The Xlog <div id=”bleacher_report”></div>

“I believe baseball is a beautiful and exciting game, loved by millions–I among them–and I believe baseball an important, enduring American institution. It must assert and aspire to the highest principles–of integrity, of professionalism of performance, of fair play within its rules. It will come as no surprise that like any institution composed of human beings, this institution will not always fulfill its highest aspirations. I know of no worldly institution that does but this one, because it is so much a part of our history as a people, and because it has such a penchant on our national soul, has an obligation to the people for whom it is played to, its fans, and well-wishers to strive for excellence in all things to promote the highest ideals. I am told that I am an idealist. I hope so. I will continue to locate ideals I hold for myself and my country in the national game as well as in others of our national institutions.” — former Commissioner of MLB Bartlett Giamatti

Surely, many fans of The Simpsons have at one time seen the episode “Homer at The Bat” in which Mr. Burns infuses the Power Plant softball team with ringers from professional baseball in order to win a bet with a rival owner.

In my case, I remember when it was new in 1992.  The episode seemed to epitomize everything great: baseball, animation, humor and the greats of baseball, animation, and humor.  I had the episode recorded to watch and rewatch it on an antique called a VHS tape. 

At age nine, it became the first time I remember being able to tolerate watching and rewatching something in its entirety.  It also began my hobby of recording every episode of The Simpsons and other shows on VHS tapes, which I recently took to the dump.

Though I do not assert that the writers knew something we did not, I do believe that the episode now seems prescient … in retrospect.  In one case, the now infamous incident between George Steinbrenner and Don Mattingly about hair — was in fact foreshadowed by The Simpsons rather than mocked after the fact. 

What seems prescient to me is that the fictional team-owner Mr. Burns supplies a performance enhancing substance to the animated likeness of Ken Griffey Jr.  The writers meanwhile portrayed Jose Canseco as a hero when the writers had originally intended a storyline in which Canseco was a sleazebag — sounds like they had it right the first time.  Also to, that, the authority would condone the advantages of drug abuse so long as that behavior produces lucrative benefits — sounds like Bud Selig if you ask me; who should also be barred from the Hall of Fame.  (That though makes me wonder if the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame should apply asterisks to the psychedelic musicians of the 1960s for writing songs while on performance-enhancing drugs).

The last I checked though, Ozzie Smith never fell from the face of the Earth (that honor belongs to Rafael Palmeiro), yet Barry Bonds has been the one with a grotesquely swollen jaw from performance enhancing substances rather than Ken Griffey Jr, and Roger Clemens is only similarly clucking around like a chicken.  The following though is not so much another dissertation on who juiced when, why, where and with what… but rather, juice for thought.

[I do not insinuate juicing by anyone not already accused by the Mitchell Report]

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I remember that spring, summer and fall in 1992 quite well, but also 1993 and 1994.  Though I do not recall every-last detail, I still recall the chronology and those memories from this, there and to that.  From the dreams and obsessive desire for a Super Nintendo (another antique) the previous Christmas and the fever I had the night before that Christmas in 1991.  Not sure if it was because I decided to read a Nintendo Power about the new Super Nintendo during the pro-life rally in downtown Santa Cruz in the summer of 1991.

There were newborn kittens that March in 1992 and one of which, named Rascal, was run over by a car.  I mention that, because I thought it was interesting that the band Rascal Flatts is named after a dog named Rascal that was run over by a car.

To learning geography at the breakfast table and then mastering the GeoSafari and learning the Erector set, both of which were received rather than the Super Nintendo.  For those who don’t know me, I would one day astound people with what seemed like a completely trivial mastery of world capitals (there was more to it than that but superfluously it did seem trivial).  My mechanical abilities however, are not exactly up to the same par – good but not the same level.

There were original Ninja Turtles and trips to the local card shop, Collector’s Corner.  Ten years later at the age of 19 in 2002, I would find that store-sign by a dumpster behind a Quik Stop and lug it home.  There began my process of shedding body weight and the weight of memories, by hauling home a heavy-ass piece of my childhood, walking up the hill as cars sped by, and past Soquel High School and “Blue Ball Park,” and past the graveyard along Old San Jose Road.  My dad would eventually use that board after a full teardown of a chimney.  He used the board to cover the hole on a house that looked eerily similar to that of my great grandmother’s, a house that I had not seen since the age of four.  When I mentioned that the house reminded me of Vovoo’s, my dad’s response was, “Good memory.”

That was the summer of 2003 and the “Total Recall” campaign of Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor of California, in which I wrote many sketches for a radio producer, Bruce Maiman (who is now a host at KFBK in Sacramento), and college essays while on RockStar highs.  The summer of the rise of the machines; a reloaded matrix; a Claymation version of Conan O’Brien with Johnny Knoxville and later the 10 year Anniversary of Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and the beginning of futility for the Oakland Raiders after losing to their former coach in the Super Bowl.  The summer in which I watched Finding Nemo, Punch Drunk Love and The Graduate (at Yosemite National Park), and the Great Grid Blackout which seemed fitting after the rest of the country had mocked California in 2000 and 2001 for the Enron manufactured rolling brownouts.  Of course, 2003 was also the first year in which the war in Iraq began.  Alas though, nothing like “Oh, What a Night” by The Four Seasons.

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I tangentially digress though, as usual.

There were little league games in 1992 in which I was hit by a pitch.  Games played with Russell Martinez, Matt Morales, Mickey Adams, Robert Stratton, Morgan Bouchard, Max Hodges, Landon, Willie, and others (I probably have the yearbook somewhere, so I apologize for not taking the time to look).  Watching in awe as Russell, Matt and others would regularly hit home runs, while the only one to my credit had occurred the year before and earned the nickname, “Homer-bob.”  Faded memories by now, even for me; only the true knowledge that it happened, and evokes feelings reminiscent to that of Bob Wills & Texas Playboys singing “Faded Love.”

The name of that little league team in 1992: The Yankees.  So please, don’t call me a Yankee hater.  We would lose in the Capitola-Soquel little league playoffs to the Padres.  They eventually lost to the Twins, who were coached by my first little league coach, Charlie Thomas, who I didn’t particularly like and would even target on the annual Closing Day water-fight, but it made want to win even more.  In future years, I would have one homer robbed by Michael ‘Hammerin’ Hearst in a little league playoff game between us, The Padres, and the Red Sox in 1994, when he quickly climbed and then jumped from the centerfield fence with an extended arm, which sparked a rally in which they still lost, but it went to the bitter end. 

We defeated the Braves a few days later for the little league title.  That became the pinnacle achievement in my elementary school days, which had been an emotional rollercoaster that would eventually rear its ugly head once again.  That summer, the OJ Simpson saga began and Major League Baseball went on strike.  There went my faith in baseball and the feeling of victory in baseball … and well, life.

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I then thought of pro baseball players as mostly greedy-ass jerks — though my only grief then with OJ was that the Bronco-chase preempted Urkel.

Though a year later in 1995, I would again play in the little league title game.  I was a Met and we lost to the White Sox, in spite of the fact that their banner said, “Go Wihte Sox.”  That game was played on June 15, 1995 and came after a game on the previous Saturday of June 10, 1995 against the little league A’s, in which I which I had fulfilled my friend, John Shippy’s, worst nightmare: to be the last out of a game.  Perhaps my jadedness with baseball motivated my decision to catch that foul ball, but I cannot say that with certainty.

