End the baseball freak show; Update: President Bush comments
Sorry, guys, I’m not much of a baseball fan, so I shortchanged you all on the big steroid report yesterday. Allah tracked it all. Here’s Rush Limbaugh’s take. And US sportswriters have their say today, calling for an end to the baseball “freak show:”
American sportswriters on Friday urged Major League Baseball to take harsher action to prevent steroid and hormone use following the release of a probe that accused some 80 players of doping.
The Mitchell Report named top stars Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens among dozens of current and former players who have used steroids, exposing more than a decade of drug use in the sport known as America’s pastime.
“On Thursday, (former US senator George) Mitchell pulled back a tiny flap on the curtain covering baseball’s freak show and let in some light. It was ugly, it was revealing. And it was high time. What a great day for baseball,” wrote Anne Killion in the San Jose Mercury News.
Scott Bordow of the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Arizona, said that like many, he was drawn to the “wow factor” of seeing unexpected names like famed Yankees pitchers Clemens — who issued a quick denial through his lawyer — and Andy Pettitte among the “cheaters.”
“But as I read through the names and their stories, I became numb. Was this really surprising? Was I shocked that many of baseball’s greats had become human pharmacies the last 20 years? Of course not … What’s important is what Major League Baseball does with the report.”
What say you?
***
Update: President Bush comments at a press conference. “Steroids have sullied the game…I urge those in the public spotlight…that when they violate their bodies, they send a terrible signal to America’s youth.”
***
In related news, BALCO steroid client Marion Jones, the tarnished track star, had all of her medals stripped by the IOC earlier this week:
The International Olympic Committee ended the once stellar Olympic career of U.S. sprinter Marion Jones on Wednesday, taking back her five Sydney 2000 Games medals after she admitted to taking drugs.
“She is disqualified and scrapped from the results,” IOC President Jacques Rogge told reporters after an executive board meeting.
“We disqualified Marion Jones from the five events she took part in Sydney and for one event in Athens (2004 Olympics) which is the long jump where she was fifth,” Rogge said.
Rogge said she was also banned from the 2008 Beijing Olympics in any capacity and the IOC reserved the right for any further sanction.
Jones, who became the first woman to win five medals in a single Olympics after winning gold in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 4×400 meters relay and taking bronze in the long jump and 4×100m relay, could go to jail for lying to federal investigators.
She returned her medals to the United States Olympic Committee after telling the court in White Plains, New York in October she had taken the banned substance known as “clear” from September 2000 to July 2001. She accepted a two-year ban from the sport.
Jones also pleaded guilty to two counts of providing false statements to federal investigators and check fraud and will be sentenced in January.
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Growing up, I really enjoyed baseball, as well as other professional sports. Now, I don’t even bother to watch them on TV, much less go to see them in person. They’ve become nothing more than a freak show for ALL professional sports, not just baseball. Thanks to the greed not only of the owners, but of the players. Who cares what a bunch of greedy narcissistic multi-millionaires do or think? How does that help me? There are too many more important things going on in the REAL world to think about, worry about, or enjoy.
I am happy you included this story. I am a long time baseball fan growing up on the southside of Chicago. I have frankly had it with baseball. These guys are making 10 or 20 million per year by stealing from the fans, the sport and most of all more talented players who refuse to take the steroids. They have rendered with the help of the Players Union the records of the past 20 years “meaningless”.
The only way I would go to another major league baseball game is if they do what the Track and Field commission of the IOC has done with Marion Jones. Take away all there records, stats, performances. Expunge everything from the record books, ban these players from the HOF and further participation in baseball (ala – Shoeless Joe Jackson).
Then just maybe I will care again. Meanwhile I will be going to track and field events instead, since I have faith that they have cleaned up the sport.
Not only stealing from their fans, but stealing from themselves. How can they live with themselves in the culture of deceit? Take everything away from them. NOW.
NO Hall of Fame, nothing.
You’re right. What ARE they going to do with this knowledge/information going forward?
Thanks for thinking of us baseball fans, Michelle. Although since this site is primarily devoted to political matters, I don’t consider the omission a sin. I’m happy you let us get away with the occasional OT football remark.
This steroid thing is definitely a black eye for baseball. I think baseball can recover from it, but it’s going to mean getting their act together and keeping it together for a long time. Actions speak louder than words and while the commissioner’s words are a good start, it’s the actions of MLB that will tell the story.
