

•Oversaw the 2002 All-Star Game in which both sides ran out of players. From then on, the ASG determined home field advantage in the World Series. The National League has yet to win home field advantage.

•Commissioned the Mitchell Report, led by Director of the Red Sox, and which seemed to rely on two sources and revealed nothing new.

•Failed miserably at keeping a secret list of steroid users secret. Fans now look forward to the annual reveal of superstar names.

•Saw other sports praised for their parity; oversaw an uncapped league where one team regularly spends six times as much as others.

•Made sure October baseball regularly ends after midnight.

•Made sure October baseball regularly ends in November.

Please do remind me in the comments of what I'm forgetting.

These have been making the rounds in an email forward, purportedly meant for Grady's girlfriend, Playboy Playmate Brittany Binger...

...that's her spread propped up by the mirror. I think it's kind of creepy that he travels with her Playboy issue.

Perhaps you remember the batshit lady who emailed every site on the Internet trashing Brittany. Wonder how she's taking this.

Nathaniel Hornblower he's not.

Okay, I'll just shut up and let you look at his junk.

[Pics courtesy of ONTD]

Pete was in Houston doing a radio interview, because that's where he and his as-yet-unnamed girlfriend met with a Playboy talent scout. But lest you think the young lass is nothing more than a pair of freakish fake breasts,

[M]y girl's a real educated girl - she graduated from Arizona State. She had a very prestigious job several years ago when she was a flight attendant for Korean Airlines, which is really a big deal in Korea, and she's Korean."

Pete also laid the sole blame for his ban on Bud Selig, but let's be honest. You only clicked on this post to make that photo bigger. You haven't read this far down.

Pete Rose Goes To Bat For His Lady! [Sports Radio Interviews]

Give them credit. When baseball's "leaders" stick their head in the sand, they really stick it in there. No outside noise will ever affect their judgment. The 2009 postseason was the most embarrassing display by the umpires in recent memory. It wasn't that they missed a lot of close plays—the calls they botched were glaringly obvious mistakes. Even the most ardent anti-replay sticklers had to admit that it probably would have come in handy more than a few times this October. The time was ripe! So, of course, baseball's GMs said "No, thanks."

"Right now, the commissioner doesn't see any reason to consider it."

Really? No reason at all? I guess they just want to spare baseball fans from 10-minute replay reviews on Sony Watchmans (mens?). On the other hand, they can't even figure out how to announce the league MVPs within two months of the actual season taking place, so when has speed ever been a concern? The sport's "old fogey" reputation remains solidly intact.

Trail to instant replay must be laid with dollar signs [CBS Sports]
What controversy? Baseball's GMs bypass instant replay debate for umpires' calls [Cleveland Plain Dealer]

A quick recap for that majority of you who couldn't give a toss about baseball until springtime: as part of the collective bargaining agreement, MLB and the Players Association agree to let the Elias Sports Bureau use a formula to rank the free agents as either Type A, Type B and unclassified. If a team fails to re-sign a Type A player, they receive the first round pick of the team who does, and a supplemental pick on top of that. A Type B player is worth only a supplemental pick.

It's simple, but that's the only part of this sordid business that is. Elias defines a Type A player as within the top 20 percent at his position, and a Type B as within the next 20 percent. But where does this formula come from?

It's a tightly guarded secret, but much of it has leaked out over the years (Here's a good rundown). There's a ton of things wrong with the stats, but we'll highlight a few.

•Stolen bases aren't taken into account. That's the most glaring, since a player who can single, then steal second 95 percent of the time, is unquestionably valuable. That extra base is akin to a huge jump in slugging percentage. Which reminds us...
•Slugging percentage isn't taken into account either. If two players have identical averages, and one is a slap singles hitter and the other consistently doubles and triples, which is more valuable? According to Elias, they're equal.
•Defense doesn't matter for half the players. Fielding percentage doesn't factor in to the valuations for outfielders and first basemen. As if a cannon arm and great first step for a center fielder don't save as many runs as they do for a third baseman.
•Control doesn't matter for starting pitchers. While relievers have their hits per inning, and K/BB ratios factored in, there's nothing similar for starters.

