Cheaters cheat.
It’s what they do. It’s how they live. They have an uncanny ability to convince themselves that what they’re doing ‘isn’t that bad’ because… fill in the rationalizations here.
Where this instinct comes from can be debated. That once somebody is exposed as cheater we should feign surprise that he cheated? It can not.
June 2003.
Sammy Sosa gave Cardinal fans the highlight of an otherwise pedestrian year when hit bat exploded upon impact from one of his patented monster cuts. It was corked. He was busted, right then and there, as a cheater.
In retrospect, that particular moment was quite literally opening the floodgates to speculation of all sorts on the statistical prowess of the numbers we were seeing from 5 years prior. In 1998 Sosa V McGwire was wholesome family fun. By 2005 the whole era had been disgraced.
In between Sammy went on to lie to Congress (I don’t speak English), flounder in Texas and Baltimore and ultimately quit with a whimper this past season- unable to get a major league contract. A fitting end for a man that shot into the collective conscience like a supernova of baseball prowess; energizing a lagging rivalry with the St. Louis Cardinals- but burned out seemingly just a quick.
In fairness to Mr. Sosa, I don’t think that many rationale people saw cork flying from his bat in a live game or watched him perjure himself in front of elected leaders thought that he wouldn’t also lie about cheating. So the news yesterday from the NY Times that he tested positive in 2003 for performance enhancing drugs should be mind-blowing news to exactly no one.
But as we sit here today, this truth revealed is making the rounds, battering baseball’s image for the umpteenth time, providing fodder for the same tired prothletizing that never seems to end- no matter the drug testing policies currently working in the game. (Honestly, if the MLB is willing to lose a marquis name like Manny Ramirez for 50 games, then I think we can all agree that the new testing procedures aren’t playing favorites.)
I think it’s pretty safe to also assume that the reckless abandon that plagued baseball, in terms of drug usage, in the 90’s and early 00’s has been eradicated… at least to a level on par with the other major sports in North America. So why the fuss? Why the outrage and banter on sports talk radio?
Because we feel cheated.
We invested ourselves back into the game we love back almost 10 years ago this summer… and as time passes we realized that what we cared about, rooted for, talked about and live through was nothing more, nothing less than a big summer blockbuster. Big special effects, gained through un-natural means.
The only trouble was instead of going into the theater knowing what we were getting; we thought we were witnessing super human feats for real. Turns out our naivety was off the charts. We fell for the Slammin’ Sammy Sosa saga hookline and sinker.
And now as the last vestiges of this sham and several like it- we want the cheaters to feel shame, to look us in the eye- apologize for cheating.
Us.
Topics: Cheaters, Corked Bat, Drug Testing, Home Run Chase, Home Run Records, Roger Maris, Sammy Sosa, Steriods
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A sucker-punch to the traditionalists of baseball?
Another one, I should say.
Why can they not release all the names so us fans don’t have to continue with this sherade?
Anonymous…puhlease? How are these names getting released?
Is baseball’s image not more important in the long run?