And now, A-Rod.
…. In 2003, when he won the American League home run title and the AL Most Valuable Player award as a shortstop for the Texas Rangers, Alex Rodriguez tested positive for two anabolic steroids, four sources have independently told Sports Illustrated.
Fools, all of them.
The union, for failing to protect the interests of their constituents by destroying the survey samples the minute they were finished with them.
For allowing the testing companies to devise any possible way to link the players to the samples, and then standing around with their dicks in their hands while the government smashed in the storefront and stole all of the documentation.
…. According to court documents, when the federal agent Jeff Novitzky and other investigators went to Comprehensive Drug Testing on April 8, 2004, employees there were initially helpful, but after speaking with lawyers they said they would not help the agents.
When Novitzky informed the employees that the government might seize many of Comprehensive Drug Testing’s computers for up to 60 days, one employee contacted a company lawyer “exclaiming that such a seizure would ‘shut the business down,’ “ the court documents said.
Ultimately, the agents discovered a master list of all the players who tested positive during their search of Comprehensive Drug Testing. A search that had been initiated to find results for the 10 Balco players had yielded far more, including, apparently, a positive test result for Rodriguez.
Meanwhile, other federal agents at Quest Diagnostics in Las Vegas, armed with the code numbers obtained at Comprehensive Drug Testing, first seized the matching urine samples for the Balco players and, a month later, for all the players who tested positive.
It remains unclear why the union did not have the 2003 tests destroyed once the survey was completed. It had the right to do so under the original testing agreement with Major League Baseball. The union is restricted by court order from commenting on why the tests were not destroyed.
Unclear? It is not at all unclear why they didn’t. They failed to destroy the tests because they were incompetent. They were fools.
They –the players, the union, the players agents, the whole lot of them– have failed to be ahead of the curve for the entire time this farce has gone on. There has not been one instance where the players or the union or anyone has said or done something that could be considered thoughtful, or insightful, or part of well-thought out plan. They have been reacting –badly, for the most part– instead of acting.
Incompetent fools.
Not, of course, any more than the players who failed the survey tests, tests that were agreed upon by the union, that everyone knew were coming; that these morons still couldn’t pass. The players that failed tests that they were told were coming are the uber-fools. They are the kind of fools that make regular fools look smart. These guys shouldn’t be allowed to drive a car, they are so far past the point of being able to be in charge of their own lives.
And then, of course, we have the utter fools, the men at the pinnacle of the fool pyramid, the players who have sat around for most of the last four years denying that they ever used PED’s, knowing full well that they had, and that they had failed tests, and that someone would eventually find out, and write a story about it. Many of them not just denying it, but denying it with extreme prejudice:
Lt. Weinberg: “I strenuously object?” Is that how it works? Hm? “Objection.” “Overruled.” “Oh, no, no, no. No, I STRENUOUSLY object.” “Oh. Well, if you strenuously object then I should take some time to reconsider.”
Clemens, A-Rod, Bonds, the whole lot of them. Utter fools. There should be an ESPY for that.
And let’s not forget the angry fools, IRS Agent Novitzky and his team, who think they are some kind of heroes. Yeah, what a great fucking job you guys are doing. Terrorizing a weight trainer and his mother-in-law. Destroying the government’s credibility, shitting on any notion of justice, fair play, and the idea that the interests of the people should be measured against the costs of your vigilance. Throwing millions of dollars on the ground in an effort to get a baseball player you didn’t like. Too bad Bush is gone, I guess you guys won’t get your stars on the wall at Langley after all. Maybe they can put your picture on the wall at the IRS headquarters.
Here’s how the players could have handled this at the beginning, perhaps even should have handled it:
“Yes, I used PED’s. At the time, they weren’t expressly forbidden by baseball, and I wanted to be the best I could, so I did it. I’m sorry. I don’t do it anymore.”
That’s all it would’ve taken. Instead, we get these last five years of insanity. We get one talking head after another telling us about the end of civilization as we know it. We get one absurd, “Save the children,” op-ed piece after another, we get the laughable gravitas of Bob Levy’s “Outside the Lines” expose’s.
And now we get A-Rod.
7 Backtalkers
Well said.
Fehr and Orza did a great disservice to their members not insuring the samples were anonymous, and that they were destroyed after the testing, but there was certainly a lot of foolishness and stupidity to go around.
