In Case You Missed It. . . Here's a link to a piece from the Sunday New York Times magazine on sportscasters that you should not miss. Thanks to Martin Devon for the link.
July 23rd, 2002
In Case You Missed It.
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July 16th, 2002
In Case You Missed It.
In Case You Missed It. . . Eric Olsen is back from vacation and blogging again. Pay him a visit.
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July 8th, 2002
In Case You Missed It.
In Case You Missed It. . . USA Today published a survey that says nearly 80 percent of major league ballplayers support random testing for steroids, and another 44 percent feel pressure to use steroids.
What's worse, some are beginning to suspect that increased steroid use is beginning to take a toll injury-wise:
There also has been an alarming increase in injuries. Birmingham, Ala., orthopedist James Andrews, who treats many professional athletes, says he's never seen such a rush of muscle-tendon injuries and thinks it could be related to steroid use. A USA TODAY database study shows that trips to the disabled list for major leaguers increased 32% between 1992 and 2001.
And should it be any surprise that the All-Star Game Home Run Derby established the format it uses today at the 1991 All-Star Game?
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July 5th, 2002
In Case You Missed It
In Case You Missed It Before The Holiday. . . Seven-time American League batting champion Rod Carew has called for random steroids testing in Major League Baseball:
"If you want the fans to respect what's left of the game's pureness, you're going to have to start testing,'' Carew told the Los Angeles Times in Thursday's editions, weeks after former stars Jose Canseco and Ken Caminiti admitted using the muscle-building substances.
Carew said he first suspected anabolic steroid use in the early 1990s when he was batting instructor for the Anaheim Angels, However, he noted that no Angels players seemed to take the drugs.
"I started seeing more and more guys looking like bodybuilders and not baseball players,'' he said.
Carew said current high salaries drive players to break the rules.
"No one wants to be left behind,'' he said. "Especially when steroids will give an average player with no power an opportunity to easily hit 25-30 home runs. As for the superstar, well, they will hit 50 to 70.''
Random testing? You mean, sort of like the challenge that Rick Reilly gave Sammy Sosa? As much as we hate to admit, sometimes the scum bags get it right.
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July 2nd, 2002
In Case You Missed It.
In Case You Missed It. . . Here are a few choice quotes from San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds (link via Dan Lewis) on the possibility of a baseball strike this Summer. While plenty of sportswriters, including the Washington Post's Michael Wilbon, have condemned Bonds, it seems to me like he's done nothing other than uttering some uncomfortable truths:
If you have kids who might [grow up to] be major league baseball players, we're fighting for your kids, possibly. If I work for your newspaper and you're in the union fighting for your equality and rights, sure I would strike, and so would you...
Of all of the Bonds quotes, this seems to be the silliest, but in a real sense it's all too true. For Bonds, a player near the end of his career, the biggest paydays are over. Sacrificing one season's salary is actually a pretty big deal, but he knows that other players in the past (most notably Curt Flood) have sacraficed far more so he can enjoy the big pay days he has now. Now it's his turn to take a hit, and it looks like he isn't shying away from the pain.
Yes, it might seem unfair that players who take home multi-million dollar salaries have a union they can lean on in order to play some hard ball with the owners. But we need to remember this: the struggle between players and management is a struggle between the haves and the have-mores -- and is the sort of fight that tends to get bloody.
Instead of thinking of baseball in the 19th century pastoral sense, we all need to grow up, and see it for the multi-billion dollar entertainment business that it is. And when you do, and begin thinking of disputes like these in the same way as proxy fights and corporate takeovers we read about in the business page of the newspaper, the less upset we'll be about them.
It's not my fault you don't play baseball. It's not our fault you're not an actor or Bill Gates or anybody else. Nobody is complaining about their salaries, or the owners' salaries. So don't complain about ours. We have the right to make it.
And the free market sports fan heartily agrees. If you want to get rich, stop complaining and study harder. Work longer hours at the office. Go back to business school. Pay attention in Math class. Find a way to make computing cheaper and more ubiquitous than Mr. Gates already has. Do anything, absolutely anything at all, just stop whining!
Then again, America doesn't like it when its heroes are smug. But you can always just stop going to major league ballgames. Instead, why not see a minor league game -- a place that's more family friendly, both in terms of atmosphere and the impact on your wallet. In the end, that will be a far more effective avenue of complaint than grousing about the strike.
It's entertainment. It will come back. A lot of companies go on strike, not just baseball. And people still ride the bus.
That's right Barry, it's just entertainment. And if you go on strike, America may just decide while it's on the beach that it can live without you. Then again, it probably won't. It's uncomfortable for some to admit, but poverty doesn't exist because Barry Bonds is making hundreds of millions of dollars playing baseball. If anything, there are plenty of people staying out of poverty (including more than a few smug sportswriters who have never actually paid for a ticket in years) because of the billions of dollars baseball is generating.
Sure, Bonds might be a jerk, but he's not wrong.
