Okay, I just got done reading the whole report. Seriously, It reads like something I wrote in college the night before it was due, with a killer hangover and too little research.
The stunningly repetitive “report’ says the same thing over and over and over. And that would be fine, if it said anything new, but it doesn’t. It basically is a compendium of every steroid story you’ve heard over the years. It is cobbled together from police reports and old news stories. i mean, come on, a United States Senator has to use 20 million dollars to quote a 2002 article from USA TODAY, featuring the blockbuster revelations of Todd Zeile?
Here are the three things I took from it.
The first is how the media has absolutely and unequivocally messed this whole thing up from the very start. Originally, they are complicit in not pushing the issue of steroids earlier. The national past time was eroding in front of our collective face, and where was the Fourth Estate? Right there, but saying nothing. Every paper has beat writers who follow these teams, every network has the same. These reporters can routinely be heard in their columns, on TV or the radio, spouting off about the access they have to the players. Yet in the “Report” , and in my memory, there were only a handful of in-depth, far reaching investigative reports over the years. The kind that really put a spotlight on the problem. And most of those seem to be the foundation for this “report”. And now that the "report" is here, no one is calling this thing out. Check out Espn’s Page2 links to newspaper coverage from across the country. Almost every thing I’ve seen is all about how the scathing “report” has ousted the likes of Matt Herges and Mike Lansing. So what? How dare they give credit for the “outing” of Canseco, Bonds, Giambi, Sheffield, Camminitti and the likes to Mitchell! How hard is it to include Rafael Palmero in your "report"? The only surprises at all were Clemens and ,even more so to me, Andy Pettite. Otherwise it was only a regurgitation of what we knew and no one is holding MLB’s feet to the fire.
Which is my second thought, that this whole thing is a dog and pony show for MLB and will be used to cover up the issues. The “report” mentions numerous times how a drug policy was always secondary (at best) to economic issues at the bargaining table. MLB has just broken attendance records for the 4th year in a row (something like 75 million people attended MLB games last year). They constantly tried to discredit Canseco, which should have been easy if not for his telling the truth, but were unable to sweep the steroids under the rug when his book came out and prompted the Senate Hearings. So they get noted tobacco lobbyist and RED SOX DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS George Mitchell to run an “investigation”. That’s like appointing Alberto Gonzales as special prosecutor in a Bush impeachment. How hard did they try? They did 600 interviews. Great. 68 were players. Okay. 23 were Red Sox. Whaa? So only around 10 percent of your interviews are with players and roughly a third a from the same team? No wonder they couldn’t find weapons of mass destruction. That’s why you don’t have an owner as commissioner. Especially Bud Selig. Has he ever inspired confidence in anyone? I like the part where Mitchell recounts the story of Selig going to the mall to see if GNC indeed sells andro over the counter. Classic. How out of touch is this guy. And how badly does Donald Fehr own him?
Which is my third point. Donald Fehr is Biff Tannen, Selig is George McFly, and we the fans are all the other kids in town that have to deal with Biff’s shit. The players Union is killing baseball. How about the downright refusal to give Senator Mitchell access to relevant documents or the guy that does the drug testing. They wouldn’t LET the US Senator in charge of a steroid investigation talk to the freaking drug screener. Amazing. And how about the part where they describe how the PU runs interference for several weeks before a player is actually tested for anything. Unreal. Privacy issues? Come on now. At least try not to smirk when you say this stuff Donald.
Which leads me to propose Deportation for Donald Fehr. I hope they sic dogs on him.
The stunningly repetitive “report’ says the same thing over and over and over. And that would be fine, if it said anything new, but it doesn’t. It basically is a compendium of every steroid story you’ve heard over the years. It is cobbled together from police reports and old news stories. i mean, come on, a United States Senator has to use 20 million dollars to quote a 2002 article from USA TODAY, featuring the blockbuster revelations of Todd Zeile?
Here are the three things I took from it.
The first is how the media has absolutely and unequivocally messed this whole thing up from the very start. Originally, they are complicit in not pushing the issue of steroids earlier. The national past time was eroding in front of our collective face, and where was the Fourth Estate? Right there, but saying nothing. Every paper has beat writers who follow these teams, every network has the same. These reporters can routinely be heard in their columns, on TV or the radio, spouting off about the access they have to the players. Yet in the “Report” , and in my memory, there were only a handful of in-depth, far reaching investigative reports over the years. The kind that really put a spotlight on the problem. And most of those seem to be the foundation for this “report”. And now that the "report" is here, no one is calling this thing out. Check out Espn’s Page2 links to newspaper coverage from across the country. Almost every thing I’ve seen is all about how the scathing “report” has ousted the likes of Matt Herges and Mike Lansing. So what? How dare they give credit for the “outing” of Canseco, Bonds, Giambi, Sheffield, Camminitti and the likes to Mitchell! How hard is it to include Rafael Palmero in your "report"? The only surprises at all were Clemens and ,even more so to me, Andy Pettite. Otherwise it was only a regurgitation of what we knew and no one is holding MLB’s feet to the fire.
Which is my second thought, that this whole thing is a dog and pony show for MLB and will be used to cover up the issues. The “report” mentions numerous times how a drug policy was always secondary (at best) to economic issues at the bargaining table. MLB has just broken attendance records for the 4th year in a row (something like 75 million people attended MLB games last year). They constantly tried to discredit Canseco, which should have been easy if not for his telling the truth, but were unable to sweep the steroids under the rug when his book came out and prompted the Senate Hearings. So they get noted tobacco lobbyist and RED SOX DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS George Mitchell to run an “investigation”. That’s like appointing Alberto Gonzales as special prosecutor in a Bush impeachment. How hard did they try? They did 600 interviews. Great. 68 were players. Okay. 23 were Red Sox. Whaa? So only around 10 percent of your interviews are with players and roughly a third a from the same team? No wonder they couldn’t find weapons of mass destruction. That’s why you don’t have an owner as commissioner. Especially Bud Selig. Has he ever inspired confidence in anyone? I like the part where Mitchell recounts the story of Selig going to the mall to see if GNC indeed sells andro over the counter. Classic. How out of touch is this guy. And how badly does Donald Fehr own him?
Which is my third point. Donald Fehr is Biff Tannen, Selig is George McFly, and we the fans are all the other kids in town that have to deal with Biff’s shit. The players Union is killing baseball. How about the downright refusal to give Senator Mitchell access to relevant documents or the guy that does the drug testing. They wouldn’t LET the US Senator in charge of a steroid investigation talk to the freaking drug screener. Amazing. And how about the part where they describe how the PU runs interference for several weeks before a player is actually tested for anything. Unreal. Privacy issues? Come on now. At least try not to smirk when you say this stuff Donald.
Which leads me to propose Deportation for Donald Fehr. I hope they sic dogs on him.
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