Stone, trapped
U.S.S. Mariner-endorsed columnist Larry Stone falls into exactly the same easy trap I blasted Bayless for earlier this week, implying that McGwire took steroids, et cetera, because McGwire didn’t come out blasting with fiesty-enough angry denials when faced with questions in a Congressional hearing (which, while I’m at it, accords too much respect to those proceedings, but anyway):
But Thursday, under oath, facing perjury, he all but came clean, damning himself with faint refutation. Contrasted with a finger-pointing, insistent Rafael Palmeiro, McGwire was the epitome of impotence (and no, that’s not a Viagra joke).
Those fans still clinging to the belief that McGwire was clean all along, the victim of innuendo and mud-slinging, don’t have one thread to cling to. Not after McGwire’s repeated refusal to answer any questions related to his use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Here’s the thing, for me. There’s no more, or less, evidence that McGwire used steroids than there is evidence that Rafael Palmeiro did.
And if you want to believe that steroids increase power, well, Palmeiro’s career certainly has more of a weird, sustained, late career power spike than McGwire or even Barry Bonds — and my point here is not to imply that Palmeiro used steroids, or did not.
We don’t know. And all of the noise this week over “loopholes” in the MLB drug testing policy (which amount to a typo that’ll get fixed), and who denied it with enough anger and who didn’t… none of this amounts to anything.
I’m disappointed in Stone, but I’m disappointed with almost everything I’ve read on the topic.
So… Go Huskies! Wooooooo!!