Alex Rodriguez

Normally, the baseball faithful show no mercy to cheaters. Yankee fans boo Alex Rodriguez. People toss syringes at Barry Bonds. Mark McGuire spends more time hiding from the public than Joaquin Guzman Loera. And Manny Ramirez…ummm, wait a second.

Yikes. I knew that there aren't that many powerful Latinos in Hollywood, but this year's Forbes Celebrity 100 List, which ranks the most powerful celebrities in the world and was released last night, shows just how bad the situation is. Only four Latinos made it in this year (soccer star Ronaldinho, model Gisele Bundchen, actresses Cameron Diaz and Eva Longoria Parker), down by about half from last year's seven (Jennifer Lopez, Cameron, Eva, Ronaldinho, Alex Rodriguez, Mexican golfer Lorena Ochoa and Spanish Formula One racer Fernando Alonso).

He’s back!!! After arguably one of the most insane “off seasons” in sports history (Madonna-mating, call girls, AND steroids, that’s impressive), Alex Rodriguez returned to the Yankees on Friday, making his 2009 debut in a weekend series against the Baltimore Orioles.

Comic book nerds, rejoice! X-Men Origins: Wolverine opens today, unofficially kicking off the start of the summer movie season and representing one of a number of comic book/TV show/cartoon-based films to hit the silver screen over the next few months (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Star Trek, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – OK, nerds, calm down). What does Wolverine have to do with sports? Well, superheroes and athletes both possess the abilities to accomplish feats beyond the scope of normal men.

First, Alex Rodriquez lied and said he never used steroids.  Then he adjusted his statement and claimed he only took performance-enhancing drugs while playing for the Texas Rangers.  Now, a story in the New York Daily News reports that A-Rod’s PED use started in high school and lasted into his Yankees years.  Uh.  Oh.  The information used by the Daily News comes from an upcoming tell-all about Rodriguez titled, A-Rod.  The book cites various unnamed sources and i

On Monday, April 6th, former Madonna Latino boy-toy, MLB slugger, and Juiced author Jose Canseco spoke in front of a small crowd at the University of Southern California.  During the Q&A, Canseco called A-Rod a “copycat” (Madonna Latin boy-toy and steroid user), dubbed Ken Griffey Jr. a “clean” player (although he claims nobody can be sure about anyone anymore), and accused Manny Ramirez of taking performance-enhancing drugs. Wait, what???

Oh Aster-Rod, what better way to follow up a career-damaging steroid scandal than to do a bizarre (and kind of creepy) photo shoot for Details magazine. If you haven’t seen the spread (shot in a rundown gym in Tampa, Florida), the pics look like something from a Calvin Klein ad, but one from the mid-'90s when CK rolled out the grimy, heroin-chic campaign.

So, the Manny Ramirez Dodgers Era Part Dos is getting off to a slower start than Number 99 himself running down the line against a routine grounder. After four months of contract negotiations (which made the Slumdog Millionaire courtship look like a jog in Central Park) and a slight delay due to injury, Man-Ram finally hit the field in Dodger Blue, but left in the fourth inning of Sunday’s spring training game with a hamstring tweak.

I know what you’re thinking: I just HAVE to write about my Dominican Republic losing 3-2 to the…wait for it…Kingdom of the Netherlands! How can we not discuss arguably the biggest upset in baseball history, especially when the game involves a team from a Latin American country, right? Wrong, and thank you Mister Alex Rodriguez.

All right, people, time for part two of our preview on the Latin American teams competing in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. On Monday, I profiled the national teams from Venezuela, Panama, and Mexico and now we turn our eyes to the remaining Latin powerhouses (by the way, I bet any amount of money that in ‘09 a team from a Spanish-speaking country takes down the WBC–no disrespect to defending champs Japan, but we’re due).