Alan C. Milstein writes at the Sports Law Blog:
…. Another African American superstar athlete has been prosecuted by the Justice Department for perjury arising from the Balco Grand Jury. Now Marion Jones, winner of five Olympic medals and probably the best female athlete of our time, has been sentenced to 6 months in prison by a federal judge in New York.
The Judge’s remarks in sentencing Jones are curious and reflect the double standard facing celebrated sports figures.
…. “Athletes in society,” he continued, “have an elevated status. They entertain, they inspire and perhaps most importantly, they serve as role models for kids around the world. When there is a widespread level of cheating, it sends all the wrong messages to those who follow these athletes’ every move.”
What is that? Jones, who is still nursing her seven month old, has to spend six months locked away from her family and the rest of us because she disappointed the kids who idolized her? Where in the sentencing guidelines is that factor?
He goes on to challenge whether members of the Bush/Gonzalez Justice Department, who have done nothing but lie and obstruct justice for going on 8 years now, have the moral authority to sentence anyone to prison for lying.
Rick Karcher also wonders just what the hell is going on:
…. I can’t ever recall a situation in which “role model” status of the defendant had any impact on a judge’s sentencing decision. And there is good reason for that.
First, role model status is entirely subjective and personal. Some people have role models who are close family members. Some consider their role models to be firemen, teachers and doctors. Why do we insist that athletes are in fact role models to our children? Just because my kid’s favorite baseball player is Manny Ramirez and he wears Manny’s jersey, doesn’t mean that Manny is his role model. My kid doesn’t want to be like Manny nor do everything that Manny does.
If Manny is ever implicated in wrong doing, my kid will simply say “that’s really sad and unfortunate.” Regarding external forces that have an influence on my kids, athletes taking steroids or lying about taking steroids is not even remotely on my list of concerns, which includes among other things exposure to violence/sex on television, video games and surfing the internet.
In any event, I certainly don’t want judges deciding which criminal defendants they “deem” to be role models.
We are living in the dark ages right now, one in which the moral majority have altered the landscape of our country, making it easy for people to stand around accusing others of some failing or another, and lording over them when they fall. We have forgotten that “people who live in glass houses should not throw stones” and instead, continually chant for another beheading.
It’s bad enough that it happens in bars and over dinner tables. When judges start parroting sportswriter hyperbole, and people like the President himself –who knows little enough about the important stuff– and less than nothing about steroids and other PED’s, start thinking that they are the voices of reason; it makes me glad I live in the middle of nowhere.
It is a sad time for intellectual discourse.
UPDATE: David Pinto has some new stuff on the Clemens situation:
…. According to a source close to the trainer who says he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone, McNamee answered questions from the government and former Sen. George Mitchell’s office truthfully, but “he tried not to hurt Roger” in the process. Now that Clemens has sued him for defamation and has mounted a ferocious attack on McNamee, “stuff is pouring out of him.” According to Ward, “Brian knows a lot about Roger’s moral character and knows a lot about his extracurricular activities. … There’s a lot that he could say to damage Roger’s reputation, but we plan on taking the high road. … If some of this stuff were to come out, Roger Clemens would look very, very, very bad.”
Great. You can’t say CLemens didn’t bring this upong himself, what with the very personal attacks he’s made on McNamee. Nevertheless, what a sordid, unpleasant situation this is degenerating into. Roger Clemens has, indeed, found himself becoming the pitcher’s version of Bonds; arguably the greatest pitcher ever finding himself being roasted into ash by virtually everyone.
13 Backtalkers
[...] Original post here [...]
The judge’s quote is outrageous. The athlete role model BS is outrageous. The sportswriter hyperbole is outrageous.
But I don’t get this:
WTF are you talking about? The PED in baseball is a made up moral issue and the people issuing the charges are rabble rousing demagogues, not church ladies. I don’t see Pettitte or any other baseball player outside of maybe Palmeiro having anything to apologize for.