Had I simply dropped the ball — when I knew that it was John’s worst nightmare — perhaps, the game on June 15 would have ended differently; perhaps I would have been more aware socially, and less unintentionally selfish.  Instead, that symbolically began my life as a social chameleon/comedian on a weekend that premiered an episode of Spider-Man entitled “Day of the Chameleon.”  I would also throw-up on John’s leg the next day during a birthday party, at the end of the Wipeout ride at the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz (the ride is no longer there).  Though my jadedness did lead my interest in movies that summer, when I decided to watch the Siskel & Ebert show, which featured a review of A Walk in the Clouds.

Though in 1998, my interest in baseball reignited with of course, the home-run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.  That though was after being jaded by the idea that achievement has meaning.  I had turned to science fiction instead, and ultimately won tickets to a Star Trek convention by answering a question about an episode I had never seen (“Arena”).  My interest though re-began nonetheless.

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Here I go back again, going down the only road I have ever known.

I would spend that summer of 1992 at games in Oakland against Minnesota and the White Sox.  The 1992 Oakland Athletics won the division that year and featured of course, Dennis Eckersley, Rickey Henderson, Rich ‘Goose’ Gossage, Ruben Sierra, Bob Welch, Terry Steinbach, and of course, Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco.  It would be Oakland’s last divisional title of the 1990s and the beginning of the futility that led to Billy Beane and the ways of Moneyball, and the last divisional title until the Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada powered A’s eight years later in 2000…when I was seventeen.

Although my year at seventeen was definitely unlike that of Frank Sinatra: Endless pedantry in high school, video games, recording Law & Order episodes, and listening to Simon & Garfunkel sing “Old Friends” in Central Park would hardly qualify.  The year also involved Elian Gonzalez down in Florida, The Whole Nine Yards and X-Men, the old John McCain which ironically was a younger John McCain, Dennis Miller on Monday Night Football, the Monday Night Miracle, the FALN controversy, an endless recount of chads down in Florida.  I also cannot forget either the start of the short-lived revival of the Oakland Raiders with Tim Brown, Rich Gannon, Jon Gruden, Bruce Allen, and Al Davis.

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All right, back to future.

I still remember some-guy yelling, “Minnesota sucks,” in 1992, and so I asked my dad in confusion, if he thought the Twins could hear him.  I was only nine; at least though it provides proof for where I was.  I do remember though, watching the Twins and A’s in July of that summer, when a no-name named Randy Ready hit a grand slam and how cool I thought it was because I had his baseball card.

The game I remember was in Oakland against the White Sox.  My dad, aka ‘coach’ had took me and a kid from the team, Willie, because he wanted to do something nice because of Willie’s tumultuous home-life, which my dad understood from his own.  What sticks out in my mind the most however is looking through the binoculars to see Frank Thomas, aka “The Big Hurt.”  Though this connection is only superficial, it leads to a tangential parable on the state of modern baseball and all walks-of-life.  Those superficial connections with tangential parables are often what create loyal fans.  Just ask Arizona Cardinals owner Bill Bidwell, who was a ball boy for the Chicago Cardinals in 1947 when the Cardinals won the NFL championship.

Perhaps this mythically ecumenical “Big Hurt” pervades us all; motivates us to succeed on the far-away thought that success might fill that void yet then comes more and more, then the catharsis sets in and you’re numb to its effects until the bottom drops out; while others revel in pleasure rather than try, before the bottom drops out.  The question then is how you fill that ‘big hurt’ and with what, when, where and why.  Refrain from indirectly denigrate however, the parents who do make active attempts to be role models.  They aren’t the problem – money-grubbing liars who subvert the dreams of kids are the problem.

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For those who wonder: what exactly justifies your righteous indignation?  I would say — they did.  The players earn their money on the assumption that fans want to see statistics that lead to wins; therefore, they went to steroid means to achieve those statistics and in effect their paycheck, which is paid by loyal and sometimes fair-weather fans.  Thus, if the juiced players want money and thus strip the subjectively human love for the game and in effect part of what makes people human — then I say, that makes the fans more than justified to berate those players and to say they don’t belong in the Hall of Fame.  They are no better than thieves angered by fellow thieves that steal what they have stolen.

They were young once to: How would they have felt if they learned their sports-heroes had been frauds?  Players like: Jim Rice, Carlton Fisk, Jim Palmer, Catfish Hunter, Joe DiMaggio, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson, Carl Yastrzemski, Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Denny McLain, Al Kaline, Bob Gibson, Mickey Mantle, Lou Brock, Ted Williams, Maury Wills, Sandy Koufax, Don Driesdale.  Continuing on, Juan Marichal, Willie McCovie, Reggie Jackson, Nolan Ryan, (but not Pete Rose) and so on and so forth. 

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How would you have felt if you learned they cheated for greatness?  Perhaps had that been true, the course of sports history would be completely different — because the players of today might never have wanted to play. 

To me, the only way that the writers should induct the juicers into the Hall of Fame, is if and only if, the juicers turn over 90% of the money they’ve made from endorsements and other contracts while juicing to their former teams or to charities.  To promote awareness a) against steroids, b) against dishonest achievements, and c) of the game’s true legacies, because I do not accept the belief that because they are statistically the “best” that they then earn an unconditional induction into the Hall of Fame.

It is like arguing that: if I can fake it ‘til I make it, then you can’t deny me the fruits of what I so rightfully stole.  Thus, the only means for their redemption is, chose what matters more: their ill-gotten money or their legacy.  They only get one.  The Baseball Writers of America though, hold the keys to the juicers kingdom, and so, if those players want in: then the Writers have an obligation to demand answers and changes rather than just simple apologies.  Hold their legacies for ransom.  Until then, they are just bums who thought they could transcend the legacies and embodiment of the game by running-up the stats.  If they truly love the game, they’ll pay-up for their redemption.  The cure is NOT worse than the disease.

I truly would say — throw the baby out with the bath water unless they sacrifice themselves for the achievements that they stole and now want a legacy for.  The bottom line is — the juicers should have to humble themselves before the fans, if they want recognition from fans through the history books.  I have no problem with blacking-out/whiting-out them from history unless they do so, as they blacked-out/whited-out the dreams of an untold number of fans after the 1994 strike.  Perhaps ‘roid rage hindered their abilities to negotiate in 1994, but I cannot prove that with certainty.  They though can accept the amalgamated truth of what they know, but that which we cannot prove.

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By now, you the reader must be wondering: if baseball and sports has jaded you, why do you watch and write about it, and why do you ramble along a tangential timeline?  The answer is simple, I still believe in the idea that some players and teams transcend the fray of Hall of Fame snake-oilers and truly believe in the game they play and that sports heroes exist, as those abstractly amalgamated as Joe DiMaggio by Paul Simon in, “Mrs. Robinson.”  Like Kurt Warner, Larry Fitzgerald or Adrian Wilson and the Arizona Cardinals.  Alternatively, David Eckstein, Mark Ellis, Eric Byrnes, or Marco Scutaro and I still believe to in Ken Griffey Jr and Frank Thomas.

