Do you like HGH, Shawne?
So former Red Sox, former Indians, and current Dodgers star Manny Ramirez just got popped for using a banned substance by Major League Baseball. He'll be out 50 games and lose $8 million dollars for (if you believe the story) a doctor-prescribed sex enhancer hormone (that can possibly double as a post-roid chaser.) Once again steroids in baseball are on the top of the sports page, and once again sportswriters are foaming at the mouth about "oh no, ban them all, the sport is a disgrace, clean up baseball, what a blow to the sport."
Whatever. Baseball has no more of a steroids presence than football. What I (Pale Horseman...LPP himself largely hates baseball) don't understand is that how a sport that has been for better or worse officially passed by football as the national pastime is still treated as the holiest of holies by the same people who will admit to have abandoned it LONG before the strike of 1994 and the steroids fallout. All we hear about in baseball is "Bonds' records should/shouldn't count," or "McGwire should/shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame," or "How can we trust anyone?" Yet in football, you hear about a guy getting suspended for performance drugs, all you hear is "how will this affect the team?" Not ONE F***ING WORD about "what a shame," "call in Congress," "think of the children." Just "what an idiot, how will this affect the team?"
Football is obviously America's sport of choice these days, yet it's baseball that evokes sentimentality. What records or achievements can most people name quickly for baseball? DiMaggio, 56-game hitting streak. Bonds' 73 homers to top McGwire's 70 homers to top Maris' 61 homers to top Ruth's 60 homers. 755. 714. 59 consecutive scoreless innings. Guys with 500 homers. Guys with 3000 hits. Ripken's Ironman streak.
How many records or numbers like that can most people name from football that didn't happen in the past 2-3 years? The Dolphins' perfect season. Brett Favre's games-started streak. 18-1 (which because of the Dolphins and Giants DOESN'T MATTER, HAHAHAHA) That's pretty much it, and ONLY because we hear about them from the TV announcers every time a team gets to 5-0 and every time Brett Favre ever stepped on a damn football field. Maybe some bits and pieces about Emmitt Smith or Jerry Rice, but no one really remembers the numbers without Wikipedia.
What I'm trying to say is this: there's a double standard here that I don't understand. It's apparent that America has made its choice and picks football over baseball--the numbers back that statement up and then some. So how come it's baseball that has a "steroid problem" when football players up and down the roster are anywhere from 40 to 80 pounds more massive on average than they used to be, get caught almost if not just as regularly, and have horrible health problems after retirement? Do football fans really just not care? Is it because football, like so many other things, feeds America's short attention span and love for sex and violence, and needs to be nothing else? If baseball is so "boring" why do so many writers go insane when Rafael Palmeiro is considered for the Hall of Fame but Rodney Harrison gets banned and reinstated within one season and writers say "watch out, the Pats have their strength back."
Who knows? Screw it.
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!
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