Four good things to come out in the wake of the Mitchell Report:
1) I noticed a TV in a store window this morning beaming a flickering image of Roger Clemens. If this were the movies, a crowd of hard-bitten men in fedoras would have been gathered around, grinding out their cigars in disgust. You know said television wasn't featuring a story about another Cy Young award. Roger Clemens is no longer pitcher for the ages, what a competitor, biding his time 'til his next multigazillion-dollar comeback commences at his midseason convenience. He's the guy on TV who backed into that something extra on his fastball. Sure he wasn't the only one, but he's the star of the show now. Think he's still busy dictating which cap he's going to wear on his Hall of Fame plaque?
2) We don't now win the 2000 World Series by default, but for about an hour yesterday I entertained the notion that on Opening Day a new banner to that effect should replace the previous marker for that year over the right field wall. No, we don't win the 2000 World Series by default (RUN TIMO! RUN!), but it's nice to know the mere suggestion of illegitimacy regarding the accomplishments of the nominal champions drives their supporters to distraction. (2008 minus 2000, by the way, equals 8 years without a title; unlike certain alleged injections, it's hardly the stuff of a “magic” dynasty in progress, in case Daily News senior executive editor Robert Sapio can't conduct simple arithmetic.)
3) If you scrolled down to page D-25 of the report, you saw Paul Lo Duca's happy little memo to Kirk Radomski about his phone being “toast” and such. It sticks out like a sore catcher among all the ordinary copied checks and FedEx receipts, but what really attracts one's attention is Paul's use of the Dodger Stadium note paper…as duly illustrated by the groin-grabbingly good Ken Dynamo at Go Mets Die Braves.
4) A nation turns its lonely eyes to Faith and Fear t-shirts for solace. Order yours today!
What's with all these people using personal checks to pay for their illegal drugs?
Memo: Thanks for the illegal drugs! Love, idiot jocks.
The same Yankee fans crying foul over the “unfair” purloining of the Maris/Ruth (they never could make up their minds…) home run records due to steroid suspicions will now suddenly change their collective tune when it's suggested that maybe their team's own achievements now have to be called into question.
After all, these are the same people who looked down their noses at their playoff and World Series opponents for not winning the whole enchilada (“if you don't win the World Series, you might as well have finished in last place–it's the ring (baby) or nothing! Runner-up doesn't count! You suck!”) but then magically changed their aforementioned collective tune when the rings (baby) stopped coming. Then it was “at least we got there… most teams don't even make the playoffs!” (Which of course was the quite reasonable philosophy we subscribed to in November 2000, and were roundly ridiculed by Yankee fans for it.)
However you slice it, the Yankees suck. And I will happily concede that theoretical 2000 banner for the boundless joy and practically orgasmic, cigarette-needing satisfaction of seeing Roger the Rat finally get his oh-so-well-deserved comeuppance.
Joshua:
It's because they think they're invincible. Seriously. Celebrities for some reason think they're untouchable, and their fame will always protect them (don't ask me why, they just do). They also take the attitude that no one would risk their relationship with a celebrity by crossing one, so they assume secrets will be kept… especially if the person in question has just as much to lose if the secret were to be revealed.
That's definitely true too. But we can't totally discount the fact that they keep most of their brains in their muscles.
truly, the truth-telling about clemens is the one glittering prize here.
Yes. Don't you love the fact that his balls have shrunk so much that he can't even address the media by himself but, instead, sends his lawyer out for him?
They're really not as dumb as you think… the problem is that their egos take over, and they think no one would ever rat them out. Why do you think so many of the married ones have no problem going to strip clubs and openly having a girl in every port? Because what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Or so they think. They never stop to consider that not everyone is as fully invested in keeping their secrets as they and their teammates are.
Which, I suppose, is kinda dumb… ;-)
And now his agent is asking that a tape of an anti-steroid speech he gave not be shown. Oh, and he's been disinvited from giving a “how I've played as long as I have” speech to high-school athletes… IN TEXAS!!! HAHAHAHA
I think I just died of pleasure. A woman can only take so much.
I think they were cavalier about writing personal checks for their drugs because players got away with taking greenies for so long — when Jim Bouton made an effort to expose the greenie-heads back in 1970, the commissioner tried to make him apologize for it, and then that was that — and most of the cokeheads of the previous generation got away with it too, other than a few high-profile exceptions who were held up as examples. Assuming greenies had already been well entrenched in the game since the 1950s, that's a good half-century of players getting away with using illegal performance-boosters with impunity. What reason did they have to think it wouldn't go on forever?
And yeah, it's true that these guys have lived in the Jock Bubble since at least the 7th grade. In their world, nobody ever says no to them. Ever. For any reason. Just because they're them. It's what made John Rocker run his mouth the way he did — he never felt the need to turn down the volume on his spew before ever, so why bother doing it for SI? And no, in his case I don't think the pills or the needle did it to him; he didn't need any chemical help becoming an asshole, and neither did anyone else who took this shit, although it can certainly amp up asshole tendencies that already exist. All it did for Rocker was get him out of the game faster. Time and a place for everything, right?
You want to talk about intelligence? This is the guy who picked up a chunk of bat, threw it at Piazza, and then claimed he thought it was the ball…
Okay, maybe he's stupid enough to mistake a bat for a ball, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but, uh, Roger, when you pick up the ball, don't you generally throw it to FIRST not at the RUNNER (assuming he's in the lane that no one ever uses)?
But, of course, we've been over this many times and usually Clemens just shrugs and someone pays him 20 million dollars for tying his shoes or something. Not this time, Roger.
HE CLAIMED HE THOUGHT IT WAS THE BALL?!?!
Oh my God, I've never heard that before, I can't stop laughing. That gets engraved on the wall of idiotic quotes, right next to A-Rod claiming the reason he shouted at the SS was because he was so excited to be going to third base.
Yeah, he thought it was the ball. A long, jagged, deadly shard of a ball that he examined and then pissedoffedly whizzed, business-end first, straight at Mike. And Mike, who was so taken aback (his stunned, stopped-dead-in-his-tracks “what the f**k is your problem?!” exclamation will go down in baseball history) that he just sort of stood there in shock, was called a coward (and worse) for not retaliating. Somehow Clemens ended up as the “man” in that scenario, instead of Mike, who was smart enough–and man enough–to know that the last thing we needed was for him to be ejected. The consummate professional and team player as always, Mike did not fall prey to the lunkhead macho crapfest that is peer/fan pressure.
Who's THE MAN now, Rodge? HMM? (God, I'm loving this.)
Ditto. This is wonderful. I've loathed that crapweasel for seven years, questioned his performance-enhancement regimen for at least as long. And now, sweet vindication! Mike's far too classy to publicly mock this tool, but wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall in the Piazza household these days?
Wonder what all the Wanker Yankee fans (Wankees?) are gonna do with their Clemens jerseys now? The ones who didn't throw out their gear when Clemens went to Houston,anyway. My guess is they'll continue to wear #22 proudly, judging by all the Giambi jerseys I still see unironically worn on SI.
Crapweasel. Heh.
A bit of 2000 heaviness has lifted. Didn't win a rigged World Series.
GOD, I hate the Yankees…
After living through another Jets nightmare yesterday, I cheered myself up by luxuriating in games 4 and 7 of the 2004 ALCS, courtesy of ESPN Classic. I really do need to get the DVD of that series. Chicken Soup for the Yankee-Hater's Soul.