As for the tangential timeline thing… not sure — that is just how I think when it comes to retrospect.  What happens later sometimes proves something after the fact, on something that happened earlier; and what happens earlier sometimes affects the future.  It is either that, or I watched Citizen Kane too much, but also thought too much about that token trophy from Charlie Thomas with that mythically ecumenical inscription, “All Heart.”

“I believe baseball is a beautiful and exciting game, loved by millions–I among them–and I believe baseball an important, enduring American institution. It must assert and aspire to the highest principles–of integrity, of professionalism of performance, of fair play within its rules. It will come as no surprise that like any institution composed of human beings, this institution will not always fulfill its highest aspirations. I know of no worldly institution that does but this one, because it is so much a part of our history as a people, and because it has such a penchant on our national soul, has an obligation to the people for whom it is played to, its fans, and well-wishers to strive for excellence in all things to promote the highest ideals. I am told that I am an idealist. I hope so. I will continue to locate ideals I hold for myself and my country in the national game as well as in others of our national institutions.” — former Commissioner of MLB Bartlett Giamatti

Before people continue to demand criminal penalties against baseball players for “obstructing justice” rather than illegal use of steroids.  Read on.  But before that, I must say — if Bud Selig is reading this — Miguel Tejada should not be deported. 

Selig is no better than Bernie Madoff; except his victims aren’t dopey rich people, but the millions of innocent kids that have been robbed (literally and figuratively) by the promises of baseball (“larceny by false promise”).

If you ask me, the MLB no longer represents baseball — just corporate buffoons playing shell-games between each other, and who pull strings to misuse the government to assasinate the careers of baseball players in order to extract steroids from the MLB so that Owners would no longer have to pay the players that become beloved for juiced-stats, all to put an end to a monster that they gave life to.  The players are just fools and tools that followed the money.  The players though, may deserve derision but they do not belong in prison or to be deported.

Selig can change that rather than trivial records, and I will — and I hope others — continue to hold Selig’s hand to the hot-plate until real changes are made.  Be ‘the good face’ of baseball, rather than ‘the goon face.’  A real solution to the problem would be a true salary cap rather than a luxury tax, and to adopt models similar to that of the NFL.

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Put Me in Coach, I’m Ready to Prosecute

The US Department of Justice should consider anti-trust investigations against Major League Baseball since 1996, with the motive being, the false-promises of homeruns, memorabilia, and PAYING to see history in motion; all in order to restore the trust of the public that they had eviscerated with the 1994 strike.

There is clearly nothing sanctimonious about the MLB anymore, and should be treated like any other corrupt corporation.  They don’t care about legacies as they’ve claimed: Why else would the Yankees ‘burn’ down the house that Ruth built?  Yankee Stadium should be designated by Congress as a national landmark and thus prevent the relocation of it.

After all, the Yankees justify the relocation of Yankee Stadium for their new stadium, because they need more money to pay the players.  Yeah, the price-tags of which were inflated by the culture of juiced-stats created by the Commissioner and Owners.  I mean, what other corporation in America would tolerate substance-abuse in the workplace (other than The Home Depot)?  Not only have the Owners and Commissioner tolerated the abuse of substance in the workplace, they profit from it.  Despicable. 

And I would have thought more from Selig who helped establish the child abuse prevention network and serves on the board for businesses against drunk driving. He is also a trustee of the Boys and Girls Club, and was lauded by Senator Chris Dodd for doing so, when Selig officially became MLB Commissioner in 1998. Speech about Bud Selig.

They may or may not have known *specifically* which player used what if anything, and under which trainer — they did however know that substance-abuse was a ‘global’ problem in their sport and did nothing to stop it, because they in fact, supported it and promoted it.  Until of course the fans started to herald the juiced-players rather than the executives who knew the ‘global’ truth.

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How to Fix The Hall of Fame: Be The Good Face not The Goon Face

Face the facts, we’re stuck with juiced stats.  Stuck with players that epitomized the game transcendently by the abuse of substances.  Here though is my simple solution to fix the cancer of juiced-stats. 

Change the parameters of who gets inducted into the Hall of Fame.  Rather than partition the players within the Hall for trivial stats, simply employ a more open view of who to induct in order to restore the true virtues of the game.  Rather than only recognize those who dominated the game, recognize the people and communities that put those players in position to dominate.

By that I mean in all seriousness, recognize people that have dedidcated significant periods of time to the health of Little League Baseball, to High School Baseball and College Baseball, not just the players that dominated Major League Baseball.  Plus, rather than induct individual juicers — induct them collectively as the ‘the BALCO bombers,’ or something like that.

As of now, the Hall does not recognize the great sacrifices made by parents, community organizers (ahem) and teachers that ultimately put people like Barry Bonds in position to dominate the professional game.  The truth however is, that s sign of a healthy and vibrant community is the total success of local sports.

I would even consider international players and women’s softball players for induction.  If the Hall of Fame won’t allow for changes, then just junk the juicers in a Hall of Shame.  Seriously.

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Sympathy for The Juicers

Despite what Jerome Holtzman thinks, Bud Selig is the Worst Commissioner Ever!  Not just in baseball, but in the cumulative history of prehistorical and historical world sports.  Period.  And it’s not just because of some Rafael Palmeiro rookie cards that aren’t worth the cheap labor they were packaged with. 

And neither just because the record breaking home-run balls of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds that had been foolishly purchased by comic-book artist Todd McFarlane for millions — are now only metaphysically and fittingly worth being in the yard of “the beast” from The Sandlot. 

Clearly though, these juicers might stab their butts with steely syringes but they just can’t kill the beast.  They are all just prisoners here of their own device!  Welcome to the Hotel California!  

Here are the other reasons.

Now that people like Roger Clemens, Miguel Tejada and Barry Bonds face prison time or deportation because they lied to Congress about steroid-use in March of 2005 (remember that date), it begs the question: Why were they called before Congress to begin with?

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El Destructor de los Grandes Juegos (You Tell Me What Is)

Though I’ve been critical of athletes for steroid-abuse, the heart of my ire is mostly that they went along with corruption and deceit in pursuit of greed, rather than stand-up to that fray by speaking out.  They can run-around with all the excuses in the world, but the reality is, they didn’t have the *balls* to do the right thing.  Funny thing is, Human Growth Hormones don’t appear to do much in the way of human growth.

They didn’t do so, because they knew they would have been shunned from the game and would have potentially lost everything they had; plus the Commissioner and Owners were peddling those drugs, regardless of the physical or moral health issues those drugs would have on the game and society.  So who cares?

Sure, steroids have medicinal purposes (for people with breathing-problems) but another drug also had medicinal use once: heroin.  Like Lou Reed, they commonly stuck a spike into their vein and didn’t know where they were going in pursuit of money and baseball’s kingdom known as the Hall of Fame.

They though would not abuse heroin and think it was okay, but apparently they will in effect steal the medication of those they probably picked on in school.  Funny thing is, steroids might pump testosterone around the tailbones of the spineless, but they don’t make men.  Funny how, ‘heroine’ has become a dirty sounding word in society thanks to drug-abuse.  So maybe steroid should be a dirty sounding word to.

