I’m so tired of this whole baseball steroid mess. I’m not sure that we’re going to get definitive proof about who’s telling the truth, so I’m not sure why this investigation continues. However, I can’t stop watching it. In the midst of today’s hearing came a voice with whom I can relate. Here’s a bit of what Virginia Fox (R-NC) said/asked during her time with the floor.
I have said to the chairman, myself, personally, that I am concerned with the direction that this committee has gone in the last year or so, because I think we’ve been playing gotcha games and I don’t agree with that…what this committee ought to be doing is… government oversight and we are not doing that. I am not a fan of holding these hearings on issues we have no business dealing with.
It’s also unclear to me what the point is, now. I trust that in the beginning the purpose was noble, but I think it’s deteriorating into something else. Why is the government managing an issue that is baseball’s?! Perhaps someone needs to get to the bottom of this mess, but I’m not sure that the government needs to be the ones doing it. If I’m wrong, then why isn’t the government looking into steroids in every other sport…at every level that it is being played? This locomotive has jumped the tracks and needs help!
I just found the next bit interesting, but not necessarily connected to the previous point. Foxx continues by addressing Brian MacNamee:
Foxx: Mr. MacNamee, are you playing on trying to make money off of this situation?
MacNamee: No, I’m not.
Foxx: Are you writing a book or do you plan to write a book?
MacNamee: No, ma’am.
Foxx: You don’t have any, uh, deals in the work with book publishers at all?
MacNamee responds that he does not.
Foxx: Ok. We’ll see.
Only time will show if MacNamee will indeed financially profit from all of this. Congresswoman Foxx seems to have tried to decrease the likelihood that he will.
I understand your frustration with the steroids scandal. But is the solution to ignore it? this is exactly what baseball executives and players want. Is it okay to let a culture of drug abuse just get swept under the rug? What do we really know about baseball’s testing standards and offseason testing? When steroid abuse is rampantly increasing in middle school and high school athletes, these are all valid and very important questions, especially for educators. I understand that people don’t want this to be like the McCarthy era of anti-communism. But has I stated, the questions I pose are all vitally important to the future of young athletes, and I want to see them answered, despite baseball’s insistence that they not be.