In the highly competitive world of health insurance, CIGNA has always stood for quality. Over the past year, innovations and improvements made by our health care, group disability and life, and international insurance operations have strengthened our foothold in the industry and helped make CIGNA a name healthcare providers and healthcare consumers can trust. It is unfortunate, then, that recent sordid events involving CIGNA and the world of professional baseball have become the matter of public record. In light of these events, and the countless column inches spent dissecting what has transpired, I would like to set the record straight from the CIGNA perspective.

As a company based in Connecticut, CIGNA took great pride in helping one of Major League Baseball’s finest organizations, the Houston Astros, in insuring the well-being of one of Connecticut’s finest professional athletes, Killingworth’s own Jeff Bagwell. Many of us here at CIGNA are proud baseball fans, both of local teams, and of the sport as a whole, and we take special pride in those athletes that escape the confines of the Nutmeg State and achieve success elsewhere. We look forward to the day when Jeff is enshrined in Cooperstown, wearing the cap of the club that fleeced a then-befuddled Boston Red Sox organization. It is a shame that our relationship with the Astros organization has taken such a bitter turn in recent days.

As stated by attorney Ty Buthod, CIGNA has denied the Astros’ multi-million dollar claim that Jeff Bagwell is incapable of playing baseball. “The Astros took the position that Bagwell was totally disabled in January 2006 even though he played in September and October 2005,” Buthod said to the press. “Connecticut General determined that there had been no adverse change in Mr. Bagwell’s condition between the end of last season and the date the policy terminated on Jan. 31, 2006.”

Representatives for the Astros have noted that they will take CIGNA to court if this decision isn’t reversed within two weeks. We here at CIGNA are perfectly willing to stand by our original determination – that for Bagwell to be deemed “totally disabled to play baseball” is ludicrous. He was not disabled during the waning months of the 2005 season, despite hitting as if he was. Bagwell’s disability was not crippling enough to prevent him from participating in spring training drills, which he did just one month ago. Yet, somehow, between the end of the World Series and the start of spring training, the Astros coerced some doctor into offering the aforementioned quote. I can’t say I know who this Dr. Andrews is, but clearly he is one Jello mold away from shilling his wares on a shopping channel if he can actually suggest, given the evidence at hand, that Bagwell is “disabled.”

Forgive my layman’s approach to this issue, but obviously a first baseman with a sore shoulder does not qualify as disabled. First base is traditionally the least demanding defensive position in baseball, as suggested by the physique and lack of athletic grace exhibited by many first basemen (such as the Red Sox’s own David Ortiz). Many teams opt to employ a first basemen whose skill with the glove is dwarfed by his skill with the bat. So, naturally, the lack of defensive responsibility is commensurate with a lack of defensive activity – the position requires very little throwing. While the occasional underhand toss is necessary, such exertion puts minimal strain on one’s shoulder. Bagwell’s soft tosses during Spring Training will attest to this lack of strain.

Also evident by Bagwell’s training regiment is the fact that a severe shoulder ailment does not impede one’s ability to hit the ball. Whether the ball is hit well is a different matter entirely. If failure to successfully hit a baseball qualified as a disability, then I, the majority of players in our intracompany softball league, and a fair number of New Britain Rock Cats would be filing claims right now.

Of course, it is clear that the issue here isn’t Bagwell’s ability to play, but the Astros’ responsibilty to pay Bagwell. The Astros signed Bagwell to a six-year contract, covering the years 2002 to 2007. Bagwell, arguably one of the best players in baseball (and potentially one of the best products of the Red Sox farm system), was 32 at the time of the signing. History has shown that many players are prone to a decline of skills once they enter their 30s, even a player as steadfast as Bagwell. The contract was structured in such a way as to pay Bagwell more per year as the contract expired, during the years that Bagwell would be most suseptible to injury. This, of course, spells disaster.

At CIGNA, the impact of any financial decision – whether to buy such-and-such a company, or whether to ship more IT work overseas, or whether to lay off hundreds of employees and undergo yet another corporate re-organization – must be weighed against, among other things, the impact these decisions will have on our shareholders and our bottom line. Tough, unsavory choices must be made, but, in the end, these choices are the often the best ones for the well being of the company. A privately-owned organization such as the Astros, however, has no balance to check such irresponsible spending. This is why the team is looking at a $12 M buyout of Bagwell’s contract for 2007 (pending any further insurance claims), and why the team that was only 4 games away from its first ever World Series victory might find itself unable to afford a second opportunity at such a prize. That Bagwell, in 2004, could have possibly achieved World Series greatness with the team that he was stolen from is a possible course of events best left unexplored. Unless you are, of course, a fan of the Red Sox and what John Lennon called “Instant Karma.”