And I loved the AFGM call back.
And while your suggestion in hindsight for how the players perhaps should have handled things was spot on, if they had to go the dummy route, I would have loved to have seen them go Colonel Jessep on the reporters instead:
Barry: Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be cleared by massive home runs. Whose gonna do it? You? You, Pedro Gomez? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Hank Aaron, and you curse the Giants. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Hank Aaron’s record, while grand, eventually had to go. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, is to smash every major league hitting record of consequence. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me hitting home runs over that wall, you need me hitting home runs over that wall. We use words like honor, the code, and loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent playing baseball. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom to write nonsense that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a baseball bat, and stand at the plate. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.
It couldn’t have been much worse than where they are now, and I would have at least gotten a laugh out of that.
i was under the impression that these original tests were anonymous
and that the union and the mlb had agreed to keep them that way
i still believe that ped’s should be legal
and i also believe that all records set are untainted
and all these high and mighty sports writers should shut the eff up
John:
You just echoed what I was saying at a party tonight, only my arguments were all over the place. Yup, I agree with you again.
John: You’ve expressed for many of us the underlying outrage many of us feel.
A few things beyond the aptly-described foolishness and phoniness of “Beyond the Lines”.
Beyond Bonds ethnicity, even for those who cannot, or will not, accept the notion of institutional racism as a major contributing factor in this bombastic abuse of power.
Beyond the never-ending implications and accusations that Bonds is the second coming of Satan by a media so devoid of any investigative skill, or objective and introspective analysis.
Beyond any athletes use of steroids, or peds, in general.
Beyond any of the juvenile homilies with the incessant ” tinkly-piano” as backdrop from the World Wide Leader in Sports Gossip.
Beyond any of this is the cynical view and utter contempt that far too many in government, law enforcement, media, and MLB ownership hold the average American citizen.
As John wrote in his post, of January 29th:
Make no mistake, standing by and watching our government do this without a word of protest will haunt us.
And now as a result, we have the humiliation and public scourging of athletes. Mark Magwire. Jason Giambi. Rafael Palmiero. Sammy Sosa. Eric Gagne. Roger Clemens. Dana Stubblefield. Marion Jones. Lance Armstrong and an almost endless litany of names, some more recognizable than others.
For using, or simply for being accused of, using peds to gain an edge and possibly crossing some hazy line of disclosure/non-disclosure as written by dozens of over-educated law students commonly referred to as perjury. The very concept of lying to a morally bankrupt government employee is farcical on its face by the way.
And now Alex Rodriguez. Who’s next? Manny? You can bet your house that somebody, somewhere is furiously burning up the midnight oil to uncover even the slightest scintilla of hearsay, let alone evidence, that Manny Ramirez used Peds. And if not Manny, some other “scoundrel” that the Lance Williams, Mark Fanny Wadas, Tom Verduccis, Mike Lupica’s and Bruce Jenkins of the world will pillory with innuendo, speculation, and misstatements. And when facts are actually forthcoming, they will either be out of context, incomplete, or so agenda driven, they would have to be dissmissed by an informed, objective citizenary as nothing more than mean-spirited cherry picking.
So what a seemingly bitter Internal Revenue Agent started almost a decade ago as a government sponsored, personal vendetta against a successful, respected African American athlete who grew up and competed in the same community as this agent, and one he knew only peripherally, and mostly through hearsay, has come down to this:
A cowardly, ego-maniacal, money-grubbing, Commissioner of Baseball who washed his hands of this fabricated pseudo-scandal around the use of performance enhancing dietary supplements and pharmaceuticals. First by encouraging it, then ignoring it, and finally by sanctimoniously blaming “it” on players, agents, and anybody else who happened to pop into his imagination. Not bad work for $17 million a year.
For $17 million dollars a year, he could have purchased enough courage to simply say: “So what. The federal law is bullshit. Come and talk to me when you clear out all the killers, extortionists, welfare hags, bribetakers and other real-life cheaters from the Congress that wrote these bullshit laws in the first place and maybe we will have something to talk about.” Hell I would have done it for free. And I bet any number of folks would have to.
A spineless Giants ownership, who sat silently on the fence. Neither defending him, nor admonishing him. Silence and avoidance sprinkled with happy-happy ballpark experience talk. As long as Bonds filled the seats of their little amusement park on the bay that is. Ten minutes after they wrung the last vestige of revenue from his herculean career, the placards, pictures, and memorabilia were torn down like the streamers from a bachelor party. “Barry Who?” “You mean the $126 million dollar stoner embarrassment?”