And in my eyes, Hank Aaron is still the home run king.
Mister P –
Shoeless Joe may be the wrong example to put up, as most believe he was wrongly accused in the scandal… but your point is spot-on.
I grew up in the Windy City myself, although a North-sider Cubs fan….
I no longer follow baseball hardly at all, mostly because the childhood mystique wore off a long time ago for me.
I recall going to both Wrigley Field and Comiskey park and watching some great games and seeing my ‘heroes’ of the diamond and meeting the likes of Joe Pepitone, Ernie Banks, etc…
Today’s players just haven’t grabbed my admiration – and the steroid issue is a big part of that.
Whatever happened to the values of hard work, practice and self-determination that was preached to us as kids in little league and school athletics?
These players, if truly guilty – should be disciplined, and if necessary, removed from the game, including any records they hold. They are a disgrace to the long-held tradition of this country – only one of many that, nowadays, are being cast aside in the name of tolerance and ‘progress’.
Professional sports and pro athletes have become a joke. I much prefer to watch a little league game at the neighborhood ball park.
this makes me wonder, how many truly talented players that refuse to juice have not been allowed into the big league and watched less talented power players juicing rise up the ranks?
i’m with mister p.. take and erase their stats. they should be shunned and treated as outcasts from sports. they shouldn’t be allowed to become a sports caster, either. it is important to remember, the kids are watching and have been watching, do we want them to think that you, too, can take the juice and nothing will happen when they find out?
clean up the sport. i want to see a truly talented player achieve the records not someone juicing. there is talk that they are not going to put an asterisk after their stat or their name. i agree with that no asterisk, just erase their stats completely. what is good for Marion is good for all. and that means you, too, barry bonds.
Shame on the college and high school coaches that turn their heads and ignore substance abuse of their athletes. Shame on the parents of these athletes that allow their kids to pump up like Arnold Schwartshisname to get a scholarship. If there isn’t a good, strict testing program in place there will be abuse.
Can anyone hear Joe Buck’s call of Mark McGuire’s 62nd homerun replaying in their minds? Sounds pretty ridiculous now that all of our suspicions have been confirmed.
Hey Michelle…if you are not such a baseball fan, what sport do you enjoy watching?
I think it was a dark day for baseball and Roger Clemens needs to shut up.
As a Yankee fan, I’m disheartened to see so many current or former players listed in the report. As an longtime baseball fan, I’ve become jaded over the years, and these guys should be ashamed of themselves.
What kind of message does this send to all the kids who worship these players?
I think the problem is far more pervasive than the 75 or so players mentioned and baseball really needs to strike a much harder line to the union.
If not little league, highschool. Where they play for the sport (not just baseball, but all of the other sports as well)rather than the paycheck. I used to enjoy college, but now days, the primary focus is getting to the pros above the game.
And womens fastpitch softball, an exciting game for the games sake.
Baseball! Where liberals and conservatives can come together to enjoy the American past time!
To be honest, I didn’t like the report. We knew there was a problem and I’m glad that there’s confirmation that the problem was that widespread. (I’m also glad they nailed Clemens, but that comes from my Red Sox bone.)
Naming names when Sen. Mitchell admitted they were barely at the tip of the iceberg seem unfair. That’s why I don’t think punishing the named players is remotely fair. Not to mention all the evidence is very circumstantial. One ESPN legal analyst that the person who had the most evidence of steroid abuse (Clemens) could never be convicted in a court of law with everything the Mitchell Report mentioned. There just isn’t a lot there.
Steroid abuse is a terrible problem and I’m glad that the problem is acknowledged. Rigorous testing is the only way to go from here. But past transgressions should be forgiven.
Hell, if I had a vote, I would elect Bonds, McGwire, even that turncoat Clemens, to the Hall of Fame.
And to the people getting so riled up over “cheaters”: They made a decision where taking these drugs would be the difference between hundreds of millions of dollars. Taking these drugs could set their families up for life for many generations. Who among you wouldn’t make the same choice?
MadChef has it right. I have loved the sport of baseball since I tore out the knees of my jeans playing sandlot ball as a kid, but I have neither the patience nor the affluence to be able to enjoy what passes for “professional” ball now. You can find me behind the plate on weekends, though, mask and chest-pad on, calling balls and strikes for the Little League, where real baseball still gets played by people who love the sport.
