Fresh Loaf

When is a new home-run record not a new home-run record?

Perhaps when the new home-run king is indicted for lying to the feds about steroid use, and there’s a drug test that backs them up. In short, an unprecedented mess awaits Barry Bonds and, especially, baseball commissioner Bud Selig. The big question Selig is going to face is simple: Does he erase the new (allegedly steroid-enhanced) home-run “record” that Bonds set last year from the record books?

Baseball has never seen anything like this before. When “Shoeless” Joe Jackson was given a lifetime ban from baseball for the Black Sox scandal after the 1920 season, his batting records were left intact. When Pete Rose was given a lifetime ban for gambling, it didn’t affect his batting records. In neither case was there a cause and effect.

But with Bonds, it’s very different. His alleged crime directly affected the records he set. Take Marion Jones, the Olympic gold medalist who confessed in October that she took steroids provided by BALCO, the same outfit that allegedly provided them to Bonds.

Like Bonds, she said she initially thought she was taking flaxseed oil. After Jones’ confession (she pleaded guilty in October to lying to federal investigators), she gave up the five medals she received at the 2000 Games in Sydney. The International Olympic Committee is expected to formally strip her of the medals prior to her sentencing in January.

Selig may have no other alternative than to “strip” Bonds of the records he’s set with the apparent use of illegal substances. How can anyone honor a home-run record set by a guy who was demonstrably bulked up on steroids?

The baseball commissioner has never been one to take bold measures. But in this case, he may have no other alternative. The home-run record Bonds set last year is now tainted. And Selig must take the lead of the Olympic committee and wipe Bonds’ stained stats from the record books.

Hank Aaron, home-run king. It has a nice ring to it. It has an honest ring to it. And to get out of this mess, baseball has got to rediscover its integrity.

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Speaking of passports  …

Miami Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder apparently told a reporter he thought he might need a translator while he’s in London for Sunday’s game against the Giants in Wembley Stadium. He also confessed to being ignorant of geography.

I swear to God. I don’t know what nothing is. I know Italy looks like a boot. I learned that.

“I know (Washington Redskins linebacker) London Fletcher. We did a football camp together. So I know him. That’s the closest thing I know to London. He’s black, so I’m sure he’s not from London. I’m sure that’s a coincidental name.”

If he’s joking, the 2002 North Springs High School grad is a funny man.

If he’s not, then, well, remind me to not procreate in the Sandy Springs school district.

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From the AJC:

The women’s pro basketball league and Atlanta real-estate executive Ron Terwilliger have reached a deal to put an expansion team in the city, owners of the 13 WNBA teams and 30 NBA teams have been informed. A formal announcement is expected on Wednesday.

That’s great news!

If the team is successful, it might even improve the city’s chances of getting a men’s pro basketball team!

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Although I was a very young tyke in 1966, I still have memories of the Falcons’ inaugural season when quarterback Randy Johnson spent most of his time trying to avoid being a punching bag for opposing linemen. The Falcons went 3-11 that year, then 1-12-1 the next.

It was futility at its finest.

What I saw last night is simply the worst Falcons team since the original version. As the ESPN commentators pointed out, the defense came out playing hard. They seemed determined to prove their mettle. But once the team fell behind, they stopped trying. And the offense? It only showed how dependent the team was on Michael Vick playing an NFL version of Houdini every week.

But it’s not about the loss of Vick. It’s about how little is left without him. There is an abject lack of planning and player management in the Falcons organization. They started two rookies on the offensive line, one of whom wasn’t even drafted. The wide receivers dropped pass after pass after pass. The team has blown $12 million on Joey Harrington and Byron Leftwich, two quarterbacks who can’t lead this team.

But let’s be real: Even Tom Brady would have problems making this team win.

The Falcons are a mess. The veteran players clearly don’t respect coach Bobby Petrino. GM Rich McKay has done a woeful job of player evaluation. And Arthur Blank must be walking around like someone who doesn’t know what hit him.

The Falcons are 1-5. The team has given up. The question now: Are they mediocre enough to be the most mediocre team in the NFL? There’s a No. 1 draft pick next year that’s on the line. And that’s the only thing the Falcons have to play for now.

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If there is any doubt that the Atlanta Falcons will sever ties with its former star quarterback, look no further than today’s arbitration hearing, where the team seeks to recoup $22 million in bonus money paid to Michael Vick.

According to ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio, the Falcons contend that Vick “defrauded” them because he knew he was in violation of the terms of the contract when he signed it — he was fighting dogs and knew it violated the personal conduct clauses.

