Two recent articles involving steroids caught my eye, my attention, and drew my ire. The first one was in the NY Times, having to do with the attorneys in the Bonds case:
…. Barry Bonds is at home, awaiting trial and hoping that a major league team will ask him to play again. The prosecutors overseeing his case have gone back to working on other investigations. And one of Bonds’s lead defense lawyers has spent time helping to determine who the prosecutors’ next boss will be.
…. Whoever eventually becomes the United States attorney — the highest law-enforcement official in the Bay Area — will have an important decision to make in the Bonds case.
…. “I can see the concern that it looks worrisome,” he said, “but there are many layers in this decision, there are a lot of people on the committee — there is no direct decision-maker — it’s Boxer’s call, it’s Obama’s call and it’s subject to review of the Department of Justice and Congressional approval.”
Expressing more concern than the legal experts was Travis Tygart, the chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, which oversees the testing of all Olympic athletes and promotes clean competition in all sports.
“Right or wrong, perception can become reality and the perception here is not good,” Tygart said. “Hopefully, this will not have anything to do with the truth of Barry Bonds’s doping from coming to light and his tainted home run record being expunged.”
…. Since prosecutors began scrutinizing Bonds in 2003, there have been three United States attorneys for the Northern District of California. The current United States attorney, Joseph P. Russoniello, said in an interview Wednesday that he wanted to remain in the post after his term expired in December 2011.
…. Russoniello declined to say whether the government would move forward with the case if the appeals court does not let them use the disputed evidence. But he took issue with those people who have criticized his prosecutors for going after professional athletes.
“With all people we expect that when we put them in front of the grand jury they will be truthful,” Russoniello said. “It would be wrong to impose different standards because they were celebrities; we prosecute regardless of who the people are. We prosecute what is in front of us.”
Russoni
ello said that since he took over as United States attorney, in 2007, he has developed a greater appreciation for the Balco investigation and how the use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes can influence teenagers.
“Stan Musial was my hero when I was a kid, and he smoked cigarettes,” Russoniello said. “I smoked cigarettes. Did I smoke cigarettes because of him? Well, there was not anything that he did to deter me from smoking cigarettes.”
That's two people charged with important decisions, being in important jobs, who are either lying or idiots. If Tygart really thinks that way, he's not an executive running an organization. he's a crusader wit a vendetta, who cares more about image than facts, and he should be fired.
As for Russoniello, he's a disgrace to Italians everywhere. I can't even believe a grown man would allow himself to think something so absurd, and to allow himself to say it aloud, in front of a reporter is embarrassing. “There was not anything he did to deter me from smoking cigarettes.” I'm sorry that Stan Musial never told him not to smoke. Wow.
I'll get to the second one in a day or so. I just had to point put the absurdity.
UPDATE: Speaking of Bonds and absurdity, here's the headline to this article about Bengie Molina:
Giants’ Cleanup Hitter Is No Bonds (That’s a Good Thing)
…. Is there a more improbable full-time cleanup hitter in the major leagues? In his first 80 games, Molina batted .259 with 11 homers and 50 runs batted in. He was on a pace to hit 20 homers and drive in 91 runs.
Those projected numbers would be decent, but Molina, 34, is hardly a fearsome or dependable slugger. He was hitting .239 with runners in scoring position and had walked a shockingly low three times. Molina had a .432 slugging percentage and a .267 on-base percentage, which was worst in the National League.
Yeah, who needs a guy who gets on base half the time, has the highest slugging percentage in the league, and is generally the best hitter alive?
That piece was written by Jack Curry, just one more slam job by a cadre of reporters and mass media idiots who are obviously under some obligation to relentlessly continue their attacks on Barry, even when there's no reason whatsoever. Disgraceful.
Lefty!
There’s nothing in that NYT article that slams Bonds. If you actually read it you wouldn’t have needed to insult the writer. (Who, as Robert points out above, probably had nothing to do with the original headline. Reporters almost NEVER write headlines, which you, in all your infinite wisdom about the mass media, should know.)
Lefty,
Good to hear from you. Enjoy your site.
Sanchez tonight. Hopefully…he puts Zito back in the pen.
About the Jack Curry article – the current version on the New York Times web page has this title: “Giants’ Cleanup Hitter Is No Bonds, and Not Even a Slugger”. I’m not sure the columnists/writers actually make up the titles to their pieces. In fact, the piece doesn’t reflect the attitude of the title “Giants’ Cleanup Hitter Is No Bonds (That’s a Good Thing)” at all. It just observes that Molina is an improbable cleanup hitter. The Giants are getting more attention with the wild card thing and the trade deadline rapidly approaching. That the Giants are in the race at all with their weak offense is a legitimate story topic. My guess is the author didn’t come up with that title. Anyway, it’s been taken down and replaced with one that’s more relevant to the article’s content.
I’m thinking James’ application of the 80-20 rule here may actually be lowballing the number of PED users in MLB.
Speaking of MLB and storoids, here is Bill James’ take, from an article he published on his web site the other day. John, I expect you will agree 100% with this:
“The “rule” against Performance Enhancing Drugs, if there was such a rule before 2002…was never agreed to by the players, who clearly and absolutely have a right to participate in the process of changing any and all rules to which they are subject. It was not included in any of the various rule books that define the conduct of the game from various perspectives. There was no process for enforcing such a rule. The punishments were draconian in theory and non-existent in fact.
It seems to me that, with the passage of time, more people will come to understand that the commissioner’s periodic spasms of self-righteousness do not constitute baseball law. It seems to me that the argument that it is cheating must ultimately collapse under the weight of carrying this great contradiction—that 80% of the players are cheating against the other 20% by violating some “rule” to which they never consented, which was never included in the rule books, and which for which there was no enforcement procedure. History is simply NOT going to see it that way.”
James also writes that it may take 30-40 years to reach this point, i.e., we will have to wait for the current generation of writers to retire. So hopefully justice and reason are on the way, although we may have a long wait until they finally arrive…
Thank you for that. Eloquent in its succinctness
That’s the second article, I was going to write about it extensively tomorrow. Thanks.
It will need to coincide with a change in attitude with respect to steroids. The general reaction is still of the knee-jerk variety. A steroid user is still represented as a guy who killed his co-worker in order to get a promotion that the co-worker was in line to receive.
With luck, the next 30 to 40 years will not only see the head-in-the-sand writers retiring, but also a change in how PEDs are viewed, along with an understanding that baseball players have always sought an edge, even when it wasn’t legal. Why is Barry Bonds (who is believed to have knowingly used steroids) a “cheater” who “disgraced himself and the game” yet Gaylord Perry (who admitted to throwing the spitball when it was against baseball’s rules) is a “cagey veteran” and “the ultimate competitor” who got voted into the Hall of Fame? Why aren’t writers asking for a portion of his wins to be ‘expunged’?
Oh, sorry. His kind of cheating was okay.
[...] …. Stupid is as stupid does July 18, 2009 by admin Leave a reply » Two recent article involving steroids caught my eye, my attention, and drew my ire. The first one was in the NY Times , having to do with the attorneys in the Bonds case: …. Barry Bonds is at home, awaiting trial and hoping that a major league team will ask him to play again. The prosecutors overseeing his case have gone back to working on other investigations. And one of Bonds’s lead defense lawyers has spent time helping to determine who the prosecutors’ next boss will be. …. Whoever ev Original post by …. Stupid is as stupid does [...]