Hmmmmm...California, Oakland A's, Giants, Bonds, Conseco, Mark's Brother......nah, has to be a coincidence....LA folks wouldn't do anything "special" to enhance anything, right?
Posted on 03/30/2005 9:30:17 AM PST by freepatriot32
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- So now we're supposed to believe that American sports -- and American society -- lost their innocence because baseball players used steroids to hit home runs.
Repeat after me, please, and say it loud: American sports have never been innocent, and America's capitalist society has a built-in set of checks and balances because we know unfettered competition for money breeds corruption.
So, Sports Illustrated, spare me the whining about the congressional hearings on steroids and baseball. Spare me the whining about the lost summer of '98 and what to do with your scrapbook.
I was a college football player at the same time as Tony Mandarich, the man Sports Illustrated lauded in April of 1989 as the "best offensive line prospect ever." The magazine plastered a shirtless Mandarich across its cover and called the 6-foot-6, 315-pound offensive tackle "The Incredible Bulk."
"Roidhead" is what we called him, the guy was so obviously juiced. But no one cared then. SI certainly didn't. It had a magazine to sell and a football player to promote.
I don't get the hypocrisy. Steroids (or performance-enhancing drugs) and football go together like peanut butter and jelly. But there's no outrage. New Orleans Saints coach Jim Haslett, an NFL linebacker in the 1980s, said last week that he juiced while a player, and he claimed the Steelers dynasty was built on steroids.
I'd bet 15 to 20 percent of the NFL Hall of Fame players during the 1970s and 1980s used steroids at some time in their career.
No one cares. I guarantee you there are more high school football players juicing than baseball players. No one cares. The government and Barry Bonds' alleged disgruntled mistress are cooking up a criminal case to send Bonds to jail before he surpasses Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron.
But the governor of Bonds' home state, California, wouldn't be governor without the benefits of steroids. Arnold Schwarzenegger, an admitted steroid user as a body-builder and another SI cover boy, became a celebrity in the 1980s thanks to steroids. It wasn't until he became a political figure that he strongly spoke against steroids.
Why the hypocrisy? Why the double standard?
It's all about a stupid record and the man who was about to break it. We can't hold a legitimate conversation about steroids and performance-enhancing drugs because America doesn't want to see Barry Bonds surpass Babe Ruth (and Hank Aaron).
That's it. It doesn't have anything to do with kids killing themselves or damaging their bodies with steroids. Kids, particularly football-playing kids, have been doing that for more than two decades. The steroid users on my college teams didn't hide it. There was no reason to. Heck, you could end up on the cover of Sports Illustrated as the best prospect ever if you used steroids correctly.
We were fine with Mark McGwire overtaking Roger Maris for the single-season record. McGwire looked the part. He was the boy-next-door type. No grandstanding reporter confronted McGwire in front of his locker and asked him to fill up a urine cup. The andro bottle in his locker didn't stop the celebration either.
Had McGwire stayed in the game and kept hitting home runs at a record rate, if he were around today to battle Bonds for Ruth's record (and, yes, I said Ruth's), I'm not sure we'd be talking about steroids today. We would be calling Jose Canseco and Ken Caminiti liars. We would be ignoring the steroid issue the way we have in football, basketball, hockey and most other sports.
We wouldn't be debating the stiffness of major league baseball's steroid penalties. We'd accept them and believe the game is moving past its problems, the same way the NFL did.
But the home-run record seems to have a special significance. Nothing's really changed. America was none too happy when Aaron surpassed Ruth. Aaron, a black man like Bonds, didn't look the part. I'm sorry. I know it makes people uncomfortable. But race is a component of the hysteria surrounding steroids now. We conveniently ignored the issue for years when we were more comfortable with the abusers.
We're uncomfortable with Bonds because he's surly, unrepentant and black. He's being chased from the game. I'm probably foolish, but I don't expect Bonds to play again. He'll hide behind injuries and try to duck out of the game ... if he's smart.
Yes, you are foolish Mr. Hack Writer. The ball was rolling on steroids before Bonds started his run on 714. OR, his run on 755. Last time I checked, Henry Aaron was two things; the holder of the homerun record and black.
I assume it was take-your-child-to-work-day. Somebody let their dumb kid write this, or what?
