Okay, I went to see what funereal cheese T.R. Sullivan fermented for Derek Jeter, and the first thing I saw was a link to this... a MLB team-themed Match.com subsite. I already have an abusive relationship with the Rangers, I really don't need to drag a woman into the middle of that.
Tracy Ringolsby uses Yu Darvish's All Star showings in all three of his MLB seasons to reflect on how awesome Derek Jeter is.
Mark Saxon manages to pen a Darvish All Star story that doesn't mention Derek Jeter, instead choosing to focus on Darvish's upcoming second half firmware upgrade.
Alex Rodriguez's claim that he was using clomid under a medical exemption granted by the league's drug administrator is being publicly refuted by Bud Selig. The article says that clomid is often used to restore testosterone production after a steroid cycle, but that's not really the whole story.
Clomid and a similar drug, Tamoxifen, are selective estrogen receptor antagonists, and are often used in steroid contexts to combat gynecomastia and to restore testicular production of testosterone. The reason this works is because aromatase breaks down testosterone into estradiol, and estradiol is part of the feedback mechanism that tells the pituitary to stop sending go signals to the testes. But those drugs, and aromatase inhibitors like anastrozole, are also used in cases of chronic hypogonadism in males that want to retain fertility (or, probably, for persons who, for reasons of restrictive employment drug policies, cannot use testosterone replacement therapy).
Now, granted, chronic hypogonadism could be caused by long term steroid use, but it can also be caused by other things, and, really, whatever the cause hypogonadism would be a reasonable medical context in which to use clomid.
Now, obviously, given my vocal opposition to higher education I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV, but that explanation should be correct in the general sense even if it's incorrect in some of the particulars.
Ben Goessling identifies the source of the evil black magic plaguing the Rangers: Adrian Beltre, whose presence whittled a once proud franchise from a World Series appearance in his first Ranger season to the sickly nag you see today, where players' brittle bones snap like uncooked pasta and we wait with bated breath for the next plate appearance of, shudder, Jake Smolinski.
Randy Jennings wonders if a 100 loss season is possible, and the answer is "not if Jake Smolinski has anything to say about it."
Yu Darvish says his third All Star appearance "ranks right up there," though I choose to imagine him using air quotes as he does so.
The DMN has five reasons to follow a terrible Ranger team for the rest of the summer, and surprisingly does not include "because you are trapped in a dysfunctional, masochistic cycle the only escape from which is death."
And, finally, it appears that the people we choose as our friends may be closer to us genetically than random others.