Take Berk Out to the Ball Game.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but you can help them pick up a new pastime or two. On account of Pups in the Park night at Nats Park, Berk got to take in his first MLB game Saturday night: Phillies over Nats, 5-4. FWIW, he seemed to quite enjoy the experience, most notably all the many other dogs around and the bag of peanuts in the seat in front of him. The folding chairs, not so much.

Buy the Ticket, Pitch the Game.

“The two drank screwdrivers. Smoked marijuana. Talked through the night. Eventually, Ellis fell asleep. Possibly for an hour. Probably less. Around noon — maybe earlier — he took another dose of LSD. Meanwhile, Mitzi flipped through a newspaper. ‘Dock, you better get up,’ she said. ‘You gotta go pitch!’” For ESPN’s Outside the Lines,” Patrick Hruby and Joe Ciardello offer a lengthy contemplation of Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis, the only fellow in history to (ostensibly) throw a perfect game with a head full of acid.

I actually haven’t read this whole piece yet, but the presentation of this article is amazing. Here’s the same curtain.js script from its source — this time involving lorem ipsum and kittehs.

Tipoff ’09.

While Philadelphians wait one more day (they hope) to end their 25-year losing streak, basketball-inclined sports fans such as myself are now focused on Beantown, where the 2008-09 NBA season tips off tonight on TNT. (And, hey, with zero games played in the season, this newest iteration of new-look Knicks are tied for best record in the league!)

Seriously, tho, while I expect another, ahem, “rebuilding” year in New York despite the best efforts of Walsh and D’Antoni, it’ll be good to have the NBA back in town — and Kenny, EJ, and Charles back in the studio. Particularly now with Mad Men in mothballs again, Inside the NBA is probably my favorite show on television…even if they don’t deign to show the Knicks this year.

Rocket R-Test | Manny on the Run.

“‘I’ll be a kid in a candy store,’ Artest said. ‘I’ll be a kid in a store with a lot of candy. I’m going to dance with the stars.‘” T-Mac, Yao, and the Houston Rockets try to keep pace in a loaded West by trading for talented head case Ron Artest. (They gave up aging vet Bobby Jackson, new pick Donte Greene, a 2009 first-rounder, and cash.) Interesting…that’s a pretty solid trade for Houston. It’s not Boston’s Big 3, but even in a crowded conference Artest should be enough defensive help to finally get ’em out of the first round. And so far he’s saying all the right things.

Also, I don’t really follow baseball until, I dunno, mid-October, but this even made my radar. The inimitable Manny Ramirez is gone from the BoSox. He’s now a Dodger (and, the Grant Hill of the MLB, Ken Griffey is now on the White Sox.) Alrighty then.

From Black Sox to Juiceball.

“‘Everyone involved in baseball over the past two decades — commissioners, club officials, the players’ association and players — shares to some extent the responsibility for the steroids era,’ Mitchell said in summation of his 20-month investigation. ‘There was a collective failure to recognize the problem as it emerged and to deal with it early on.‘” Former Senator (and go-to commission guy) George Mitchell’s report on Steroids in Baseball is released. And, while outing a number of star players as users (including Roger Clemens, Andy Pettite, Eric Gagne, David Justice, John Rocker, Gary Sheffield, and Mo Vaughn), Mitchell instead argues for change and collective responsibility rather than the initiation of a witchhunt. It does seem obvious, based on the list of names, that steroids were rife throughout the sport and can’t be limited to any one clubhouse (although there sure are a lot of Yankees named, aren’t there?) Well, here’s hoping they find a way to clean it all up. For my part, and as I’ve said several times now, major league baseball ranks somewhere down near hockey and golf in the list of sports I enjoy watching and following. Give me the NBA, or even the MLS, any day of the week (and the NFL twice on Sunday.)

Trials by Fire.

I’ve been derelict in posting here the past week, but obviously there’ve been some pretty dismal stories in the news of late, from the fiery swath of destruction visited upon California to the horrifying house fire that claimed seven South Carolinians. To those who’ve lost friends or family (or homes) in the recent conflagrations, my heart goes out to you. (And one bright spot amid the tales of woe, congrats to the 2007 BoSox for their second World Series sweep this decade. The Curse is now assuredly laid to rest.)

756*.

It’s official: Notorious slugger and obvious juicer Barry Bonds passes Hammerin’ Hank Aaron as the all-time home run leader. Ho-hum. To be honest, I still haven’t figured out how I come down on the Bonds steroid thing (partly because I am at best only a casual fan of baseball, and thus don’t really care all that much. As I said here, I’d rather watch basketball, soccer, or football on any given night than I would MLB, even before the league gave us Dubya. Take that, George Will.) But, regarding Bonds: On one hand, he seems like a jerk, and it’s painfully obvious he’s a user. On the other, the Baseball Hall of Fame is filled with unlikable people, many people in pro baseball are clearly using, a case could be made against other kinds of enhancements (contacts, for example), and I highly doubt I could hit 756 home runs even if I were ingesting three times the steroids Bonds did. So, it’s a wash.

Off the Charts.

For any sports gambling aficionados (or stock market junkies) out there who happen to venture by the site, a very good friend of mine from college has just started MLBcharts.com (although he also covers the NBA, NHL, NCAA, and soccer therein.) Basically, he’s been applying stock market valuation principles to sports gambling, with positive results (for him, anyway — a few March Madness games notwithstanding, I’ve been watching his success from afar.) At any rate, go check it out!

Say it ain’t so, Joe…and Clyde, and Jerome…

(Like I needed to another reason to think less of A-Rod.) By way of my friend Mark, here’s an interesting list of campaign contributions made by sports figures since 1978. Some of the bigger Democratic donors include Hank Aaron, Andre Agassi, Michael Jordan, Robert Kraft, Alonzo Mourning, Bud Selig, Dean Smith, and David Stern. As for athletes buttressing the GOP, they include several football (Troy Aikman, Bobby Bowden, Mike Ditka, Peyton Manning, Roger Staubach) and racing (Mario Andretti, Brian and Bill France, Jeff Gordon, Dale Jarrett, Richard Petty) stars, along with Jerome Bettis, Clyde Drexler, Karl Malone, Lute Olson, Rafael Palmeiro, A-Rod, and Marge Schott.

His Revels are now ended.

“So, what do you do when you find out your effervescent childhood hero is a violent, potentially evil man? You can repudiate him, forgive him, or try to compartmentalize and love the ballplayer while deploring his actions.” Friend, colleague, and baseball fan Jeremy Derfner remembers Kirby Puckett for Slate.