I love baseball. To me, it is the perfect game with no rival. Beginning in the spring, it lumbers through an endless summer and culminates in the Fall Classic.
Perfect.
I don't know what baseball should do about the Steroid Era. The game has always had cheaters; the Hall of Fame is full of spitballers, spike-sharpeners, sign-stealers and those are just the good guys. But sticking needles that shoot magic potions into your ass? That's, well--that's a whole new ballgame.
I bring this up, of course, because of Alex Rodriguez. When A-Rod admitted that he used steroids during his time as a Texas Ranger, I wasn't at all surprised. It's not that he has taken on Bunyanesque proportions or even that his power seemed suspect to me. I wasn't surprised simply because he's a professional baseball player who performs for money.
I love the game with a little boy's heart, but I don't look at major league athletes through a little boy's eyes.
The steroid scandal in baseball has stretched on for years. Commissioner Bud Selig, franchise owners, player's union leaders, player's agents, coaches, managers and the players themselves routinely watched as last year's skinny center fielder showed up at spring training looking like a WWF bad guy with a temper to match. Everybody suspected something and insiders knew. The fans who filled ballparks not to see a perfectly-executed suicide squeeze but to see Thor go yard should spare their shock and indignation.
It hasn't been your daddy's game for quite some time.
There are many baseball commentators who loved the 1998 season and even those who claimed it saved baseball after years on the skids following the strike-shortened 1994 campaign. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were engaged in an epic home run battle that year, fannies filled the seats and Bud Selig all but declared, "Mission Accomplished."
Don't believe the hype about the '98 season. Yes, McGwire and Sosa were allegedly juiced and dirty; that's part of my cynical view of that over-rated season. But it was more about the focus on the Home Run itself. There's a lot more to baseball than tape-measure shots, which I happen to believe are the least interesting aspect of the game.
They still haven't invented a drug that gives a guy patience at the plate, the ability to hit and run, the instincts to read a pitcher and get a good jump when stealing a base, flawless defensive play around the bag or the touch to lay down a beautiful bunt. But Thor can stick a needle in his ass and long fly (former) outs might make the cheap seats.
Boycotts, finger-pointing or moralizing won't change the facts. Running away from the facts won't change the truth. And neither baseball players running on designer potions nor their enablers in suits have ruined the perfect game for me, although they've tried.
Alex Rodriguez was effectively outed; somebody somewhere screwed up big time. The drug tests were in the so-called "survey season" of 2003 and were supposed to remain anonymous. I'm not defending A-Rod, but there were 104 players who tested positive that year.
Love him or hate him, but why--so far, on a roster of 104--is Alex Rodriguez out there all alone under the stadium lights?
4 comments:
The problem with the steriod era is that it ruined what was honest about about baseball. Before Clemen, A-Rod, Big Mac, Sosa, and Bonds there was a brand of baseball where players could get by on ability, smarts, instinct, and a honest love and respect for the game. The steriod era took all that away and it became a game where self-engrandizing cynics took over.
And there's plenty of blame to be shared by both the league, owners, and players union too. They all new what steriods were doing to the game and they loved it because revenues for everybody were on the same trajectory as new home run records.
Now that we know how it was all accomplished it leaves a very deep set stain on a game we wanted to believe was clean. And stains take a long, long time to fade away.
TBLMISBT
At the risk of sounding Pollyannish, I'm glad I'm not a grass-stained, baseball crazed boy anymore, because the thought of Rusty Staub locked in a clubhouse stall with a syringe in his hand would have probably made me cry.
And everybody knows that there's no crying in baseball.
I wonder if there is another sport out there as corrupt as baseball. Even in the early 1900's people were cheating in baseball. Players on the White Sox got banned from the game for throwing the world series.
This sport is in a world of hurt right now while Football and Basketball are as popular as ever.
Here is a great article showing the past and present of baseball and steroids
http://www.gotoguy.com/2009/02/09/baseballs-golden-showers/
Good Luck!
Hey, thanks for stopping by and thx for the link!
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