Perhaps my candor regarding this sensitive manner seems unfit for a man of my stature. Rest assured, though, that my position as Chairman of CIGNA affords me the best legal council that money can buy. Perhaps the Astros would do well to invest in such services, instead of throwing money at aging ballplayers. In lieu of the gambit the Astros are threathening to undertake, such an investment can only help. Our position at CIGNA is such: for us to offer this organization what amounts to a Get Out of Jail Free card because of their poor decision-making skills and their innopportune luck would send a dangerous message to other organizations, nevermind the CIGNA shareholders.

In baseball, there is such a thing as a “message pitch” – a pitch thrown near or at a hitter to let them know that their behavior to this point in the plate appearance is not appreciated. Consider this brief missive a “message pitch” to the Astros organization, a friendly reminder from us to the area just behind your head. Take heed of this note, because next time we send you a message, you might not have time to move out of the way. Take care, and good luck in 2006!

In a 2001 Hartford Advocate profile of Connecticut business executives, CIGNA Chairman Ed Hanway was represented by a picture of Vladimir Lenin.

It has been nearly two weeks since the World Baseball Classic ended unsuccessfully for the Cuban team, but that is no reason for our proud nation to be disappointed. There was no shame in losing this championship game – with our best players choosing to remain in Cuba, we were able to best many nations playing their best players. Those critics that found time to besmirch the name of Cuban baseball are now eating those words, while Cuba’s finest return to their humble home as victors, regardless of how the tournament’s events unfolded. If there is any shame to be had, it is to be found in the purported birthplace of baseball, the United States of America.

It is only fitting that a nation as historically disrespectful as the United States, a nation that has the temerity to call their professional league championship the World Series, fails to succeed in a true world competition. Their political shortcomings are well known (as noted by my colleagues at Granma), and it was only time before their shortcomings in baseball came to bear as well. Their overpaid, pampered pseudo-celebrities did not, as they say, bring their A game. Instead, they brought to bear the hallmarks of their bourgeois society – sloth, gluttony, anger, and, of course, greed. Their displays of athletic ineptitude more resembled acts of terror than acts of sport, and mirrored the actions of one of their own leaders, shotgun afficionado Vice President Dick Cheney. Just as Cheney filled his supposed friend’s face with buckshot, USA Manager Buck Martinez and his charges shot themselves mulitple times in various fleshy body parts with their dispirited play.

For the United States, success in the WBC was supposed to be a given. After all, the United States is always victorious, are they not? Let us not forget the many proud victorious moments American history offers the world. The Japanese internment camps during World War II. The Vietnam War. And, of course, who can forget that proud moment of recent vintage where President George Walker Bush stood on an aircraft carrier and proclaimed “Mission Accomplished.” The one-sided war in Iraq was success, the war against a verb was being won, and the political placebo that is democracy would now reign in these godless Middle Eastern lands. In this spirit, the US baseball team entered and left the WBC the way the US entered and left the Bay of Pigs fiasco. What began as an assumed victory quickly became a national embarrasment.

And as the US crumbled, so crumbled the foundation of the Fourth Estate. In the nascent days of the World Baseball Classic, braying jackasses like Dan Le Batard would waste newsprint ink with their hollow prouncements:

“Fidel Castro is our Hitler, our Saddam, our bin Laden. Before quibbling over the analogies or getting into a comparison of atrocities, please absorb that. Viscerally, immediately, how would you feel about playing games today with them? Would they just be exhibitions then?”

Only a nation so deluded and self-satisfied would compare a great man like Our President with tyrants and terrorists. The hubris of the United States must blind their eyes to their appearance to the rest of the world. To many countries, America is the tyrant. To themselves, however, they are savoirs and policemen, doing what is right for the international community. That is, until the evils become too great to ignore. Then the backscratching turns violent and bloody, and the journalistic reprisal is swift and merciless.

Of course, befitting the fair-weather ways of their newsmedia, the poised performance of Cuba made many pundits change their position. And, of course, America proves to be as poor at accepting defeat as they are at fielding grounders – while Boston Globe writer Dan Shaugnessy attempts to address his myopia and rightfully pay tribute to Cuba’s greatness, some anonymous weblogger attempts to paint this honorable apology as the ramblings of an idiot. That Shaugnessy – a man associated with a cursed baseball franchise – offered his praise of Cuba just before their defeat at the hands of Japan is mere coincidence, though I would not be surprised if his enemies saw things otherwise. Websites like Dan Shaugnessy Watch, replete with inaccuracies and petulant rage, are exemplary of the oblivious idiocy that runs rampant through the minds and hearts of all Americans.