A team doesn’t throw around the term “defrauded” if they intend to continue a relationship with a player. A lot of people in Atlanta desperately want Vick back. Forget it. He’s gone.

An interesting aside: An ESPN poll revealed that a vast majority of people want Vick to be able to continue his football career once he’s released from prison. But when asked if they would want him to play for their team, a majority said no.

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This strange story was reported today by ESPN.com: Michael Vick accepted an invitation from PETA to attend a course on preventing animal cruelty. He then returned to take a test on what he learned, and passed.

Said PETA Assistant Director Dan Shannon: “He seemed nervous at first, but he seemed really interested.”

PETA, of course, has helped lead the charge in designating Vick as the poster child of dogfighting. Vick quietly spent a day with the organization on Sept. 18 and impressed the organization with his sincerity.

It’s the first positive news from the Vick camp since he made his emotional plea for forgiveness at a press conference following his guilty plea in federal court.

Since then, Vick has tested positive for marijuana, been sued for defaulting on a $2.5 million loan and been sued for at least $2 million for not repaying loans related to a car rental business. He’s also been indicted by a Virginia prosecutor on state charges related to the deaths of dogs and dogfighting.

He will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson on Dec. 10 for the federal charges.

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According to the AJC’s David O’Brien, the Atlanta Braves told free agent center fielder Andruw Jones today that they can’t afford him and will allow him to sign with another team. Center field at Turner Field without Andruw Jones? It doesn’t seem possible.

I remember hanging around home plate during batting practice in 1999 when the Mets were in town. Shawn Dunston was in the batting cage and he hit a ball right center that would have been a hit in a real game. Except he exclaimed, “That was an Andruw Jones out!” When I asked him to explain, he said the players counted the number of “hits” they got during BP. But there were outs and then there were “Andruw Jones outs.” Essentially, any fly ball hit in the vicinity of center field was an “Andruw Jones out.” That’s how much respect other players have for him.

Jones is generally regarded as the best center fielder since Willie Mays. And even though he had a subpar year in 2007, he was also battling through nagging injuries. After losing Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine to free agency, it doesn’t come so much as a shock to lose Andruw Jones. You get used to it.

The fact is the Braves are owned by a company that is headquartered in Colorado, a company that purchased the Braves as a tax write-off. The Braves aren’t even mentioned on the company’s website.

The Braves will never approach the peaks of the team’s glory years in the ’90s until it is owned by someone in Atlanta who will come to games and invest emotionally in the team. Until then, the team will continue to lose its best players because management will have budget constraints.

So long, Andruw, we hardly knew ya.

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It’s obvious that the suits over at TBS don’t like Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren.

In 2003, TBS banished the two longtime Braves announcers from TBS’ dwindling broadcasts of Braves games before fan anger drove it to rescind the decision. This year, TBS takes over the broadcasts of baseball play-offs from ESPN, and when the network announced its lineup of announcers, Caray and Van Wieren were nowhere to be found.

As the AJC’s Tim Tucker writes today, Caray is, understandably, peeved.

A TBS flack issued a fairly terse statement: “TBS has put together four telecast teams that we feel will best serve our national baseball audience. … We appreciate Skip’s abilities as a play-by-play announcer and look forward to his [Braves] calls for us next year on Peachtree TV, but we decided to go in another direction as we look to brand our new MLB-on-TBS playoff package.”

Skip Caray has called baseball on TBS since 1976. He is destined for the Hall of Fame. He is one of the best baseball announcers still working.

But he’s not good enough for the network he helped build into a national presence?

I have one word for the TBS suit who made this decision: stupid.

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A grand jury in Virginia has handed up two felony indictments against Michael Vick and three others.

Vick was charged with one count of beating or killing a dog and one count of engaging in and promoting dogfighting. The charge of beating or killing a dog carries up to five years in prison and a $2,500 fine per animal.

Vick and his co-defendants pleaded guilty in federal court to killing between six to eight dogs.

The arraignment is Oct. 3.

Read the AJC story here.

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On a day when fallen boxing champion Mike Tyson pleaded guilty to a cocaine charge and faces four years in prison, the county prosecutor in Surry County announced that he will seek a state indictment against Michael Vick for dogfighting and cruelty to animals.

And if the fallen former Falcons quarterback is convicted of state charges, he would face an additional 40 years in prison.

One presumes that Vick’s legal team would fight any state indictments on the grounds of double jeopardy. It is a basic legal right, addressed in the Constitution, that forbids the government from trying Americans twice for the same offense.