Mr. P, BAL, et al,
Eliminating their stats isn’t fair. That only punishes the ones who got caught. And those people were exactly caught red handed or with their pants down. Some of the connections are very tenuous.
And no one is freaking out over football players juicing. No one is demanding that Rodney Harrison and Shawne Merriman’s stats be stricken from the books. That should apply to baseball as well.
I have a hard time getting worked up about this issue. Yes, some players are cheating. But who are they cheating? Their fellow players and the integrity of the game that provides their paycheck. In theory, a major function of the player’s union should be to look out for the interests of the clean players. In theory…
As for the long-term health issues, the users are self-poisoning. As long as they accept financial responsibility for their health care, I don’t care.
To sum up, one group of super-wealthy fools is cheating another group of slightly less super-wealthy fools. I have better thing to do than be concerned with their problems.
One question arises though. Do minor leaguers, under 25 and making less than 4x the poverty level have their HGH prescriptions covered under S-CHIP?
Alot of players made the right choice rusty, and I have made a very successful life for myself proudly drug and alcohol free as millions of others have. this is one of you’re most lame comments to date.
I wouldn’t.
There’s something that these players are unfamiliar with that many of us are….
Morality and a sense of right and wrong.
Your excusing their actions due to the chance of earning millions of dollars is horrifyingly weak.
But it’s the same line of thinking that excuses border-jumpers and impoverished inmates who committed their wrong-doings in an attempt to make a better life for themselves and their families.
They each made a choice – and that choice was wrong – and they knew it was wrong when they made it.
Now you say there shouldn’t be consequences for it.
The fact is that they cheated – pure and simple.
Given that – they do not deserve their accolades or their rewards.
They deserve punishment and our scorn for tarnishing what is known as “America’s pastime”.
Rusty – eliminating their stats IS fair, if those statistics are proven to be tainted. Allegations alone are not enough, in this, I think, we agree.
But you state that it only punishes the ones who got caught…
Well – DUH! If they got caught – then they were in the wrong. Isn’t that the point – punishing those who are caught?
As for including football – I would say that all sports should have bans on steroids. Period.
But just because, at this time, football isn’t investigating and naming names – that doesn’t mean these cheaters should go unpunished.
It’s the old child’s excuse “Timmy’s Mom and Dad let him do it!!!”
Would you buy that from your kid? Most parent’s wouldn’t.
I’m not excusing. I’m just saying many people would make the same choice. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars to do something that many of your peers already take part in.
It’s not right.
But it’s human. Some empathy is warranted.
I really liked Deadspin’s take on this.
Speaking of which, anyone have any good baseball blogs to recommend. My favorite is Fire Joe Morgan. It’s pretty SABR oriented and I love that.
AJ,
#16 is spot on. cRusry ALMOST did a Rusty and made a great post without the troll coming out in him.
The wide spread use of performance enhancing drugs is very disheartening to me. It doesn’t just affect the game. Professional athletes are still heroes to many kids and I don’t want them looking up to a person who is willing to cheat or destroy their body.
However, I am not going to demand records be erased or that players be banned until their is solid proof these guys did what they are being accused of.
What I meant was, the NFL does test. And they tesy for HGH too! (Baseball doesn’t.) The difference is that people freak out over steroids in baseball, but don’t give it two thoughts when a linebacker is busted. Shawne Merriman was suspended for 25% of the season after getting busted and he remains an ultra-popular player. He even got selected to the Pro Bowl the year he was suspended!
The dichotomy between baseball and football is bizarre.
Also, eliminating stats is like erasing history. We have to acknowledge that MLB and the MLBPA let it get to this. Erasing any evidence of impropriety won’t achieve anything.
Oops! It should read “until there is solid proof.”
Do you take away the Rocket’s Cy Youngs?
I can empathize – no doubt the temptation is there for these players…
But at what point does character matter?
At what point do you say – “Man, I’d love to be a batting champion, but not this way – I’m not going to cheat” ??
Outside of professional sports – when someone does something against the rules or against the law to earn a bunch of money – they’re called criminals…
Do you feel the same way about the heads of Enron and Tyco? Didn’t they just see their colleagues doing it too, and see an opportunity to set their families up for life?