In fact, there are greater heroes (or heroines) in sports in general than those dirtbags, people like Brandie Chastain or Jennie Finch that play the game regardless of whether they get praised or receive paychecks far more bloated than the skull of Barry Bonds.  (Actually, softball was recently removed from the Olympic games.)

The purpose of the sport has always been to channel competition, angst and victory; not for gilded bums to show-off the affects of drug-abuse.  After all, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.

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Get Up, Stand Up For What’s Right (Even If It Herniates Your Testicles)

It took a no-name to write a book called Juiced in which that writer would double-dip by profiting from running-up the stats in baseball, and then profiting from a book to expose everyone else who did. 

We need more Roberto Clemente’s and Sandy Koufax’s and fewer dirtbags that profit from the truth about their deceit.  I truly don’t want to fathom the idea of the Hall of Fame becoming the Hotel California and an empire of dirt.

Dishonesty (cheating) becomes the mean (middle) of their legacies, so yes, I’m more than willing to arbitrarily impose that frame on their legacies.  For they decided to base their careers on stats and so, I have no qualms about imposing the rules of statistics onto their hollow humanity.

That being that everything in their career is just in standard deviation of the mean — dishonesty in pursuit of (ill-gotten) money.  Should they get inducted into the Hall of Fame?  My opinion is, only by extraordinary action do those players deserve consideration; otherwise, the answer is no.  And the writers who induct players into the Hall of Fame should be the vanguard, rather than sit around and wait for bent facts from the Commissioner and Owners, and the reactionary mutterings of paycheck puppets.  After all, it was a delivery boy for the New York Journal-American that is credited for *discovering* Sandy Koufax, not the scouts and combines of neo-yore.  The journalists need to stop acting like defense attorneys in the court of public opinion, and more like prosecutors – in pursuit of the truth – in the court of public opinion.

Even though, Jason Giambi is currently the only baseball player to be treated for cancer that likely resulted from steroid-abuse: the deceit of steroids has become so malignant that it has only served to spread cancerous growths in the record books that Bud Selig needs to extract in order to restore the legacies of baseball.  There is a cure for that type of cancer.  However, Selig is too lost in his own ineptitude and complicity with Owners that he to does not have the *balls* to do the right thing.  Selig, once a visionary, has now become knee-deep in the corruption of the shell-game between the players and Owners by being beholdent to the Owners.  Rather than be a true independent voice.  Selig now, wants to stand by and indirectly accusing his critics of hurting his feelings, when the reality is — if you can’t address significant problems as head of your organization, or if a problem spurns during your tenure, then it your obligation to fix the problems with extraordinary action.  Rather than sit by and watch the river flow and hope that your rocks change the current.

“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.”  (guess who?)

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The Dingers of Summer

For all I care, the Steroid Era can become known as the Selig Era of Baseball as one facet in a dystopian New Gilded Age of Wall Street corruption and Web 2.0 co-option, but only radical action can save the game from the course it’s on.

Otherwise, the game will slowly fade into the ether as a meaningless game in which buffoons hit a ball, scratch their shrunken nuts, and collect a paycheck because no one really cares how they do what they do.  In redundancy, Selig needs to take extraordinary action to restore the humanity of the game.

After all, the only reason that Milwaukee has the Milwaukee Brewers is because of the small piece of humanity in the orginal owner, Bud Selig, who cherished a minor league team in Milwaukee as a youth named the Milwaukee Brewers. 

So after the Braves left Boston and stopped in Milwaukee en route to their eventual home of Atlanta, Selig purchased the Seattle Pilots in 1970 (in bankruptcy court) and relocated that franchise to Milwaukee which of course, became the Milwaukee Brewers.

One day, a Senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone, and a Representative from Michigan, John Conyers, would sponsor legislation in 2001 to prevent those type of actions with the Fairness in Antitrust in National Sports (FANS) Act of 2001 and prevent the contraction of the Montreal Expos, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Oakland Athletics and Minnesota Twins. 

The legislation, “seeks to make baseball subject to normal antitrust laws when seeking to move or eliminate franchises.” http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/article/60906

ESPN Magazine’s Peter Keating wrote contraction “is just another of the owners’ misguided stabs at grabbing back cash they’ve been throwing at players” (ESPN MAGAZINE, 11/12 issue).

The Expos now reside in Washington DC as the Nationals, the A’s and Twins have contended in the postseason, while Tampa Bay dropped the ‘devil’ and appeared in the World Series of 2008.

And Bud Selig has done nothing but look like a fool.  In 2002 for ending the All Star game in a tie and having to clean-up the mess of steroids made by his office and the owners with the dystopian complicity of the ethically diminutive, who have now been forced to shoulder the blame with prison. 

Perhaps, one day their rookie cards will be used as shivs because they aren’t worth much more than that.  I’m not sure that those cards would be a warm place with no memory of the bloated stats.  But they once gazed upon the dingers of summer flashin.’

“The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”  (guess who?)

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Their Sons are Doomed by their Own Invisible Hands

With that said, the real issue at hand is: Who created this cesspool in which the difference between an Average Pro and an Average Joe is a connection to a drug-dealer?  In this ret-con universe created by Bud Selig, Cloudy Russo as a hotdog vendor could potentially be just as capable of playing pro-ball as the players on the field.

But as Jesse Jackson might say: Those players deserve derision, they don’t deserve prison!  For all in all, they are just another brick in the wall.  And behind that brick wall: You can still hear the pleas from Fortunato to Montressor to the tune of Toby Keith, and like Fortunato, the Selig Era can’t die with a cough for unintentional grievances.

As I’ve made fairly clear, the juicers deserve poetic justice in the court of public opinion as a means to compel true human growth.  They do not however deserve to be locked-up for not knowing how to explain to Congress why they went along in a dystopian manner with what had been condoned by the Big Brothers of the Commissioner and the Owners, and in effect, be forced to carry the burden of executive incompetence.

“Men’s ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.”  (guess who?)
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The Nature of Their Game

Why exactly did Congress call those players to testify and not drill the Owners and Commissioner and force them to expose the compromise of their integrity and face prison time for lying before Congress?

Hmm… could it be that the President of the United States in 2005 was, former owner of the Texas Rangers George W. Bush, who — until the steroids controversies — had looked like a buffoon because he had traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox in the early 1990s?

So maybe just maybe, the President of the United States was willing to pull strings and abuse the purpose of Congress and government to settle contract disputes (and personal grievances) for his buddies by exposing a bunch of neanderthals who would demand more money from owners via usage of the drugs peddled by the owners.

So maybe just maybe, the owners believed that the success of the juicers had just *trickled down* from the top, and could no longer bare to deal with agent regurgitation of, ”show me the money,” for players who they knew had not truly earned it.  Their humanity must be better than your humanity.  Paging Dr. Frankenstein!  Code blue for egos, stat!

Even in 2005, I had a feeling of ‘deja vu’ while watching the coverage of the Steroid Hearings that March, and then made the abstract leap that it was reminiscent of the McCarthyism in the House on Un-American Activities against Communists in Hollywood back in the 1950s.  Why?

Why were those players called before Congress?  Perhaps, the Commissioner and Owners needed scapegoats for the mess they created, and those scapegoats now face prison for simply towing the company line and not knowing how to explain it before Congress, because they didn’t realize that the choices they made to juice-up were just the creation of the creeps above them.

