Barry Bonds used Steriods???

Many baseball fans and players looked up to Bonds, not only as an idle but the best hitter in MLB. With 762 career home-runs, running and walking 762 times around the diamond must have taken but a lot of hard work, but now they are finding out that the star Barry Bonds had used steroids during his career? Tests has shown that Bonds had indeed took three types of performance-enhancing drugs. Bonds has admitted to using these drugs himself but said that his personal "misled him into believing it was flaxseed oil." Whether this is true or not, Bonds’s home-runs were not legit ones, and should affect how others look at him.

Currently Bonds is involved in a perjury trial that accuses Bonds of lying to a federal grand jury in 2003 when he claimed that  he never knowingly took steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs. The prosecutors (government) need to prove that Bonds was indeed lying, and that he knew he was taking steroids. Bonds’s former personal trainer Greg Anderson has been refusing to testify, and has been jailed for doing that. This will harm the prosecutors’ case, but it is still possible for them to win. The trial is expected to last three to four weeks.

So not only has Bonds been using Steroids during his brilliant career, but they are now trying to prove that he was lying about having used the drugs. This will probably make a difference when Bonds is being admitted into the baseball hall of fame, and many voters think twice before voting him into baseball’s hall of highest honors.

-- Bikramjit

Websites that were used are:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/sports/baseball/24bonds.html?_r=2&ref=sports

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/03/24/sports/baseball/AP-BBO-Bonds-Trial.html?_r=1

Texas Loses Early Once Again

Last year in the NCAA Men's basketball tournament, Texas lost in the first round to 9th seed Wake Forest by the score of 81-80. This year, with the help of Freshman Forward Tristan Thompson and the scoring of Jordan Hamilton, the longhorns managed to get a successful 28-8 regular season record while making it to the Big 12 championship where they lost to the 2nd overall ranked team, Kansas.
As Texas came into the NCAA tournament this year, many expected them to make it to the sweet sixteen. Some even believed that Texas will be able to defeat Duke, the number one seed in the region, and advance to the elite eight and possibly the championship game. In the first round, Texas lead 78-63 going into the final five minutes, and allowed Oakland to make a come back, ending the game with the score of 85-81, a mere 4 point victory. According to sportspicksforum.com, 83% of the nation favored Texas to come out as the winner against 5th seed Arizona. It was not the case. Texas, having enjoyed double digit leads through most of the season, was down 36-25 at the half, due to the inability to score by Jordan Hamilton and Tristan Thompson's foul trouble. As the game starts to wind down to its final minutes, J'Covan Brown made some clutch free throws (he was 13 for 13 on the line for the game) to get Texas the 69-67 lead with 14.5 seconds left. As Cory Joseph attempted an inbound pass to Brown and was unsuccessful, he appeared to call a timeout, but that was when the referee called a 5 second violation. After the call Arizona 's star player Derrick Williams drove to the basket for a score and the foul, and that got Arizona up 70-69, which was the final score.
Now the problem is, WAS that a 5 second violation by Cory Joseph?
See for yourself.

-- Brian Chen

Cricket Club?

Is LASA ready for another sport? Students are trying to make a club for cricket, which is like baseball. Danish Hussain (10th grader) and Aniket Patel (9th grader) are putting forth much effort in order to get the club going. Right now they play on the tennis courts during lunch and they have all the supplies they need; a bat, a ball, and wickets (which are used to get a person out because there aren't really strikes in cricket). The sponsor I believe is Mr. Scaccia and right now, all they need is a signature from the principal and/or vice-principal and then the club will be official! Currently there are about 15 people on average who come outside to play everyday that all the supplies are present and so far it's looking like all the people are having much fun out there.
And, is it coincidence that this club is being formed at about the exact same time as the 2011 Cricket World cup is going on? It is being held in India and there are many great games that have gone on. as of March 11, 2011, the team that is ranked number one is Australia, number two is India, and third is Sri Lanka. In all, there are 13 teams playing in the World Cup and I'm sure that the students who are making cricket club possible watch this and try not to miss a match.

-- Bikramjit

Heat Loses 5th Straight

The NBA's most talented, and probably the most exciting team to watch, the Miami Heat, loses their 5th straight game to the Portland Trailblazers, 96-105. Just one day ago, the Heat coach had leaked information that some of the players were weeping in the locker room after the loss against the Chicago Bulls, with both Lebron James and Dwayne Wade, two major stars of the league, missing possible game winning shots in the final seconds. Although later the coach explained that there were just glossy eyes and downed players, this has caused laughter among the league, including Amar'e Stoudamire and Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks.
In the last 5 games, the Heat had lost to the opposing team by an average of 9.6 pts per game, with their worst lost being the game against the spurs, where they lost by 30 pts. What's wrong with Heat? Their bench. In this five game losing streak, the Heat bench have been outscored 168 to 66. Especially in the last game, the Heat bench scored merely 8 points while Portland's bench scored 41 points. With the bench unable to score, even if both Lebron James and Dwayne Wade are playing well (Lebron scored 31 pts, Wade scored 38 pts), it will be very difficult for the team to win a game. The reason that the Miami bench is not scoring could be because that there are too many superstars on the team (Wade, James, Bosh), and that the rest of the team are trying to feed THEM the ball, instead of taking some quality shots that some of them could make. This is one of the cons for teams with superstars, because then the rest of the team will just be depending them to score a lot of points, and there will be less team work and more indivudual play making, and that is what's happening with the Miami Heat right now.

-- Brian