They’re in prison – and these ‘heroes’ are supposed to keep their spoils?
Why?
So when a Nascar race winner is found to have used a banned car set-up, we shouldn’t strip him of his win?
Real baseball is in the grin on a childs face the first time he or she turns a double play or sucessfully steals second base. When he drops a fly ball and his teammates still cheer for him. It’s when the girl with red hair and freckles kisses him on the cheek after hitting a home run. That is why we love baseball!
Booze was the start, then i believe greenies or speed, coke, then steroids…. read ball four by Bouton.
whats next? hey! heres an idea, milk! and hard work of course.
and who the hell knows what ingredients were in hot dogs when Babe Ruth was woofing 8 before a game…lmao
for the record…
I Love Baseball, Baseball been berry berry good to me…
I loooooove baseball. I was one of those kids that took the radio to bed to listen to Harry Carey and Jack Buck call the Cardinal games. I thought Mom and Dad didn’t know but they did! I mean it was Dad’s radio!
I managed a Khoury league team for 7 years and would go to Legion games and played fast pitch and slow pitch. My 5 brothers and I would play on the big field by our house and every now and then, Dad would join in. I remember I was in the third seat of the station wagon on our family’s Sunday drive when Ken Boyer hit the grand slam in the world series against the damn Yankees.
I can’t afford too many games but you can bet my new grandson and I will go to a few as I fill him in on the great traditions that we have lost along the way.
I don’t care who did what. I am hopeful that this will fix this great game and my grandson can enjoy the game as I once did.
Image: SNL’s Garrett Morris
I wonder who will be the first to file a class action suit against the MLB and MLBPA because of the steroid/drugs problem. Will it be the fans who expected to see a fair (i.e., chemical free) competition between two teams. Or will it be the gamblers who legally bet on the sport in Nevada who lost their wagers on an unfair (i.e., chemically tainted) match?
The best thing baseball could do to improve the game besides a one strike and you’re out for drugs rule? Implement a “shot clock” on the pitcher and the batter. Once the pitcher is gets the ball he has xx seconds to get rid of it. Go over xx seconds, call a balk. If the batter leaves the box, start his clock. Go over xx seconds, call a strike. The game is just too darn long and boring nowadays. The result of the “shot clocks?” A shorter game. with a shorter game, more stations might be willing to televise more games…
I wouldn’t, but that is just me. I won’t contribute to their family income either as I won’t go to a game. I won’t watch it on TV. But again that is just me.
To me the sport is ruined, but you can go support the freeks if you like, and maybe go take your kids to one of those wrestling matches while your at it, and oh by the way, load up your kids on steroids so they can get sport scholarships. After all who can blame a parent for wanting to save money.
“What say you?”
Easy Michelle, 2 leagues. One for the Dopers, & one for the Chem-Free Boyz.
That already exists. 10 seconds.
It’s very rarely called though.
AJ Montana does make a good point in #28. This isn’t the first time baseball has had a problem with this. Boozing, amphetamines, and cocaine were all huge problems for the league. And baseball recovered. It will recover again.
What baseball really needs is a strict testing policy (one offense should cost you 25% of your season, just like football. That’s 40 games). Two strikes is a full season (also like football). Three strikes you’re out.
That and a salary floor and cap to maintain balance. I’m a Red Sox fan and even I admit that our team is unfairly stacked.
I wouldn’t. My integrity is worth more than any amount of money and that is obsiously something that you can’t understand.
These people cheated. Their records are tainted and they were not earned. They should be stipped of all records and titles and banned from playing until they can prove that they are clean of any performance enhancing drugs.
That’s my opinion and the opinion of a Baltimore Oriole season ticket holder at Camden Yards who gave up those tickets many years ago because I grew tired of listening to the crybabies cry.
I can’t believe how seriously politicians are taking a silly, boring game.
Is this the George Will influence?
Pro sports are a perversion of what sports should be. Instead of exercise, they encourage couch potatoism and beer drinking. Instead of teaching good sportsmanship, they teach cheating, hostility, and drug use. Not to mention the players are arrogant, overpaid pigs. I haven’t watched any pro sports in years myself. Hopefully baseball will die as in addition to the above it is boring.
Politicians might exercise their newfound prudish morality on illegal infiltration.
