The Boys of Summer
Ah yes, baseball is back, and so are steroid abuse allegations.
In baseball’s worst-kept secret, Sammy “Say It Ain’t” Sosa (thanks to the Chicago Sun-Times for that gem of a pun) has been named as a player who tested positive in 2003 for steroid abuse. Sammy? That 180-pound kid with a tiny batting average who overnight turned into a 600-pound heavily-veined creature and never hit a foul ball that didn’t travel 925 feet? Now, to be fair, Sammy’s not dead, but he must let the world think that he is dead until he can find a way to control the raging spirit that dwells within him. There isn’t a Cubs fan over the age of 8 who thought Sammy was clean when he played here, especially when he got mad and his eyes went white.
Former many-team-player Todd Hollandsworth (now a Comcast sportscaster) said in an interview that the only ones who should be worried are the players who doped. The guilt and shame should not be on the guys who leak or report the names of the 104 players who tested positive.
So why not reveal the names? Says White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen: “Get it over with…Get those names out there. Whoever is guilty is guilty. Whoever is clean is clean. And then baseball can deal with that once and that’s it. Every month, we’ve got to talk about somebody. It’s not a good thing. It’s not healthy for the game.”
Cubs skipper Lou Piniella agrees with Ozzie: release all 104 names; get it over with. Pitching superstar Curt Schilling wrote “I’d be all for the 104 positives being named, and the game moving on if that is at all possible.” Nearly similar sentiments have been voiced by Astro Lance Berkman and Angel Torii Hunter.
Well, with so many high-profile baseball superstars demanding the release of all 104 names, why wouldn’t MLB simply belch out all 104 dirty players, so that the remaining 700 can proudly point to their accomplishments as legitimate and clean?
To clear up the matter, here’s a quote from the Major League Baseball Players Association:
Information and documents relating to the results of the 2003 MLB testing program are both confidential and under seal by court orders. We are prohibited from confirming or denying any allegation about the test results of any particular player[s] by the collective bargaining agreement and by court orders. Anyone with knowledge of such documents who discloses their contents may be in violation of those court orders.”
See? It’s the court’s fault you can’t find out who is on that list. Except, as underlined by your Czar, the Court is merely upholding a condition of a collective bargaining agreement. And who is responsible for that agreement which stipulates secrecy? You already know: the Major League Baseball Players Association.
The Union. In other words, the Union is saying—in all its transparent stupidity—“we cannot reveal the names because, unfortunately, we asked the Court to prevent us from doing so.” The irony is that the Union members want the names revealed, but who gives a crap what the members want? Union management wants otherwise, and they report to no one. And sure, the names will be and are being revealed, which will identify the guilty and rightfully destroy them anyway. So the Union is utterly failing to protect its members, guilty as well as innocent, but who gives a crap about them again? Baseball players, like all Union members, have one function only: keep paying large sums of money to a totally self-serving and uninterested collective that spends that money solely on itself.
Who says the Designated Hitter Rule destroyed baseball? The Czar rates that a distant second.
Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.