Congress was just a giant chess piece in a shell-game between the Owners and players over skyrocketing contracts.

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Why The Jury Should Nullify the Verdict Against Bonds (It’s Alive!  It’s Alive!)

Perhaps, the Commissioner and Owners had come to the conclusion that steroids had run their course in baseball, and that contracts were becoming too pricey and a financial burden that could potentially lead to more revenue sharing that was needed to save those franchises that were nearly *eliminated* from the game in 2001 because George Mitchell had concluded that those teams could not *compete* with their finances.  Those franchises had been saved only because Paul Wellstone and John Conyers had stepped in to prevent contraction in the political cloud of September 11, 2001 and eventually Enron. 

“I don’t think that any of us ever believed that the disparity, both in terms of payroll and gross revenue, would get to what it is so far,” baseball commissioner Bud Selig, the former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers.  In other words, they got in over their heads with their facilitation of steroids, and thus wanted to end it.

After all, it was Alex Rodriguez who signed with the Texas Rangers (ahem) to the tune of 250 million in the year 2000, and Jason Giambi who signed with the New York Yankees to the tune of 120 million in 2001.  And who could forget Scott Boras?  O, Manny Ramirez where art thou?

And so, Selig and the Owners wanted to remove the steroids that they had promoted in order to bring down the price-tags in order to help those franchises survive within their monopoly and prevent further revenue sharing, because the more money they had to pay for a player, the more revenue that they had to share with a team like the Twins.  The Minnesota Twins in fact had been in the black as a result of revenue sharing, yet the state of Minnesota was unwilling to finance a new stadium.

The only way to turn off the Manchurian Candidates from the juice was to expose them, and thus prevent contracts from continuing to skyrocket.  They then were able to capitalize on the sublimated public hatred for Barry Bonds via steroids and altruism in defense of sport’s records.  Yeah, Bonds is an ethical dirtbag — but so was Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter.  Yet, neither of them belong or belonged in prison; thus, I hope that the jury is implored to nullify a verdict against Barry Bonds.

They had of course, former Senator George Mitchell to expose those players, who of course, had chaired a blue-ribbon committee in Congress which concluded that money was the only way to compete in baseball—those conclusions of course, were disproven by the Moneyball ways and The Unbearable Truth of Billy Beane. 

The former front office employee of the Boston Red Sox, George Mitchell of course, *coincidentally* did not report steroid use by a player of the Boston Red Sox, except Mo Vaughn.  And we all know how the management of the Boston Red Sox felt about him.  Hmmm.  Must have been Mitchell’s reward for executing their witch-hunt to settle contract disputes.  The other Owners got to burn the legacy of the book Moneyball in a way that would make George Orwell and Ray Bradbury wince.

Ironically, the failure of Billy Beane as a pro, and the simultaneous ascension of teammate and juicer Lenny Dykstra in the 1980s, is likely what turned on the light-bulb as to the benefits of steroids.  After all, power can be acquired but contact cannot be taught.  http://www.slate.com/id/2180070/

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.” (guess who?)

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I Was So Much Older Then I’m Younger Than That Now

In all the time that Congress spent questioning baseball players about steroids in a witch-hunt, thanks to the connections that Selig had with President George W. Bush, in an effort to ‘clean up’ the game by exposing those who collected big paychecks from the Owners by juicing-up: the truth was ranted but never cogently so (at least, to my knowledge).  That being, why should Congress waste time on contract disputes when there was a war in Iraq and Afghanistan, a war on terror, and an inflated real-estate economy that would eventually bring down an economic house of cards made entirely from Queens of Spades?

More importantly though, the true victims of this shell-game of steroids (but who’s running the shell game?) are not the baseball players, not the owners, not the baseball or sports fans, not even those who just collect crap in hopes that it will unlock the universe of their egos in a way that rhymes with the bleating animals from Pet Sounds.

I might argue against making money for injecting drugs in your butt, but some might assert that I’m doing nothing more than speaking out of my ass.  Pish, posh!

The true victims were back in 2005, when the Congress and government in general, could have been preparing for, I dunno, natural disasters.  Turned out, that deep down in Louisiana back in the summer of 2005 along the Gulf Coast: Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita would destroy the city of New Orleans.  Instead, the country was forcibly more enamored (pro or con) earlier that year, by a shell-game and witch-hunt between owners and players over who gets to cash-in from shooting-up.  I guess that as long as, “I get mine” is the sum and whole of the law, that will be the true legacy of the Selig Era.

Won’t someone please tell me why Bush should not be in prison for wasting the public’s time to settle contract disputes for his buddies to the ultimate detriment of the people who truly needed the government’s assistance?  Those are the questions in need of investigation, not questions about steroids.

I’m not saying that Bush should be tried for murder in the cases of Hurricane Katrina and Rita, but it is clear to me that his abuse of power to settle private contract disputes and personal grievances detracted from the valuable time and services of a government that was unable to diligently respond to the people of the Gulf Coast in the summer of 2005.

After all that Bush has done and has been accused of doing, wouldn’t it be great for him to go down for abusing power by wasting government time and money in order to help his buddies settle contract disputes and the personal grievances he must of had about his own ineptitude as owner of the Texas Rangers?  Now that would be poetic justice. 

                  –In Memoriam of the victims of Hurricane Katrina and Rita–

             –In Memoriam of Senator Paul Wellstone and Family from Minnesota and the Others Aboard that Plane–

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Abstract References (used for or influenced opinions):

“1984″; Orwell, George; 1948

“Abstracts”; James, Bill; 1977

“Another Brick in the Wall, Prt 2”; Pink Floyd; The Wall; 1979

“Burning Down the House”; Byrnes, David; Talking Heads; Speaking in Tongues; 1983

“Cask of Amontillado, The”; Poe, Edgar Allan; 1846

“Centerfield”; Fogerty, John; Centerfield; 1984

“Chimes of Freedom”; Dylan, Bob; Another Side of Bob Dylan; 1964

“Communist Manifesto, The”; Marx, Karl; Engels, Friedrich; 1848

“Dollar Sign on the Muscle”; Kerrane, Kevin; U. of Nebraska; 1984

“Even Such is Time”; Raleigh, Sir Walter; 1618

“Get Up, Stand Up”; Marley, Bob; Tosh, Peter; 1973

“Hang on to Your Ego”; Wilson, Brian; Pet Sounds; 1966/1999

“Heroin”; Reed, Lou; The Velvet Underground; The Velvet Underground and Nico; 1967

“Homer at the Bat”; Swartzwelder, Jon; The Simpsons; 1992

“Hotel California”; The Eagles; Hotel California; 1976

“Hurt”; Reznor, Trent; Nine Inch Nails; Downward Spiral; 1994

“Fahrenheit 451″; Bradbury, Ray; 1953

“Fifteen Minutes of Fame”; Warhol, Andy; 1968

“Frankenstein”; Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft; 1891

“French Connection, The”; Tidyman, Ernest; 1971

“If—”; Kipling, Rudyard; 1895

“It’s a Little Too Late”; Keith, Toby; CMT Video; 2006

“Jerry McGuire”; Crowe, Cameron; 1996

“Johnny B. Goode”; Berry, Chuck; 1958

“Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy”; Leavy, Jane; 2003

“Man of Constant Sorrow”; Unknown; O, Brother Where Art Thou Soundtrack; 2000

“Manchurian Candidate, The”; Condon, Richard; Frankenheimer, John; 1962

“Me and Bobbie McGee”; Kristofferson, Kris; 1969

“Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game”; Lewis, Michael; 2003

