Posts Tagged "cheater"
A new definition of “occupational hazards…”
It’s been a few days since HWSNBN has been outed as a steroid user by Sports Illustrated and he’s recently admitted to the claim to Peter Gammons. Adding to the fact that Miguel Tejada is scheduled to plead guilty to lying to Congress today what is a baseball fan to do?
I’m glad you asked. The question now isn’t why should fans care but SHOULD fans care. And the simple answer is: no.
We shouldn’t care that professional athletes cheated the system to find some kind of edge, whether performance enhancers actually do help you focus on hitting a baseball. Why shouldn’t we care? Simply put: it technically wasn’t illegal as according to the rules at the time. And we all know how annoying “technicalities” can be.
Obviously MLB didn’t care that its employees were cheating. Many knew, the Union HAD to have known since they fiercely opposed mandatory drug testing for years and what are unions for? To protect the interests of its members. And in the interests of its members, drug testing had to go lest their secret come out.
So if the heads of the company didn’t care, why should we?
Oh, you say the integrity of the sport is at risk? Since when? Since now? So it wasn’t at risk after the 1919 Black Sox scandal? Or the Pete Rose betting debacle? Or the blatant racism? Or the cocaine mess in the ‘80s? Or either of the two player strikes [1981 and 1994]? Or how about the cold shoulder Curt Flood received when challenging the reserve clause? Or what about the prolific reputations of certain drunkards, abusers, philanders, racists and so forth? They didn’t tarnish baseball’s integrity?
The truth is baseball’s integrity has been tarnished for many years already. The problem surrounding most of the disclosure is people’s unrealistic and misguided belief that baseball is pure. Nothing that is a business is pure and MLB is two things: 1] a business and 2] a game, but mainly a business. I will admit that had these allegations been revealed back before I started college, I would have been DEVASTED just like all the other fans. But now that I’ve studied the field and have worked in it, I see it for what it actually is, not the dream people are trying to sell and I am thankful for my insider’s knowledge. It’s way past time to peer behind the curtains folks.
As a fan it’s hard not to become personally and emotionally tied to your favorite team, the company banks on that because that’s how everyone in the business pays the bills. But that blind devotion always fails and then you’re stuck facing the reality of the situation and it’s never pretty. This is why people are upset and disappointed but they shouldn’t be [that includes you, Mr. President]. This is what happens when we place our full trust and hope on these men and make them to be demi-gods; nothing good ever comes from the realization that they’re but mere mortals like ourselves. Everything that is done in the dark eventually surfaces to the light.
Read More“Remember what Vince Lombardi said: If you lose, you’re out of the family…”
I think Roger Goodell got punkd. Here he is, last year and Tags decides to bequeath him the NFL, this golden egg of sporty goodness – the one league that everyone points to and says, this is what is right – and then, after all the tees have been crossed and the keys handed over and after you creep over the warranty time, ka-bloey! Everything blows up at once.
First you’ve got the whole Pac-Mac Jones and Tank Johnson messes, then some HGH crap and, lest you forget the whole Vick debacle and this is BEFORE the season even starts! And now, just one week in you’ve just had the biggest crap pile dropped on your desk when its relieved that the Patriots are just a bunch of cheaters.
On a side note, I’ve always called them cheaters but that’s only based on anecdotal evidence, i.e. the “tuck rule,” but you can’t hold that up to much salt because I also called the Ravens cheaters after they had Tony Siragusa SIT on Gannon’s shoulder.
But I digress. I’m actually finding this whole situation to be quite comical. Apparently it’s been something that’s been whispered about for years now and there’s been some pretty convincing visual evidence to it too. That just begs the question: if they were cheating, then why didn’t they win ALL of their games? I mean, would that have been too obvious? Did they purposely lose a couple games here and there so they wouldn’t blow their cover? And did they cheat at the Super Bowl? And where they that bad and that desperate that they had to cheat? I’m sure there are other teams out there doing the same thing and now that the NFL is onto one of them, they’ll probably cool it for a while or maybe even get smarter with their spying efforts. I can’t wait to see how this all plays out.
And I can’t help but think that somewhere Paul Tagilabue [I love his name…it rolls off your tongue. Like Isabella Rosselini] is somewhere, leaned back, shaking his head and thinking, “I got out just in time. Suckers!”
Anywho, so remember last week when I mentioned that I won 20 bucks? Well I can now happily announce congratulations to Steph and Tim on their engagement! Yay! She had txted me on that Saturday but since my phone was at the spa otherwise known as Verizon Wireless, I didn’t get it until an hour after the fact, which made me the last person to call back. But the funny thing was the first thing she said to me was “I owe you” because sometime last year we had made a bet on who would get engaged first, me and the bf or her and Tim [I bet on them and she bet on us]. She felt good because she was the one holding things up and I felt fantastic because our distance was holding us up. We made it official [I created a document for us to sign and she supplied the “notary” stickers [which were just round snowflake stickers but whatever] and the amount was the 20 bucks.
So when I called her, the first thing I said was where’s my money? We mentioned the bet a few times since we made it but stopped when Tim overheard us and we had to make some stupid thing up to distract him. I just never mentioned it to the bf until I told him that I won the bet.
I’m excited for another wedding though. I’ve always loved weddings, especially when I was single. Weird huh? I wonder how Hapa Jenny’s wedding plans are going. I should scoot on over and call her sometime. This should be a lot of fun.
Today’s lunch consists of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and by goodness I am excited about it. Sometimes after the all the complex recipes and fancy sandwiches all you want is a bowl of cereal and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Though I have been craving some risotto lately. I’ve got to try making that sometime. That would be so good and then can you imagine all the possible spin off dishes I can make with that base? Roasted chicken and veggies, the shrimp and zucchini I had at Pasta Pomodoro that one time, spinach! The possibilities are endless.
And now I’m starving.
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