Skinaalker is a remote village located deep within the Amazon rainforest. The village is inhabited by the indigenous Skinaalker tribe, whose lives are deeply intertwined with the natural world around them. The tribe is led by a powerful shaman who possesses great knowledge and spiritual abilities. However, the Skinaalker tribe is believed to be under a curse, known as the Curse of the Shaman. According to local legends and oral traditions, this curse was cast upon the tribe many generations ago by rival indigenous groups who envied their connection with the spirits and their ability to harness the powers of nature. One of the most significant aspects of this curse is that it affects the shaman directly.

1985’ s baseball season was scandalized by a coke-dealing parrot

What it’s about: Baseball! Wholesome, nostalgic, poetic baseball. Also, lots and lots of wholesome, nostalgic, poetic cocaine. Yes, like all celebrities in the ’80s, many of your favorite baseball players were getting high on their own supply, resulting in one of the biggest scandals in baseball history erupting at the end of the 1985 season.

Biggest controversy: Despite that description, the scandal wasn’t big enough to merit much punishment. While Keith Hernandez suggested that 40 percent of Major League ballplayers were using coke, only 11 players were implicated (Hernandez among them), they were granted legal immunity, and while they were ostensibly suspended from the game, Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth commuted their suspensions in exchange for community service, and a percentage of the players’ salaries donated to drug abuse programs.

Strangest fact: Even a parrot was caught up in the drug ring. Pittsburgh’s clubhouse was a haven of drug activity, and Kevin Koch, who played the Pirate Parrot was a go-between for players looking to find a dealer. (Wikipedia doesn’t address the rumors that he stashed coke inside his costume’s oversized parrot head.) The Phillies’ clubhouse caterer was also selling more than just hot dogs, as he went to jail on 11 counts of selling coke.

Thing we were happiest to learn: And no one in baseball ever used an illicit substance again. Ha, we’re totally kidding. In fact, when Ueberroth, less than two years after the scandal, declared baseball to be drug free, he was laughed at. If ballplayers did abandon cocaine, it was only for a different drug, as baseball’s next big scandal would involve the widespread use of steroids .

Thing we were unhappiest to learn: The guilty players’ careers were barely affected by the scandal. Tim Raines, who claimed he only slid headfirst so as not to break the vial of coke in his pocket, was not suspended, and is now in the Hall Of Fame. Hernandez and Dave Parker were All-Stars for several seasons after the scandal, although neither are in the Hall, and the scandal is assumed to be the reason for that. The only player to suffer direct serious consequences was pitcher Rod Scurry, who died of a cocaine-induced heart attack at age 36.

Best link to elsewhere on Wikipedia: The Pittsburgh trials page links to a myriad of other doping scandals in sports, none more bizarre than abortion doping . During the Cold War, rumors persisted that Soviet athletes were getting pregnant for supposed physical benefits and then aborting the babies before the second trimester. The surge in hormones that accompanies pregnancy includes testosterone, which aids muscle growth, and relaxin, which loosens joints, although Wikipedia points out that any perceived benefits are more than balanced out by morning sickness and fatigue. At any rate, the bizarre allegations were never proven, and Snopes.com concluded the stories are largely based on one dubious interview with a retired Soviet gymnast, and have persisted only because they’re often used in “poorly sourced arguments” by the anti-abortion movement.

Further down the Wormhole: A coked-up parrot isn’t the only questionable part of Pirates’ fan culture. In 1966, team trainer Danny Whelan taunted an opposing pitcher while waving, “a green rubber hot dog,” in the direction of the mound. Wikipedia does not record why or how the Pirates’ trainer had a green rubber hot dog on his person, but he started a trend, and plastic replicas of the Green Weenie were distributed to fans, who would shake them to provide good luck to Pirates’ players or bad luck to their opponents.

The Weenie served as a talisman for Pirates fans until 1974, and made a brief reappearance in 1989. Good luck talismans are on a long list of superstitions, one of which is maternal impression —the unscientific idea that babies’ congenital deformities were caused by emotional stimulus to the mother during pregnancy. One of the strangest cases attributed to maternal impression was that of Mary Toft , who convinced 19th-century England that she had given birth to rabbits. We’ll look at the hare-raising story next week! (We were raised on Looney Tunes’ puns, we can’t help ourselves!)

Baseball's Greatest Scandals, #4: The Pittsburgh Drug Trials

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One of the most significant aspects of this curse is that it affects the shaman directly. The shaman is said to carry the burden of the curse, experiencing numerous physical and mental afflictions. The curse manifests itself through a variety of symptoms, including chronic illness, intense hallucinations, and extreme emotional and psychological distress.