Holy Cow! (Harry Carey reference) I agree with Rusty! #34
Hey Rusty, I was stationed at Fort Devens in the late 60’s and lived in Woburn for 6 months in ‘98. Wonderful people in Mass. and so much history!
Alphonse, Have you ever played baseball? Do you think that sports are only for watching. What a snob!
Has someone slipped Vince something?
We wuv Rusty.
Did they strip Marion Jones’ relay-mates of their medals too? There was talk they would have to which really stinks for the other 3 girls on that team. What’s most disturbing to me about the steroid use is the encouragement it gives to children to try dangerous substances to improve their performances.
bip, who knows if they wernt using also? just sayin…. but if not that would suck for them.
I think that’s more problematic than the issues people have with the violation of the “sanctity of the game.” Steroid abuse on adults is bad…on adolescents going through puberty it’s much worse.
Still, punishing athletes based on conjecture and circumstantial evidence strikes me as dangerous.
I lost interest in most spectator sports when I graduated from high school. The interest I had in my high school teams just never transfered to collage, let alone professional, teams.
So I won’t care if pro-sports just went away for five or ten years.
I do not side with the players who cheated. But I think it would be very hard to strip people of records, because I don’t think you could prove the case to a reasonable degree of certainty. Maybe in some cases you could, but I think it would be very few.
I also blame the league more than the players. The league knew it was going on, and let it go on to boost attendance. Look at it from the player’s point of view. They see many other players around them taking the drugs, and hear stories (true or untrue) about who is taking them. They see themselves falling behind, and not having the edge. And they see that the league is not doing anything to stop it. That is the killer. The league was basically giving the players a wink-wink; “do what you gotta do”. That is what caused it spread like wildfire. If the league had enforced the rules in the 90’s, the problem would have never come to this.
That being said – it won’t matter. People will still go to the games, and players and clubs will still make boatloads of money. Come springtime, all we will be forgiven.
It would appear that too many of today’s pro athletes have adopted the Charles Barkley cop-out, “I’m not a role model.” BS!!! You guys are taking millions to play a professional sport which means that LOTS of kids are seeing what you are doing. Time for them all to own up and admit their crimes.
For decades baseball has turned a blind eye to drug use. In the 80’s when football and basketball began testing, baseball did not.
People have long given pro basketball hell for taking kids straight out of high school. (A practice which has since been stopped.) However, baseball has done it for years and continues to do so.
Baseball’s free agency has made the sport a joke. As players are constantly traded, you do not pull for a team, you pull for a logo.
I personally gave up on baseball during the last strike in the 90’s.
Baseball may never again be, “America’s Pastime.”
Instead of spending all that money on an empty investigation (no real evidence only testimony and hearsay); I have a suggestion for MLB. Announce a list of banned substances, the penaly for testing positive is a lifetime ban from MLB, and forfiet all future pay, end of story. However, the MLB players association won’t ever let that happen.
Let all the players take steroids. Baseball is a colossally boring game, and the players still have to hit the ball. Anybody who gets indignant needs to blame the fans. That’s right, I blame baseball fans. They are obsessed with home runs. They left in droves after the 1994 strike, returning only in 1998 due to the McGwire-Sosa home run derby. 1-0 pitchers duels are not classics. They are dull. Baseball is not timeless or seamless. It is endless. It is as relevant to sports as the democratic party of Thomas Jefferson is relevant to politics. So either move every game to Colorado, or better yet, have the players go join the Hollywood writers on strike.
Speaking of dull and boring, the democrats debated yesterday.
Respectfully,
eric aka http://www.blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com
P.S. Hillary is not part of the baseball scandal. She prefers gymnastics.
I think she enjoys Political Figure-Skating:
“Oooh, and Nancy Pelosi just fell trying to do a triple camel…”
I think cheaters should be stripped of their “records”. The asterisk on Bonds baseball gave me a good laugh, especially when he got all steamed up about it.
Blacktygrr, and you call yourself an American…. shame on you. what next trashing apple pie!?
I admit to using steroids a few years back. Look, I have Carpel Tunnel (not fooling)and the shots got me back in front of my keyboard in no time. I was only trying to stay up with the office competition (yes, I saw the spent syringes in the wastebaskets). I will tell the grand jury whatever it needs to know.
