The title of this entry my seem long but it all has to do with the same topic and that is baseball. These days I'm barely hanging on as a baseball fan. And it's not just because the Mets are in a rough stretch right now. I've never really come all the way back from the 1994 strike. The strike was also around the time my personal baseball career came to an end. Those two events lead to my deceased interest in baseball. I kinda came back a bit in 1998 with the great McGwire/Sosa homerun chase, and about that time the Mets started to awaken once again, but it still wasn't the same as it was.
Now we come to today. Most of what we have learned about the great sluggers of the past 15 years is that they cheated. Or at least had some help. Even those that we don't have proof of are pretty much dismissed as having cheated. This is the category McGwire falls into in my opinion. So I began asking myself what's next, who's next? Is there really anyone left who has not been implicated in steroid abuse that would really shock me. Maybe Griffey, or Thome maybe even Sheffield even though I'm not really a big fan of him. Then I thought there is one person. This player has not even been mentioned in the same paragraph as steriods but since these revelations have had a way of coming out of left field you could never be sure.
The player is Cal Ripken Jr.
Now let me be clear. I am NOT saying Cal Ripken did steroids. I'm just saying he is the last person left who would truly shock me if his name came out as being linked to steroids. Now the time frame in which Ripken plays leads me to my next point. One of the common defenses is that it was not against MLB's rules at the time, or they weren't testing for it. Well I'm pretty sure that steroids were illegal in the regular world so it would stand to reason that you would still be breaking rules, or in this case laws by using them. Also the IOC (International Olympic Committee) has had steroids on its banned list for years. At least since 1988 (see Ben Johnson).
The scariest thing to me about steroids and other PED (Performance Enhancing Drugs) is how well they work. The dramatic increases in these players statistics is proof of how well they work. if these chemists spent as much time on real medical problems like cancer as they do making the perfect steroid that can not be detected during testing, we would be well on our way to curing or treating many terrible diseases.
Last but not least one of the biggest crimes with all these players using steroids is how the record book has been forever tainted. It has been said by many fans and writers that baseball is more linked to "hollowed" numbers then any other sport. Numbers like 714, 755 for homeruns, 56 for hits and lifetime records like 3,000 hits, 500 homeruns and 300 wins. So I think now there is no better time then to bring one of the owners of some of the best all-time numbers, Pete Rose.
Looking back on what Pete Rose did and what is happening now, there is really no comparison. Pete Rose broke a baseball rule no doubt about it. However, there is no question that what he did on the field is legit. The rule against betting on baseball while involved in the game was a knee jerk reaction to the Black Sox scandal of 1919. While I'm not condoning what Rose did, he did always bet on his team and not against while he was manager so it would stand to reason he used his maximum effort to see that they won. Rose has been his own worst enemy over the years but with everyone's numbers in question over the past 15 years and the fact that few people from this era will make it to the Hall of Fame, I think it is time to lift the ban on Pete and welcome him into the Hall for his accomplishments on the field which no one has any reason to question.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Drop the "Reverse" in Racism
I'm way behind in the blog as usual but there's a topic which has been on my mind. With all the talk about the new Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonya Sotomayor and her supposedly racist views why is it when a minority is accused of racism it is called "reverse racism"? Do whites have a monopoly on racism? Some people would say yes. I say call it what it is, racism. There's nothing reverse about it. Blacks, Asians, Hispanics etc have the same standings Whites do. I think that should also translate over to the topic of racism too. Those groups can be racist towards one another just like white can. I don't think it would be called reverse racism if a Hispanic was racist toward an Asian. By assigning the "reverse" to it, people make Whites the eternal bad guy when it comes to racism and I don't believe that's true.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
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