I think emulation is not appropriate in sentencing. What is appropriate is consideration of the veneer of trust a person’s position gives. That is, preachers, priests, politicians, and school teachers who embezzle and molest should be punished more harshly. I wish politicians could be punished for lying, but then we wouldn’t have any.
The discussion of steroids, baseball records, and moralizing on this blog is the most rational I have ever seen. The records represent a mindless numbers-worship, regardless of the liveliness of the ball, the deployment of pitchers, the advances in medical care and in training, the pool from which players are drawn, differences in ball parks, the idiom of the game over the years, and any number of other factors that make the use or non-use of steroids negligible. Doting on them is stupid, but not nauseous; nauseous is reserved for the (deceitful) self-righteousness of the Pharisees who govern the condemnations of the ball players.
Pharisees…. good word.
So, the judge sends away a mother with 7 month old child for 6 months, in part because she’s a “role model”. Firstly, you would have to get caught with an awful lot of real illegal drugs to get that sentence – this is grossly out of proportion, especially considering her personal situation. The child suffers as much or more, and it’s not like Marion Jones is a frightful crack addict. Secondly, our society has completely lost the concept of personal choice (as well put in the post re: Ramirez) – who in the world has the right to determine who, or what, constitutes a “role model”? I can concede the teachers and priests point, but any individual that would even be aware of Marion Jones, and could consider her as a “role model” should be old enough to realize that people are not perfect, one is allowed to like or dislike the President, and for god sakes, the woman is famous for running. Not for teaching little children, not for being a representative of God, not for saving burning buildings.
That people may have chosen to admire her is not her “fault” or “responsibility”. It’s their own. How on earth is it a societal problem whether I approve or disapprove of Andy Pettite?
Marc, I think I messed up my writing. Your last paragraph is completely correct. The examples I was pointing out are people who have positions in which they are implicitly trusted and the crimes are enabled by that trust.
When I was on the track this afternoon I thought of the issue of role models. Say, I wanted to be like Marion Jones and use drugs to make me a better athlete (or just keep working out). I would work my ass off and would be in better shape. Say I wanted to be like Barry Bonds and be the best at my profession, again, I would have to work my ass off, even if I took adderall or whatever the college kids take to study and focus better. Their dedication is a good role model for youth. And, Marion and Barry weren’t saying to anyone “go get a PED program” – whatever they did, they sure as hell denied it.
Say, I want to be what the presenters of professional sports want me to be. I drink a lot of beer and sit on my ass and watch a bunch of younger more gifted people put a ball through a hoop, over a goal, or over the plate – and maybe I buy a car and take some ED drugs. I don’t know how that improves me at all! Like Huckabay’s rant on baseball prospectus a few days ago, they unapologetically promote a real dangerous legal drug to every watcher of the games. There are dead bodies associated with use of this drug in MLB, as recent as two weeks ago, an innocent victim coming home from work.
On the other hand, say I want to be what the MSM sports “journalist” wants me to be. Then, I become a moron who hates people because they can do things I could never do myself and credits their achievement to something external, all while still watching the events that I despise. I think this judge is one of those people. Spare me. That’s why I don’t read them often, watch them on TV, or listen on the radio.
[...] …. Travesty [...]
Good stuff John.
well, definitely, CJ… one doesn’t just take steroids, sit there, and suddenly be able to hit a baseball 400 feet. It’s always sounded to me like Bonds works his ass off every winter, as do many players. I’m sure that Marion Jones has run a million miles by now (albeit most of it in place!), the actual competition is a very small fraction of that.
I don’t mean to be an apologist for people’s behavior (the “Hitler loved dogs and could paint so he wasn’t such a bad guy” argument), but you make the point well that these athletes’ dedication gets thrown out the window. God knows young women these days need all the good role models they can get.