So true. At the time I read about it, they weren’t under suspicion but who knows? The abuse does seem rampant (although track & field has been serious about testing for a long time. unfortunately they keep coming up with new substances that are undetectable).
And so many kids dream of being a professional athlete, they will do whatever it takes to achieve it.
and
Actually, Congress should take a hard look at Baseball. A lot of the money driven shenanigans has to do with MLBs expemption from our anti-trust laws.
A quick search on Ask.com found:
I think under the circumstances (and given all of the cheerful banter I’ve read about the topic on this thread), this is indeed a politcal issue – and it’s high time Congress clipped MLB’s exepmtion to anti-trust and force them to act like a business – not a money laundering operation.
Baseball players are also sissies. They don’t play in cold weather, can’t play in rain.
Give me an NFL playoff game in a blizzard any day. That is a man’s game.
As for the reason why football is succeeding while baseball crumbles, it is because the NFL has a strong commissioner and a real drug policy. No player is above the league. The owners are united, and the union is not thuggish.
The baseball players union is out of control, and the owners have incentive to cheat each other. Therefore there is little to no oversight.
In fact, and I do not say this lightly, professional sports is the only example where capitalism fails (baseball) and socialism (NFL) succeeds.
Everywhere else, the reverse is true.
Respectfully,
eric aka the Tygrrrr Express
P.S. I prefer cherry pie to apple.
IT’S A GAME. IT’S ENTERTAINMENT. IT’S ONE STEP BELOW STUDIO WRESTLING! IF THESE PEOPLE WANT TO PICKLE THEIR LIVERS, SO BE IT! I DON’T CARE. SPORTS IS A MINDLESS DISTRACTION FROM A MEANINGFUL EXISTENCE!
Sorry for textually-YELLING
I quit with baseball when they quit me for the 1981 strike. I was in Jr. High and loved the game. Then they quit. Just friggin’ quit. Then I found out they quit because their UNION decided to quit. Multi-millionaires with a union? I had relatives in unions but they worked hard with their hands and didn’t make millions a year doing it.
From that point on their arrogance got greater and my interest get lower. Eventually, when they instituted that play off game after the play offs but before some other play off game before the pennant race which is not called the pennant race anymore, I was done. I asked some young guys talking baseball a few years ago who was winning the pennant race and they asked what a pennant was.
Still, with all that, going to Wrigley Field and watching a game reminds me of what baseball used to be when they were the boys of summer, when they were someone for a kid to look up to, when a game took less than 2 hours, the players didn’t whine because they knew how lucky they were to get to play baseball for a living and they treated their fans, especially the kids, like the most important people in the world. Something magic about that stadium that brings it all back and I never even saw a game there as a kid, just as a late teen and adult. There is hope for baseball, but I don’t think they will be willing to save it.
and
The MLBPA is the best union in sports. To throw the union under the bus shows a real misunderstanding of this union was fighting for. The ‘81 strike was to maintain free agency.
I don’t know what your employment situation is so I’ll use mine. I’m a lowly paralegal. If another firm offers me considerably more money, I’m free to switch. If the owners got their way in 1981, I would only be able to switch if the other firm sent one of their paralegals to my old firm.
This is crazy. Good for the players for striking. It’s never been about money (there’s never been a cap). It’s about creating an open market through free agency. It’s how business works.
The football union is an absolute joke. I love football, but how terrible is it that the players contracts aren’t guaranteed. If the owners decide a player is overpaid, he can be cut no questions asked. All the remaining money on the contract disappears. That’s ridiculous!
Sure football insures competitive balance. That’s great and all. But they do it at the expense of the people who actually make football profitable. That is a labor disgrace.
That’s like being the best whore in the whorehouse. Or the best liberal democrat in congress.
This thread may be played out, but I feel I have to state for the record: the government has no business being in the sports business, in any capacity. We have far more pressing concerns with our finite resources — like protecting our lives and freedoms, little things like that. And who invited George Mitchell into this? The guy who gave us the “Oslo Accords,” the “Kill Israelis for peace? guy? Was Lee Hamilton not available?
This stuff is just crinkling celephane to make fire noises. I haven’t read the report — how many have? but for each of the cases, when and what steroids used. That has a big effect on the criminality involved — or has the business about no ex-post facto laws been made moot as well? There are natural steroids, there are differing dosage levels, there are different reasons. Didn’t we learn anything from the war on drugs or prohibition?
