Posted on 12/07/2004 9:23:08 PM PST by CHARLITE
By now, most of you know that I'm not that much of a sports fan. I watch maybe one football game a year. Not a whole one, mind you, just a minute here, 30 seconds there, as I'm flipping channels between Food Network, Animal Planet, Adult Swim and Fox News. I'm not all that fussed about basketball, except when a fight breaks out of course, and I can't be bothered too much with hockey except when a fight doesn't break out.
Being an American citizen and a male of the species, however, it is expected that I give a rat's rump about sports - or, at least to be conversant enough to fake it. My dad likes golf, which to my mind is more boring even than cricket (I'm talking five-day test matches here, not the one-day international version). My one sister loves NASCAR, which to me is equally coma-inducing - I already know how to make a left turn, I just don't see the need to watch a 3-hour demonstration of the technique.
And then, there's baseball.
Dad loves watching baseball. More accurately, he loves watching the Cleveland Indians so he can swear at the TV as they attempt to play the game, but it still counts. He's not a fanatic about the sport, but he enjoys it and for me that's enough to make it worthwhile. I very marginally follow the Chicago Cubs and the San Diego Padres (I know, this streak of masochism is disturbing, isn't it?) because one of them is the nearest bunch of losers to home while the other is my hometown bunch of losers. And since they haven't won the ''World'' Series in many a year, I feel fully justified in using the ''L'' word to describe them - it isn't said to be mean, just to be honest. By the way, if it's supposed to be a ''World'' Series, where's the Bosnian team? Or the Australian team? I know the Jamaican team would never make it through customs, but that's a different issue altogether.
In the past week, there has been a lot of noise (as opposed to news) regarding some sort of drug scandal in baseball. I'll wait for your yawn of excitement to finish before I continue. A baseball player, whose name I don't recognize and whose team I don't remember, apparently admitted before a Grand Jury that he used steroids. Another pause while we let the shock of that declaration pass. Now, we're talking about a sport in which the heroes of my father's day were hardly the millionaire-playboy-felons of today. Babe Ruth had a bit of a beer gut and the words ''Wide Load'' printed on the back of his boxer shorts. Joltin' Joe, by contrast, had the arms of a pipe-cleaner with anorexia. The drugs of choice back then were beer, scotch, Lucky Strikes and (for the really ritzy guys) Cuban cigars. Say the word ''tofu'' in front of these guys and you'd likely get a dislocated jaw for using such language in public.
Now, we've got some guy, making megamillions per year to hit a ball with a stick maybe three times out of ten (if he's lucky), telling a Grand Jury that the reason he is able to bench-press Wyoming has nothing to do with clean living and the blessings of the Lord. Apparently, he had to get immunity from prosecution to make his Earth-shattering admission. The fact that the doors had to be taken out of the frame so that his bicep could fit into the jury room didn't seem to trigger an ''AHA!'' moment for any of the jurors.
There are a few things that bug me about this story, and they have little to do with what the folks at ESPN, ESPN2 through ESPN94, and the lib/dem/soc/commie sports media have focused on. For starters, why is this information public? Last I checked, testimony and evidence presented before a Grand Jury is privileged information. It is quite secret. Ask the folks who investigated Teddy Kennedy's ''Swims With The (Body By) Fishers'' incident a few decades back, and you'll get a stony silence. Don't quote me on this, as I'm not a (bleep) lawyer, but I believe that if you ''leak'' information from a Grand Jury investigation, you've committed a crime. A rather large one, I might add. Not the Martha-Stewart-hiding-spices-in-her-bra-at-Camp-Cupcake kind, but the 350-pound-mass-murderer-knife-weilding-cellmate-sending-you-Hallmark-cards kind. For some reason that I'm totally befuddled by, nobody seems to be bothering to investigate this part of the story.
Worse, and stranger still, we now have Senator John McCain (R-NL West) demanding a congressional investigation into the ''serious'' issue of drug use in baseball. For some reason, the Senator believes that it is the duty of the federal government to intervene in, of all things, a game.
I don't recall the Declaration of Independence stating that our inalienable rights included Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of a horsehide sphere. Perhaps Senator McCain can show me the part of the Bill of Rights that mentions Abner Doubleday, or the words ''Pine Tar'' and ''Corked Bat'' in the millions of words of United States Code.
Every time something happens that the news media can blow out of proportion, we seem to get a crowd of congressmen, a swarm of senators, and a bevy of beltway bandits braying that ''something must be done'' to fix (fill in the blank here). Excuse me for saying, but as a non-fan of sports, I have to ask these congressional crackpots a simple question.
Why is this any of your damn business?
Baseball is a game. It is also a business. It is not a member of the Executive, Legislature, or Judiciary. Businessmen and women, investors and so forth own baseball. Athletes participate in it, and are paid handsomely for it. Some say too handsomely, but they're paid what the market will bear, and last I looked we're in a more-or-less free market economy. Fans fund it by going to the ballparks, buying cold hot dogs and warm beer and cheesy souvenirs. Television stations broadcast the games because they have viewers (like my Dad) who enjoy swearing at the TV for reasons other than Oprah or Maury. Advertisers pay for those broadcasts because they know that viewers will buy the stuff they're selling between innings (after the game is over, of course).
Nowhere in this mix is the Federal Government. Nor should there be. Professional sports are a bit screwed up, I grant you, but I can guarantee if you throw the federalés into the mix it'll be a FUBAR of biblical proportions. Let's face facts here - the only thing that the government HASN'T screwed up in the past 83,432 days of its existence has been the military, the patent office, the national highway system, and the flying saucer cover-up. Other than that, I wouldn't trust the government to pick heads or tails in a two-headed coin toss - with the government actually tossing the coin.
So why should I trust an investigation by a bunch of stuffed shirts from Foggy Bottom?
Senator McCain, perhaps if you actually paid attention to the job you're supposed to be doing, we'd have a better government and a better country. Leave the games to the players and fans and owners. Leave business to the businesses. Leave law enforcement to the cops. And leave the rest of us alone. That goes for the 534 other bozos you work with as well. Maybe then, just maybe, you might actually be worthy of our votes.
About the Writer: Doc Farmer is a writer and humorist who is also a moderator on ChronWatch's Forum. He formerly lived in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but now resides in the Midwest. Doc receives e-mail at docfarmer9999@yahoo.co.uk
actually I think McCain is right on this one... If your going to say your serious about steriods, then TEST EVERYONE ALL THE TIME! Not this post shot shot int rh dark system they have now, with no real punishment if you get caught...
Karen (my wife) refers to him as "McPain" (in the ass). My retort is that someone should put a suppository in his mouth.
Great article! He's right. I'd like mandatory testing for the House and Senate members. They need to clean up their own house before they tell others what to do.
No matter what the subject John McCain needs to SHUT UP AND GO HOME! He is RINO and a cannot be trusted to do absolutely anything that isn't completely self-serving.
The senate is screwed up enough, do they really need a senator McPain?
Senator McStain had agreed to debate Dan Stein of FAIR about the Kennedy-McCain Amnesty bill, but it looks like McStain is chickening out. Mr. Stein has been waiting 7 days, 10 hours, 51 minutes and 48 seconds (and counting) to hear from McStain about setting up the debate, but still no word from the great war hero. Tic...tic...tic... http://www.steinreport.com
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.