High on Steroids and Duplicity

Every morning I go through the same routine regarding the sports page. I take it out of the paper, fold it back to cover the front page, and stick it in the recycle bin. I see nothing of it. I don't want to anymore. I have done this faithfully every day for the past four years.

This morning, however, I couldn't help noticing the hockey column on the back page, and I tore it out because of something noteworthy that I will mention at the end of this piece. While doing that, I noticed another item that merited my attention, the steroid use testimony before Congress of Donald Fehr, head of the Major League Baseball Players Association. It was accompanied by a revealing commentary from Los Angeles Times Sports Editor Bill Plaschke.

Essentially Fehr said, "Steroids are bad, but don't force us to stop using them." He also said something else that is symptomatic of the wretched state of Major League Baseball and is yet another pillar in my comprehensive polemic against it. When asked why he opposes mandatory testing for steroids, he said, "One word: privacy."

The rage now is how reprehensible it is for ballplayers to be using steroids. It wrecks their bodies, it may kill them (and my goodness, think of their families!), the owners are exploiting them for monetary gain, and so forth. Dodgers shortstop Mark Grudzielanek even said something extremely profound, "There has to be a level playing field."

Um, excuse me. "There has to be a level playing field"? My word! Competitive integrity is on the line! This could be a bad thing! The very meaning of baseball is at stake! Call out the National Guard! The Department of Homeland Security! The Mayberry Town Police Detail! Get Barney Fife on this, golly gosh dang it -- we need the best!

See, this is what racks my nards, if you'll pardon the expression. There has been criminal manipulation of competitive integrity for years and years, and now with steroids we get "Day's has ta be da levoll playeenk feeold, 'nkay yuse guyz?"

The word Fehr easily could have substituted for "privacy" is "duplicity," as in, "One word: duplicity. You see, powerful Congresspersons, we don't want anyone to know what we do behind closed doors, and we don't have to let them know. That's our business. It may be really bad stuff, and I don't necessarily endorse it, but it is none of anyone's business. We can do drugs and it hurts no one but ourselves. We can also use free agency to manipulate competitive integrity and abuse baseball, lying to the fans and taking their money, but that's our business -- it's a free country."

And the rest of what I read in the piece -- stunning. John Burkett says he doesn't want to go to the All-Star Game in Milwaukee because it's all the evil, sinister, Satan-worshipping Bud Selig's fault. If I hear Selig used as a scapegoat for MLB's problems one more time I'm going to explode so violently that everyone will think another 9/11 just hit my neighborhood.

Plaschke finished his piece by saying, "Summer is looking better and better without them." Oh that people would actually believe this. Instead they'll continue going to games -- cynical me. Your typical all-American family will plunk down their hundred bones so they can see a night of their beloved steroid and money-pumped stars tossing around little white balls.

That hockey story? Yeah, it's hockey, and I know nothing about hockey -- I follow it less than I follow the other sports I don't follow at all. But the column pointed out simply that the Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup expressly because they had one of the highest payrolls in pro hockey and paid superstars -- they bought players -- to come win for them.

How ironic.

Everyone is screaming about steroids. "Steroids steroids steroids!" they scream. And on the very next page is the problem laid out in black and white, as it always has been. Competitive duplicity, free agency, the aristocratic conspiracy: right there, as plain as Don Fehr's audacity.

That stuff Fehr was saying about not having to let anyone know what they're doing? He's right. He's right! He can say it all with that putrid arrogance of his because the fans continue to pay him for doing it. As long as they continue enable all of this, the Powers-That-Be can commit murder with impunity. They act as if it is handed to them on a silver platter. How can you blame them?

So we start hearing from some of the fans. Are they ready to mean it enough to stop being a part of it? They may not have to work hard -- I hear a looming strike is a near certainty. But I wouldn't know.

Thank goodness.

EEEEEE! Contributing Editor David Beck mooga. Mooga mooga mooga.. Mungo yakitango tanga takita!

Copyright ©2002 by David Beck

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