Cynics may scoff ... but baseball is the one professional sport that carries with it a duty to the American culture. Character counts in America, and baseball is bound by history, tradition and its role in legend and myth to make certain that character counts on its playing fields as well. ... What it does have that no other professional sport even values very much is integrity, or at least an appreciation that integrity is important.I envy Mr. Marshall—really I do, to be able to view baseball in such a light is something I wish I could return to; from that point of view ignorance is indeed bliss since it would allow us to enjoy the game in all it’s beauty unencumbered by the baggage that can besmirch the experience.
However, as a student (albeit a level below Steve Treder) of baseball’s history I find his statement incredible; this is a game that excluded non-Caucasian players, had an owner that tried to aid the cover-up of the Black Sox scandal until it became impossible, tolerated gambling until it turned on them, exploited players at every turn, broke rules that they themselves agreed to abide by (collusion), extorts tens of billions of dollars for stadium scams through lies and fraudulent claims, provided illegal drugs for players (amphetamines), were major enablers of the steroid scandal (something Marshall acknowledges), bold-faced lied to the federal government as respects their financial state and effectiveness of their drug program etc. I cannot see how anyone can make the claim that the sport has “an appreciation that integrity is important.”
Corruption is what has defined the game—not integrity; integrity is an illusion that the sport has consistently tried to sell to the public the same way it does hot dogs, beer and souvenir caps. It sells integrity the same way Disney tries to sell “magic” and “enchantment” but nobody deludes themselves into thinking that profit isn't the primary motivational directive of such a strategy.
Players who have serious criminal charges, who are accused of rape and spousal abuse, drunk driving and drug arrests just fade out of the game.When their skills fade—they didn’t come up with the phrase “If you can hit a curveball you can get away with murder” because it was fun to say and rolled off the tongue. His statement would have more credibility if he had cited examples of players whose careers ended long before their productivity waned but the facts state otherwise: how many chances did Steve Howe, Daryl Strawberry and Sidney Ponson receive? This is far from a comprehensive list Let's see how Brian Giles career plays out.
Baseball made a serious mistake in the ‘90s by looking the other way while steroid abuse mutated its players, distorted game results and warped its record book.It’s amazing that baseball is said to have made “a mistake” while Bonds is vilified and needs to be removed from the game. To me, this is no different than banning the Black Sox for life and putting Charles Comiskey into the Hall of Fame. Have we learned nothing from history? Barry Bonds uses steroids to make money and hopefully win a World Series from his improved performance. The New York Yankees strike every reference of steroids from the contract to Jason Giambi to make money and hopefully win a World Series from the team's improved performance. The owner skates and the player is banished. Plus ca change.
But the Mitchell Report, released a year ago, was a crystal-clear announcement that the sport was banishing its ethical ambiguity on the matter of performance-enhancing drugs. For this purpose, it was irrelevant that the report was incomplete and limited in scope. The Mitchell Report announced that Major League Baseball believed that steroid and HGH use was wrong, unacceptable, and sullied the game. It would condemn and embarrass any player found to violate this standard. Cheating was not cool, and cheaters were not welcome. The conduct was officially inconsistent with the values and best interests of the game (as it had, in fact, always been), and the owners, players, teams and fans were hereby expected to heed that fact.No, this happened because Congress was breathing down its neck. The reason steroids gained such a foothold is that the government hadn’t gotten involved yet. As Craig Calcaterra outlined in his chapter in the THT Annual (that I hope Marshall reads at some point), the Mitchell Report was designed to “officially” end “the steroid era.” Steroids and HGH are still used by many because the tests are not comprehensive enough to catch all the cheats. The Mitchell Report is to baseball what the blanket is to Linus—something they can cling to for a measure of security that keeps problems at bay. As with Linus, the blanket does nothing regarding the difficulties of life but merely allows the person holding it to feel that it does—in the same way, the Mitchell Report allows MLB to think the steroid problem has been dealt with when it really hasn’t.
As to Bonds—never forget this one point: MLB never found its conscience about employing Barry Lamar Bonds until all the checks from the home run chase were cashed and Bonds had given services rendered for the money his contract dictated that he be paid. Only when all the revenue had been wrung out of Bonds’ talents and no member of the ownership cartel would have to swallow a nickel in losses before he became too obnoxious to employ.
Think about it: MLB allowed Bonds to break the record because of the money it made for the sport but now he has to be removed from the game because now that Bonds is a record holder he has become a symbol of why steroid use is wrong and needs to be exorcised from the sport for the sake of its integrity.
I’m sorry—I do not get it.
More to come—this will take some time and I’m going to have a difficult time reducing my rebuttal to one THT article.
Best Regards
John
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