Hammer of the PEDS

Baseball’s long anticipated hammer finally slammed down on Monday. Alex Rodriguez has been in Major League Baseball’s cross hairs ever since the Yankees begged them to investigate the crap out of their bizarre $252 million investment in A-Fraud. In addition to A-Rod and Ryan Braun, thirteen others were outed. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig showed the iron fist that he has ruled with since after he was an owner. The Dominican Republic was well represented in the Dirty 13. It is disappointing but at the end of the day the Dodgers are in 1st Place NL West and the Giants are in last! Really, how upset can one be? It is day watch number 13 for the San Francisco hopeful that their team is in last place. The Giants even made the pilgrimage to the Oval Office for a séance with Barry O. That did not stem the tide. It was so painful at the Yard to watch this two out of the last three champions fade away like Tiger Woods at any major, not really. We just hope that they keep chanting about the 49ers who will be playing in Santa Clara soon enough. The Giants picked a bad time to win 13 out of 39 games while the Dodgers were winning 32 out of 40. Once again, it is painful new math for our well-heeled compadres from the north. Giant fan better keep the newspapers, the tee shirts and the pakalolo. There is a new sheriff in town and he has sicker money than the Yankees. If you want to get past all of the PED suspensions that are rocking baseball, please do. The Yard has not allocated any of our interns to research the cause and effect. We get the cause and the effect is indeterminate. Who is the perceived victim? The baseball fan who thought they were observing “pure” skill without the taint of a steroid or some other supplement? In the history of baseball have players not taken every angle available to them to perform to the dollars paid? Baseball rewards statistics because they were rewarded at the turnstiles. Baseball has always turned a blind eye when it benefits baseball. Bud Selig fancies himself as J. Edgar Hoover to the rescue now because he cashed out at the height of the PED era as an owner. Again, Bud makes $20 freaking million a year to do what he does after selling the Brewers for a $100 million profit during the PED era. Eight out of thirteen PED offenders were from the Dominican Republic. All of the accused were from south of the border except A-Rod. We are with the Yankees in trying to deport him back to somewhere off the payroll. With MLB up and coming stars like Bryce Harper, Mike Trout and Buster Posey, US baseball is on the uptick. A sport that was launched in the US and exported to the world still comes home every year to Williamsport, PA. The US is the founder but the rest of the world-ROW- has caught on quickly. Latin America players now make up 28% of the rosters of Major League Baseball. For US athletes, baseball is an option. For Latin athletes, it is the only option. Years back, I went to a baseball game with a rocket scientist; yes a real one. It was proffered that night that baseball players were not real athletes because baseball was such a pedestrian sport. Real athletes were well more athletic and could leap over tall buildings in a single bound and stuff like that. Baseball has a special place in the Yard’s foundation. Attempts to diminish the core are met with stiff resistance. Yard retorts were quick and not well received. In the US, the star baseball player at any high school In America does not only play baseball. He is a sports icon at that school. The baseball guy can play any sport size permitting. Hitting a pitched ball is the most difficult of all professional skills. Success can be highly rewarded. Hand eye coordination is God given and enhanced by practice. A ML player who can hit a pitched ball three times out of ten will never starve. Does anyone reading these musings max their comp plan while being successful 33.33% of the time? Being a six foot three inch lefthander is also highly valued. In the Dominican Republic, there are not those options. Soccer is not even an option. If a Dominican baseball player makes the show, they will make more money for one game than their family will make in their lives. PED’s are a huge risk for these players but the reward is so ridiculous who would not take the chance with the same opportunity. Many of the suspended offenders will still be owed money when their suspension ends. The Yankees will still owe A-Rod $68 million. Ryan Braun will be owed $100 million. All of this being said, my good friend Brian pointed out to me an interesting fact. He suggested that is there really only one PED clinic in the entire US that broke the code and that these 13 players found it and that they are the only ones? Bud wants us to believe that scenario, hammer the Latin’s and get past it. In a country built on free enterprise illicit or otherwise, is it plausible that this is an isolated incident for these rouge players? Did they out Braun first so they could hammer the Latin’s solo? Baseball is near and dear to the Yard. The PED era does not diminish that. It was a fun era. Balls were flying out of the park, records were broken, pitchers were performing super human miracles and the turnstiles were flowing. Who suffered besides the abuser’s bodies? We came for the game and the games were good. Purists suggest that records were tainted and children could no longer look up to their heroes. We would suggest that children with professional athletes as their role models are in trouble. Following athletes is our passion but it will never bypass responsible parenting. Responsible parents will never let their children experiment with PED’s. It is not something that can be hidden on School Street. Records will always be tainted over the decades. All of the records that are and will ever be are distilled by their era. Every major league record holders set a record that is indigent to that era. Ty Cobb was an absolute racist who never played a night game. Cobb is part of the inaugural Hall of Fame Five. Babe Ruth never had exposure to PED’s and he never faced an African American pitcher? He is part of the same class. Which issue is bigger in the history of baseball? The color line or PED’s? Both issues are huge and neither can be ignored in their time and place and the resulting statistics. Bob Gibson readily admits that he was so competitive that he would have used PED’s. He did not have the chance and he was glad he did not. Barry Bonds did and where is he now in our collective history of baseball? Baseball is our Nation’s seminal sport. It is revered because of this history and the ridiculous statistics that have been kept since its gestation. We have not only followed baseball’s course, we have recorded it. The history cannot be changed even by those who wish to change the accounting. Barry, Roger, Mark and the rest of the PED poster boys should be in the Hall. They have the HOF statistics regardless of the circumstances. They were not rouge athletes. They were competitive for their era. They played by the rules they were handed not the moral compass the media portends now.