Breads and circuses can only disguise so much malignance, especially when the circus itself is infected with various cancers. America is a superpower in the waning days of its potency, a desecrated temple wracked with numerous ailments of the soul beyond cure, thrashing about while the rest of the world patiently waits for the final tremors to come. It is only a matter of time before the patient finally falls victim to its own sins and is pronounced dead. As Sodom and Gommorah fell, so shall fall America, and American baseball.

Rogelio Polanco Fuentes is the director of the Juventud Rebelde newspaper.

Wow, that was a close one! I was watching last night’s Japan / Korea game with a bunch of folks from the team and my boy Buck Martinez, and man! That was really tense! I was even sweating a bit! You know that weird sweat you get sometimes when you’re not doing anything, but then you lift your arm, and you feel it sorta trickle down from your armpit, down the side of your chest? Yeah, like that. Jetes got some of that, too.

By the way, all you folks in Boston that badmouth Jetes because he’s a Yankee – you should really get to know the guy before you start talking smack about him. I’ve only been on his team for a few weeks, but already I can see why folks in New York think he’s such a great leader and ballplayer. It’s because he IS a great leader and ballplayer. And those types are rare. So all you dudes with your JETER SUCKS A-ROD shirts should stop & think the next time you pull that sort of junk. You know who’s a fan of Jetes, Boston? A guy by the name of Jason “V-Tek” Varitek. And that’s all I’m gonna say.

Anyway – yeah, man – phew! Because, y’know, if Japan won, then the US was done. And this is some serious stuff now! The USA! Home of baseball! Ambassadors of baseball! Bounced from our own tourney! That would’ve seriously sucked! Now, though, thanks to Korea (yeah boy!) we get a chance to prove folks wrong about us, and about Americans too.

I read some of Michael Barrett’s great article about us and that really lame loss to Korea (I mean, they’re a good team and all, and thanks for beating Japan, guys, but, come on, it’s Korea), and that stuff he said about folks giving us junk because we were losing – that just ain’t right. Regular folks are mostly great fans, but some of them just don’t get it. Baseball’s a real tough sport, even for guys like us that are really good at it.

I mean, think about 2003 – the Red Sox had it won against the Yankees, but the Yankees came back. Same in 2004 – we were dead meat, but we came back and won. It happens. On any given Sunday, or any day, anyone can win, if they can fight for those inches, whether they’re near the foul line or in the back of the batter’s box or on the black of the plate. Except for South Africa. I don’t want to say anything bad about them, because, y’know, folks might think I’m being “insensitive” or “racist,” but I think even the Royals could beat them up something ugly.

Just because we’re making errors and not pitching well doesn’t mean we’re not trying. If you think about it, this is like our Spring Training – you can’t expect all of us to be prepared for actual games. Sure, foreign teams like Cuba & the Dominican Republic, they’re playing baseball year round, because that’s what they do. Because it doesn’t snow down there. In America, though, you can’t play baseball in November or December. That’s why the season only lasts from April to October.

Sorry, folks, but players can’t control the weather. If I could, you know it’d be nice and sunny every single day, so kids could play outside and folks could be happy while working their dead-end jobs, and I’d be driving my really nice Ferrari Spider all over the place with the top down and my really gorgeous beautiful (and hot!) wife Michelle sitting next to me, and it’d be so awesome. Hell yeah.

But, y’know, the way things are, they ain’t so bad. Yeah, my shoulder’s all kinda messed up now, but I can still help us win. I don’t have knee or leg tendonitis, so I can still run the bases and cause havoc like that. And I’d like to think that my veteran presence in the dugout can help some of the youngsters on our team chill out a bit. After all, it’s just a game. And it’s not even a real game, though it’s still real important.

Anyway, I’m just glad I can help us beat whoever we have next. I think it’s Mexico. That should be pretty easy – no one plays baseball in Mexico. I mean no one REALLY plays baseball down there. No one that’s any good, anyway. I couldn’t even tell you who’s on their team, but it’s cool. All I need to know is that we’re supposed to beat whoever’s not wearing the same uniform that I’m wearing. I don’t care if it’s the Red Sox or Chinese Taipei or whoever – if they’re not on my team, then I’m gonna make sure they don’t win. And that’s what baseball is all about. And that’s what America is all about. And America’s gonna make you proud, folks! Just you wait!