“Mr. Greed”; Fogerty, John; Centerfield; 1984

“My Back Pages”; Dylan, Bob; Another Side of Bob Dylan; 1964

“Night Game, The”; Pinsky, Robert

“Nullification”; Law & Order; 1997

“Oedipus The King”; Sophocles; 429 BC

“Sandlot, The”; Evans, David; 1993

“Sanctuary”; Law & Order; 1994

“Shawshank Redemption, The”; King, Stephen; 1994

“Sympathy for The Devil”; The Rolling Stones; Beggars Banquet; 1968

“The Gilded Age: A Tail of Today”; Twain, Mark; Warner, Charles Dudley; 1873

“Three Men and a Comic Book;” Martin, Jeff; The Simpsons; 1991 

“To an Athlete Dying Young”; Housman, A.E.; 1896

“Traffic”; Gagan, Stephen; Soderbergh, Steven; 2000

“Unbearable Lightness of Being, The”; Kundera, Milan; 1984

“Vanz Kant Danz”; Forgerty, John; Centerfield; 1984

“Wealth of Nations, The”; Smith, Adam; 1776

“White Rabbit”; Law & Order; 1994

“Worst Episode Ever”; Doyle, Larry; The Simpsons; 2001

“I believe baseball is a beautiful and exciting game, loved by millions–I among them–and I believe baseball an important, enduring American institution. It must assert and aspire to the highest principles–of integrity, of professionalism of performance, of fair play within its rules.  It will come as no surprise that like any institution composed of human beings, this institution will not always fulfill its highest aspirations.  I know of no worldly institution that does but this one, because it is so much a part of our history as a people, and because it has such a penchant on our national soul, has an obligation to the people for whom it is played to, its fans, and well-wishers to strive for excellence in all things to promote the highest ideals.  I am told that I am an idealist.  I hope so. I will continue to locate ideals I hold for myself and my country in the national game as well as in others of our national institutions.” — former Commissioner of MLB Bartlett Giamatti.

I accept it, even if I cannot prove it. I accept that my relentless pursuit of the truth by the reporting of facts combined with literary perceptions has made me a man on an island too many.  I accept the fact that I am as brutally honest about myself as I am about others because I am not a hypocrite.  I accept that others believe that a person must earn an air of credibility in order to speak their mind, because they think that acceptance of their opinion is the only thing that separates them from the crazily amongst us. 

Although, I would definitely like to get a call from ESPN (I need a job): Does Around the Horn take bloggers?  Probably not after I suggested major changes to be made to that show.

I though, believe that what drives a person crazily is the relentless pursuit to have their will accepted by others (e.g. cult leaders)  I may speak my mind, and I articulate it the best I can via sarcasm, satire, abstractions, literary perceptions and stone-cold facts, but I by no means expect that you must agree. 

All I can be is a witness.

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What Would Billy Do? / You Break It, You Buy It

Unfortunately, ‘facts’ do not always tell the whole truth. I hope though that I at least serve as a catalyst for your own thought process rather than rely on drugs and alcohol to lower your inhibitions and thus not care about the acceptance of your will.

George Steinbrenner for instance was a convicted felon because he gave illegal contributions to Richard Nixon during the Watergate period. Thanks, however, to former President Ronald Reagan and a pardon in January of 1989, Steinbrenner was absolved of those crimes.  However, the truth is, the behavior of Steinbrenner has led him to act illegally, and so it might not be a ‘fact’ that Steinbrenner is a felon, but for informal purposes—it is the truth.

Just ask Billy Martin.

A true leader is supposed to shoulder the onus of responsibility and accountability for all the problems in their organization, regardless of culpability rather than point-fingers or regale us with ret-con tails of how you tried or thought about trying. If you cannot do that, then everything else is irrelevant because you failed. 

If you benefited in any way while failing to fulfill your job-description as leader—then you should be the target for derision, just as much as anyone else, and you should be expected to take the extraordinary action in order to fix the erosion of your organization. 

In other words, “You break it, you own it.”  As leader, it’s yours to break.

After all, it was you Bud Selig along with other Owners like George Steinbrenner that deposed former Commissioner Fay Vincent with an 18-9 no-confidence vote.  A vote based mostly on Vincent’s support of the players after the Owners had colluded against the players between 1985 and 1987 and had to pay in excess of 250 million dollars (that’s A-Rod money).  Clearly, the Owners wanted no part of giving players their fair share, so they usurped Vincent for ridiculous reasons. 

They then replaced Vincent and implanted Bud Selig (the first Owner to become commissioner) as acting commissioner.  And oh, one of Selig’s first acts as acting commissioner would be to reverse the life-time ban against owner George Steinbrenner that was levied by Fay Vincent.  It is now often referred to as a ’suspension,’ when the reality is, Steinbrenner would still be out of baseball if not for Bud Selig’s decision to overturn the act by Vincent.

Then people wonder why the players Union had been resistant in negotiations with the Owners back in 1994. But oh, point the finger at the players and it all goes away, right?  The players are the only Million Dollar Babies amongst us, right?  Well, not to me, Bud.

You wanted it that badly Bud, it’s yours. You broke it, you fix it. What goes around comes around.

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The So-Called Good Life

I also accept that the same people, who relativize the difference between good and evil, are generally the same people that claim to live ‘the good life.’  Just ask Jose Canseco. 

I may not know how those people can say they do not know the difference between good and evil, yet begin to know the definition of ‘good,’ because I can just as easily call their life the bad or evil life.  I accept that some would rather pursue evil than to do the right thing, and that some who object to it are just as soon, willing to immerse themselves in the same destructive behavior of drugs and alcohol.

Drugs are merely a form of control, in which the user is oblivious to whom is in control. After all, the British took over Hong Kong and other parts of China by forcing Opium onto their populace.  The line between good and evil might be hard to see, but I certainly know the difference between constructive and destructive.

Just ask David Crosby, the counter-culture of the 1960s was right about civil rights and was right about gender equality—but was wrong about the drugs. I am inclined to agree. 

Nevertheless, I accept that some people define their youth by what they think they can get-away with only while young, only to grow old and want to relive their youth.  I though, had decided to act like an adult when I was thirteen by reading the newspaper, which is why I supported Ron Paul at the age of 14 in 1997 (primarily on the issue of currency).

I guess I am just reliving my youth today (and so is the Dow Jones) without the destruction of drugs because I wrote-in for Ron Paul; even though, many young people supported Barack Obama and Ron Paul. 

Obama said what people wanted to hear, but his actions so far have driven a schism between those words and his actions.

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“What on Earth are you talking about?”

Fay Vincent Ousted by Owners

Bush on Palmeiro

The deception of the MLB that has been the Selig Era (a.k.a., Steroids Era).  My belief has been that while the players have been unethical in their pursuit of more money from teams by way of steroids (rhymes with Robin Hood)—it was the Owners (e.g. Bud Selig, George Steinbrenner) that drove the players to such unethical means.

