THE GRIM-SLEY REAPER

Ahhhh scandal! The real national pasttime. And what better way to celebrate our 73rd blog entry than by delving into the Major League Baseball performance enhancer debacle. You see, for those of you who do not know, Jason Grimsley, a mediocre journeyman middle reliever, has admitted to using and distributing Human Growth Hormones well as naming names of other ballplayers that have illegally enhanced their performance. Now this has brought up a couple of issues. Firstly there is currently no legitimate testing for HGH and b.) with Grimsley's confession it is now apparent that we need to look, not only at the superstars but at the average joe just looking to prolong a mediocre career, making himself just good enough to keep on an MLB roster. For a Grimsley it was a matter of going from the being the next Darrel Akerfelds to being the next Dan Petry. But until names get released, we are left to merely speculate. So here at "Bitterness" that's exactly what we're gonna do. So here are a few guys that you might not have suspected of illegally enhancing their performances.

ERIC PLUNK
Plunk was a a mediocre reliever for several years. In 1991 his E.RA was 4.76 and in 1992 it went down 3.64. But in 1993 Plunk's E.RA sunk to 2.79. In the year's to follow he posted E.RA's of 2.54, 2.67, and 2.43. What could have caused such a drastic change in performance. Well from 1993-1995 Plunk was on the Tribe with one Jason Grimsley. After the 1995 season Grimsley left the Indians, and for one more season Plunk was darn good, which can only mean that Plunk had the wherewithal to get a year's supply of HGH for the season to follow Grimsley's departure, because in 1997 now a whole season removed from Grimsley, Plunk's E.RA soared to a whopping 4.66. The saddest thing is that Plunk's show "Plunked" will probably never air.


SHAWN BOSKIE
Boskie never really amounted to much in the bigs, with a career E.RA of just over 5. But in 1996 Boskie played with the one and only Jason Grimsley. Now this is a little harder to notice, but in '96 Boskie's E.RA dropped .32 from the previous season. Hmmm. But where you really see the difference is he had a career high in strikeouts. He averaged .7 strikeouts per inning as opposed to his previous season's .45 strikeouts per inning. Interesting?? Grimsley was only in Cali for a year, and following season, Boskie managed to make only 9 starts and proceeded to end his career in the minors. Probably Boskie took a good hard look at himself in the mirror and realized that he could not continue to cheat now that the devil on his shoulder , Grimsley, was gone, even if meant, more or less the end of Boskie's career and any chance of his family reality show "Who's the Boskie?". Which coincidently is how Yakov Smirnoff pronounced the Tony Danza vehicle "Who's the Boss?"

KEN HARVEY
In the year of our Lord 2001, Ken Harvey was called up to the Royals squad. Playing in 4 games, batting .250 with no homeruns. He then headed back to the minors, untill we would again be called up in 2003 where he would cross paths with Mr. Grimsley. Over the next two seasons Harvey walloped 26 homeruns and batted around .275. But in 2004 Grimsley was on his way to Baltimore and Harvey's career went south. In '05 without Grimsley Harvey managed only 45 ABs for a .222 average and a mere one homerun. and if the numbers don't tell the whole story look at these before and after pictures of good 'ol Ken Harvey.

Here is the strapping Ken harvey of 2004:














Now here's a picture of him getting in some extra batting practice off the tee in 2002:


The proof is in the pudding my friends! And now you know....the rest of the story.