Hello again, readers of the faith! As you have witnessed without a doubt, my countrymen have turned tables 360 degrees against the mighty high American squadron. The pivot point was brought into focus as I turned on a not-so mighty pitch wheeled into my house, appropriately, by now-Earthbound Astro Dan Wheeler. Not that I am one to toot my own crow. Here is E$PN to give voice to my bird! Yes, Mr. Martinez, you made the proper call, if you want the call to be answered inside the house and kill you until you are dead! Go on and suck on the dry bitterness that comes with your childish excuses! Please, Mr. Jeter & Mr. Utley, continue to wear with shame those opportunistic boots that look so good upon your feet of clay! But I abstain. In all honesty, were you readers not calling for my curtain to open anew, I would be happy within the content of my own character, and without the three-ring stain of being in Dodger camp on my collar.

Which is what I mean to say in the following: the walk that Mr. Frank McCourt is currently talking (steps here) is bound to fork into oncoming traffic that is thinking green more than blue. As if enough ink hasn’t been bled regarding the spending habits of previous purse holders. Ah, but I forgot that the money shot far and wide these past few months has come into contact with a respectable cast of purported characters. Players that bring years of experience and injury to Mr. Tommy Lasorda’s cheating heart. (Not that I want to strum Nomar’s harp more than I have, but if his current spring train is any type of sign, it is that he has taken to my position like a fish takes to dry land.)

In regards to the newly refurbished front office, Mr. McCourt has furnished the following explanation: “It’s very important our general manager and manager are on the same page.” Perhaps this is a bear whose fur is matted down by the heavy burden of truth. But, in my meager time blocking around, it seems that reading from the same book is just swallowing more eye candy if the readers are working at or below the average reading level. This isn’t to scrub either Mr. DePodesta or Mr. Tracy clean of any absolute fault; there have been times when both men have stooped to subterranean levels of competence. But I deign to offer my kudos on Mr. McCourt’s clubhouse feng shui until this configuration aligns properly with a successful campaign.

And that is all that time will allow for me – my country needs to hone its hunger for new oppositional meat, and I also need to prepare for a fantastical draft regarding this sport which I actually play. It is within this conglomeration of writers and thinkers that I shall be picking and choosing my false allies, and (hopefully) emerging atop the slagheap of statistical carnage victorious! Please keep standing for more information! Perhaps we shall see ourselves against ourselves in this azure arena of virtual virtue together!

FROM: buddymillertime@brewers.com
TO: georgie@yankees.org
SUBJECT: YA RLY

No George of the New York YANKESSSES thank YOU for expresssssing yr concern via the ticket office of yoru Dunedin complex because yr too chicken to say anything TO MAY FACE. spaz. go make more dum commerciasl w yr dum manager and dum pitching coach and dum actnig coach and dum casting coach you dummy. im so sick of you and yr stupiod ass nonsinse that can you plz just shut the hell UP?!? you suck on senfeld to.

but ya thank YOU for bieng a little bich about SPRING TRAINING GAMES that mean a load of nothing in yr pants. i have no doubtsss that missing al leiter and bernie williamsssss will prevent yr team from filling the locker room w/ postgame postpube gash & george benson fever. and ok maybe jetessss and a-plug and damon are good but its SPRING TERAINING you one-eyed stinkass. maybe if you didnt try to BUY EVERYONE every year you wouldnt need to have everyone there at SPRING TRAININGNG all the time to meet there new teammatessss!!! if you reall want to burn my toast just send farnsworth out there as ambassador to spread his jingo asswsweat over everything like hippe john rocker.

i gotta say me & steeldrivin john henry have had a ball the past two yrs watching yr team go down like divine brown, esp last yr to the ANGLES of LOS ANGLES in CALAFORNICATION. watching bernie “run” after popups and “swing” at ballz was loads of fun you grumpy tit. i was hoping fox wd show you throttlin cashman between pithces and then send you to the chair TO DIE because GOD you sucks. go eat some sand and shit a pearl you uptight sub-trump tardamabomb. go fire billy martin smore. GO DIE GOOOOOOOOOO

goddam this is sum good zima BICHT

in conclusion, i, commissioner BUDWISE SELIG of the MILWAUKEE PILOTS hereby sentence theee SLAPPY STEINBRENNER to 25 yrs in prison for being a skidmark and for showing 15 times / day that stupid-ass jeter-eats-chair game from the same year YOU LOST TO TEH RED SOX ASSHO. feel free to challenge this sentence via the office of bob loblaw attorney at loblaw. SIKE.

yrs in perpetual pereptiputie perpetualityisity,
bingo bud selig by proxy of his dick KSEET SKEET

ps – way too spellcheck the sing steinway

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Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Greetings, Yard Workers. For those of you not familiar with my rugged good looks and ambidextrous charm – where the f*ck have you been? I’m media darling (and Newsweek cover boy) Stephen Colbert, host of The Colbert Report, former Daily Show correspondant, and long-time Bringer of Truth. I take on the issues your run-of-the-mill lily-livered liberalista is too limp-wristed to tackle. That’s right – I don’t dive for the knees like some two-sport prima donna. I square myself and go for the upper body, because that’s the way you’re supposed to do it. You don’t take someone down by just wrapping your arms around him – you have to hit the guy head-on and drive his head into the ground with a good solid forearm. And maybe throw in an eye gouge or two, if the ref’s not looking. Because if you don’t do it, someone else will.