The collusion against free agents between 1985-1987 (Bush took control of the Rangers in 1989) from which the Owners had to pay over 250 million in damages to the players. 

Only for the players to be once again colluded against in 2005, only this time, with the US Senate as a front for the Owners and former Owners Bud Selig and George W. Bush in order to help their buddies settle private contract disputes.

Moreover, the Owners facilitated steroids in baseball, as they continued to increase the profitability of baseball by fan attendance and television contracts under Commissioner Ueberroth. 

After all, who wants to see strikeouts on TV?  As Crash Davis in Bull Durham said, “strikeouts are boring.”  Bud Selig now claims that he tried to push ‘testing’ on the players Union in 1995. 

My problem with that statement is one that Selig had yet to see the home run race of 1998 and its effect on baseball’s popularity. Furthermore, Selig says ‘testing’ but for all I know, that could have referred to anything: Steroids, alcohol, other drugs, prescription medication (have you read Ball Four?). 

It is too vague, and that is probably why the Union rejected it, especially after the Owners Collusion of 1985-1987.  My gut says that the Union was merely worried that the Owners and former Owner Bud Selig were trying to create mechanisms of fishing for anything to use against the players (Can you say Dave Winfield?). 

But now, the Owners and former Owner Bud Selig, point the finger at the Players that they colluded against time and again.

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Why the Yankees *Can Be* Bad for Baseball

The Owners would change their minds on steroids when the price of the players went so high that it forced the ‘rich’ teams (e.g. the Yankees) to bankroll the small market teams like Oakland and Minnesota with revenue sharing from the luxury tax.

That allowed those teams to stay in the black with low payrolls but also spoil the successes of the ‘rich’ teams (e.g. the Yankees).  So the MLB tried to contract (or eliminate) those teams from their midst in 2001 (and might be at it again) but were impeded by then US Senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone and House Rep John Conyers from Michigan with the FANS Act of 2001.

It also begged the question: Why should historical teams — or with World Series titles – like the Athletics, Marlins and Twins be under the microscope for contraction?

Consider that Bud Selig’s team the Milwaukee Brewers has been in existence only since 1970 and has produced only three postseason appearances.

Hey, Bud: It’s your inept Brewers that cannot compete, so if you wanna eliminate a team, then eliminate your own.  Otherwise, develop another solution.

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Yankees Core No More / The House that A-Rod Built

And if the Yankees would rather not share-revenue with fellow franchises—then leave the MLB; be a floating franchise outside of the American League and Major League. 

Alternatively, deal with it; or perhaps, do not buy the snake oil on players like Carl Pavano. If you need a lesson on why being a rich organization that spends like drunken sailors can be a bad thing for everyone—just look to Wall Street and AIG.

The Yankees have merely been the rich spoiler, as their small-market foes had been poor spoilers; ever since the mad spending began after the 2001 World Series, in which the Yankees signed 2000 AL MVP Jason Giambi for $120 million, and have since thrown money for snake oil.

Since then, the ‘Yankee Core’ has quickly declined.  Bernie Williams’s semi-retired, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, and Andy Pettitte have crept towards retirement and Derek Jeter has lived under the shadow of Alex Rodriguez.

And now the Yankees have ‘burned’ down the House that Ruth built in order to make more money to pay players like Alex Rodriguez.  Yet, the same people claim to care about the legacies of baseball.  No one fears the Yankees.  No one is hallowed by their presence.  The Yankees now are nothing more than a bloated payroll and a declining legacy.

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When “The Say Hey Kid” says hey to you (as a kid) / Elephants Never Forget

As critical as I have been of Bud Selig and the other Owners, I like the WBC.  Baseball needs a new direction, in light of a now meaningless *stat-book*, and I think the inclusiveness of the WBC is the right direction.

In my mind, the greatness of baseball was the human element of it, not the Human Growth Hormone element of it.  Just ask my dad, who as a kid would ride his bike to a bus in Santa Clara, and for five dollars, got a ride and a ticket to Candlestick Park. 

He would sit in the stands out in center field so close to the park that Willie “The Say Hey Kid” was close enough to see him and would often say ‘hey kid.’  As my dad said, it was like he playing just for him.

In another event, my dad would also be able to stay-home from Vietnam after Nixon ended the draft in the early 1970s and was to enjoy the first of three World Series titles by the Oakland Athletics between 1972-1974.

As my dad often said, regardless of what Richard Nixon did as president, he ended the draft.  If not for that act, his lottery number had been near and had he gone to Vietnam, I probably would not be alive because that act by Nixon altered the course of his life. 

In those dualist years, where the opposite could have just as easily been true, the truth was, he stayed home and was able to watch the Oakland Athletics and that is one reason that I continue to be a fan of the A’s. 

The funny thing is, George Steinbrenner illegally gave money to Nixon in his reelection of 1972, thus Steinbrenner helped reelect the man responsible for allowing my dad to stay home and watch the the Yankees rival win the World Series three times in a row.

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Show Me Your Expenses when You Demand More Money /

You Might as Well Face It, You’re Addicted to ‘Roids

It’s hard to find the spiritual mean between good and bad.  Somet / imes bad things lead to things that are good for you, while good things can sometimes lead to bad things for others.  If you think I’m just some high-horse malcontent, you should reconsider. 

I’m unforgiving in my assessment of the league under the ‘roid because I believe that the MLB has collectively stolen money from innocent patrons and now squabble over that money.  So for me to impugn them all and let the reader sort it out, is only a pittance in what the MLB has taken over the years. You know, in the MLB, 390,000 is around the minimum salary. 

In order to eviscerate the incongruity of 390,000 and ‘minimum’ consider this: millions have lost their jobs, including me.  I particularly am underwater as they say because of medical bills that are equal in totality to that of a small fine in pro sports.  By small, I mean roughly $10k. To some that’s nothing because their debts are assets, whereas my debts are for medical reasons and living expenses. 

The next time a player says, they cannot live on less than a million dollars a year, I hope the reporter reacts like Simon Cowell. I as a consumer of the sport, DO NOT WANT TO HEAR THAT B-S.

With that, I put the onus on the leader who clearly wanted the job for an unfair advantage against the players Union, thus, the players were more than willing to take the unfair advantage of steroids.  Meanwhile, the other Owners were more than happy to profit from that, even if their lip-service said otherwise. 

If you Bud Selig knew more than the public did, prove it with extraordinary action, but my gut says that you’re in line with the John Fogerty song “Mr. Greed” from Centerfield in that, “the bones you hoard, can only bring you shame.”  If not—prove it. 

You wanted it Bud, you got it. It’s on you. No one else.

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FAIRNESS IN ANTITRUST IN NATIONAL SPORTS (FANS) ACT OF 2001

FANS Act of 2001

Seventy-nine years ago, Major League Baseball consisted of 16 teams clustered in the Northeast and Midwest. Players were paid what was generously described as a pittance. Ballparks were privately owned, and genuine fan loyalty was built upon stars playing with the same team for most of their careers.

Today 30 teams play in major cities throughout the country except one, the Nation’s Capital. Players receive astronomical salaries, the newer parks were largely built with taxpayers’ money, and free agency sends the stars from one team to another almost before they can warm their places in the dugout.

