Some thoughts on the reaction to the Performance Enhancing Drugs Scandal in baseball.
I've sat around for a couple of days on all of this and then I saw Michael Giltz's blog on Huffington Post today and felt compelled to respond.
For me, this all starts with a basic question. Why do we or in this case I watch sports?? I view sports as entertainment. I view sports the same way I would watching a Russell Crowe movie. I go to be entertained. Athletes should not be put up as role models for children. Former NBA great Charles Barkley said this best years ago when he said "I am not a role model."
It's been said throughout much of this steroids investigation that its important to rid the sports world of steroids because of the message it sends to our Nations youth. I agree with this. But the messages our children get shouldn't be from Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens. The messages our children get need to be from the home or from the school. If you rely on pro athletes to be the message of whats right or wrong in the world, then you get what you deserve.
For those that believe this is the worst scandal of all-time in baseball(such as my dear friend Michael Giltz), I would suggest they need to do a little more research. The "Black Sox Scandal" of the early 1900's was far worse. Players from the Chicago White Sox throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinatti Reds is slightly worse than an era where multiple people were using performance enhancing drugs. Why??Eight players were banned for life and the game was rocked to its core. While this current scandal is big, it doesn't rise to the level of the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Some players used and some players didn't. But who won and lost wasn't ultimately determined by who used H-G-H or steroids. If you can factually determine that World Series were won and lost based on who was using (especially when you don't know everyone that was using and when they were using) then we can have a conversation about it. But until then, stop calling this the worst scandal to ever rock baseball.
Sports is entertainment. I go to games when I want to be entertained. Sometimes I get to see good games and I am entertained and sometimes I go and see a game that is boring and filled with a lack of hitting and lots of errors and I leave feeling unfulfilled. The same way I feel if I go to see a bad movie or Broadway show. It's entertainment. You choose to go or not go. Nobody twists your arm and says you have to go and see a baseball game from your seat in a luxury box or your seat in the bleachers. If you feel so strongly that what has happened in baseball is so terrible, then you won't go to the game. Otherwise, your giving the same lip service that Commissioner Bud Selig has been giving for years on the steroid matter. Your going to continue going to the game but bitch and moan all the way through it?? That seems to contradict your feelings on the game. Why would you spend the money to support a franchise that knowingly employs cheats and destroys the integrity of the game??
I'm disappointed in whats happened to the game of baseball. It's not the game I grew up watching and chances are, it never will be again. This is the new era of baseball and you need to choose to except it for what it is or find some other way to spend the 3 or 4 hours you spend 60 to 80 days per year. In fact, to someone like Michael Giltz who feels so jilted and betrayed by whats happened, I would suggest going to watch high school sports. If you truly just want to watch athletes playing for the love of the game and nothing more, you can do it for next to nothing at nearly every high school in America. Otherwise, start understanding that professional sports is just that. It's a profession, where people make money, but also make mistakes. A profession where bosses are looking at the bottom line and in the process, do things that go against the morals we were brought up with. Guess what Michael?? It happens everyday in every line of work. It doesn't make it right and I am not justifying it.
You didn't like the way Andy Pettitte apologized?? I agree that it was half-assed but the only way to really send a message is to NOT GO TO THE GAMES!! You punish the ownership by not giving them your hard-earned money and you send a message to the players that you have had enough. Then again, you doing that is about as realistic as the chances of Andy Pettitte giving the sort of apology you are expecting.
posted by Jason Page at 9:34 PM
12 Comments:
No link to my post on Huffington? Weak! Good to see you blogging on all sports since your interests are wide-ranging and your opinions pointed. Gives your fans something to do when you're not on the air. I'll follow with all the responses I had to your post over at my baseball blog. Welcome to the world of blogging!