But this is a baseball website, and there’s no finer type of website out there (except for mine @ ComedyCentral.com, and my affiliated site, http://www.colbertnation.com). So let’s shuck off the shoulder pads and lace up our cleats. Today I want to talk about something that’s ruining America’s pasttime, a scourge that’s turning the great sport of baseball into something strange and foreign, like curling or hockey. Normally I would be talking about the DH and how it’s made good pitching and strategy obsolete on the diamond, but the signed Pat Tabler jersey I keep in my dressing room tells me that’d make me a hypocrite. Loved you with the Mets, Tabs. But, no, today I’m talking about New York Yankees stuper-star and well-known mercenary Alex Rodriguez. Speaking of limp wrists…

Seems “Mr.” Rodriguez took exception to the way organizers of the World Baseball Classic handled his wishy-washiness. After months of agonizing anticipation – emphasis on the ANTI, please – Alex decided to give his birthhome, the Dominican Republic, the bum’s rush, and lace up his cleats for the good old US of A. Now, if this were another player with Rodriguez’s political leanings, Rodriguez’s skills, and Rodriguez’s unthreatening good looks, I’d be overjoyed at this announcement. But, unfortunately for us, this is Alex Rodriguez. The King of The Choke. The Man With The Open Palm. A fair-weathered flouncing phoney.

Rodriguez denies reports that make it seem he was indecisive in his decision to play for the US. A-Rod? Indecisive? I’m shocked! After all, isn’t unwavering fealty to be expected from a man that opted to sign a ludicrous multi-year multi-million-dollar contract with a go-nowhere franchise? Should we not honor this man’s word as bond, a man that semi-orchestrated a trade to the winningest franchise in all of sports because oh boo hoo making more money than half the countries in Asia, Africa, or Europe is too much to take? I feel your pain, Alex, and I’m sure most Americas want you to feel that pain, too.

Rodriguez’s shameless go-for-the-gold, loyalty-be-damned attitude is endemic of everything that’s wrong with professional sports. Seattle? The place that actually gave Alex a chance to play a child’s game? Where’s that, Alex will say while trading stock options over his fancy Bluetooth headset. Texas? Sure, Alex knows Texas Hold ‘Em, but don’t ask him about the Alamo or Enron now that he’s in Yankee pinstripes. And I’m sure when he decides that New York isn’t the place to be, he’ll put them out of mind before you can say “1918.”

Now the Dominican Republic is the latest to benefit from Rodriguez’s laissez-faire loyalties. Perhaps he was awestruck at the talent he’d be playing with – or behind – on this roster. Perhaps he saw a better opportunity to sieze the spotlight from American welterweights like Jeff Francouer or Randy Winn than his would-be Dominican brethren, players like Red Sox MVP David “Big Papi” Ortiz, or Orioles slugging shortstop Miguel “B-12” Tejada. Or that up-and-coming big bat for the Indians, Jhonny Peralta. Or that scintillating speedster, Mets shortstop Jose Reyes. Players with the character and respect and desire to win that Rodriguez’s pay-me attitude will never be able to afford. And, by the way, your majesty – that World Series ring Big Papi’s wearing isn’t for sale, either. Or maybe Alex is afraid of the spotlight, and prefers to hide under the coattails of a true patriot like Yankee teammate Derek Jeter. Or maybe there’s something else going on there, “Mr.” Rodriguez.

Anyway, Alex (if I may be so informal): I can only speak for myself (and my Nation), but your presence on the American roster is not a welcome one. In fact, I’ll take it one step further: you’re on notice, buddy. You can take your post-season swoons, and that $25 million dollar chip on your shoulder, and andale off to some other nation like the dirty plague-infested rat you really are. It’s only a matter of time before Alex realizes that his great-grandfather is 1/16th Korean, or that his love of Molson Ice supercedes his love of Bush & country, and I’m fine with that. After all, America is the land of the free and the home of the brave, two things that Alex Rodriguez will never, ever be. I’m Stephen Colbert.

Stephen Colbert will always be 100% American, even if he doesn’t pronounce the “t”.