Okay, I'll Bite

Part of me wants to let it go, but apparently I can't resist...

Mark McGwire admitted steroid use. And man, former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer earned the shit out of his crisis management fee.

Yes, it was a good strategy well-executed by all parties involved, even tears and (perhaps) genuine emotion from McGwire himself, all orchestrated to repair his image and give him a shot at becoming a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, after yet another year of receiving "yes" votes on only 25% of the ballots, when 75% is needed.

Anyway, the whole theater of the mea culpa makes me want to fucking puke.

Still, I'm giving Mark McGwire a pass on steroid use. Not only that, but I'm also giving a pass to anyone who used steroids before 2003. Shit, baseball didn't even ban them until 2003, so no one was breaking rules.

Laws are a different matter, I suppose, and if there are prosecutors who want to waste time tracking down steroid users and their dealers, go ahead. It seems like a fucking waste of resources, but whatever. I don't care.

No, I'm dropping the steroid problem onto the heads of Major League Baseball executives and team owners and management. Fuck those guys. They were the true beneficiaries of steroid use throughout baseball. At best, they looked away. But they were lining their pockets with oodles of cash as baseball hit new heights of popularity, thanks to the very steroid users/home run hitters who saved baseball after the '94 players' strike. That the players are now the fall guys for this steroid "scandal" is fucking bullshit, B&E readers.

I have less sympathy for the players who used steroids in 2003 or later. They were officially breaking the rules then.

Anyway, baseball... Ain't it great?

And for my non-baseball readers, I offer this image of one of Egypt's hunkiest soccer (that's football in Egypt) players, courtesy of blondandeffective, who describes him as a "halal beefcake specimen." Who can't agree with that?

Hangover? David, Please.

In David Wells' autobiography, which he totally wrote himself, he discusses pitching his perfect game while hungover. It's certainly not the first claim of a major baseball accomplishment performed under the influence.

For my money, there's no more colorful baseball story than Dock Ellis's 1970 no-hitter, which he claims to have thrown while freaking out on LSD. And I rather like this new video, which I found on the new sports page on HuffPo. I've embedded it for your viewing pleasure.

Pitchers and Catchers Tomorrow!

Oh, it's almost time for spring training, B&E readers/baseball fans! And there's been a lot of baseball news of late, if you consider drug use "baseball news."

Performance-enhancing drugs keep making headlines. A-Rod admitted using them back when he was young and stupid, like only 26, but you know, it was all just the culture at the time, and I felt all this pressure, and excuse excuse excuse excuse, and he's totally a clean Yankee and always has been a clean Yankee. Nothing to see here, folks, except my hairless pectoral muscles and exceptional ball-playing abilities unless it's October.

Speaking of performance-enhancers, Miguel Tejada put in his guilty plea for lying to Congressional investigators about a teammate's use of drugs. How the hell did Miguel think he'd get away with that? It's not like he's a member of the Bush administration or something. So in his plea Miguel says that he was once given a shot of human growth hormone, and he threw it away without using it. I totally believe him about that. Totally. Totally.

And then of course there was the revelation that yes, Virginia, Barry Bonds did test positive for steroids. As evidence in his trial those tests might get chucked, but that doesn't really matter anymore, does it? He's an asshole everyone dislikes immensely, and now it OK to publicly call him a liar.

Players on steroids. Meh. It's not that I don't care. I want baseball to be clean. I like pitchers' duels, small ball, and low-scoring games. I just particularly hate that the buck stops with the players. Owners and management are culpable too, and in fact profited from the monster home runs more than anyone, but no one's going after those guys, who awarded the giant contracts to the big hitters.

Then, unrelated to steroids, there's this little story, first broken by the New York Daily News. Roberto Alomar was an All-Star second baseman, and some would probably say that he was one of of the all-time great second basemen. He played for the New York Mets for a couple of seasons and was an unmitigated disaster. He suddenly stopped hitting, he made boneheaded plays in the field, and he became one of the Mets fans' favorite scapegoats.

My expert punditry about this story: shit is fucked up. Robby's ex-girlfriend has filed a lawsuit that accuses him of making him have unprotected sex with her even though he has full-blown AIDS. See what I mean? This shit, true or untrue, is seriously fucked up.

Robby's lawyer says the lawsuit is frivolous and, "He's healthy and would like to keep his health status private." Excuse me, Mr. Lawyer, but if you want to keep his health status private, you shouldn't announce that he's healthy. I mean, you just publicized that he's healthy, so his health status is no longer private. I'm confused.

A bunch of other media outlets have picked up the story now, but buried deep in the Daily News article and not mentioned by others is that Robby told his girlfriend that when he was 17, after playing a game in a Southwestern state, he was raped by two Mexican men.

Shit. Is. Fucked. Up.

When NY1 reported on the Roberto Alomar lawsuit yesterday morning, to accompany the story they played clips of his many mishaps on the field at Shea Stadium - double plays, strikeouts, errors, etc. The editor of the piece was clearly a Mets fan, still resentful of Robby's meltdown. That shit is fucked up, too.

But starting tomorrow, there's actual spring training baseball happening. There's even some unofficial spring training baseball happening already. I can't wait to read about baseball again and not all this fucked up shit.

Because that all that shit is fucked up.

So Much For Distraction

The Mets were supposed to take me away from the bullshit that is the current presidential campaign, and what do they do? They fall apart.

I attended Sunday's game, which they lost in the 9th inning. And they've been losing ever since. From three games up in the division to down by a half game.

Some say it's last year all over again, but fuck that: it's the goddamned presidential campaign all over again.

And now Fernando Tatis is out for the season. Fernando Tatis??

So what do I turn to now? Easy. Vast quantities of smack. It might still hurt, but at least I won't care. About any of it. Or anything else.