Lots to respond to. Good, cynical post. First, today's NYTimes describes the steroid problem in high schools, estimating that well over 500,000 high school students have abused steroids (their actual guess is 700,000 or more so half a million is extremely conservative). Athletes are not role models as such. Kids should not be looking to basketball players or football players about how to live their lives. But it's perfectly reasonable to expect kids to look to professional athletes when wondering HOW TO PLAY SPORTS. Tiger Woods takes 200 swings a day? Hmm, maybe I should. Another player eats all natural foods and eliminates meat? Huh. Someone else uses yoga? Maybe that'll work for me. And when it comes to playing the sport of baseball, that's the one thing I DO expect of players -- they play the game the way it's meant to be played. Fairly. Without cheating. And without breaking federal laws and abusing their bodies to do so. I'm gonna have to leave multiple posts.
2. Is this the worst scandal of all time? Obviously, Jason knew perfectly well I'm familiar with the Black Sox Scandal (if nothing else, he can be certain I'd seen Eight Men Out). That is in fact the gold standard for baseball scandals. Is this worse? I think so. It's hard to top throwing the World Series. But they tarnished one World Series, one year, and paid a huge price for it and rightly so -- doesn't matter if they "tried" (and I mean you, Shoeless joe, you in the cornfield), accepting the bribe was an unforgivable sin as far as getting into the Hall of Fame or playing the game ever again is concerned. I can forgive you on a personal level but don't think you belong in the Hall. But this scandal has tarnished untold numbers of games and World Series competitions for more than a decade. It has trashed the record books, turning accomplishments like single season home run records et al into jokes. It involves many hundreds of people, and without exaggeration it looks like AT LEAST 20% of the players in this era cheated in one form or another. The entire Yankee dynasty of the 90s is tainted, unless you want to joke that the playing field was level because EVERYONE cheated. it's certainly a debatable point, but Jason you are the only public figure who doesn't at least think the two are comparable. Just like you were alone when I was aghast over A-Rod's opting out during the World Series, you mocked my indignation and then say EVERYONE else agree with me and take him to task. At least admit you are in a distinct minority of thinking this scandal doesn't come close. it doesn't mean you're wrong and I agree absolutely it's a valid debate. But you act as if I'm CRAZY to suggest it. Nope, I'm not.
Sports is entertainment -- Absolutely, but it's entertainment based on watching people demonstrate their skill on a level playing field under the same set of rules. Yeah, if you bowled against me, you might spot me 100 points (God knows I'd need 'em). But in professional sports, the fun is knowing that the winner is based on creating as fair an environment as possible. This ain't pro wrestling where it's all a joke and everyone knows it. The Olympics understands this. Don't you? It's no FUN if teams or players have an unfair advantage, it's no FUN if one tennis player throws the match for $50,000 from the Russian mob, it's not FUN if some injured players cheat and use HGH to get back onto the field quicker, it's no FUN if some players feel obliged to risk their health and break the law just to stay on a major league roster because they suspect the other guys on the bubble are doing the same. I don't like watching porn because of the violent ugly world those 'actors" live in (they almost always were abused as kids, kicked out of their homes, beaten, homeless, poor, drug addicted and so on -- you just don't get healthy, unabused well-balanced people diving into the porn industry, at least not the vast majority of them) and for the same reason I wouldn't enjoy sports if people in it felt pressured to break the law and risk their health to do so. Don't you feel guilty still enjoying pro wrestling knowing the grotesque body count of dead and dying wrestlers who croak in their 40s and 50s after being discarded by the machine? I do.
Sports is fun and entertaining if and only if everyone plays by the same basic rules. Hell, I wish they'd dump the DH too but as long as everyone agrees on the rules and abides by them, the rules can change.
If I don't quit going to baseball games, I'm a hypocrite -- OK, this is a good broadside. Believe me, I've thought about this very seriously. If Derek Jeter and Jorge and Mo had been caught up in this scandal, I would think very, very strongly about not going to the game for a number of years, just like Jason suggests. The ONLY way things will change is if fans demand it. But there are a lot of ways to demand it -- writing letters, calling, blogging, editorializing, refusing to cheer for players who cheat, signs at the stadium and on and on. Boycotting the game for good would be very drastic. Why don't I leave the Catholic Church? Because it's my Church too and I want to force them to change their idiotic, misguided ways (about gays, priests marrying, women priests etc). If everyone walked away, the Catholic Church would still be supporting slavery and no one would keep an eye on them. Why should I leave baseball? The bums who cheat should leave. But here's a great idea: organizing a boycott of Opening Day. I would gladly skip Opening Day as a symbolic protest and leave my seat empty. That's a good firt step. If you could actually leave a significant number of seats empty at Yankee Stadium and around the country (say 10-20% would be huge, I think), that would be a great way of showing fan unhappiness.
