Roger Clemens

As much as Major League Baseball would like to set the issue of steroid use behind them and move on, the debate is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

The recent Barry Bonds trial and Manny Ramirez's sudden retirement due to a second failed drug test further pulled the issue back into the spotlight, and Roger Clemens' trial this summer will keep us from forgetting the issue this season.

Mad Magazine should feature Manny Ramirez on their covers. He’s one of the original Boston Red Sox Idiots. And, now we have confirmation he is crazy as a Looney Toon.

Imagine having been banned once for 50 games for using a forbidden substance, and then to use the proverbial putative something again.

Imagine being so stupid that you are caught once more with hormones, steroids or the creeping crud inside you.

Nicknames and baseball go together like peanut butter and jelly. 

There are literally thousands of different nicknames that baseball players have acquired though their careers, and we all have our favorites. 

Making a list of the top 50 nicknames is difficult, because there are some great players and nicknames that have to be left off the list.  So I guess I'm apologizing in advance if I left your favorite off the list.

Here are the top 50 nicknames in MLB history:

The scars of MLB's recent past are beginning to heal and fade. The Steroids Era is growing smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.

It's been over six years since Major League Baseball was first embarrassed on Capitol Hill in the "steroids hearings" of March 2005. Over three years have passed since the release of the Mitchell Report.

Despite the march of time, there are still a handful of retired MLB stars who, well, we simply wish would just go away—Jose Canseco and Roger Clemens among them.

Barry Bonds is in trouble. With his perjury trial underway, Bonds faces a maximum of 10 years in prison, as well as the tarnishing of his legacy. As if it wasn't already.

For three years we have waited for this. The date was March 2011, and everyone in San Francisco and anyone growing up with an awareness of Bonds would remember that date. The day is finally here.

Performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) have tarnished the last twenty years of Major League Baseball, and that is sad.  After witnessing perhaps the greatest era of individual performance in the game’s history during the last twenty years or so, we are forced to live with the reality that a lot of those accomplishments are tainted.  The problem now faced by those who love and respect the game is their lack of full knowledge of which of those accomplishments, of the records attained, are tainted and which are clean.  And

Beginning with Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro we have seen that the Hall of Fame voters are not looking fondly on nominees that have their pasts tied to performance enhancing drugs.

Looking back to the stars that emerged in the late 1980's and through into the early 2000's, an alarming number of our favorite players were implicated in the steroids scandal.

Baseball saw some of the most hallowed and revered records in our national past time broken by the games modern athletes. Home run records fell, pitchers seemed ageless, and mediocre players became great.

Andy Pettitte is that soft spoken lefty with the slow Texas drawl. A man dedicated to his faith and his family, tenacious, unflappable in the moment.

He may be among the best pitchers the New York Yankees have ever seen. But he’s also a confessed cheater.

The title of the article says it all, Red Sox Nation.  Let's do this.  But first, a few quick ground rules:

Some of the players on this list played part of their careers for other teams, but only accomplishments in a Red Sox uniform will be considered.

The era a player played in will be factored in when considering all statistics.  Players' numbers will be compared to their contemporaries, not just to players from other eras who played the same position.

The Houston Astros have always had a team that was based on strong pitching. From the 1980s with Mike Scott, J.R. Richard and Nolan Ryan to their most recent World Series run with Roy Oswalt, Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte.

When the Astros have had success, you can bet they had one or more superb pitcher behind it. The Astros have used strong pitching to secure six division titles, two wild card berths and one National League pennant. I have compiled a list of who I think are the top 15 starting pitchers in the history of the Houston Astros.