It’s just like two years never passed, and not just because the Reds are atop the division again (albeit feeling much less green this time around). I’m also talking about my RHM inbox, which features four emails that I’ve been holding on to since 2010. I was neck-deep in MBA coursework then, so I just held on to them thinking, “someday…”

I figure it’s now or never: everyone knows that 2-year old emails are OK, but there’s a strict 3-year expiration date on emails. So, let’s see what we’ve got…

July 2010 – New book exposes baseball pension scandal
On April 14, 2010 the book A Bitter Cup of Coffee; How MLB & The Players Association Threw 874 Retirees a Curve was released, detailing how guys who came up for a cuppa between 1947 and 1979 got screwed pension-wise.

If you’re interested, it’s just $18 on Amazon.

August 2010 – A request to be the exclusive diamond and watch dealer advertising on RHM
Not sure why I kept this one. I think they misunderstood what kind of diamonds I write about.

August 2010 – Interview with a female baseball memorabilia expert
Are female sports memorabilia experts unusual? Apparently enough so that it was worth drawing special attention to in this email I received about an interview with baseball memorabilia appraiser Leila Dunbar.

I dream of a day when people will fail to read this article because they don’t give a rat’s ass about Yankees’ memorabilia, and not because its subject is a woman.

August 2010 – A cool video of Seaver and Rose from 1977
Play that Funky Baseball is a blog obsessed with reliving baseball from the ’70s, and they posted this clip of Pete Rose and Tom Seaver on the Mike Douglas Show. Boy, the pace of television was a lot different back then. It was interesting to hear them talking about the controversy of this new practice of renegotiating contracts and explaining free agency “for the ladies who don’t know what it is.”

One of the hardest things about going to a new ball park is deciding where to sit. Especially for the highly sunburn-able like me, the stupid little diagrams that the MLB sites give you to make your selection utterly fail to provide the really important information.

So I ran across FromThisSeat.com today. You can go here and review the seats in the section you’re sitting in. It’s a nice contribution to the community to be able to warn future visitors about the lack of covering if it rains or let them in on the great view of the Rally Pack while they dance around on the dugout, catapulting t-shirts and hot dogs at the people in the crowd.

It doesn’t look like there are too many reviews of Great American Ball Park sections yet, so if you’ve got a tip to share, consider dropping by. And when you’re headed to a new ball park and can’t decide where to sit, check it out to make sure there isn’t a family of pigeons living in the rafters directly overhead.

If you’re like me and “working” for yourself from the home office, you’ll be happy to know that FOX Sports Ohio has picked up the June 14 game against the Cleveland Indians at 12:30 p.m.

It’s officially to make up for the rain-out on May 1, but this is even better, since it’s all against the team who gave up on Brandon Phillips and he always brings it when they play.

If you don’t “make your living” from the room over your garage, maybe you could take a late lunch at your local sports pub, call in sick, or claim that two days after Flag Day is a very important holiday for you. Even if you don’t watch the game, you’ve just gotta get away from work at least once in June.

This issue of Sports Illustrated has a story titled “Ten Years Later: A Look into the Lives of Players Affected by Baseball’s Steroid Era.” I found the preview quite compelling, so I thought I’d post it here for your reading enjoyment.

(NEW YORK – May 30, 2012) – Ten years ago, Sports Illustrated’s exclusive in-depth look at the use of performance-enhancing drugs in major league baseball (MLB) led to a senate investigation. Former National League MVP and admitting steroid user Ken Caminiti told SI that he had used performance-enhancing drugs and believed that about as many major league players were using steroids as were playing the game clean. Senator Byron Dorgan opened the senate subcommittee hearing by citing the SI story as a call to action, a reason to decide whether any “legislative action is necessary.”

As MLB continues to expand its drug testing since the hearing, the focus has been on the tainted records and court cases that resulted from the Steroid Era. But the cover story for the June 4, 2012, issue of Sports Illustrated looks inside the lives of ordinary players whose careers were defined by the choice they made, to cheat or not to cheat.

Senior writer Tom Verducci, who wrote the cover story in 2002, examines the playing careers of four right handed pitchers who were members of the Minnesota Twins organization in mid-to-late 1990s. They had similar skills and backgrounds. None were drafted by the Twins higher than the fourth round of the MLB amateur draft. One of the four, however, took steroids, and he was the only one who ever reached the major leagues. His name was Dan Naulty and his decision to cheat the game, his teammates and himself affected all their lives (page 38).

Naulty was 6’6’’ and 180 pounds as a senior at Cal State Fullerton, had a fastball that sat around 85mph and was drafted in the 14th round. After using steroids and other performance-enhancement drugs, he began throwing his fastball at up to 95mph and at one point weighed 248 pounds. He spent three seasons with the Twins, pitching in 97 games before being traded to the New York Yankees in 1999, where he won a World Series.

On the outside, he looked like many other major leaguers, but inside he was an emotional wreck from the steroids, the guilt of cheating and a drinking problem. Naulty hit rock bottom just after the World Series. After a night of celebrating with some teammates, Naulty asked his driver as they crossed the George Washington Bridge, “Tell me. Tell me if this is all there is to life. Because if this is all there is, just stop this car right now and I’ll jump…. I had no hope. I had sold myself that bill of goods so long that I believed it. But I realized at that moment I had totally destroyed my life. And I had destroyed countless other people’s lives. I was ready to die.”

Brett Roberts was the highest drafted of the four pitchers, and in 1996, the Twins invited he and Naulty to big league camp where Naulty beat him out for a roster spot. Roberts said, “It’s hard enough trying to make it in this profession. You want to make it on your own abilities and work ethic, and all of a sudden, when you think it’s an even playing field, you’ve got somebody cheating. I was very upset, knowing my chance to get to the big leagues was cut short. I was jealous, hurt, frustrated, angry .?.?. all that stuff. I guess I should have been suspicious. How can a guy go from 85 miles an hour to 95 in three or four years? As I look back on it, it’s so clear and obvious that I can’t believe I was that naive and incredibly stupid. All the signs were there.”

Available on newstands now, or check out the electronic version. There’s apparently a podcast with Tom Verducci and Richard Deitsch if you get the version on your tablet computer.

First there’s a Cuban guy bringing a civil suit against Aroldis Chapman for allegedly conspiring with the Cuban government.

Then there’s the arrest for speeding like a maniac on an already suspended license.

And don’t even get me started on Dusty’s refusal to make him a starter.

Now there’s another item to list in the tribulations of Chapman: his Pittsburgh hotel room was robbed–with his girlfriend in it–last night.

Here’s what I can piece together: the girlfriend is alone in the hotel room at 10 p.m. when a man knocks on the door, claiming to be there to fix the toilet. She opens the door and the guy demands her valuables. When she doesn’t just hand them over, he ties her up and makes off with jewelry, computer equipment, tiny soaps, and whatever else he can take off with.

There’s an ongoing investigation, but for the moment it seems like no one was hurt. So there’s that at least.

You do have to wonder whether maybe the team should bring on a counselor for Chapman, though. I would think all these freaky bad things happening to him have got to be getting overwhelming, though I guess his performance hasn’t showed it at all.