The major argument for using taxpayers’ funds to build new stadiums has been the economic boom brought to a community by having a Major League Baseball team.

At this hearing we will receive testimony that baseball is in dire financial straits and that the antitrust exemption should remain.

One of the many questions which baseball must answer is why so many teams are in financial peril with the protection of special legal status when major league football, basketball and hockey teams are not?

Perhaps the help given to baseball by the Supreme Court in 1922 really has not been so helpful after all.

And another question to be answered by baseball is how a sport which grosses over $3 billion a year is still not a business when the presence of a team obviously stimulates business throughout the lucky communities.

For years, baseball has told Congress that it can heal itself, and it obviously has not done so, even though this year baseball has had record attendance and the best World Series in history.

The numbers do not add up. Success on the field and at the box office should bring success to the bottom line. So maybe the Supreme Court’s help in 1922 has outlived its usefulness, and the market should be allowed to work in baseball like it has in other major sports. 

I guess there may be somebody in America that really believes that baseball is not a business, but it is just a sport. And you may recall that in 1994, Congressman Mike Synar had thought this through and thought that the time had come to forget the partial exemptions, and every time the people in baseball screw up, that we take away a little piece of their exemption.

So I come here very interested in what I have heard to be some tremendous accounting theories that the Commissioner will put forward about how tough things are. And, God knows, I support the underdog, economically or on the field.

I mean, let’s—that is the American way of doing business.

Let’s root for the little guys in baseball, like the owners that are hemorrhaging. You know, I mean, this is—this is a tough situation that brings us here.

We have—we are still—reacting to the Curt Flood episode in baseball history, and we remember that the owners got together—some say collusion, but I don’t use those kind of legal terms—among themselves to reduce free-agent salaries and were forced to pay a record $280 million in damages.

The record in minority hiring makes me wonder if the term ”affirmative action” has ever entered into the considerations of the—of these meetings. No minority owners. One single minority general manager.

And we remember what happened to your predecessor, Mr. Commissioner, when he thought that he could dare put the public interests ahead of anybody else’s: eight work stoppages in the last 30 years, more than any other professional sport combined, including the longest work stoppage in professional sports history in 1994.

And there is the Minnesota Twins episode, which we won’t go into now. This is going to be pretty interesting. I have got—one of my colleagues from Pennsylvania was asking me about the fate of Eric Gregg. We have got some letters for you to consider what is happening to him.

And then finally, I wanted to just close by reminding the Commissioner of the determination of the Commissioner’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Baseball Economics. You recall that one; it examined the question of whether the league’s current system has created a problem of competitive imbalance in the game.

Independent panel. Former Senate leader George Mitchell, former Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volker, Yale president Richard Levin, and, of course, our old friend George Will.

And after a year and a half, the—the Commission issued a report, and they found that—they recommended that the teams significantly increase revenue-sharing among its teams with new national broadcasting licensing and Internet revenue distributed to assist low-revenue clubs. Okay.

Last sentence. The contraction should not be the first option taken by the Major League Baseball owners, and the Commission’s panel stated that if the recommendations outlined in the report are implemented, there should be no immediate need for contraction. That was on page 44 of the report.

FANS Act of 2001

Now it just don’t feel the same
Gotta blame it on something
Gotta blame it on something
Blame it on the rain (rain)
Blame it on the stars (stars)
Whatever you do don’t put
the blame on you
Blame it on the rain yeah yeah
You can blame it on the rain

–”Blame It on The Rain,” Milli Vanilli

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This story is in continuance of my efforts to evoke thought on the lack of ethics in sports as described in The Truth of Victory and Tangents on Trivial Things, because the apparent conformity of fans to unethical victories, in my estimation enables the same type of unethical behavior that had infested Wall Street and is now destroying the economy. 

It has become apparent that fans of American sports have been brainwashed by scumbags into acceptance of dishonesty so long as someone gets to satisfy their hunger for more and more ill-gotten gain.

If you ask me, the Patriots should be contracted from the NFL and replaced by a team in Los Angeles, Canada, or Mexico.

“Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves.” (George Orwell 1984)

When the stories about steroids first began to surface in the late 1990s, many fans turned their heads and said they didn’t want to hear rumors and wouldn’t care even if those rumors were true.  Eventually, the problem became so evident that no one could ignore it, and thus, fans began to deplore it. 

That is why I continue to opine on the fraudulent New England Patriots as nothing more than a franchise rooted in a poisonous tree of fraudulence, as described in The Greatest Game Never Played.

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.

“But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” (Orwell 1984)

You Patriot fans are not alone in your need to admit you invested yourselves in frauds. I as a fan of the Oakland Athletics had to accept that I as a kid invested myself in frauds: Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco, as described in Talkin’ Steroids: An History of Baseball’s Era of Greed (From a Fan).

“We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us; so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him.

“We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be.

“Even in the instance of death we cannot permit any deviation…we make the brain perfect before we blow it out.” (Orwell 1984)

I, in fact, rooted for New England to defeat the Rams, and had to standup to fellow Raider fans in doing so, because I wasn’t a sore loser IN JANUARY of 2002. I’m still not a sore loser (why else would I continue to support the Raiders?), because the Raiders didn’t choke, the Patriots clearly cheated.

The Patriots are just deplorable “winners,” and the NFL and sports media (particularly ESPN) are just as shameful for enabling the same type of dishonesty that has destroyed the nation’s economy.

“From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.” (Orwell 1984)

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I cordially disagree with you Patriots defenders.

A) If you don’t gain a competitive edge from stealing signals, then why do it—why waste the time?

B) There’s a thing called innocent until proven guilty—so please don’t sell “everybody does it,” because until they are proven guilty of it, I won’t impugn a team for an unproven accusation.

C) The Patriots cheated—they are guilty.

D) Arguing that “everybody does it” is like a violent mental patient ranting that everyone’s crazy, so why hold him responsible for his behavior? 

E) The Boston Herald, in my estimation, fabricated that story about the walkthrough in order to detract all lines of questions towards the Rams and the Super Bowl of that year, rather than the pivotal Tuck Game against the Raiders of the same postseason. 

In fabricating that story, the Patriots now act like they are victims of the whole Spygate story, when really, they are just dirty rotten cheaters that don’t belong in the NFL. 

F) Patriots fans contend that because the Patriots went 16-0—that it proves that they didn’t need to cheat. Oh, contrary. 2007 was merely a culmination of New England’s ill-gotten gains.

By cheating their way to victories in 2001-2006, the Patriots thus inflated their image which attracted better free-agents whom were willing to play for less money: in other words, their cheating made them a beacon of “success.” 

The only craft exhibited by the Patriots is their understanding of the NFL Draft, by trading picks for future picks, which have invariably supplied better picks—for instance, the Patriots had their first-round pick docked for Spygate, yet they still owned a top 15 pick from San Francisco, which they had acquired in the previous draft (used to select LB Jerod Mayo).

BUT, if you are going to continue and cover your ears about the truth because “everybody does it” then I submit this to you: Why watch the game? If you’re saying “everyone cheats”: why watch a bunch of immoral buffoons hit each other?

“A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.

“And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.” (Orwell 1984)