news is news is news…i dunno, just thought these were interesting for one weekend.
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our first story…no surprise here
A-Rod admits using performance-enhancers
AP – In this May 22, 2003 file photo at left, Texas Ranges Alex Rodriguez rounds the bases after hitting a …
“When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me and I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day,” the New York Yankees star said in an interview with ESPN that was broadcast Monday shortly after it was recorded.
His admission came two days after Sports Illustrated reported he tested positive for steroids in 2003, one of 104 players who tested positive during baseball’s survey testing, which wasn’t subject to discipline and was supposed to remain anonymous.
“And I did take a banned substance and, you know, for that I’m very sorry and deeply regretful. And although it was the culture back then and Major League Baseball overall was very — I just feel that — You know, I’m just sorry. I’m sorry for that time. I’m sorry to fans. I’m sorry for my fans in Texas. It wasn’t until then that I ever thought about substance of any kind, and since then I’ve proved to myself and to everyone that I don’t need any of that.”
The 33-year-old All-Star third baseman was regarded by many in baseball as the most likely to break Bonds’ record of 762. He’s already 12th on the career list with 553 homers, 209 behind Bonds.
Rodriguez hit 52, 57 and 47 homers in his three seasons with the Rangers, winning the first of three AL MVP awards during his final season with Texas, where he received a $252 million, 10-year contract in December 2000.
“Back then it was a different culture. It was very loose. I was young. I was stupid,” Rodriguez said. “I was naive, and I wanted to prove to everyone that, you know, I was worth, you know — and being one of the greatest players of all time.”
He joined Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte among All-Star players who have confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs. Many other players have denied any use.
Barry Bonds, a seven-time MVP, is to go on trial next month on charges he lied when he told a grand jury in 2003 that he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs.
Roger Clemens, a seven-time AL Cy Young Award winner, is under investigation by a federal grand jury which is trying to determine whether he lied when he told a congressional committee last year that he never used steroids and human growth hormone.
SI.com reported Rodriguez tested positive for Primobolan and testosterone.
“It was such a loosey-goosey era. I’m guilty for a lot of things. I’m guilty for being negligent, naive, not asking all the right questions,” Rodriguez said. “And to be quite honest, I don’t know exactly what substance I was guilty of using.”
Monday’s ESPN interview directly contradicted a December 2007 interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” when Rodriguez said, “No” when asked whether he’s ever used steroids, human growth hormone or any other performance-enhancing substance.
On Friday, Rodriguez is still expected to attend an event at the University of Miami, which is renaming its baseball field in his honor.
He gave $3.9 million to the school in 2003, the largest gift ever to the Hurricanes’ baseball program and money that provided much of the resources needed for renovating the existing on-campus stadium. In return, the baseball complex will be called Mark Light Field at Alex Rodriguez Park.
Despite the scandal, the facility will continue to bear Rodriguez’s name, a university official said Monday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitive nature.
Miami baseball players and coaches were not available for comment, spokesman Mark Pray said.
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Associated Press Sports Writer Tim Reynolds in Miami contributed to this report.
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in a developing story of hollywood street beatdowns…
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Chris Brown Investigated for Domestic Assault; He and Rihanna Sitting Out Grammys
- Marcus Errico Marcus Errico – Sun Feb 8, 7:47 pm ET
E! Online – Chris Brown Investigated for Domestic Assault; He and Rihanna Sitting Out Grammys(E! Online)
Los Angeles (E! Online) – Grammy day was supposed to be a glittery affair for R&B’s reigning It couple of Chris Brown and Rihanna. But things have gone horribly amiss.
Los Angeles police have confirmed to E! News that Brown is being investigated for felony domestic battery.
Per department policy, police are declining to identity the alleged victim. The incident occurred around 12:30 a.m. Sunday in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. Earlier in the evening, Brown and Rihanna were all smiles while attending Clive Davis‘ annual pre-Grammy bash together.
In a statement, police say Brown and his companion “became involved in an argument. After stopping his car, Brown and the woman got out and the argument escalated. The woman suffered visible injuries and identified Brown as her attacker.”
By the time officers arrived on scene, Brown had split. There has been no immediate comment from his publicist, and he has canceled his scheduled performance at tonight’s awards.
Rihanna’s publicist, Amanda Silverman, would only tell E! News that the “Disturbia” singer was involved in a traffic mishap but “is fine.”
