Sad State of Baseball

I'm soooo burnt on the Schiavo case, I thought I'd touch on lighter fare....

As a forty-something male, baseball was my past time. From tee-ball to Pony League to semi-pro (albeit over 30 league), I've lived and breathed baseball for a vast majority of my sporting life. Don't get me wrong, I was a multi-sporting fool. I could hold my own in varsity football and basketball, but my love was baseball.

I've read and followed stats and box scores for as long as I can remember. One of my favorite games growing up with my one and only best friend (besides my lovely bride) was Strat-O-Matic.
In fact, during the early 80's we played our own form of rotisserie baseball by keeping track of daily player stats. My friend, Scribe, worked for a minor league team of the Dodgers and was given a Major League Baseball pass!!! All we had to pay for (really, it was my duty) was the parking!!! Granted it was the 300 level at Dodger Stadium, but dude... it was free!!! Man, the life... baseball, beer and bud. Sigh.......

Wha... oh, right where was I. Yeah, the state of baseball.

I don't know if anyone really saw the Congressional hearings on Baseball. It wasn't really on C-SPAN, but parts were shown on ESPN. I did catch just a bit in the morning session. I wasn't impressed by the ususal pomp and irrelevance. However, I did catch the 'lowlights' on ESPN. Needless to say I was saddened by Mark McGwire's lack of truthful responses. How pathetic was his resplies 'I'm not here to talk about the past'. What garbage. He's lost all credibility and by his inaction, it cannot be helped but assume his guilt by Canseco-association.

Sally Jenkins has an excellent article on the hearings.

A home run king basically pleaded the Fifth. Baseball officials thoroughly discredited themselves with disingenuous promises. Subpoenas showed MLB's anti-drug policy had loopholes bigger than Jose Canseco's biceps. Anyone still think the hearing was a farce? On the contrary, the hearing has been revelatory. It has revealed, among other things, character.

What the hearing has demonstrated, more than anything, is a pattern of arrogant duplicity and willful collusion that reaches throughout the game, from players to owners to commissioners to union officials, who would keep us all quiet and in the dark on steroid use. The evasive performances of some of the seven former and current major leaguers and officials before the committee last week simply begged more questions -- and that's apparently what they're going to get.

And this last paragraph in her column just wrenched at my inner being:

The hearing has uncovered something important: the extent to which the people in baseball believed they are above the law and accountable to no one. Baseball's passionate defenders have accused the committee of political grandstanding, exceeding authority, and witch hunting. But if the hearing has proved one thing, it's this: we need more hearings, because baseball is as sick as it is secretive.

It is truly time to remove this 'special status' Congress bestow upon baseball by granting them special Anti-Trust status.

And then we have Bonds, Barry Bonds. . . If there has not been a more less sympathetic soul in baseball, it would be a toss up between Barry Bonds and maybe Ty Cobb. In a word, Barry is an Ass. What is more sad is the fact that he once was an outstanding player; after all he won his 7th MVP award last year. But he's been in question for the last several years, questioned about Steroids. He's always been such an Ass that folks have been very reticent in giving him a break. Now, he's whining about being tired....tired about being hounded about `roids. But he can't justify anything. All he does is parade his son and complain about the media. But now he's broke. Not broke in a monetary way, but broke in a physical way.

Thomas Boswell has an excellent article on Bond's whine. At times, it's quite poetic. He starts:

Last Friday, in an online chat with readers, I wrote, "Did you see that Barry Bonds had another knee surgery yesterday? I've been saying to friends ever since his use of steroids -- the clear and the cream -- was leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle last winter that I thought there was a chance that he would never play another game.

"Just a gut feeling. Never pass Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron. Just a chance, not a probability. But it's increasing."

But he also note something I was wondering about after the spotlight becames so focused:

If you think that Bonds will ever play another big league game, just because he won the National League MVP award last year with the best all-around offensive season in baseball history, then you haven't been paying enough attention.

Bonds has never been a fan of the media:

That night at Shea, Bonds was asked if he was concerned that he might have perjured himself before a grand jury in the BALCO case. "You couldn't get me if you tried," Bonds shot back.

What if the Justice Department got ahold of past urine samples? "What do I care what they do? What do I care what you think?" said Bonds. "I don't have to prove to you or anyone else in this world. . . . When you come up with the truth, then you write your [expletive]. Until then, shut up."

[...]

Who knew a pendulum swing of pious reform would arrive so fast? The sinners of the '90s, plus a few scooped up in the seine by accident, are being humiliated these days. If powerful CEOs can be jailed or fired for infractions that practically drew praise in boom times, why can't we enforce the rules on a few jocks, too? Or, switch the rules, some of them might say. After all, who was praising Mark McGwire's 70th homer or Bonds's 73rd, if not the fans and media? Who was marketing them, if not baseball itself? And who was shielding them from tests to protect their own health if not their shameful union?

This is so poetic from Boswell:

Throwing down the gauntlet to a pitcher is pride. Throwing down the gauntlet to society -- criminal investigators, the judiciary, media and by extension the public -- is the kind of hubris that keeps all those old Greek plays in print. The pride that drives the rise is the pride, gone to excess, that precipitates the fall. Those whom the gods would destroy they first make great.

One could only hope Bonds will walk after dragging his son into the mess:

On Tuesday, the threads of the long, sad Bonds story seemed to weave themselves into what may be the first premonition of an ending. Before he answered questions, Bonds looked at the camera and said, "Can you get my son in this, too, not just me, so you guys can share the pain that you are causing my whole family?" The camera obligingly panned wider.

There was Nikolai, 15, heir to the bitterest tradition of glory in baseball history.

"Me and my son are going to try to enjoy each other," said Bonds. "That's all we've got. Everybody else has tried to destroy everything else." Then, turning to his boy, he said, "Let's go home."

They walked off camera together. You couldn't script it better. Or worse. All that was missing was, "The End."

The records of the `90s are now suspect which is a shame. I'm only glad my son is not into baseball. I'd hate to have to explain how the titans of swat were really the 'cheaters with `roids'.