February 15, 2005
Finger Pointing Time
There's an awful lot of finger pointing going on right now regarding steroids. Jose Canseco, of course, has his book and 60 Minutes interview. Murray Chass is pointing fingers at Yankees management for not heeding a signal that Giambi was using steroids. John Perricone is pointing fingers at the press for not being on the story 10 years ago. And the FBI is now pointing fingers at MLB for not heeding warnings (although MLB denies the FBI talked to them).
Folks, the only people who deserved to have fingers pointed at them are the players who illegally used steroids. These were grown ups who know the difference between right and wrong, and certainly know what's legal and illegal. In a way it's too bad the FBI investigation didn't go after the players as hard as the pushers. If the FBI had put a couple of big name baseball players in jail in the mid 1990's maybe we wouldn't be here.
Jay Jaffe has much more.
Update: U.S.S. Mariner also has an excellent post on the subject.
Posted by David Pinto at
02:36 PM
|
Cheating
|
TrackBack (0)
I agree that the players are to blame, but isn't MLB to blame, too, for allowing steroids (and other PEDs) to proliferate to the extent that they have?
Well, I wouldn't absolve the pushers, but other than that I agree 100%. The zero-sum nature of baseball's labor/management split always ensured that MLB could do nothing about steroids without the consent of the players; it was always unrealistic to expect MLB tongive up anything at the bargaining table to get agreement on this issue.
We fans have no one to blame but ourselves. These rumors and stories have been circulating for 10 years but we lined up to see Giambi and Sosa at home run derby. Had we reacted negatively, baseball would have stopped it a long time ago. But we didn't so they didn't. We just cheered them on.
I'm not sure about MLB not being to blame. Selig spent the last 10 years talking about how bad the economic problems were in the game, so it is not like he's afraid to hurt the game.
If MLB really cared about steroids, and not just image, they could have outed players or at least the issue. Once steroids became a big story, magically the union agreed to testing because it was hurting its players more to have the questions about steroids than any drug testing would hurt them. MLB only cares about steroids now because it is a big national story, so they could have cleaned it up 10 years ago. They knew, not just guessed like everybody else, but they still promoted the hell out of 1998. Now they want to throw all the blame on the players for dirtying the game, when the league was complicit in it for over a decade.
So let me see if I understand this correctly-- all the institutions involved in baseball are complicit in some players' use of steroids; but Abu Ghraib is just the work of a few bad apples? :-)
Folks, we can fix the blame or we can fix the problem, but its almost impossible to do both-- you can't look forward and backward at the same time. Assigning demerits on this issue will have no corrective effect on it and no preventative effect on the next one, so why bother?
I agree TLAK, fans are partly to blame, we've know about the rumors for years. Even without the alleged FBI tip, MLB knew of the rumors too, as well as seeing other sports like NFL and the Olympics putting in some steroid policy. Also the sports media (including you ESPN) for pumping up all the home runs and doing jack squat in investigative reporting to see if there was substance to the rumors. And the players for actually using the steroids.
Bad show all around.
I actually think Canseco's not too crazy. Getting mad at baseball players for using steroids is as ridiculous as getting mad at strippers for having breast implants.
I feel about as bad for Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, and Roger Maris as I do for Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren.