Clemens, Bonds & Co. - Should They Stay Or Should They Go Now?
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by Mlnsports
The Mitchell Report suggests that a whopping percentage of players are on steroids or human-growth-hormone (hgh). They include Bonds, of course, but also a few surprise guests, like Roger Clemens. What should happen to the steroids cheats?
Mitchell suggests that no one touches them. That we forget about the past and move forward.
A Little More Dirt Under that Rug?
Problem: Baseball has made its entire footing as a sport about the past. It is about records and great moments being written into the more than century-long history of the game called the National Pastime because of the significance of that past.
To avoid a rather ugly present, filled with millions of dollars of legal appeals and millions of words of condemnation by the media, and a backlash by the always contentious MLB Players Association (The PA), Mitchell is suggesting to Bud Light that he let bygones be bygones, so that the game can move forward.
That eliminated Mitchell from both my short list for the next Commissioner and my Christmas card list.
Lest we forget, media and fans alike, that this is really our game damn it! The owners and front office are stewards. The players are merely passers-through in the great flow of the game in its short, relative to the world, history.
Base-tille Day
Not since the French Revolution have there been so many opportunities for a good beheading.
Bonds will go first, of course, for lying his way through the grand jury in the Balco case's round one.
What about the rest of them? Giambi? Clemens?
Mitchell says: Let them eat cake. I say: Off with their heads!
I would like to think that the records of baseball, and the heroes that not only I grew up with, but my father grew up with, and his father before him, did not elevate the game to the level that they did LEGITIMATELY, only to see these overpaid, fat-headed CHEATERS overshadow them with better living through chemistry.
If Clemens juiced, then he's no better than Bonds. Or Pete Rose, for that matter. Cheating and breaking the rules of the game are the same for everybody. If you kick out Pete for betting on baseball, then you have to kick out these slimeballs too.
That is, if the game stil represents the character and ethics of America. Of course, if they don't then it might just represent the real character and ethics of modern America, and then, friends, we're all in a world of trouble.
Guard the Gates of Cooperstown Too
The Baseball Writers of America (BWAA) the first line of defense at the Hall of Fame, let McGwire know that steroids were going to keep him out of the Hall. I think that should be Clemens fate too, and Sosa, and anyone else who broke both the law, and the rules of baseball.
Job Training at the Burger King
As for the rest of the lot of liars and cheats that we have infesting the game, I have lost respect for each and every one. Every last one of them should be banned from the game for life. Period.
Of course, as with all things in baseball, it is a matter of money. Bud isn't going to cut his buddies' throats by terminating so many players, driving them into arbitration and court with their clubs.
He is just going to piss all over the fans and the independent media, who are going to rightfully call for all of them, and him, to exit the game that they have despoiled.
Um George, Over HERE?!
Mitchell is worried about the players and the clubs. Maybe he spent so much time in Northern Ireland that he forgot the biggest constituency he has to make happy: THE FANS.
They have been long dormant, watching all of this and grumbling modestly as they have patiently waited for some grown-up amongst the overgrown three-year-olds of baseball to emerge and put the house of baseball right.
Spine or Specialist?
Mitchell called for an independent drug czar to act like Internal Affairs for baseball. What a joke! If we had an independent commissioner, we wouldn't need a drug czar! The Commissioner's office would oversee testing, hire a lab to do it for them, and rule with an iron hand.
The Honorable Mr. Mitchell knows though, that Bud is nothing more than an owner in Commissioner's clothing, and that he has been unable to sway the PA into playing ball with them on drugs.
Get Out the Big Boot
So out they should go. All of them. Bud, Bonds, Clemens... There are legions of great players that have been bottled up in the minors that really are that good. You see them at some of the AAA+ development clubs like the Marlins and the Brewers. There are a lot of Hanley Ramirezes and Cameron Maybins waiting to break out on the scene.
Let these talented young players end the Steroids Era of baseball and sweep in a new era of clean ball.
Every club should clean house too, even if that means some of the top brass who have turned a blind-eye to the juice going bye-bye with Barry.
Wake Up, Joe Fan
Talk it up. Tell your club how pissed off you are. They need to hear the fan outrage, otherwise, as usual, they will bury everything and assume that no one will care.
CARE.
- Brian ROSS
Brian Ross is the senior editor of the nation's oldest sports e-zine, MLN Sports Zone. His editorials appear in the free publication the MAJOR BLOGS of Minor League News