Exactly. Enjoy your cha-cha bowels in the house that Bonds built while this whiner continues to take his team out of ballgames before the game is even 45 minutes old. This is what replaced 15 years of the greatest hitter and arguably the greatest player of all time. Fifteen years of the most exciting, remarkable achievment in San Francisco sports history. This is what is supposed to distract us from the “embarrassment”. And only a scribbled number on a brick wall is there to commemorate him.
Don’t forget the witless president encouraging a justice department, and treasury department to run amok on a private citizen. Especially when the basic crime against the citizens of the United States was possibly misstating facts concerning something that may or may not have been a violation of one or two of the 8 trillion laws and regulations on the Federal books. An alleged illegality written into law for political purposes, prohibiting non-government approved use of a substance(s) for which there is no scientific proof of harmful effects when properly used by adults. With or without a prescription. Excellent work Mr. President. About as credible, noteworthy and honorable as the rest of your administration’s work during the previous 8 years. Way to squander our fortunes, our blood, our reputation and our heritage on publicity stunts. We really enjoyed the cake.
A self-absorbed Congress, grandstanding for the cameras, having no clue whatsoever about that which they were pontificating. If there was influence to be peddled, or votes to be swindled by going along with this farce, Congress was up to it. Not a single one of the 535 anointed saw fit to speak out in the slightest. Not a single one of the 43-member Congressional the Black Caucus. Not a single one of Martin Luther King’s supposed 35 billion”co-marchers” who infest Washington D.C. and Sacramento. Not a one. Not John Conyers. Not Alcee Hastings. Not even the Bay Area’s Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Not a peep. Even murderers, gangsters, serial killers, and Terrorists have more standing with these folks than Barry Bonds.
A faux-commission headed up by one of the Senates fomer gasbags, a self-described hater of the players union and one who considers athletes to be beneath contempt, issues a report based primarily on the scribblings of two hack former writers for a dying newspaper. Scribbling which were nothing more than a conduit for equating a hated ballplayers’ use of nutritional substances and injected medications as akin to waging chemical warfare on orphans and widows. And it only took wenty Million Dollars to regurgitate the venom of Lance Williams and Mark Fanny Wada.
And lastly, the quiche-eating morons who don’t care about any of this. As long as they have preferred seating, and a hallucinogenic belief that any of these institutions have their best interests as their number one priority, we will continue to see innocent folks, disappear into the abyss simply because somebody with so little power over their own personal lives, deems it fit and proper to acquire esteem by trying to ruin the lives of others. And as John wrote so presciently last week, we will all be haunted that we stood by while our government with the full faith and credit of those mentioned earlier, went on an almost decade long rampage against a private citizen whose largest transgression was to be unpleasant to those in mainstream media.
this whole thing reminds me of the scene from poltergeist, when the munchkin ghost excorcist stands in front of the camera and exclaims, “this house is clean”…but the entire audience knows, that aint the case, and the movie concludes with the entire house being swallowed into another dimension
the game has never been “clean” and never really will be
since it began, players, afraid of having to go back out and get real jobs, have been looking for and doing things that would give them an edge and extend their careers
and owners have been looking for ways to screw the players and eek out as much out of them to increase their profit ledger
we have just watched the most monumental collapse of our economic system since the great depression…and guess what…it occured cuz most of the guys involved were cheating
welcome to the real great american past time….fucking ones fellow man for a buck
Great post as usual, John. I’ve got to think that with unemployment shooting through the roof in a death-spiral economy, ordinary folks are going to start seeing through a witch hunt aimed at labor, a la the Bonds absurdity.
Meanwhile, the list of athletes it’s safe to assume used PEDs, in addition to Bonds, A-Rod, Clemens, McGwire, et. al.:
Every single Olympic 100m finalist in the past 40 years, male and female
Every single Olympic finalist in the major sports (track, swimming, etc.) in the past 40 years, male and female
Every single Tour de France stage winner in the past 40 years
Every single NFL player, ever
Every single baseball player in the past 30 years
Every other professional athlete, male and female, incl. cricketers, snooker players, golfers but possibly not dart players
If they gave out awards for pampered athlete rimjob artistry, you would finish first.