In the movie Field of Dreams, James Earl Jones tells Kevin Costner that “the one constant in America has been baseball.” “Baseball has marked the time” as America rolled by, been erased and rolled by again, baseball is a part of our past and is what reminds us all of what once was good.
That feeling is now being eroded more and more each day with continued news of our fallen heroes and the scandal that is steroids. Who is to blame? The MLB owners, Commissioner Bud Selig, union rep. Don Fehr and the MLBPA are all culpable in this fiasco and they should all hang their heads in shame today at the mockery they’ve made of America’s past time.
These clowns turned their heads to the issue of steroids when all other major U.S sporting institutions recognized the problem and implemented drug testing and self policing policies. There is not a performance enhancing drug problem in the NFL, NHL, NBA, NCAA or Olympics. Congratulations to them for doing the right thing and for the right reason. MLB sold out because they had lost their fan base after the baseball strike of 1994 and simply capitulated to temptation because of desperation. Now they sew what they reap.
On the cover of every sports page in America today is a picture of Manny Ramirez with large, banner headlines talking about Manny’s 50 game suspension from baseball for using a banned substance. Two months ago it was Alex Rodriguez and before that it was Roger Clemons, Barry Bond and so on. These names were major league baseball over the past twenty years and now these once iconic superstars have now been cast aside by a biased media and unforgiving fan base. If you watched or covered baseball over this period, you knew what was going on and that makes you complicit too, so don’t be too quick to judge.
I heard Jayson Stark of ESPN this morning on Mike and Mike talking about the Manny Ramirez suspension and how he feels the L.A. Dodgers were deceived and ripped off by Manny. Are you kidding me? The Dodgers are big boys and shame on them for not doing their due diligence before signing Manny to a $45MM guaranteed contract. That’s right guaranteed contract! Guaranteed by a deceitful system and agreed to by MLB owners, of which, the Dodgers are apart of. Later in the segment, Mike Greenburg asked the question of whether the fans should feel sorry for the clean players in baseball such as Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard. I don’t because the so called clean players are members of the same union as the dirty players whom all elected their chief Don Fehr, who in turn, negotiated a no drug testing policy. Breakout your needle and thread and sew some more of what you reap, fellas.
Curt Schilling retired from baseball today, bringing to an end the career of one of the best big game pitchers of all time. Schilling won three World Series titles with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Boston Red Sox and also led the Philadelphia Phillies to a National League pennant. Schilling’s career numbers don’t scream hall of fame, but his 11-2 post season career mark certainly puts him up for hall consideration. While Schilling sits on the Cooperstown proverbial “Green Monster” for his on the field play, his mouth will skate right into the hall of fame for mouths.
Over the weekend, it was reported that NY Yankee super star Alex Rodriguez, tested positive for steroids in 2003. Today, Alex Rodriguez admitted to using steroids while with the Texas Rangers between the years of 2001 and 2003. The media has jumped all over this, calling it the “story of 2009.” A little presumptuous to me considering it is only the first week of February and while the reality of this admission is huge, the test was really not a test. While A-Rod’s admission is certainly news worthy, let us not lose track of the facts in the media circus that is sure to follow.