But really, shouldn't you stop going to games? -- Hey, it's not as crazy as you think. If you beleve fans would never walk away from a corrupt, rigged sport filled with fixes, may I introduce you to boxing. It once DOMINATED America the way football and baseball have, it was a major staple in primetime TV until rigging and cheating and fractured championships and deaths in the ring and older players finding out they had slurred speech and couldn't think straight took th e fun out of it. The same could absolutely happen to baseball. Nothing lasts forever.
Turn my game into a joke and eventually I will walk away.
I need to just accept things as they are -- Uh, no I don't. Cheating is wrong. Little kids no it. Adults used to know it. It's not that complicated and it should stop. It's against the law, they're risking their long-term health and it's no fun. 20 years from now, when ballplayers start getting all sorts of weird illnesses and dying early because of abusing their bodies with illegal steroids and HGH (which is only legally prescribed for dwarfism and people with AIDS who are wasting away for God's sake, which lets you know what a powerful dangerous drug it is), at least I'll know I tried.
It happens every day in every line of work - Actually, no it doesn't. Most people aren't low down dirty cheats who break federal laws and risk their health. When was the last time you broke a serious law Jason? Have you carted out computer equipment from Sirius because hey, everyone's doing it? Do you take kickbacks from people in order to agree to interview them on the air? Do you exchange lines of coke for adding a song to the Top 40? No, I didn't think so. The vast majority of people are not sleazy or desperate cheaters and crooks. The vast majority of people would NOT risk their lives and their health and going to jail to "gain an edge" at work. Yes, everyone "cheats" sometimes; we're not saints. Everyone has to live by their own moral code (I see absolutely nothing wrong with smoking pot any more than people thought twice about drinking alcohol during Prohibition -- though I tend to buy pot only from people who grow it themselves and aren't involved in meth or crack or cocaine and so on because it is an industry soaked in blood).
I do enjoy high school sports, but what with all the court orders it's hard to keep straight where I'm allowed to go. In fact, I think a big reason I'm not into football or basketball or hockey (too much punk ass fighting) is for exactly the rigged, grotesque where's the love of the game aspects Jason talks about. Pro football just isn't fun knowing these monsters are doping up and crushing each other. I don't even enjoy college football because it's NOT college football -- it's not kids going to college and getting a degree who also play sports. It's a minor league system funneling players to the NFL and otherwise chewing up and spitting out people who rarely get a chance to even get a degree. (Personal choice, yeah, but when they start passing you in classes you should fail at 12 years old because you're a heck of a running back, it's hard to develop that personal responsibility). Maybe that's why I love tennis (which is so old fashioned, it's just starting it's own Black Sox scandal with games being tossed, albeit minor early round games). Maybe that's why I like NASCAR where teams are aggressively monitored. Maybe that's why I like "minor" sports like collegiate wrestling (where it really is about the love of the game since even thre greatest wrestlers of all time don't get to cash in) and OLympic sports like ice skating and gymnastics and swimming, where there is money to be made but I know the rules are more stringent than anywhere else. Maybe that's why I love bullriding, where people can makes hundreds of thousands of dollars but still it seems somehow more innocent and they've got strong guidelines and medical oversight and where steroids wouldn't help a ton (but HGH sure would). These "minor" sports seem purer to me, just like minor league baseball is a ton of fun.
It comes down to this, Jason. -- But when I play Jason in tennis, I KNOW he's not going to call balls out that he believes are good just to "gain and edge." I KNOW Jason isn't going to sneak over the baseline when serving because he knows I can't call foot faults from where I'm standing. Jason knows he can trust me to play fair as well. The game wouldn't be fun if we did anything else. And I wouldn't respect him if he cheated and he wouldn't respect me. How hard is that to understand?