It's ludicrous that Elias, home to more obscure stats than anyone else, doesn't even use now-common measures like OPS and WHIP in their valuations. (Though it's impossible to blame them; this was the formula agreed upon by baseball and the MLBPA.) This gives us major inconsistencies, like these chronicled at Lookout Landing:

Among the potential free agents, there are 26 Type A's, 52 Type B's, and 102 unranked. The average 08/09 WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of the Type A's is 4.6. The average 08/09 WAR of the top 26 Type B's is 4.9.

The average 08/09 WAR of the bottom 26 Type B's is 1.5. The average 08/09 WAR of the top 26 unranked is 2.9.

21 unranked potential free agents posted a combined 08/09 WAR of 2+. Nine Type A's and 16 Type B's were below 2.

Guillermo Mota and David Weathers are Type B's despite posting WARs below zero.

Garret Anderson is a Type B despite being one of the least valuable players in the Major Leagues last year.

But the most egregious variable in the ratings is that they are determined by performance over the past two years. This minimizes breakout players, and ignores those who have broken down completely and suddenly.

Billy Wagner is a Type A; Joel Piniero is a Type B. Bengie Molina is a Type A; Carl Crawford is a Type B. Jason Kendall is worth compensation; Hideki Matsui is not. You get the idea.

Do I have a better plan? I do not. I am a blogger, and my job is to complain and not to be constructive. But something needs to be done, because this is a system that is good for no one.

The players lose because the added cost of losing a pick scares some bidders off, keeping offers lower. Half the teams lose because in order to qualify for compensatory picks, they have to offer arbitration to players they'd otherwise let go without a fuss. The other half lose because they have to surrender draft picks to sign players. So who does win?

Just like with the luxury tax, it's the teams that can't or won't spend money. Too cheap to hang on to your home grown superstars? No worries, they're a Type A and you'll receive another potential star just for being stingy. It's an incentive to break your fanbase's heart. You can almost picture Robert Nutting counting the draft picks for when he inevitably lets Andrew McCutchen go.

But, hey, once all the problems with steroids, TV revenue sharing, a salary cap, a salary floor, stadium financing, the USA's poor showings in the WBC, the lack of African-Americans in the game, verifying the ages of Latin American players, the MLB Network, and instant replay get sorted out, I'm sure baseball will get right on fixing this one.

Baseball's general managers, meeting in Chicago right now, chose not to vote on replay. From the Associated Press:

"We talked about the mechanics behind instant replay. We talked about the structure. We talked about where it's housed, the umpires' procedure," said Jimmie Lee Solomon, executive vice president of baseball operations in the commissioner's office. "But it was all confined to the current instant replay system that we have."

Commissioner Bud Selig opposes widening the use of video review.

"I know there are some who have talked off line about the expansion of instant replay," Solomon said. "Right now, the commissioner doesn't see any reason to consider it."

Selig's in the wrong, of course, as he often is. One day, rest assured, baseball will clean up its umpiring. But unfortunately that won't happen until the game first rids itself of the human element known as Bud Selig.

GMs pass on expanding instant replay [AP]

Prosecutors have vowed to proceed anyway. The San Francisco Chronicle explains:

Villalona, 19 - who three years ago became the most expensive minor-leaguer ever signed by the Giants, at $2.1 million - still faces a charge that he shot a man to death in September in a wild bar fight in his hometown of La Romana, Dominican Republic. But the no-bail hold he had been under was relaxed because the family and prosecutor have not been able to pin a motive for the shooting on Villalona, Cedano [Jose Arturo Cevallos Cedano, Villalona's lawyer] said.

"Angel was just there with a friend," Cedano said. "There was no evidence that he did the shooting."

