Collective stupidity...

I heard she’s also angry at Alex Rodriguez’s admitting to using steroids.

Can’t worry too much about the children now can we?

That, my friends, in a nutshell is why I get so ticked off at the media and people in general for dumping on A-Rod and Barry Bonds as this evil scourge that needs to be eradicated with extreme prejudice. Yeah, I’m not keen on players using steroids; my biggest beef is with the hypocrisy and revisionist history that is going on. Bud Selig along with his harem of whores in the media are trying to portray themselves as the heroes of this saga--Selig, the courageous warrior-commissioner bent on eliminating evil from the sport and the press as the ever vigilant watchdogs looking out for the public wellbeing quick to put the malefactors in the stocks of public opinion where they can receive their deserved scorn.

Nails on a chalkboard.

You’d think after so much time, John Q. Public would clue in and resume thinking for themselves rather than taking the attitude of ‘if it’s in the paper it must be true.’ While almost all would deny they hold such a mindset, their actions reveal that they still take what they read pretty much as the gospel truth--especially if it makes them feel better about themselves; trouble is, what makes them feel better is dragging people above them down to their level.

However, it’s only the ones the media anoint as the reapers of scorn that get nailed. Miguel Tejada--despite an MVP and being an All Star will not receive the flak of Rodriguez, Bonds, and Clemens because he hasn’t been the subject of press scrutiny and never signed an obscene contract but he’s no different than Barry Lamar, Roger or Alex.

Nobody is suggesting that Tejada is a menace that society needs protection from as my favourite SF Chronicle commenter opined with his “Bonds should get prison time, at least for that nasty personality. Society needs protected from big headed liars.” They have never been conditioned to hate Tejada.

As I discussed with a reader of my SMSN column this week: steroids were (and are--if you think the game still isn’t awash with them then you’re an idiot) an institutional failure in which blame rests upon commissioner, management, union, players and media.

I'm doing my level best to keep the focus on the larger issue.

The public has long railed (at the media's behest) about the "pampered, greedy overpaid players" and the Helen Lovejoy's come out in droves to "protect the children" when in reality they could do a lot more in that regard by looking in a mirror once in awhile.

Go into a classroom and chances are good nowadays that one in every two/three girls will experience sexual abuse during their childhood--that ain't A-Rod or Barry responsible for that; adults and parents expose their children to second hand smoke (see Ms. Williamson above), drug, alcohol and sexual abuse on a level that is truly staggering. As mentioned in the (SMSN) article, the world is being wrecked by people who get a tiny fraction of the vitriol being given steroid using ballplayers but the media has us convinced that "cheating ballplayers" are what is truly harming “the children.”

Why do people focus on A-Rod/juiced ballplayers over more important issues? Its either they’re jealous or superficial idiots obsessed with the celebrity culture.

I, for one, am sick and tired of reading about how ballplayers are this great evil that everyone rails against deluding themselves into thinking they’re being noble and “protecting the children.” They do that because it’s a lot easier than focusing on the larger problems (oftentimes the ones staring back at them in the bathroom mirror) and effecting change--something they do not wish to do--it’s easier to blame A-Rod for corrupting the children than their crappy parenting.

If you smoke in front of your children--shut up about A-Rod.
If you’ve driven your car after taking a drink with your children in the car--shut up about A-Rod.
If you’ve cheated on your taxes to save a few bucks and you have children--shut up about A-Rod.
If you’ve produced children and do not look after them physically, mentally, emotionally--shut up about A-Rod.

See my point? These will do far more damage to the children than players using steroids. The trillions being spent cleaning up the mess made by the truly greedy (that will be pocketed by many of these very ones) rather than schools, healthcare, social services, adequate nutrition and the like will do more damage to the children in the next year than every ballplayer that has ever stuck a syringe full of steroids into his butt (or popped a greenie) combined for the next 100 years.

As I’ll be dealing with next week on SMSN, since 1990, over $6 billion in tax dollars (unadjusted for inflation--for example: the $150 million for the building of U.S. Cellular Field is in 1991 dollars--not 2009) has been used in construction costs alone for ballparks and this excludes the value of the land given away, infrastructure, low interest loans (where the government makes up the difference), tax free bonds (the government forgoes the revenue on the bonds) and a myriad of other tax breaks that go along with such scams. It excludes any renovations made, maintenance required and a myriad of other costs associated with such boondoggles.

Adjust those dollars for inflation and you’re literally looking at tens of billions of dollars.

How many services that directly affect the children--such as education, teaching jobs and support staff, public safety, school programs (including nutrition, counselling and extra-curricular activities), healthcare, public parks and recreation programs, libraries--could’ve been funded with that amount of jack? Heck, Czar Bud’s almost $18 million salary is literally being subsidized indirectly by “the children” he’s allegedly concerned about protecting by wagging his finger at A-Rod! He does that because it’s easier to do than take a pay cut--he wants to protect the children from steroids and little else. Well, c’mon--how many kids are going to be harmed by steroid using ballplayers as opposed to a lack of funds to look after their needs?

Yeah, to me steroids are bad but the blame is being distributed unevenly and unfairly insofar as baseball is concerned and it’s negative effect on “the children” and the world at large is waaaaaaaaaaaaay waaaaaaaaaaaaay down on the list of things that can harm them yet folks act like it’s John Wayne Gacy being cloned on the scale of Star Wars Episode II.

Yet folks still think I “support” steroid users because I point these things out.

(sigh)

Best Regards

John