In recent years as the U.S. Supreme Court has grown more conservative, it has become more “liberal” in its interpretation of what constitutes double jeopardy. According to our friends at Wikipedia:

Double jeopardy is … not implicated for separate offenses or in separate jurisdictions arising from the same act. For example, in United States v. Felix (1992), the Supreme Court ruled: “a[n]…offense and a conspiracy to commit that offense are not the same offense for double jeopardy purposes.”

Which would seem to place Vick in a tenuous situation where he could face serious jail time on top of whatever federal sentence he may receive in December.

It will be argued that Surry County Commonwealth Attorney Gerald G. Poindexter is piling on and using the indictments to save face. Poindexter’s office originally pursued the dogfighting allegations against Vick, and was criticized for not being aggressive enough. In fact, the feds swooped in and basically took the case away from Poindexter.

He told the AP last night:

“Most of the matters that I’m presenting have already been admitted in sworn statements authored by the defendants in the federal proceedings,” Poindexter said.

Poindexter couldn’t detail the exact indictments he will pursue, but said the local investigation and the federal investigation largely focused on different crimes.

“The killing of dogs is one of those statutory prohibitions. Dogfighting is a crime, the mistreatment of animals is a crime, so you could take your pick, or take them all,” Poindexter said before cutting the conversation short. “I don’t have anything else to say about it. I’m through with it. Hopefully it’s coming to an end.”

For Michael Vick, it appears, the end is not coming anytime soon.

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In what should be a lively discussion, ESPN will host and broadcast a town hall meeting from Atlanta next week to “examine the repercussions of the story that shocked the city and the nation.”

“The Vick Divide — An ESPN Town Meeting” will be broadcast live at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 25, from Sidney Marcus Auditorium, and hosted by “Outside the Lines” anchor Bob Ley.

ESPN says the show will address the involvement of athletes with dogfighting and the status of the investigation, as well as what lessons can be learned from Vick’s situation, and how Atlanta can move past the issue.

The network also has an online poll that shows interesting numbers.

As of this morning, 72 percent of the respondents say Vick should be allowed to play again after he is released from prison (who would have thought a year ago they’d ever read that sentence). However, 59 percent say they don’t want him to play for their team.

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Former all-pro John Abraham signed a six-year, $45 million deal with the Atlanta Falcons last year to be the team’s star on the defensive line. He wound up missing eight games, but he’s back and healthy so far this year.

ESPN’s Seth Wickersham has a fascinating piece on Abraham, how he lifted his own life out of an alcoholic spin and how he is trying to help his team deal with the loss of its star quarterback. Abraham and Wickersham provide fascinating insight into the dysfunctional team that was the Falcons last year:

“I don’t want this taken the wrong way,” he says, “but we were 7-9 with Mike last year.”

It’s a frank comment from a man who’s spent the past few years learning to be honest with himself. And it’s hard to argue with the assessment that last season’s Falcons were a team that sorely lacked leadership. During a 30-14 loss to the Lions last November, defensive tackle Rod Coleman screamed obscenities at then-defensive backs coach Brett Maxie, who had the nerve to ask Coleman for more effort. And during at least one game, cornerback DeAngelo Hall listened to his iPod on the sideline, tuning out coaches. The Falcons needed Vick to be the leader he was paid $130 million to be; instead, he was the first to leave the complex after practice.

Abraham’s maturity in the locker room will hopefully be a calming influence for the team this year, and he is optimistic about the Falcons.

Then again, Abraham doesn’t play quarterback.

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Whoopi Goldberg came to Michael Vick’s defense on her first day as moderator of “The View.”

Goldberg, who was born in New York City, says blacks in the Deep South have a “different relationship to dogs and cats and things.”

Uh, Whoopi: Open mouth, insert foot.

Also, you can own the notes Michael Vick used to prompt his comments at his news conference following his guilty plea in Richmond.

The latest bid on eBay is at $2,000.

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Those clever guys at ESPN.com came up with some humorous headline ideas concerning Michael Vick’s guilty plea.

Our personal favorite: “Vick Completes First Step To Joining ‘09 Raiders.”

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The agreement signed by Vick Thursday is notable in its carefully worded passages, especially when it comes to whether he gambled and whether he killed dogs. It also goes far beyond his co-defendants in spelling out the consequences if he lies to the feds.

The wording of the plea agreement is important to Vick in one critical regard: He didn’t gamble. Of course, an NFL player who gets caught up in a gambling scandal can be banned for life from the league. However, although Vick didn’t admit to gambling, he did admit to consorting with gamblers and with bankrolling the bets made by his co-defendants.

Here are some of the key provisions of his plea agreement:

Gambling: Vick says he didn’t gamble. Vick admits th