Seriously, would you cheat me when we were playing tennis? Of course not. And if I cheated you, wouldn't that tick you off? Wouldn't that damage our friendship if I were that petty and lame? Of course it would. That's not gamesmanship Im talking about. I'm talking about straight up cheating. You wouldn't do it. You never have and you never will. I wouldn't do it. Why is it nutty of me to expect pros don't do it either?
Now how about some responses to my responses. Do I make any good points?
Okay, lets take this one post at a time..... Yikes...... This could take a while.
It certainly is NOT worse than the Black Sox scandal and I don't believe the majority feel the way you do. You can factually tell what happened in the Black Sox scandal. There really is no way to gauge how this impacted games. Because for all the players that have used performance enhancing drugs and played well, there are even more who used them and went out of the game with little or no impact. Do I think it's a big scandal?? Yes. Is it as big as the Black Sox scandal. I still say absolutely not. People can read up on both and come to their own conclusions.
It's not a joke to note that it was a level playing field because everyone cheated. It's a variable that you have to take into consideration when you look at the total equation.
For instance, you make this rediculous blanket statement that the Yankees entire dynasty is tainted. Where do you get this stuff?? Give me one player on the 1996 roster who has been accused or found of doing anything wrong dating back to 1996. The fact of the matter is YOU CAN'T!!!
Lets go to 1998. Another Yankees World Series. Again, not a player on this roster is known to have done anything wrong. Chuck Knoblauch, Mike Stanton and Andy Pettitte didn't use anything until after the year 2000.
Now in 1999, Roger Clemens joins the Bombers. He goes 14-10 and pitches to a 4.60 ERA. First, if you read the Mitchell Report there is nothing that says Clemens used anything illegal in 1999. And frankly, if you believe the Mitchell report in its entirety, he certainly pitched to a pretty average tune. But if you want to use the argument(and I figure you would) that Clemens was still using in 1999, well you can say Juan Gonzalez was using as well. One for the Rangers and one for the Yankees.
You have a better argument about the 2000 World Series team, except that players on the Yankees are mentioned as are players from the Mets.
If your that cynical about the era in which the Yankees won their World Series, in addition to the World Series that have followed and the records that have fallen during this "dark cloud" of baseball is simple:
**They took place during the performance enhancing drugs era of baseball.**
Just like the era of baseball where nobody hit more than a few home runs in baseball is noted as the dead ball era and so on.
Is what happened serious?? Absolutely. Am I upset that it happened?? Absolutely. But its hard to put a value on whose cheating impacted what games when you don't know who is using and who isn't. You have 80-something names and thats it. If at least 20% were using "the juice" in some way, then it makes it even harder to know what exactly has been impacted. In the case of the Black Sox, we know everything about what happened and how it impacted the game.
Michael, you can rationalize it all you want, but SPORTS IS ENTERTAINMENT. It's not entertainment based on A,B and C as you try to argue. And from the entertainment perspective, its often about much less than winning and losing. At the end of the night, you might be disappointed that the Yankees lost a game to the Red Sox, but in reality, if you saw a great game that night with fantastic defense and some great hits and base-running, then you're probably more likely to remember that in the long run than the fact that the Yankees lost.
For you to say that it's no fun if players and teams have an unfair advantage is absurd. Even without talking about steroids, you can make the argument that the Yankees have an ufair advantage over other teams. Hmmmm.... Lets count the advantages. Playing in the largest market, with the largest fan-base, with their own TV network, more money at their disposal and so-on. Guess what, many of those advantages I just mentioned are just as unfair but aren't addressed by baseball. Everyone doesn't play by the basic same rules. You still seem to enjoy the games just fine from what I remember when the Yankees can spend over $200 million dollars to field a team while the Royals can't.
