Friday, May 15, 2009

Seriously Chapter 4: What'll Happen to Baseball, Y'all?

Several years ago I was looking through a large, red leather-bound coffee table book featuring 100 years of New York Times front pages and I remember thinking to myself - the same damn things that were going on back then are still going on now. People were worried about the middle east, politicians were crooked and taxes were definitely going up. Yeah, I was probably stoned at the time and, yeah, those of you who know Seriously might say "that's probably the last time you ever picked up a book," but let me get to my point. People thought baseball might never be the same after the Black Sox scandal of 1920, where 8 players were banned from the game for life, and I've got to think some are wondering if it's true with regards major league baseball today. Steroid abuse has always been rumored in baseball but wasn't really front and center until the firestorm surrounding Jose Canseco's claim that 80% of active MLB players were users in his (now vindicated) book "Juiced" in 2005. Then there was the sorry spectacle of the same year with sullen, red faced home run king, Mark McGwire, testifying-but-not-testifying in front of a congressional committee about his use/non-use. This was followed by Raphael Palmiero, he of near Hall-of-Fame credentials, wagging his finger in front of the committee saying he "never, ever, never" used performance enhancing drugs of any kind, only to see him gone from baseball for good two months later after he tested positive for steroids. This was before the death of Ken Caminiti and the 2007 era of that monstrous rectum, Barry Bonds. And now with The Saga of the Obvious that is Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez, all I can focus on are the guys running around on the field and I try not to think about anything else. Until they figure out a way to get drugs out of the game or come up with true comprehensive testing, isn't baseball really just a bit of a fraud at this point? It seems the only other solution would be to go libertarian and say, screw it, what players do with their bodies is their business. But isn't the game a little more sacred than that? I'm a louse and far from a prude but wouldn't that be a slouch towards us as kind of a degenerate nation? Attendance is still high and there's billions being made so the baseball powers that be want nothing to do with anything even getting close to slowing the gravy train, even for a moment, even if it were better for the game in the long run. Invisible Bud Selig is more than happy to continue the facade that is MLB's cracking-down-but-not-cracking-down policy. Though I'm hopeful (the way the Black Sox scandal was overcome) what the hell is major league baseball right now besides a case of mold that's been nicely painted over?

4 comments:

  1. Steroid abuse in Baseball is nothing compared to the heinous excuse for a Hebrew named Bud Selig, the shmuck of the century. While Donald Fehr is truly culpable in the era we have come to know and love, Bud Selig, who fomented the putsch that removed a truly decent man in Fay Vincent, is THE Baseball story of our time. He single Jewishly traded the soul of the game, and its hallowed records, for Mammon. An owner's owner, this diabolical heeb promoted a juiced game, allowed one man in Scott Boras to hold the league hostage to his demands affecting the entire financial structure of the game, realigned the leagues and retained the wild card (or did he create it?). Ironically, I can actually live with all of the above with the exception of the wild card, which ultimately annihilated the possibility of a true champion of the sport by adding an additional best of five first round, thereby making it a twin sister of college football.

    No other game has the element of chance built into it at the level that Baseball does. To add another roulette wheel to the game by creating three divisions and a wild card is the signature disgrace of this withering kike.
    Absolutely nothing could be worse than that from Bud Selig.

    ...except interleague play.

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  2. Bud Selig's stony silence on this issue is one of the great non-reported stories right now. Does he act like an owner or what?

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  3. Dude... All I can say is FUUUUUUUUUUUCK... BUUUUUUUUUUUD... SELLLLLLIIIIIIG!!!!!!!!!!!! And... he might want to take David Stern with his punk ass. Long live Goodell and the NFL!

    PACE!

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  4. This Bud's for you. You can keep that Stephen Hawking look alike. He is the worst and created this controversy before us. What is right anymore? If every player is juiced, then isn’t the playing field leveled? And what a mess we have. It looks like for the next decade or two we will not have any players inducted into the Hall.

    And I blame the owners who encouraged this behavior. And what’s worse is that they stood back and said, “Yeah, it’s the crooked players fault. Let’s ban them.” Shame on them and shame on baseball.

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