Bonds, McGwire, Conseco, Steriods and Racisim

Let me start by saying that with everything going on in the world, it is laughable that Congress had nothing better to do than spend a full day interviewing baseball players about steriods. If anything, let the legal departments go after them and do a full investigation and get some charges pressed on these frauds. This is an example of wasted tax dollars.

Now for Barry Bonds. I never want to hear another comment from his mouth about racisim. He claims they only focus on him because he is black. NO BARRY, they focus on you because in the last 7 years, at an age when most men lose muscle mass, you have grown into a moutain of muscle. At an age when most skills diminsh, your home run totals have risen to unthinkable numbers. You are chasing the sports most cherished record and that pisses alot of us life long baseball fans off. You do not deserve it.

From what I saw though, that was a white man on the stand yesterday almost in tears do to the dumb mistake he made. Thats what Mr MgWire is, DUMB. He broke the rookie home run record when he first was brought up to the majors, 49 home runs. He had natural talent(just as Bonds did) before steriods. It wasnt enough though. Not only did the both of these fools grown into professional wrestler sizes, they demolished records that were set by legands who did it the natural way.

Niether of these guys better ever be in the HOF.

Jose Conseco, while most disagree, I believe he is a hero. I dont care what his motives were for releasing that book, the outcome will still be, it will be the stepping stone to cleaning up baseball. In 15 years I am willing to bet that more people look at his actions the same way I am. I should note, I hated the guy as a person when he played also.

The issue being skirted by the people against the baseball hearings is the fact that Major league baseball enjoys a federal antitrust exemption, and has for around 85 years. This was judged Ok back then, due to baseball's being considered the national past time. Thus, they enjoy no competition in the marketplace (alongside many other perks, like tax exemption in some cases)...unlike what football, basketball, soccer, and hockey have seen in the past. Therefore, and since baseball is basically being shielded by the government from competition; it is in the government's best interest that the sport not be percieved as crooked (again)...or we may start asking questions regarding their protected status.
I think the hearings are a good thing, this is an organization that through its teams siphons many millions from public coffers for stadiums and infrastructure for its sport. Sure some would argue that there are more pressing concerns that congress could be investigating....which is why they are doing the baseball thing now. Congress doesn't want to deal with the lit stick of dynomite that is the overhaul of Social Security, they don't want to have to discover that now they have rolled back many of the proposed tax cuts and are now proposing more spending (this is from both sides, btw)...thus they are looking at a budget that is going to be a friggin' joke (or fiction). Baseball and the Schiavo (the food tube veggie lady) case are easy concerns that they can parade up in front of all of us and look like they are being effective.

Oh, and here is my examination of when and why Sammy Sosa went to the juice:

Sosa's Salary____________Home Runs

1989 Texas Rangers $68,000__________4
1990 Chicago White Sox $100,000__________15
1991 Chicago White Sox $150,000__________10
1992 Chicago Cubs $180,000__________8
1993 Chicago Cubs $745,000__________33<---More juice=more pay, more HRs
1994 Chicago Cubs $2,950,000__________25
1995 Chicago Cubs $4,300,000__________36
1996 Chicago Cubs $4,750,000__________40
1997 Chicago Cubs $5,500,000__________36
1998 Chicago Cubs $8,325,000__________66<---More again=more pay, more HRs
1999 Chicago Cubs $9,000,000__________63
2000 Chicago Cubs $11,000,000__________50
2001 Chicago Cubs $12,500,000__________64
2002 Chicago Cubs $15,000,000__________49<--Uh Oh, pee pee is shrinkin' no more juice.
2003 Chicago Cubs $16,000,000__________40<--Residual juice keeping numbers up
2004 Chicago Cubs $16,000,000__________35<--Decrease continues, shrinkage unknown.

Make me sad for Ken Griffey actually. THat guy was the real deal without steriods. That damn hamstring just will not ever heal though.

Baseball sucks anyways.... Too many games on all days of the week and any 1 you attend costs an arm and a leg which makes attention all season cost prohibitive. If you somehow could have no job, a pocket of money, and take the family of 4 to every ball game, you'd end up spending tens of thousands of dollars every year.

Baseball needs to cut back on games from 165 or so to about 24 games or so. One game every Saturday per team.

Skyrocketing the price of tickets by a factor of 6 due to a drop in supply?

I disagree. Baseball 365 days a year I say. Cost a fortune? Face value at most stadiums start around $13 for bleachers. Its the secondary market that gets expensive and if a team has that problem, it means there are not enough tickets to meet the demand.

Some people, such as myself still and will always love baseball.

I watched the hearing in it's entirety.

I agree with Xto that Congress has a vested interest in the game because of the anti-trust exemption.

One senator went out of his way to state that he wished that the cameras would all be on them when they are discussing other issues, not just this one. In other words, those who are crying foul about congress getting involved don't pay a lot of attention to the other things congress does, and I agree that it is a shame..

As far as the panel of players goes:

I think Schilling is poo-pooing the issue and is backpeddling. You should hear some of his past quotes concerning his feelings about steroids in MLB. One senator asked him about those quotes in which he lamented the use of steroids, and how they had suddenly come out of nowhere and become prevalent. He backpeddled. Something like "I had bad information then", even though in one of the quotes he states that some of the users "look like Mr. potaohead" and the like. Sounds like direct personal experience, not bad info.

Palmeiro is mad because he was named in Jose's book. I can't blame him if he didn't take roids. He had a tendency to parrot a lot of what Schilling said.

McGwire, what a crock of shit. I don't even know why he was there. All he did was say "I am not going to talk about my past", and " I am retired now". He didn't give hardly one straight answer. Sorry Mark, THIS IS about the past, and how it relates to the present and future. I LOVED it when one senator got fed up and prefaced a question to McGwire with "I know, you don't want to talk about the past, and you are retired". I will say that I thought Mark's speech about steroids and the kids that have died as a result of using was heartfelt and ernest. Perhaps some regret was leaking through the cracks there.

Sosa, about 90% of the time, repeated every answer McGwire gave. His input was just as worthless.

Canseco seems to be on a bit of a mission. I am taking some of what he has said with a few grains of salt. I do believe him that it is a big problem, however, he seems almost consumed by his own rhetoric. I do have to say he is a lot softer and well spoken than I had expected, given his history of anger problems. Maybe those outbursts were (partially?) due to the roid use?

Last but not least, Bud Selig. He was just giving lip service, he went on forever about the MLB steroids policy, yet never explained why the majors don't use as strict of a policy as do the Minors.

I agree with a lot of the congress persons; there needs to be standardized, olympic level testing policies enacted across the board. There is no excuse why the Major league policy is more lax than that of the Minors. My personal feeling is, they don't really want to root out all the roid users, as they may stand to lose some revenue if they do. Either through bad publicity, or a lack of offense.