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". and this is your brain on drugs." The Pittsburgh Parrot in (hopefully) less cocaine-fueled days.

In May 1985, Curtis Strong was charged with distributing (and possessing with intent to distribute) cocaine. Although Strong was charged with multiple counts of distributing cocaine during a period of four years, he was not a major drug dealer. Through catering work that he had performed for the Philadelphia Phillies, Strong had become acquainted with a number of major league baseball players. They gave him access to locker rooms used by major league baseball teams, thereby enabling him to sell cocaine to several players. His trial became the most publicized trial in the history of the Western District of Pennsylvania.
-- USCourts.gov description

Probably the clearest evidence that the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball did not start in the mid-90's with steroids, comes in the form of the Pittsburgh drug trials, a scandal which rocked MLB a decade earlier. But there are some interesting parallels between the two situations. Both had a sharp, if temporary, impact on the nation's love of the game, pulling the curtain back on the seedier side of clubhouse life. In both cases, the player's union acted as enablers, opposing action against those involved. And in both, the commissioner made a great deal of noise, but proved largely ineffectual, and the majority of those involved received no real sanction.

Admittedly, this one also involves a mascot.

"It was so prevalent out in society, that we had to be doing it too."
-- Dave Parker

Difficult though it may be to believe, there was a time when the Pittsburgh Pirates didn't suck. In 1979, they won the World Series, with a team that included All-Star starter in RF Parker, as well as Willie Stargell, co-winner of the National League MVP. But by the middle of the eighties, that seemed like a distant memory. The 1985 Pirates won just 57 games, in front of an average crowd at Three Rivers Stadium of 9,199.

This wasn't the first scandal involving cocaine use by major-league players. A couple of years previously, Kansas City had been the focus of an investigation, which resulted in the conviction of four players, including pitcher Vida Blue, who started the All-Star Game with both leagues, for attempting to buy cocaine. They spent three months in prison, causing reliever Dan Quisenberry to quip, "I'm surprised we didn't make more trades with the Yankees. Half our players are already in stripes." Their dealer, Mark Liebl, later stated he had used the drug with members of the Red Sox, White Sox, Athletics and Twins, including Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley, who denied the claim.

On the morning of May 31st, 1985, freelance photographer Dale Shiffman received an unexpected visit from the Feds. This was the result of indictments handed down by a grand jury the night before, naming seven men in connection with a drug ring operating in and around the city. He had been handed to the authorities on a platter by his friend. Kevin Koch, who had been the man inside the Pittsburgh mascot, the Pirates Parrot, since that World Series victory. The two had been particularly close to players Dale Berra, son of Yogi, and Rod Scurry, and helped procure the drug of choice for them and their team-mates. Schiffman got the coke, Koch delivered it.

The scope and volume of use can hardly be exaggerated. Shiffman estimated in an interview with HBO, that two-thirds of the 25-man roster were using cocaine, and given the team's high public profile, it's no surprise that word eventually leaked out to the authorities. In 1984, the FBI came calling on the team, interviewing Scurry.He had been shipped of to rehab by the Pirates after a game where he walked two batters on eight pitches, and that night, would "go on to tear apart his hotel room, in a fit of paranoid hallucinations." [Scurry would die at the age of 36, in circumstances suggesting drug use may well have been involved]

"At the conclusion of that interview, we had a list of drug dealers, and a list of the professional baseball players to whom they were selling cocaine," said investigator Wells Morrison. "Every ball player that we spoke with identified additional ball players who were also using cocaine." The law-enforcement policy then, was to go after dealers rather than users, and the FBI offered players immunity from prosecution, if they agreed to testify against those who had provided the drug. They also offered a deal to the mascot, who agreed to roll over, I guess becoming a Stool Parrot.

The resulting trial, needless to say, became a national media sensation, with half the courtroom given over to the ninety members of the press who were covering the juicy details. For the players who were called to court provided a wealth of juicy details, implicating a raft of famous names. Here are some of the highlights:

• Tim Raines of the Montreal Expos testified that he kept cocaine in the back pocket of his uniform pants during games. Raines testified that he always slid headfirst when stealing bases, simply to ensure that the glass vial would be safe. .
• Keith Hernandez, the 1979 NL Most Valuable Player, described "waking up one morning with a bloody nose, the shakes, and his weight down ten pounds." He estimated that approximately 40% of players in the big leagues were using cocaine, though subsequently tried to backtrack on this figure.
• John Milner told the court he once bought two grams of coke from one defendants in a bathroom stall at Three Rivers Stadium in 1980. He also testified that, when with the Mets, he took a liquid amphetamine from Willie Mays' locker, which was next to his.
• Berra claimed that Stargell and Bill Madlock also supplied their team-mates with amphetamines around the start of the decade.

