Yesterday’s NY Times report that Sammy Sosa tested positive for PED’s in 2003 was, in the words of USA Today’s Bob Nightengale,“not met with anger or disbelief, but a yawn.” While White Sox 1B Paul Konerko (if not CSTB’s own Ben Schwartz) might take exception to Nightengale’s claim, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney uses the occasion to remind today’s active players (well, one in particular) that “Sosa and Palmeiro and many others tarnished the accomplishments of an entire generation, and even in retirement, they continue to cast shadows.”
When Raul Ibanez and others find themselves as targets of steroid speculation, as the Philadelphia slugger was last week, they shouldn’t blame bloggers like Jerod Morris. They should blame the guys who did the most damage to the credibility of the players.
Pick up the phone and scream at A-Rod. Pick up the phone and yell at Sosa. Aim your anger at Palmeiro. Ibanez should walk across the field the next time the Phillies play the Dodgers and go tell Manny Ramirez that his excuses are ridiculous and unacceptable, and that you don’t appreciate how he cheated his brethren in the players’ association.
Morris did nothing to erode the credibility of Ibanez. He only posed questions that are reasonable, because we’ve all seen aged star after aged star insist that they were innocent, only to be proven that they are liars. Like Charlie Brown, fans like Morris have had the proverbial football yanked out from in front of them time after time.
(As a note: Some of the mainstream media outrage to the Jrod column was fascinating, because some of the same writers who have said they will never vote for a player they suspect of using steroids are saying it’s wrong for others to blog about their own suspicions of players’ steroid use. Think about the laughable inconsistency there.)