I’m a weightlifter of sorts myself, and I don’t touch the stuff. No moral superiority here. I just don’t want to wake up one morning with a sudden compulsion to start putting Tom Selleck posters on my bedroom walls.
Seriously, this is a low priority item. Not even in the top 1000 compared with all that we are facing as a nation.
Baseball is just like hiphop vids — massive GREED on display. Who gives a damn? I’d rather watch (and have when I can) curling. Much cooler.
from the Mitchell report, on the independence of the investigation
“I served as a member of the Blue Ribbon panel on baseball economics, which issued a report on that subject in July 2000. The other members of that panel were Richard C. Levin, Paul A. Volcker, and George F. Will.”
I am a lifelong baseball fan (GO BREWERS) who does not know of a better way to spend an afternoon or evening at Miller Park in Milwaukee, WI. Unless they’re playing the Cubs and the park is filled with drunken, boorish, idiot Cubs fans, but I digress…
While I realize I’m late getting into this discussion, I just can’t let it pass without saying that I honestly don’t care at all about the steroid scandal. If baseball wants to punish them, fine, but the fact these players and their careers are forever tarnished is fine with me. So there will be asterisks next to records and the last 20 years will be looked back on with scorn. Big deal! As others have commented, baseball will move on. The players ruined themselves, not the game. It is rare that one player can truly have a monumental impact over a 162 game season. Besides, what are we going to do? Sit here and whine and piss and moan? (Baseball fans are good at that, just look back to the All-Star Game when it was held in Milwaukee) It happend. Move on.
Looking forward to the Brewers-Nationals 4 games series next year in D.C. I’ll be there for all four. And I’ll be sitting in the most expensive seats, gladly paying their inflated salaries, eating overpriced hot dogs and drinking overpriced Pepsis, and loving every minute of it.
Oh, and as George Will said, “There are only two seasons: baseball season and the void.”
And baseball is infinitely more interesting than football. When the football is snapped, what’s gonna happen? They’re either going to run it or pass it, and you know that only 4-5 players can actually touch it. Wow. Fascinating. And it’s extremely rare that the tide of a game will be turned by some tool in a zebra-stripe uniform calling penalties out of thin air.
Baseball is a thinking-person’s game. From knowing what pitch to throw, to what pitch to expect, to what strategy to deploy based on the situation and the point in the game, no game involves the intellect as much as baseball does.
Battle of the Bionics
Simply put, society just isn’t serious regarding the drug/enhancement toxin problem. There would be an across the sports board zero-tolerance kick-’em-out, no pardon, no recognition, no rewards policy if there was. That sports unions actually balk at placing drug stipulations on their activities is totally appalling to me, especially when I regularly see how many kids at PAL look up these sterling “role models.” I know there are people who don’t care whether they’re watching bionicized sports or not, but if we’re going to do that then abolish all awards and medals and trophies because they’d all be shams gained under bogus unnatural means. It will really be just a competition between drug creators, not real natural beings.
James Greenidge
Queens NY
Saw a TV documentary a decade ago about steroid use. It showed pictures of lined-up Soviet Union female athletes–they all had large brow ridges and jaws. No doubt they had names like Helga and Gertrude to boot. Good things do not happen to those who mess with Mother Nature. The comments by physicist Roger Tobin on why baseball players take steroids are worthwhile.
What the big deal with steroids anyway? Doctors prescribe them all the time to help with injury recovery. Steroid over-use and abuse is bad, but controlled use? Whats the problem?
Is there any real indication that careful steroid use causes problems? Im not talking about some PSA you saw in high-school or stories about roid rage, i mean actual scientific data.
Also, is there any indication that steroids actually gave those that used it some unfair advantage, aside from faster injury recovery?
And about stats… are you going to put an asterisk by everyones name who ever took advantage of a rules change, or a smaller or bigger park, or the mound being higher or lower then it is now. Its absurd to hold up historical stats and claim that this is some sort of sacrosanct thing when the game changes all the time.
I guess not even Michelle is perfect. ;0)
Notice one team whose record is clean? No one could ever accuse Ichiro Suzuki of using ‘roids. GO MARINERS!!!!! The one true baseball team left in America. :0)