TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Thursday, March 17, 2005

The afternoon hearings continue: the players were asked questions by the assembled representatives, often out of their ability to answer, and frequently with rather strange premises. One of the stupidest analogies came from one elected rube who asked if there was a "smart pill" whether people trying to win the nobel prize might be tempted to take that pill to get an edge on the competition. (Me, I'd not only take the pill, I'd give the Nobel to the person who invented it.) One congress critter, clearly unfamiliar with how McCarthyism works, kept saying that if everybody who tested clean would just swear an oath to that effect, why then everybody could figure out who is guilty. (Arthur Miller, author of The Crucible, rotated rapidly and audibly in his grave.) Another interesting question for philosophers, but one way out of the players' capacity to answer: is this as serious an issue as gambling, if they're both about cheating and the integrity of the game?

My favorite admission from a Congressman (the committee chair): "we don't do things well here."

Thet answered the same questions, usually in a line: Schilling, McGwire, Palmeiro, Sosa, Canseco (The Big Hurt, testifying at a distance due to an injury that allegedly prevents him from traveling by air, got a free pass on the questions.) Schilling came off as thoughtful, with no real surprises; his stance was consistently in favor of very strict standards, but enforced within baseball. Canseco, despite essentially taking the fifth in his opening statement, was relatively open and discursive about the need for external regulation. I almost hate to say it, but he was almost articulate. he and Schilling were basically in agreement over virtually everything, yet Schilling repeatedly called Canseco a liar. It was a strange contention to make: Curt, seeming like a straight shooter, said he's never once seen anybody take steroids, but estimated 10-15 of his teammates over the years had taken them. How? How does he know Canseco's a liar if he never saw anybody take steroids? The logic is in error someplace. Canseco is the only one of them who has admitted using steroids, but Schilling's theory was that he was naming other names just to make himself look "less worse" by contrast. An interesting theory, but about as fact-based as any other speculation over Canseco's motivations.

Canseco called it like it is, though: major league baseball simply can't be trusted to regulate itself, because the one thing owners and players agree on is it's all about the money.

McGwire, by contrast, did a lot of evasion and ducking, claiming variously he wanted to focus on the future, not the past, but that he couldn't comment on anything going on now because he's retired. It was a disingenuous and fairly craven stance. He sounded and acted guilty; he was the weepy Robert MacFarlaneto Canseco's Oliver North. He wouldn't even answer the question as to whether he thought using steroids was cheating, saying "that's not for me to say," when he was just asked his opinion of the matter.

Palmeiro genuinely looked and acted like he had no idea why he was there, and did a lot af agreeing with whatever question was asked based on what the two players ahead of him said. Sammy Sosa just looked scared and said as little as was humanly possible. One real low point was when Rep. Dennis Kucinich asked Sosa a question in halting Spanish, which Sammy answered in much better English.

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posted by The Crank 1:58 PM