Prosecutor Jose Antonio Polanco, however, told The Chronicle the only thing that has changed in the case is that the victim's family signed a waiver saying it will not file civil charges against Villalona.

"We are continuing the prosecution," he said. "The agreement is only on civil charges, not criminal."

The Chronicle, incidentally, puts the figure at 5 million pesos, which is closer to $140,000. Diario Libre says 2 million. With the family bought off, it's not clear how much of a case prosecutors will have left if this ever comes to trial. Nor is it clear how the Giants will handle Villalona in the seemingly likely event that he's exonerated. Fellow Giants farmhand Garrett Broshuis isn't too comfortable with the situation:

I wanted to believe my teammate was innocent. I wanted something to come forward to exonerate him. I wanted to see him walk out of prison a free man. But not like this. This just smells like rotten sushi, and nobody likes rotten sushi.

Unseemly though it may be, a payoff like this one is fairly common. It's happened with another ballplayer, in fact. Perhaps you recall the precedent established in Juan Uribe v. Two Dudes Who Got Way Too Close to Juan Uribe's Jeep?

Giants' prospect makes bail [San Francisco Chronicle]
Libertan a Villalona tras compensar madre joven muerto con RD$2.0 millones [Diario Libre]
Villalona: paying off a family? [Life in the Minors]

Because Chicago's baseball writers haven't had anything to write about for three months now, this has become the story in the Second City. The Tribune went to one of Sosa's friends, who gave a perfectly reasonable answer for why he Slammin' Sammy had an MJ look going the other day.

He is going through a rejuvenation process for his skin," [Rebecca] Polihronis said. "Women have it all of the time. He was surprised he came out looking so white. I thought it was a body double. Part of (the photo appearance) is just the lighting.

"He is in the middle of doing a cleansing process to his skin. The picture is deceiving. He said, 'If you saw me in person, you would be surprised. When you see me in person, it is not going to seem like the picture.'"

But this isn't just a case of Sosa forgetting to wash off the moisturizer before going out on the town. Discoloration and lightening is a common side effect of laser treatments he might be undergoing "after years and years (of playing baseball) in the sun."

So now that we have our answer, we can all go back to pretending Sosa never existed.

Sammy Sosa Says Skin Rejuvenation Process Reason His Skin Appears Lighter [Chicago Tribune]

The Twins had long advertised a "Garage Sale," to clear out all the merchandise clogging up the basements and attics of the Metrodome, and indeed 15,000 fans showed up. (Yes, that's more people than at a good number of Twins games.) So what hidden treasures did fans line up around the parking lot for?

A few feet away, Centerville resident Kevin Peickert was lugging a life-sized cutout of Kent Hrbek that set him back $50. It was, he said, worth a 12-hour overnight wait.

"I knew you had to be here early to get the good stuff, because it was going to be gone right away," he said.

Twelve hours for a cardboard standup? Surely Mr. Peickert just had poor taste, and others did better.

After waiting outside the Dome since 4:30 a.m., Buffalo resident Ron Miller emerged triumphant a few minutes after the doors were open. His prize: a 30-foot banner commemorating the late Kirby Puckett's induction into the baseball Hall of Fame in 2000.

For now, though, the banner is "unfortunately" destined for a closet at home because Miller said he doesn't have a big enough place to display it.

The scene after the savage hordes had their way with the stash wasn't pretty:

Not much left but bobbleheads, Homer Hankys and refrigerator magnets," said Rusty Krentz, who drove three hours from her home in far western Minnesota to pick through the sale. "It was worth it, though."

The stuff, most of it ephemera, was piled on folding tables along 15 sections of the Dome's concourse. By noon, the pickings had gotten pretty slim.

Ball caps and straw hats went for $3, a bobblehead of TC, the team's furry mascot, cost $5. Logo-emblazoned socks: $4, and whiffle bats were $2.

This is the way the Metrodome ends. Not with a bang but a closeout sale.

Metrodome's Long, Good Buy [Star Tribune]