Now that the report is out, it's abundantly obvious that PEDs were a pretty common and unremarkable part of professional baseball culture in the late nineties and early years of this century. After all, most of the report's information appears to come from just two sources, former Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomsky, and former Yankee strength coach Brian McNamee. Can we rationally conclude that just because these are the two that got caught, and spilled the beans, that they're the only ones (along with BALCO, of course) in all of baseball who dealt the juice? Or that the seven MVPs named in the Mitchell report make up a definitive list?
It's just as obvious that no one in baseball much cared about the presence of PEDs in clubhouses, just the way most baseball men ignored the bowls of "greenies" (uppers, speed) in many training rooms. No, let me change that. They cared plenty about what PEDs were producing on the field--so much so that they actively refused to do a damn thing about serious testing or seriously punishing players who used them. In fact, both the Commissioner's office and the players' union pretended to care about the "problem" of PEDs, and constructed an elaborate series of hand-slaps--no, hand-taps is more like it--to protect their golden-egg-laying goose from the few inquiring writers.
They acted a lot like the NCAA, an organization founded in the wake of the 1905 college football season (in which 18 players were killed) to polish the reputation of college football--and later all college sports--rather than make the game safe or clean. And like the baseball establishment in the wake of the 1919 World Series. Plenty of rumors circulated during the Series that the smart money had shifted to Cincinnati, and lots of sportswriters were convinced that the White Sox had thrown the Series. Most papers didn't want the story, however, and White Sox owner Charley Comiskey really wasn't interested in the story. The story only came out accidentally a year later, when a Chicago grand jury was investigating reports of a fixed game involving the Cubs, and one of the witnesses began to sing about the previous year's World Series.
Bill James argues that the nineteen-teens were the dirtiest decade in baseball history, in terms of gambling and thrown games, but it took the National League until 1919 to ban "Prince" Hal Chase, the well-known conduit for gamblers looking for a fix.
I've written a fair amount about fans' reaction to Barry Bonds, and just how much race plays into white fans' vilification of Bonds. The fact that PEDs were everywhere in baseball, in every clubhouse, while Bonds became the poster boy for (mostly) white fans to hate, ought to make us look a little more carefully at the Bonds affair. My blogging colleague Earl Ofari Hutchinson has nailed this--calling Bonds the "scapegoat." After all, most folks who didn't like me talking about Bonds and race, focused on what an "asshole" Bonds is. Granted. But could we please talk about Roger Clemens now? No one's ever mistaken the Rocket for a sweetheart. What about that broken bat incident with Mike Piazza that nobody has ever explained? Are we talking 'roid rage here?
At the very least, the Mitchell report should finally put a stop to all the talk about asterisks and Bonds' record. Unless someone is proposing to asterisk a decade. And I'd like to see Bud Selig's idiotic, supposedly moralistic reaction to Bonds hitting #755 replayed a few hundred times, alongside Mitchell's criticism of the Commissioner's Office.
Since when is the use of performance enhancing drugs for athletes a national priority? With all the problems we have economically,poltically, and militarily, how is this a priority? It's just another ruse by the powers that be (both Democratic and Republican) to keep the people focused on b.s. while our economy is handed over to the Chinese, our wallets are raped, and we're hated by 95% of the people on this planet! Even though what he did is heinous, how was Michael Vick's running a dog fighting ring a priority for the F.B.I? How many agents could have been used to ferret out terrorists that were diverted to this important threat to our national security of dog fighting? The use of steroids and human growth hormone to create superior athletes is irrelevant to me! How about the same drugs being used by the C.I.A. to create "super soldiers"? Have they stopped that program, and do people want the military to stop trying to produce a superior fighting force? Sports fans are just a bunch of wanna-be losers! If you stopped watching and demanded that all the advertisers demand drug free competition maybe,maybe something might happen,but I doubt it. Too much MONEY involved and money always wins. Concentrate on making your millions and forget the dumb irrelevant stuff. What does this have to do with whether or not your 401k will be around when you need it? GET A LIFE!
You know what he thinks? He thinks that steroid use is so rampant that is unfair to single out individual players. He thinks that Barry Bonds should be able to get into the hall of fame.
I guess my son has matured early.
My guess? mmmmmm...not so much!
Is the prohibition of PEDS realistic? Does prohibition prevent the use of PEDS? Can drug testing catch all chemcical substances that are known to be PEDS? Is the integrity of the sport harmed worse by a few players using PEDS or ALL players using PEDS?
It is fair to expect amateurs to play drug-free sports. Is it fair or realistic to expect professionals to be held to this standard as well? The widespread use of PEDS was good for the business of baseball.
Sure Barry Bonds used PED's...but so did a helluva lot of others.
Mitchell's report did not even mention Sosa or McQuire, so you know that there are many, many more.
The biggest fish is of course 'The Rocket'. What an asshole. If anyone deserves an ASTERISK it is this guy. If for no other reason, he deserves his comeuppence for the Piazza beanball. Hall of Fame my ass !
Somewhere Babe Ruth is buying drinks for the house tonight.
And I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on at Rick's Cafe!
(probably MLB, too...)
Strange. I don't know what drugs he was on, but I'd say they must've been mind-altering.
I have more of a problem with the fact that some 7 foot tall basketball player is considered skilled because he can throw a basketball through a hoop that's about the height of his armpits. Why isn't there an
asterisk after his achievements? Where's the
challenge? Why don't they make him throw from his knees? I guess there's something to be said for watching a ball go through a net over and over again. But is it a big achievement if the guy is 7 feet tall? Maybe it's such an unfair advantage that he should have to play in a league of 7 foot tall players.