The new crusade
Courtesy of Skip Bayless’ latest at ESPN. It’s not enough to not take steroids.. you have to convince Skip.
McGwire failed to acknowledge his third option: Telling the truth, if he was as steroid-free as he has always said he was. Apparently, McGwire didn’t take that option because, under oath, he couldn’t.
I don’t know if McGwire took steroids. But this assumption-of-guilt thing is a load of crap. Especially given this:
To McGwire’s right on the five-player panel, Sammy Sosa had already said he has “never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs.” To McGwire’s left, Rafael Palmeiro would soon shake a finger at the congressmen and cameras and say, “I have never used steroids. Period. Never.”
I’m not sure I believe Sosa – though his body language and facial expressions did little, if anything, to damage his credibility. Yet Palmeiro spoke with such angry conviction that he certainly came across as convincing.
Has Skip seriously never met a convincing liar? No, seriously. Never confronted someone trying to steal his girlfriend and had the guy get all huffy and go into a rage that you’d even think such a thing?
Maybe Raffy took steroids. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe McGwire did, or didn’t. But to pronounce McGwire guilty because he didn’t act in a certain manner, wasn’t angry enough to “come across as convincing…”
I’ll remember that baseball was caught deceiving the public about the few teeth its new testing program does have.
What — random testing for a wide range of these drugs, with not only penalties but disclosure of those who test positive for them? Did he mean “had” since he’s so down on McGwire, or doesn’t he know that there was a new deal struck with pretty good testing?
I’m disgusted that this is what baseball coverage has come to. It’s as if the long rumor-churning of are they/aren’t they wasn’t awful enough, last year’s testing, where only 12 players tested positive, didn’t catch those rotten users people are convinced were out htere, and now we’re to the point where denials or admissions aren’t good enough either. We’re going to have to torture all professional athletes until they give us an answer we like. If they drown before they confess, well, they must have been guilty.
Baseball has drug testing now, like everyone wanted. Even if you want instant lifetime bans on first time offenses, we know that it has already eliminated almost entirely abuse of the targeted substances in the sport, so it’s achieved its goal. Can we please stop fighting this battle and get back to enjoying the game?