Mr. 3000
First you endear yourself to America as a baseball star and Viagra spokesman. Then you waggle your finger in front of Congress, vehemently denying the allegations some douchebag made in his book about you using steroids. Then you collect your 3,000th hit. Everybody likes you. You are now a shoe-in for the MLB hall of fame, unlike Bernie Mac.
Then you test positive for steroids. You're still more likeable than Barry Bonds, but you've set yourself up as the guy who has to take the fall for the nasty little problem baseball has been hiding for decades.
Then your once-sweet baseball team starts to fall apart, and Congress starts investigating you for perjury.
And, If you're Rafael Palmeiro, odds are you won't get into the Hall of Fame. Ever. Heck, *movie spoiler alert* even Bernie Mac made it in eventually.
Barry Bonds will get in on his first ballot. He never tested positive for steroids, but he admitted to taking them accidentally.
So will Mark McGwire. In his heyday, the guy was caught with Androstenedione. The stuff was banned from the NFL at the time, but MLB didn't even have a drug testing policy in place. And who cared?
At the time, the game of baseball was little more than one big circus to showcase strongmen like him and Sammy Sosa. Longballs for short attention spans. I'll admit I was amazed by every swing and dazzled by the tens of thousands of camera flashes that lit up Busch Stadium every time he stepped up to the plate.
And when McGwire broke that record, when he was a hero to America and a god to St. Louis, our educators were quick to use him as a positive roll model.
My dad is always proud to tell the story of how my sister's elementary school class had to write a song about not using drugs. The song they came up with included a lyric about being like Mark McGwire.
Legend has it, my sister, as a second-grader, called the teacher out on the fact that McGwire was caught with Andro and creatine, performance-enhancing "supplements." The teacher, if I recall correctly, left the lyric in the song.
Seven years later, many of these kids are getting ready to enter the ultra-competitive world of high school sports. All of a sudden, they see their drug-free hero mumbling and stuttering in front of Congress, refusing to comment on whether he did steroids. And, let's face it, he looked guilty.
How do kids handle this new image of their one-time hero, a guy their hometown named a highway after? What's to stop them from using performance-enhancing drugs to get an edge on the competition now?
I asked my sister. Here's what she said:
What can we conclude from this? It's obvious that I need to stop thinking like a member of the mainstream media, for one. Two, we're probably all way too obsessed with the steroids ting.
A coworker of mine reminded me that the reason everyone is so hung up on preserving MLB's integrity is the fact that the MLB "turned into professional wrestling" when the White Sox threw the World Series in 1919.
So everybody's going to freak out about Pete Rose betting on games or modern-day titans juicing up, how much integrity did the game have in the first place?
And who's really affected by it? Certainly not the children. Maybe it's the old guys who bought Viagra under false pretences.
On a more positive note, hockey is back. Here's what Coyotes captain Shane Doan had to say on the Edge Morning Ritual today when Vince suggested Phoenix hire Emilio Estivez to coach the team:
Then you test positive for steroids. You're still more likeable than Barry Bonds, but you've set yourself up as the guy who has to take the fall for the nasty little problem baseball has been hiding for decades.
Then your once-sweet baseball team starts to fall apart, and Congress starts investigating you for perjury.
And, If you're Rafael Palmeiro, odds are you won't get into the Hall of Fame. Ever. Heck, *movie spoiler alert* even Bernie Mac made it in eventually.
Barry Bonds will get in on his first ballot. He never tested positive for steroids, but he admitted to taking them accidentally.
So will Mark McGwire. In his heyday, the guy was caught with Androstenedione. The stuff was banned from the NFL at the time, but MLB didn't even have a drug testing policy in place. And who cared?
At the time, the game of baseball was little more than one big circus to showcase strongmen like him and Sammy Sosa. Longballs for short attention spans. I'll admit I was amazed by every swing and dazzled by the tens of thousands of camera flashes that lit up Busch Stadium every time he stepped up to the plate.
And when McGwire broke that record, when he was a hero to America and a god to St. Louis, our educators were quick to use him as a positive roll model.
My dad is always proud to tell the story of how my sister's elementary school class had to write a song about not using drugs. The song they came up with included a lyric about being like Mark McGwire.
Legend has it, my sister, as a second-grader, called the teacher out on the fact that McGwire was caught with Andro and creatine, performance-enhancing "supplements." The teacher, if I recall correctly, left the lyric in the song.
Seven years later, many of these kids are getting ready to enter the ultra-competitive world of high school sports. All of a sudden, they see their drug-free hero mumbling and stuttering in front of Congress, refusing to comment on whether he did steroids. And, let's face it, he looked guilty.
How do kids handle this new image of their one-time hero, a guy their hometown named a highway after? What's to stop them from using performance-enhancing drugs to get an edge on the competition now?
I asked my sister. Here's what she said:
umm...well, earlbert, I'd have to say I don't ever remember that happening, but I totally think its morally disgusting to make children sing songs about false heroes. I, for one, have not once even so much as liked mark mcgwire, and like him even less now because chance reminded me of him, and after what he did, I have learned that ppl who like that have MMS, aka, "The Mark Mcgwire Syndrome", and are complete losers who I will never look up to. If this story of me having to sing about mark mcgwire not being on the juice but being a hero is true, then I probably cried and fought against it the entire time. Aight, adios.These are my thoughtsEye-Laser
What can we conclude from this? It's obvious that I need to stop thinking like a member of the mainstream media, for one. Two, we're probably all way too obsessed with the steroids ting.
A coworker of mine reminded me that the reason everyone is so hung up on preserving MLB's integrity is the fact that the MLB "turned into professional wrestling" when the White Sox threw the World Series in 1919.
So everybody's going to freak out about Pete Rose betting on games or modern-day titans juicing up, how much integrity did the game have in the first place?
And who's really affected by it? Certainly not the children. Maybe it's the old guys who bought Viagra under false pretences.
On a more positive note, hockey is back. Here's what Coyotes captain Shane Doan had to say on the Edge Morning Ritual today when Vince suggested Phoenix hire Emilio Estivez to coach the team:
He led a very good team to the championship a few years back. ... His 'Flying V' was very effective. ... It's not used as much as it should be used.
posted by Tim @ 5:53 PM
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