In a statement, the Recording Academy announced that Rihanna would not be performing as scheduled at tonight’s show. “We’re sorry she is unable to join us this evening.”
—Additional reporting by Marc Malkin and Whitney English
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and in other news…
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Marijuana Linked to Aggressive Testicular Cancer
By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter by Alan Mozes
healthday Reporter – 1 hr 42 mins agoAP – Chart shows percentage of people using marijuana by age, in their lifetime and in the past year; 2 c …
MONDAY, Feb. 9 (HealthDay News) — Smoking marijuana over an extended period of time appears to greatly boost a young man’s risk for developing a particularly aggressive form of testicular cancer, a new study reveals.
In fact, researchers found that men who smoked marijuana once a week or began to use the substance on a long-term basis while adolescents incurred double the risk for developing the fastest-spreading version of testicular cancer — nonseminoma, which accounts for about 40 percent of all cases.
“Since we know that the incidence of testicular cancer has been rising in our country and in Europe over the last 40 years and that marijuana use has also risen over the same time, it seemed logical that there might be an association between the two,” said study co-author Janet Daling, an epidemiologist and member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center’s public health sciences division in Seattle. “And when I analyzed the data, we found a fairly strong relationship with this aggressive type of testicular cancer.”
No link was found between the drug and a less aggressive and more prevalent form of the disease, known as seminoma, which strikes 60 percent of testicular cancer patients.
The findings were published in the Feb. 9 online issue of Cancer.
According to the U.S. National Cancer Institute, testicular cancer is very rare, accounting for just 1 percent of cancers among American men. Nevertheless, the disease is the most common type of cancer for American men between the ages of 15 and 34, the study noted.
Across North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, testicular cancer rates have increased by 3 percent to 6 percent in the past half-century. That has led some researchers to suggest that the upward trend might be the product of increased exposure among young men to one or more external factors, including a simultaneous and comparable rise in the use of marijuana.
Along those lines, the researchers noted that the testes could be particularly vulnerable to the effects of marijuana, given that the organ — along with the brain, heart, uterus and spleen — carries specific receptors for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
As well, previous human and animal research has indicated that marijuana use might lead to reduced hormonal production (particularly testosterone), poorer semen quality and impotency in men.
Daling and her team explored the notion of a marijuana-testicular cancer connection by analyzing data on 369 testicular cancer patients that had been collected by the Adult Testicular Cancer Lifestyle and Blood Specimen Study.
Participants were between the ages of 18 and 44, most were white or Hispanic, and all were residents of the Seattle-Puget Sound region. All had been diagnosed with the disease between 1999 and 2006. The men reported any history of marijuana use, as well as alcohol and smoking habits, and the same information was collected from about 1,000 healthy men.
The researchers found that current marijuana use was linked to a 70 percent increased risk for the disease.
Independent of known risk factors, nonseminoma risk was particularly high among men who used the drug at least once a week and among those who had started using it before age 18.
Though Daling emphasized that the findings are preliminary, she suggested that attention should be paid.
“We know very little about the long-term health consequences of marijuana smoking,” she cautioned. “So, although this is the first time this association has been studied and found — and the finding does need to be replicated before we are really sure what’s going on — this does give some evidence that testicular cancer may be one result from the frequent use of marijuana. And that is something that young people should keep in mind.”
But the prospect of a causal relationship between marijuana use and testicular cancer raised a lot of unanswered questions for Gary Schwartz, an associate professor in both the department of cancer biology and the department of epidemiology and prevention at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.
“The consensus is that most testicular cancer is thought to originate with lesions in utero, and that the peak age for testicular cancer to actually occur begins, really, right after adolescence,” he noted. “That’s when hormones released during puberty appear to promote [full-blown] cancer by essentially throwing fuel on the lesion fire, following a relatively long latency. The point being that you don’t suddenly wake up one morning with a tumor. So it’s a little hard to understand how exposure to marijuana beginning at that point could somehow play an immediate causal role.”
“But certainly, the idea that cannabis may cause cancer cells to proliferate is interesting,” Schwartz acknowledged. “It could, however, also be that recreational drug use is simply a marker for affluence, since we know that testicular cancer is traditionally a disease that is more common among the affluent. Or it could be a marker for some other event that comes along with it, that triggers lesions that lead to tumors. So, at this point, it’s just not clear to me how exactly the association between marijuana and testicular cancer would work.”
More information
The American Cancer Society has more on marijuana use and cancer.
