What Is This Baseball Crisis?
This is a question that was posed to me just a few moments ago.
I honestly don’t know that I have an answer.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about how dependent I am, as a person, on baseball. I don’t like baseball, I don’t love baseball, I need baseball. I’m like an addict. I cannot function in my daily life without it. A large portion of my monetary resources go into it. I use it as a safety blanket when I feel uncomfortable (when studying gets too hard, I start writing…). There are, obviously, a lot worse things to be addicted to.
So why, when the thing I love more than anything is being called into question am I so calm about it?
Maybe because I have two finals tomorrow. Maybe because I’m dealing with another form of heartbreak entirely. Maybe because I’m going to see Peyton Manning on Sunday.
Or maybe because I know that Bud Selig will do little to nothing about it. And that all the time and energy that is being used on the Mitchell Report isn’t going to matter at the start of the season.
I really thought that seeing Roger Clemens’ name up on that list was going to hurt a lot more, but when I woke up to a text from my dad saying he was named I was left oddly unphased.
I’m disappointed to say that the man I have put so much faith in has been put on a list more infamous than that of the Chicago Black Sox. This man that I claimed is the best pitcher of all time. Someone that I backed whole heartedly for years.
It kind of takes away from the lore of the game. The American Dream is that everyone is equal and that with hard work and perserverence one can reach the top, and baseball is the perfect embodyment of that. Any boy from the size of David Eckstein to Randy Johnson can make it to the Minors, and any boy that works hard enough at what he loves can make it to the Majors. This, in theory, inherently makes steroid use un-American. Everyone is no longer equal. In a very Orwellian (circa 1984) way of looking about things there are those that are then equal and those who are double plus equal.
But Selig won’t do anything. There won’t be any asteriks. Though there probably should be. In fact I’d be in favor of asteriks next to every record broken by any of the players who were named, including my beloved Roger.
It simply isn’t fair to put the names of guys that used in the same books as the guys who didn’t.
And certainly not in the same Hall.
What a guy does off the field isn’t my business, most of the time, but this effects his performance on the field, and that is unfair, and unbaseball.
In a perfect world this would motivate Selig or the League to really do something. Honestly though it probably wont. It isn’t that the League isn’t strong enough, but rather that they continually take the easy way out of doing things, with the exception of the 1919 scandal and Pete Rose.
Both of those offesnses were less, in my opinion. But to each his own.
Coral Rae
Greedy owners and players almost strangled the golden goose, who has just laid an egg.
It’s cracked.
Michael Norton – Some Clubhouse
http://mlblog.someclubhouse.com
What we have in this report is:
1.The main guy works for the Red Sox. (I suppose it’s coincidence that only one former Red Sox player (Mo Vaughn, Gagne was a Red Sox for a few months) is named.
2.Almost all of the information in this report is nothing more than gossip based on the word(s) of convicted felons.
It is inherently problematic to look back in time and try to redo something. This report is a silly waste of time and pointless. There’s no proof that anyone can act upon found in that report. If the league attempts to act upon any of that information they’ll be sued and they should be.
http://www.baseballaslife.mlblogs.com
Are you just wrapping yourself in a security blanket of denial, Joe? There is no evidence of bias or special treatment by Mitchell. 14 former Red Sox player’s names are in the report.
There are tons of records that support the first-hand accounts of witnesses. Please show the convictions of those witnesses. The report is enough to generate lawsuits, but after 20 months of investigation, allegations are not made that cannot be substantiated. Mitchell is not going to make false claims that he will be sued for. Every player that there was evidence against was asked if they wanted to give their view of incidence and not one of them wanted to talk about it.
Nobody is trying to redo anything, but it would be nice to learn from mistakes and try to correct problems. The league should and will take actions.
Chuck,
Talk to your attorney, there is nothing in that report that could ever be used in a court of law.
Oh and Chuck, did you even read the report? Show me the names of these “tons” (no hyperbole there huh?) of witnesses. I’ll tell you what I’ll take 10 names and I’ll retract my statement.
Joe, did you even read my comments? – “tons of records” does not refer to people, but things like canceled checks, shipping receipts, mail orders and phone records. Since there is nothing in the report that could ever be used in a court of law, I guess none of the players named will be suing George Mitchell for slander.
TYVM you’ve soveld all my problems
You’re right they’d probably lose a slander case. That doesn’t mean I can’t hope for another outcome. There is 91 canceled checks and not one from Roger Clemens. In fact Chuck, can you tell how many different players those checks are from? There’s zero shipping receipts to Roger, zero phone records, and zero phone records. I’ll stand by my initial reaction. This report is useless. Not a single current Red Sox who ever used. Amazing.
Is this is a baseball crisis? Absolutely not. This doesn’t even compare to the strike of 1994, which WAS a baseball crisis. I highly doubt that any true fan of baseball would just stop watching because of this. Isn’t this what we suspected all along? I was actually surprised that there weren’t bigger names on this list. Basically everyone besides Clemens on the list was an irrelevant player or someone we had already heard about. And I hate Clemens just as any Red Sox fan would, but he still would easily make the Hall of Fame just from what he did in Boston! This report will do more good than bad to Major League Baseball, because I believe players will stop the roids now that they have seen how easy it can be to get caught. I assure you that all the players were watching that press conference like a 1960′s young adult watching the military draft. They won’t want to go through that stress again.