As for your argument on pro wrestling, I don't feel bad for adults who make a achoice to abuse their bodies and the ramifications that come with that. It's called accountability and you have to live with the consequences of those choices, both good and bad.
As I keep readin, my laughing grows expedentially. So only because Pettitte used steroids, you'll continue going to Yankee games. So some cheating is acceptable to you. For all you know the other players you mentioned as having not cheated, DID CHEAT. You just may not know it. They could be part of the 20% that we don't know about. You say fans need to demand it. Guess what Michael?? They won't in large enough numbers to change anything. Baseball attendance is still as high as ever and thats because fans are being entertained when they go to games. But again, if you feel the way you do, then you should be giving up your season tickets to someone who doesn't feel as strongly as you. Symbolic protests are laughable. All it means is someone from the left-field bleachers will be stealing your seat. ;-) And seeing as you think this could be or is the worst scandal in baseball history, I don't believe its too "drastic" to stop going to games altogether.
Your point on boxing is a little off the mark. While it has something to do with what you have said, things like the U-F-C and a lack of marketable personalities in the sport have much more to do with the decline of boxing. The recent De La Hoya vs. Mayweather and Mayweather vs. Hatton fights prove why your theory is wrong. Those two fighst drew huge crowds both in person and on pay-per-view because you had great fights with great personalities. There are few of those combinations for boxing these days.
Cheating is cheating. Its not complicated..... Well yes and no. Thats a pretty narrow way of looking at things. For example, lets say your on staff full-time writing for a weekly magazine. For the sake of argument we'll use Sports Illustrated. You make a healthy salary but there are several guys at this competitive magazine "cheating" to get ahead. Even though they are cheating, they are doing so in a way where they are unlikely to get caught as its really hard to prove. So they keep on "cheating" and soon you could be out of a job if you don't start to employ the same tactics they are. Are you not going to at least consider employing those same tactics if not even using those same methods to get ahead?? If you can honestly say NO to that question then you are in the vast minority and I would commend you.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news Michael, but cheating does take place everywhere. Like you say, cheating is cheating, whether its breaking a federal law(which by the way, the guys who take the H-G-H are usually never arrested while the dealers are, which just goes to show how serious a crime it is to use it) or not going to court for a speeding ticket, cheating is cheating. Whether its doctoring a baseball or taking H-G-H, cheating is cheating. Have I ever grabbed a few extra blank CD's on my way out the door at Sirius for use at home?? Absolutely. Guess I am a cheat as well.
Smoking pot is a crime which you acknowledge using with your own reasoning as to why. Well why can't someone else employ their own logic or reasoning as to why they use an illegal substance?? Maybe I am crazy.
Anyways Michael, some food for thought. And let me know when your ready to give up those season tickets in the bleachers. I wouldn't mind taking them off your hands.
Buy my bleacher tickets? I gave you an opportunity two years ago and you got bored halfway through the season and didn't pony up, you cheap bastard! You can buy bleacher tickets, too, dude.
I respect your belief that the Black Sox scandal is worse. But it's certainly a valid argument that this one is. You say we can't know who did what (anyone pretending to parse out how many Clemens victories are tainted is an idiot). But that's exactly what's so horrible about this scandal. It affects every game for 15 to 20 years and we'll never know in what ways. At least with the Black Sox scandal we know exactly which games were affected. The Yankee Dynasty of the 90s is tainted because EVERY team in the 90s is tainted. The Mitchell Report named 80+ people based on only two basic sources. That means TONS more players were involved. I don't know why this doesn't bother the players who don't cheat more -- all their accomplishments (including Derek Jeter's) are suspect because we just don't know if they were cheating like so many people around them or how they benefited from that cheating. True, you'll never know that about anyone in any sport but when you KNOW cheating was rampant in an era, it colors everything. Until there's a cheating scandal in bull riding, I feel safe in considering the game pretty legit.
There is no comparison between the dead ball era and the steroids era because not everyone was playing by the same rules. Everyone had to deal with the same dead balls but not everyone was willing to cheat and risk their health.
