Thursday, March 10, 2005

BALLPLAYERS TO CONGRESS

The 11 witnesses are:

Jose Canseco, former Oakland Athletic and Texas Ranger.

Jason Giambi, current New York Yankee and former Oakland Athletic.

Mark McGwire, former Oakland Athletic and St. Louis Cardinal.

Rafael Palmeiro, current Baltimore Oriole and former Texas Ranger.

Curt Schilling, currently of the Boston Red Sox.

Sammy Sosa, current Baltimore Oriole and former Chicago Cub.

Frank Thomas of the Chicago White Sox.

Bud Selig, commissioner of baseball for Major League Baseball.

Sandy Alderson, former general manager of the Oakland Athletics and current executive vice president of baseball operations for Major League Baseball.

Don Fehr, executive director and general counsel of the Major League Baseball Players Association.

Kevin Towers, general manager and executive vice president of the San Diego Padres.

Is this government meddling or a legitimate concern of the government?

My favorite federal law was the one passed 10-15 years ago that insisted that food companies label their product with nutritional information. The consumer should know what they're getting.

As a consumer of MLB I want to know what I'm getting too. Are the players using substances that are altering the games I am paying for? Am I watching men with their natural ability or comic book characters? MLB obviously likes the comic book characters masked as regular men and they have no intention of unmasking them. Olympic athletes are suspended for two years on their first steroids violation. MLB players have to be caught 4 times to get a mere one-year suspension. Since the tests are random a player could juice up his whole life and never get caught.

These guys have the right to put anything they want into their bodies. I wouldn't prosecute any of them, but Baseball hurts its own integrity by letting them play. Since baseball is going to pretend its not happening, I don't mind Congress getting to the truth. Sure it's grandstanding (ha ha) but sometimes it takes grandstanding to push an issue to the forefront.

Let the consumer decide if he wants to watch Barry Bonds break a record on dope.

Oh, but Congress left Bonds off the list. What will Kevin Towers tell us that is more interesting than what Bonds might have to say?

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