Mike Vacarro of the NY Post wrote a column last week about some the history of 'cheating' which has been going on in MLB since the dawn of Baseball --- 18" high pitching mounds where the pitcher would gruesomely stare down the batter before firing a lightning bolt at him, the 'inside pitch', or as its called now, the 'brushback pitch' ... the spitball pitch ... corking the bat ... amphetamine use during the 60's, 70's, and 80's ... all of which were *legal* in the earlier eras of Baseball ... and nobody puts an asterisk next to Hall of Famer, Gaylord Perry .... who practically admitted that he threw a 'spitball' thruout his career
Vacarro's NY Post associate, George King, also these past two weeks, has spelled *every* column of his with the name "A-Roid", as if to claim some moral victory for himself ... so there is no doubt that these scribes are fretting amongst themselves over this thing thats been going on for ages ... 'cheating', as it were.
Fact is that *every* athlete is looking for some sort of an edge over the competition, thats why they are 'competitive' and why they are athletes. Same as how every scribe sportswriter is always looking for some sort of 'edge' over their competitive sportswriters who are all vying for ink on the back pages.
Ennywees, I wrote this quickly so couldn't really edit it much, but hope it makes a point.
Cheers,
MM
Murray Chass and every other New York sportswriter has zero credibility when it comes to Mike Piazza. Years back, as I’m sure sports fans recall, there was a rumor that there was a NY baseball superstar who was gay. The fingers were pointed at the Mets, and then, of course, at Mike Piazza. Everyone in the media knew the allegations were not about Piazza, but rather the allegations were about Roberto Alomar, who had come over to the Mets in a trade. But the Alomar rumor wouldn’t sell papers. So they continued to float the Piazza rumor until he actually had to hold a press conference to refute the allegations.
They let Piazza swing in the wind when everyone in the media knew it was someone else. And Piazza, being a standup guy, didn’t “out” anyone when he could have done so and cleared his name.
FYI: Piazza is now happily married and he and his wife are expecting their second child. During his playing days, he was very open to the NY media about his Catholic faith, and the fact that he prayed the rosary. There was plenty of snickering behind his acneed back about that.
Piazza also endorsed Metrix during his playing days, a company that produced energy drinks, supplements and creatine. I’m not naive about steroids, but I know guys who did those creatine shakes and broke out quite a bit as well. Great journalism, Murray. He worked hard, came through as few underdogs had, had acne, so..... he MUST have cheated.