I don't get your "sports is entertainment" argument so it doesn't matter if people cheat. the joy of professional sports is seeing people push their bodies and talents to the limit and accomplishing remarkable feats. If they cheat by using a corked bat or steroids or whatever, they're NOT accomplishing remarkable feats because those feats wouldn't be possible without cheating. A friend of mine took his son to see Mark McGwire hit a home run in that magical season and promised the kid they'd go to the Hall of Fame when McGwire was inducted. Now, they both feel like schmucks for having cheered on a fraud. Is that so hard to understand? McGwire claimed to be breaking a remarkable record thanks to his skill and determination. But in fact he could only do it by cheating.
Then you say there are lots of unfair advantages, like the Yankee payroll. That's rich, since I am virtually alone in our group complaining about the Yankees payroll and saying it cheapens their accomplishments. Usually I get mocked by you and others for suggesting our bloated payroll is an embarrassment. I am deeply concerned about large market teams dominating small ones, about the seeming inferiority of the National League, too much expansion and everything else that contributes to imbalance. I'm glad there's the salary cap and repeatedly argue for lowering our salary cap. When I used our payroll as a reason for not signing A-Rod and/or Santana, you basically laughed. NONETHELESS, baseball is constantly tweaking the rules to try and correct these imbalances, the Yankees are following the rules and everyone knows exactly how much they are spending on payroll. If the Yankees somehow kept their payroll lower y secretl funneling money to A-Rod via some backdoor scheme, I would be furious and they would deserve massive penalties. The rules can always be improved but in the case of payroll, the Yankees ain't breaking any.
I suggested guilt over pro wrestling not because you're responsible for their decisions but because of knowingly supporting an industry where that type of health risk and personal abuse is rampant, a la the porn industry. Obviously, we can't check the salaries of every fruit picker but people do buy fair trade coffee and sometimes makes efforts to make sure they're not supporting viciously bad industries. The pro wrestling of the 90s and early 2000s as bodies piled up and the industry ignored it was worthy of contempt.
Re: Pettitte. NO some cheating is not acceptable to me. I can find it in my heart to forgive Pettitte someday if in fact I decide to believe he only cheated briefly once (and if he makes a real apology). But that has forever besmirched my admiration for him. I never liked Roger Clemens. But I have a core of Yankee players I loved, mainly Pettitte, Jeter, Mo, Posada, Tino, Paulie and so on. I'll NEVER know how many of them cheated which I wish bothered them as much as it bothered me. If Jeter and Mo and Posada had been named in the report, that would have devastated me and I sincerely think I might have walked away from the game for a few years out of disgust. I don't know that they're innocent but there's nothing in their numbers to make me suspect. I don't give them a pass; I can't. But it's pretty easy to see the difference between knowing one beloved player cheated and knowing five or six on the dynasty cheated. That would be a much bigger blow. The fact that most of the players I cared about weren't in the report doesn't exonerate them but obviously it's not as upsetting.
Boxing -- individual match-ups can still generate coin and excitement. But boxing is a shadow of what it was in the 50s. Even in the 80s boxing wasn't nearly as dominant as it used to be. Today it is nothing. The sport is dead and young people watch ultimate fighting. A boxer might spark some interest but the sport is probably irevocably over and it will NEVER dominate the landscape the way it did in the first half of the 20h century. Surely you know that. So any sport can fall out of favor if the product is cheapened enough. People in entertainment know that.
Cheating is rampant. Few people are saints who go through life and never do something they regret or would like to do over. But cheating is not rampant. Smoking pot is not "cheating" in the moral sense. It's breaking a law but it's not cheating. I used it as an example of the fact that everyone lives by their own moral code.
Answer this one question: do you cheat when you compete in bowling? Would you use a speciallly rigged ball that could go straighter and was undetectable but against the rules? Would you wax down your lane in advance to make it easier for you or harder for your opponents? Would you pay the manager to turn on magnets installed under the alley so your metallic ball could be guided towards a strike? Just answer me if you would do any of these things while competing in your bowling tournaments? And how would you feel if you discovered your competitors were?
Post a Comment
<< Home