Category: Baseball

I’m no Red Sox fan, but this is a great story.

Bill Buckner was the first baseman for the Boston Red Sox when a baseball rolled through his legs during the 1986 World Series. He has since been the goat for the team’s loss of the championship and has endured negative fan and media attention. Perhaps all that will change as Buckner was invited to throw out today’s “ceremonial first pitch to conclude the World Series ring ceremony at Fenway Park, receiving a thunderous ovation from the sellout crowd.” Read more about this great story here.

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.

Straight from the news ticker at the bottom of the ESPN channel.

Newsday (New York) reports Yankees P Andy Pettitte’s deposition supports Brian McNamee’s claim that he gave Roger Clemens injections of banned drugs, according to Rep. To Davis, a ranking member of the congressional committee investigating the use of illegal drugs in baseball; ESPN’s T.J. Quinn reports Tom Davis says he was misquoted and misunderstood and did not characterize Pettitte’s statement at all.2

Associated Press reports Jose Canseco says in a sworn affidavit that he never saw Roger Clemens “use, possess or ask for steroids or human growth hormone”; Canseco’s affidavit is part of a congressional investigation into illegal drug use in baseball.

Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee expected to testify Wednesday [tomorrow] at congressional hearing on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.

I’m already sick of this story! I’m certainly against the use of performance enhancing drugs, but I’m not sure that anything positive is going to be accomplished by tomorrow’s congressional hearing. This whole mess currently has the potential of wrecking the lives and reputations of a few high-profiled individuals. Realistically, it’s likely that there are many other athletes that were using but they are not facing the same level of scrutiny. I’m not advocating that wrong doers get away with doing wrong, but I do think consistency is important. I think it’s only fair to punish everyone or no one.