It’s a hallucination that I could turn myself into a walking pharmacy and become a hall of famer. And yet, beer is supposed to cure all our ills and make us completely happy – says so on the TV in every sporting event! Talk about promoting a drug that has mountains of evidence against it. Turn those beer commercials into any other substance and just imagine how absurd that would seem.
I think it’s all just media-encouraged fear. The idea that PEDs or second-hand-smoke are the most threatening issues facing our world today is people grasping at whatever they can find in order to feel somewhat in control and secure. So, the go for the simplest explanation or sound-bite and jump all over it.
To my way of thinking the only solution to this mess is for the whole truth to come out. What I mean is that the players union must acknowledge that most current and past two decades major league players have used what we now define as banned performance enhancers at one time or another. They did so because they were not banned at the time of most of this use and were infact defacto encouraged by major league baseball with it’s emphasis on homeruns by hitters and strikeouts by pitchers with no real concern by the powers to be on how this was accomplished.
The lie that only a small minority cheated is the myth that must be busted for us to get off this hatred for the handfull caught and instead be able to focus on making major league baseball enjoyable to us all again. This continuous persuit of the witches has got to stop because they were all witches as we the hunters are witches too.
yes, and let’s have them compare MLB players to the general population with regards to all over-the-counter, prescribed and unprescribed drugs. The way the dialog has been, you know if they say “Reggie Jackson did coke every day before a game”, that the media will say he was the only person using cocaine in all of the 1970s.
Anybody other than me have a cup of coffee this morning? Should we test MLB players for caffeine too?
so when is george bush gonna commute jones’ sentence the way he did scooter?
i swear, there are days when i wake up and i feel like alice on the other side of the looking glass
What a load of shit that stupid, fucking “hearing” was.
And…what’s actually worse is that Fehr is so emasculated that he didn’t even stand up for himself. Shays? Fehr (paraphrase): “Uhh…we agreed to what the Commish said.” No dummy, your response should be one of fuck you to him. Lambast him. Tell him that there are “strikes” in the collective bargaining agreement to account for errors, mistakes, unknowns, and…I don’t know…how about humans being human? My God, where in God’s name is even a minimal level of scrutiny for NFL, NBA, or NHL players? Hell, NBA and NHL players aren’t even mentioned in the PED “debate”? I seethed just watching that shit and I’m a government employee!!!!
And…Selig. Oh how he wants a “legacy” for himself. Fucking cockroach. My memory is long and I’m not going to forget how he more than turned a blind eye to what the hordes of Americans-wanting-revenge-on-something types now call “cheating” (never defined mind you). I say “more” because we all know that he opened his arms and his version of the baseball narrative to those who mashed home runs and on and on and on.
Ridiculous. My kids are in debt up to their eyeballs–and they’re under 5–and Congress wants to flex its muscles with the minnows of MLB? Really, who’s cynical here? There’s an expression in Spanish called “sin verguenza” and it translates to “without shame.” In Spanish that MEANS something. In English? Ehh…not so much. Too bad, because personal dignity and honor mean something (at least outwardly) in Spanish. Those on The Hill today are “sin verquenzas”…the whole lot of ‘em.
Off to a rather nasty Central American republic for a month. Wish me luck and safe passage.
Your Quote: “We are living in the dark ages right now, one in which the moral majority have altered the landscape of our country, making it easy for people to stand around accusing others of some failing or another, and lording over them when they fall. We have forgotten that “people who live in glass houses should not throw stones” and instead, continually chant for another beheading.”
What does Christians have to do with people taking drugs enhance their game? Once the athlete is exposed, then the liberal, who by-the-way, has always supported taking drugs, get mad. Please spare the it’s them Christians who are causing all our troubles and spend some time looking at the people who run baseball. They have beaten up this game for so long, it no longer matters. I love baseball, stuck by it after 3 (or 4) strikes. But now, after it tries to beat up thier own, baseballdoesn’tmatteranymore. Please remember, even Christians make mistakes, and some have admitted it.