Friday, December 14, 2007

Baseball's biggest problem is Bud Selig

Ain’t America great! Here you are innocent until proven guilty – unless your conservative, then you’re guilty when Keith Olbermann says you are, or a baseball player, then you’re guilty when George Mitchell says you are.

Oh, this opens the door for a twofer. Since George Bush was a part owner of the baseball Texans, expect an Olbermann Special Comment on "what Bush knew and when he knew it" about baseball and steroid use. No doubt Olbermann will find a way to lay the whole mess at Bush's feet.

Other than that, the government pretty much has to prove a case against you.

I checked the Mitchell report and my name wasn’t on it. That’s a good thing. I gave up trying to hit a baseball in about the 6th grade and don’t use steroids. Which brings to me the guys whose names have been released off of the report.

I have a big problem with people having their lives and livelihood ruined based solely on the word of George Mitchell. I have a bigger problem with that than anyone who might be injecting beef testosterone into their butt or whatever it is that they do.

Despite his denials, depite never having tested positive for a banned substance, all day long Roger Clemens has been declared guilty of cheating over and over by washed up, has been, or never quite were players. And worse - the too fat, too skinny, too slow, too old - ESPN guys who claim to know everything about sports but how to actually play at a level where they might be able to earn a living. Or even worse MSM freaks who know nothing about anything. Based on what? These players have been declared guilty based on the word of a couple of locker room towel boys being threatened with criminal prosecution.

There are a couple of problems with this whole mess:

First, many of these substances were neither illegal nor banned by baseball for many years. When Mark McGuire was gulping down Andro, you could buy it over the counter at GNC and baseball had no rule prohibiting its use. So at the time legally, what McGuire did was no worse than taking an aspirin. Only after the deleterious affects of the drug were discovered, was it moved to the control substance list and banned by baseball.

Next, last year about 7% of the players tested positive for banned substances. The names in Mitchell’s report don’t come close to approaching the 7% number. So why were the guys in the report singled out? And what does it say about Mitchell and his methodology when he spends several million dollars and a year and half and comes up with a lower batting average in catching cheaters (with NO actual test results i.e. proof) than the league that hired him?

The guy who ruined baseball, Commissioner Bud Selig, has promised to take action against those named in Mitchell’s report. Good luck Bud. Roger Clemens has the resources to take you and George personally, and league collectively to the cleaners if he wants to.

And I hope he does. I hope he gets you up on the stand and forces you, George, the player’s union and the owners to admit that you knew this stuff was going on for years but did nothing because baseball’s bottom line was doing OK. I hope he gets you and George to admit that you have not one shred of evidence against him other than the testimony of a couple indicted and scared towel boys to hang your hat on.

Bud Selig is a pathetic figure in this mess. He is the man who ruined baseball. He’s the guy who stood by and watched, doing nothing, as every pony escaped the corral. Then ten years later, he closes the gate and declares himself a hero for doing so. After ruining the game, the phony press now claims Selig is saving it.

I have just finished a 600 word, 30 minute report, that cost about $.07 (cost of a cup of home brewed coffee) on Bud and George and declare them both incompetent buffoons. Both are the Mike Nifongs of baseball. They deserve the same fate.

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