Battle For Ohio

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Ever since Mark McGwire was hired on with the St. Louis Cardinals as their hitting coach I have been thinking about what I wanted to say.  I mean I have always felt that (RANT ALERT)  all athletes regardless of the sport that have used steroids are cheaters and liars and don’t deserve any recognition for anything they may have accomplished.  But it was the fact that Mark McGwire has recently come clean after years of speculation and doubt to doing something illegal to influence the out come of a ball game.  Sound familiar Reds fans?  Pete Rose ring a bell?  The games all time hit King after years of speculation and doubt and whispers finally comes clean.  Of course he chooses to do so in a book, which makes him look like he was going after a giant cash grab…and he was, ugh.  But the fact is that he too came clean, just like McGwire, unfortunately that is where the similarities end.

Rose would have only been retired for three-years in 1989, when his life time ban was slapped on him.  He would not have even been eligible for another two years to be elected to the Hall of Fame.  All he would have needed was one year, he would have been a first ballot Hall of Famer.  But he never even got the chance to prove that.  Even amongst the whispers and the allegations, I don’t think they would have denied Pete the Hall of Fame.  But McGwire has had a chance.  As a matter of fact he has had 4 chances, never getting to 25%, you need 75% to get in.  I am really happy to see that most people have responded well to clear steroid use, I will be real interested to see what happens with A-Frawd.  But at least McGwire had the shot, and to be honest this might help him, years from now people might forget since the mystery is gone, he could turn out to be a hell of a coach and people love him again, who knows?  I know it’s quite a long shot, but a long shot is better than a no-shot.

Plus, if the Hall of Fame is supposed to be confined to what someone did ON the baseball field then would Pete be even more deserving?  What Pete did, while illegal, takes NOTHING away from what he did on the field.  McGwire, using performance enhancing drugs and then playing baseball pretty much directly affects what he did on the field.

Why is Mark McGwire, a man guilty of the same thing Pete Rose is guilty of (cheating), welcomed back to the game that he cheated at with open arms?  Not even a slap on the wrist?  Why?

Why is Pete Rose stuck sitting outside Vegas Hotels ringing a bell with a sign that reads, “Pete’s Salvation Army?”  Why does baseball continue to shun him like Sarah Palin shuns intelligence.  Whoa, political humor, sorry about that one.  Slipped.  Blame “Oprah Jesus” that my wife watches all the time for that one.

Bud Selig.

Is there any more of a worthless man?  I mean to call him a figure-head is nice, right?  THANKFULLY the man will be gone in 2012.  Perhaps then baseball can start to evolve and maybe there can be a shift in power and take the union down a peg or two.  But until then, we as baseball fans are stuck with a ye-who (My grandpa’s word, not mine) whose lasting legacy on this game will be “making the All Star game count.”

Seriously?  It’s an exhibition game!  It shouldn’t count.  Look at the NBA.  They do it right, they just go out and put on a show, it’s fun.  I hate watching the NBA but the All Star game I would watch, it’s like watching a high-light reel but for an entire game.  Hell, I don’t even watch the All Star game in baseball anymore, unless a red issssss HAHAHAHAHAHA, man almost made it through that without laughing.  So close.  I just watch the Home Run Derby, that is actually more exciting to me.

But it is this man who simply refuses to do anything to rock the boat.  He can see his retirement in sight and he is content to just pollute the air with his carbon dioxide until that day.  He has continually backed down to the Union and their demands to keep steroids brushed under the rug.  His only real action came in attending the hearings in 2005 for steroid use in baseball.  Sadly it took baseball far too long to actually make significant efforts in trying to clean up the sport.  Baseball has suffered quite a few black eye’s under Bud Selig’s watch, and this is just another case.

Hypocrisy at it’s finest.  I am sure all that had to happen was LaRussa just rolls into Bud’s office.  Maybe Tony has some rather large acquaintances with him.  He tells ‘ol Bud that he wants to help his buddy Big Mac out and get him a job and bring him into the “family” again.  Bud, being no fool and an exceptional coward is more than happy to sign off.  Ba-da bing, ba-da boom, done.  Capiche?

How Pete should be remembered.

But the most disgusting part about it is, no one is talking about this.  Why not? How is this not more upsetting?  Has Bud Selig made fans that apathetic?  It’s like some sort of apathetic transference.  Is it because Pete has turned himself into a gambling degenerate and is viewed more now as low life that would sell his organs for money?  Is it when Mark cried and it actually looked genuine, it wasn’t of course, but Pete looked like some one just told him that his fish died.

Time heals all wounds?  Not in this case.  I will be a 31-year-old man in two days.  I am about as average as you can get.  And I don’t remember getting to see Pete play that much.  But how can I forget anything since 1989?  And that may be the biggest problem, Pete has had nothing but negative press, all due to stupid stuff he did, since 1989, and the average baseball fan NOW is only going to remember that.  Ask my dad about Pete Rose, you will get a totally different story.  A story about a man who might not have been the most gifted athlete, but gave you 100% of what he had all the time.  Think Rudy, but for baseball.  So, time has only hurt Pete and it will continue to do so, because Pete has no real way to connect back with the fans.  McGwire does.

Fair is fair baseball.  Something needs to be done here.