A Loud and Sarcastic “Woohoo”
It’s been a big week for Major League Baseball. First we heard that A-Rod has “allegedly” been using steroids since he was a teenager, and now Manny Ramirez gets a 50-game suspension for testing positive for human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG, which can be used to boost testosterone levels (he swears he wasn’t cheating, but it’s only real legitimate use is in boys with delayed puberty; at 36 he’s well past his awkward teen years).
A beautiful day to get juiced at the ballpark.
If you listen to the sports buzz, you’d think that this was all a startling revelation. You’d think that the journalism that brought us the A-Rod story was risk-taking and cutting edge. You’d think that Major League Baseball was taking a hard line against doping.
You’ll forgive me if all that I can manage is sarcastic “woohoo.”
This is all coming two decades too late. Impossible, you say? My grandmother, a rabid baseball fan who knew just about everyone who passed through Veterans Stadium, was talking steroids with baseball scouts in the early 1990s. It’s now 2009. Are we supposed to be surprised by all of this?
I grew up with baseball. I love baseball for what it meant to my family, my childhood, my history. But the game that stands before me today is a shadow of its past, a sport that’s been ruined by winks and nods and silently accepted cheating (yes, MLB commissioner Bud Selig and Don Fehr, head of the MLBPA, I’m looking at both of you with my customary sneer of disgust and chronic desire to kick you both in the teeth).
I’m thrilled to death with Manny’s suspension, if for no other reason than my sincere hope that the salary withholdings significantly cut into the income of his agent, Scott Boras, known for negotiating mega-deals for his clients (like A-Rod’s ridiculous $252 million/10 year deal). Coincidence that he also represents A-Rod? I think not. Let’s hope that his drug-fueled gravy train is about to derail.
For some additional reading on the subject, here are some scathing words from the Boston Herald.