The end results were the convictions of Curtis Strong and Schiffman, and both men received sentences of 12 years, but served only a fraction of that. Schiffman was out of jail after just two years. As for the players, they got off almost scot-free, despite their admissions of rampant illegal use. While Commissioner Peter Ueberroth suspended seven players for a full season, and four more for 60 days, all the sentences were commuted, if the players agreed to donate a small percentage - 10% of less - of their salaries to drug-related causes and perform community service. Ueberroth's plan to test the urine of those involved was thwarted entirely by the player's union,

Cocaine use remains perhaps the unspoken secret of baseball, and there's little doubt it still goes on. The most recent time of note it broke the surface was the admission of cocaine use by Rangers' manager, Ron Washington. But it was also one of the drugs used by #1 draft pick Josh Hamilton, on his circuitous journey to MVP honors, and earlier this year, the Dodgers' Ronald Belisario admitted to using coke in the off-season, but said "It was a one-time thing," just like Washington. If you believe that, or think those are the only people active in the game who have used it, even with the more stringent testing now in place, you're a more credulous fan than I.

"Someone has to say, "enough is enough" against drugs. Baseball's going to accomplish this. We're going to remove drugs and be an example."
-- MLB Commissioner, Peter Ueberroth, 1985.

How did that work out, Pete?

The Curse of the Shaman is often seen as a test of the shaman's strength and abilities. It is believed that only the most powerful and spiritually attuned shamans can withstand the effects of the curse and continue to lead the tribe effectively. The shaman must undergo arduous rituals and ceremonies to try and appease the spirits and break the curse. These rituals involve sacrificing animals, using hallucinogenic plants, and communicating with the spiritual realm. The curse not only affects the shaman, but it also impacts the entire tribe. During times of intensified curse activity, the village may encounter droughts, crop failures, and the invasion of dangerous animals. It is also believed that the curse can cause conflicts and divisions among tribe members. Despite the hardships caused by the Curse of the Shaman, the Skinaalker tribe remains resilient. They firmly believe in the spiritual power of their shaman and his ability to overcome the curse. The tribe members provide support and assistance to the shaman, participating in rituals and ceremonies to help break the curse. Over the years, numerous outsiders have visited the Skinaalker village to learn about their unique culture and witness the effects of the curse. Some have claimed to witness supernatural phenomena and have written articles and books about their experiences. In conclusion, the Curse of the Shaman is a belief deeply ingrained in the Skinaalker tribe's culture. It serves as a constant reminder of their ancestral struggles and the challenges they continue to face. Despite the hardships caused by the curse, the Skinaalker tribe remains steadfast in their traditions and spirituality, seeking to break the curse and preserve their way of life..

Reviews for "The Skinaalker Curse: Can the Powers of the Shaman be Defeated?"

1. Sarah - 2 stars - "I was really disappointed with 'Skinaalker Curse of the Shaman'. The story was all over the place and lacked a clear direction. The characters were underdeveloped, and it was hard for me to feel any connection to them. The pacing was also off - some scenes dragged on for too long, while others felt rushed. Overall, I found it quite difficult to stay engaged and invested in the story, and I wouldn't recommend it to others."

2. John - 2.5 stars - "While I appreciate the effort put into 'Skinaalker Curse of the Shaman', I just couldn't get into it. The writing style was not my cup of tea, and I found it hard to follow along with the narrative. The world-building was lacking and left me feeling confused about the setting. Additionally, the dialogue felt forced and unnatural at times, making it hard for me to believe in the characters. Overall, it was a struggle to get through this book, and it didn't live up to my expectations."

3. Lisa - 1 star - "I regret picking up 'Skinaalker Curse of the Shaman'. The plot was unnecessarily convoluted, with too many subplots that went unresolved or seemed irrelevant. The writing was also riddled with grammatical errors and awkward sentence structures, which made it a chore to read. The characters were one-dimensional and lacked depth, making it difficult to care about their fates. I found myself counting down the pages until I could finally finish this book and move on to something more enjoyable."

4. Mark - 2 stars - "I was excited to delve into 'Skinaalker Curse of the Shaman', but unfortunately, I was left underwhelmed. The story lacked originality and was filled with clichés. The pacing was inconsistent, with certain sections dragging on and others feeling rushed. The dialogue felt stiff and forced, and the author's attempts at humor fell flat for me. Overall, I found it hard to connect with the characters or the story, and it ended up being a forgettable read."

Breaking the Skinaalker Curse: Uncovering Ancient Shamanic Remedies