This is from today's toons.
Posted on 03/18/2005 4:45:13 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
The biggest news out of yesterday's congressional hearings on steroid use in baseball was the repeated refusal by Mark McGwire, the man who smashed Roger Maris' single-season home run record, to answer questions as to his past use of steroids.
But when Matt Lauer asked baseball Commissioner Bud Selig whether McWire's answer was "satisfactory," the wimpy Selig predictably wimped out. "Mark has to do what is best for him. He's retired, he lives in peace with wife and children."
Lauer asked whether all the allegations, and McGwire's refusal to state whether he used steroids to break the record, turned the 1998 season, during which McGwire famously battled Sammy Sosa for the record, into a sham.
"I don't think it was a sham. 1998 was an electrying year. No one has been convicted of anything." So Selig's standard apparently is, if no one's in the big house, it wasn't a sham, even if the player at the heart of the "electrifying season" won't say whether he was electrified by illegal drugs.
Lauer then mentioned that in response to a question as to whether using steroids is cheating, McGwire answered "that's not for me to determine."
Confronted as to whether that was an acceptable response, Selig, incredibly, said "every player [on the panel] said yes, and I said it was. No question it is." HUH? As you well know because you were in the room, and as you've been reminded by Lauer, McGwire did NOT say yes. He said it wasn't for him to determine.
Lauer then criticized the weakness of MLB's steroids policy, calling it "5 strikes and you're out."
Lauer: "You said that's best you could do with the union. But issn't this a case of the fox watching a multi-million dollar chicken coop?"
Lauer makes a very good point. Selig and the owners who hired him are pointing the finger at the union, the implication being that the owners and Selig would have wanted a much tougher steroid policy. Lauer's implication is that in fact the owners DON'T want a tough policy - they don't want to see their stars dragged through the mud, or worse yet suspended. They want the home runs to continue flying out of parks.
Lauer soldiered on: "Steroids are illegal. If a corporate executive wouldn't possibly be allowed to falsify accounts five times before being fired. If I took drugs five times I wouldn't have a job. Why do you allow five strikes?"
Selig offered up some pabulum about a "graduated policy" being "fair and reasonable."
The only strong thing Selig said was that he will suspend everyone, without equivocation, who tests positive for steroids and that all names will be made public.
During the second half-hour, respected sports reporter Mike Lupica came on, and blasted McGwire and baseball:
"A major purpose of the hearings was to find out what happened in the past, and for McGwire to claim that the past is irrelevant and that now he wants to become a big part of a future campaign against steroids is a joke. Everyone knows that any 12-step program begins with admitting the truth about what you've done. McGwire has badly damaged his credibility."
I've always liked McGwire, but I couldn't help lose a lot of respect for him yesterday, watching him hide beyond his lame prepared comments about not wanting to talk about the past and only wanting to be positive about the future.
As the father of the teenage boy who committed suicide after taking steroids said at the hearings, these players should stop hiding behind the skirts of their lawyers and the union, and come out like men and accept responsibility for their past actions.
Inquiring minds want to know...
With many, many millions of dollars at stake nothing meaningful will happen on this topic.
The only answer is for the public to stop handing their hard earned cash over to these pampered prima dona's and the equally culpable owners.
It ain't your grandpas pro sports, that's fer dang sure.
On the money...
Well put. None of the major actors in this has an interest in killing the golden goose. For that matter, the fans have to accept their share of the blame. They continue to come out to the parks and to worship the home run and the home run hitters.
This is from today's toons.
Not this fan. I only kept my season tickets to the Orioles until Cal Ripken retired. Now that he's gone, so am I. I have better things to do with that time and money. Cal's run at Gehrig's record is one of the reasons baseball was able to survive the last strike. There's no Cal or anything similar to pull baseball out of this mess this time.
MLB, in the long run, is just killing itself.
What a phoney-baloney "dog and pony show" Congress put on yesterday. I guess the only silver lining was that they weren't passing any spending bills while they were putting on that farce.
And if Canseco outright lied about McGwire in his book, then it should be a slam-dunk case for slander or libel. But no such suit has been filed. That speaks volumes.
Great point. Maybe we can encourage them to continue holding hearings on all sorts of issues. Have we ever really gotten to the bottom of the Tonya Harding incident? And what about pro wrestling? Is it fixed? America wants to know!
They can have hearings on suggestive cheerleading routines. Here in Texas, they are trying to ban them.
Good point. I don't see how anyone could have watched yesterday's hearings and not have come to this conclusion: Mark McGwire used steroids.
Not everybody. Many baseball fans, myself included, simply love the game of baseball. It's only a few who take/who've taken steroids: I'd wager the majority of ballplayers don't take them at all.
And what about those Hooter outfits? Shouldn't we look into that? ;-)
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