Maybe they did cheat, like the french say, lying is just talking. These baseball players are in Entertainment, and they is what we pay them for. OK they juice, OK the actress on the big screen has a dozen plastic surgeries; I go to see them to be entertained.
Great minds... :-)
More race hustling from Whitlock. Same old same old. I agree with some of Bonds's complaints about the media but it's hard to feel sorry for such and unlikeable prick.
Bonds beating Aaron's record does not fit the template. All issues must be viewed through a racial filter. If it does not fit the template, just change the facts until it does.
So what America really cares about is who is second or third on the all-time home run list. Nobody could care less about who is #1. But only because you can make a racial controversy over who is second or third.
The Bambino will always have a special place in the Baseball Pantheon. He was a great hitter and a great pitcher. He was great in the infield and in the outfield. He played during a time when you drank all night and played all day, but he also was playing against players who had been drinking all night before playing all day. Comparing The Babe to Aaron is apples and oranges.
Aaron will always have a special place because he is #1 in the all-time homers list, and will be until somebody can challenge him who is not 4% juice by volume.
Bonds will never have a special place because he is a cheat. I can go into my garage and make a potato gun that can shoot a baseball 500 feet. I watch baseball to see what a man can do with a bat, not to watch chemically mutated players demostrate the latest in pharmacology.
Hmmmmm...California, Oakland A's, Giants, Bonds, Conseco, Mark's Brother......nah, has to be a coincidence....LA folks wouldn't do anything "special" to enhance anything, right?
The greatest hitter of all time!!!! He needs to be in the Hall of Fame! Pete Rose that is. Bonds is an A-hole, we do not want him to fail because he is black, we want him to succeed without being a 'roid head. The BABE is still the greatest! Not because of what he did, but because he did it sauced, most of the time. Can anyone now hit balls 400 feet with a blood alcohol level higher than his IQ? I do not think so. Records should not belong to folks who use performance enhancing drugs! Now maybe performance degrading drugs but not roids.
We're uncomfortable with Bonds because he's surly, unrepentant and black
Is race an issue?!
Heck, this guy is white, and he
has been demonized . . .
You're right, Rose is surly, unrepentant and white!
Corked Bat Scandal - S.I. 2003
Looks like league rules against corked bats didn't stop some of the possible 'roid heads from trying that "edge" as well.
Wonder if some posters will claim this happened before corked bats were illegal?
"What about Sammy Sosa. He looks black to me, and about as many were rooting for him as McGwire."
Yeah....steroids, corked bat and all!!
To me a a-hole is an a-hole no matter what color the a-hole is..
Funny how Jason Whitlock can go through an entire column without mentioning one name which puts a lie to his "going after steroid users is racist" argument -- Jason Giambi. I don't think Red Sox fans are going to give him a free pass and not boo him this year because he's white.
Don't forget that he is a little whiny cry baby as well.
Especially lately.
I was sooooo glad my Angels whupped their tails in the World Series.
I live in KC and Jason Whitlock has been known to drag out the race card to defend one of his own. Nothing new here. The paper he writes for is worthless. Just another Keith Olberman type.
The first big roid scandal that I recall was the 100 meter Seoul Olympics Gold Medal run by Ben Johnson. He screwed up and tested positive. They then awarded the gold by default to (trying not to snicker too hard) Carl Lewis.
As a follow up literally hundreds of Olympic gold medals awarded to East Germany during the years it competed were exposed to have been illegitimate roid enhanced but they have never been revoked. A good chunk of the East Bloc medalists would also fall into that category but East Germany was almost completely on roids. I might give Katerina Witt a pass but that is about it.
Uh, he's right, at least about SI.
If you want box scores wrapped in excruciating, eye-rolling political correctness, just waste an hour or so of your life thumbing through any issue. Frank Deford, the hand-wringing, dithering retard on NPR, claims to be an SI editor, but I believe he is more probably employed by Ladies' Home Journal or Woman's Day.
So far, Frank's greatest contribution to SI has been to remind everyone how much they desperately miss Dan Jenkins. Geeze, SI is just absolutely terrible anymore.
On the other hand, ESPN magazine is funny, smart and hip; a great read in the barber chair.
Arnold was also an Austrian citizen I think.
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