Sorry for my absense. What can I say, I got lazy. But we have a lot to catch up on.
Baseball's a mess. I was listening to Michael Kay on ESPN radio on my drive home and predictably, he is trying to minimize the importance or impact of the Mitchell Report. Can you blame the guy when it seemed like 50% of the names listed were at one time Yankees? You have to give him credit, he's a company man.
Kay made 2 points that I thought were ridiculous. The first was why weren't McGwire an Sosa on the report. The simple answer is that no one named them or that there wasn't enough evidence to add their names. The report was full of people that Mitchell was able to gather evidence against. The last thing Senator Mitchell wants to do is risk his reputation or the validity of the report by implicating someone if he can't back it up. We're talking about a guy who has helped negotiate treaties. He knows what he's doing.
The second point Kay made that was bogus is why weren't Palmeiro and Mota included? Duh! We already know about them. They're old news. Another goal of this report was to identify previously unknown steroid users.
For once can I hear a Yankees fan just admit that they cheated? Tuesday night on my drive home Mike Francessa said that if Piazza and Clemens were on the report it would almost certainly exclude them from the Hall of Fame. I haven't heard him since the report was released but i'm sure he's finding a way to retract that statement and imply that Clemens still deserves the nod. Let me guess, he'll play the "he hasn't been convicted of anything" card.
I'm tired of hearing these lowsy guys. But that's a post for another day.
So I offer my thoughts on the Mitchell report by saying this: As an American, I feel cheated. This is our game and they put the integrity of it in question. Shame on them all. I hope they all get what they deserve.
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Objection your honor, hearsay. Listen, I'm not going to disagree with you on the state of the MLB union, Michael Kay being a homer, or Mike and the Mad Dog clogging up the airwaves with Yankee pleasantries 365 days a year (actually I somewhat agree), however, the vast majority of the people who cover baseball have indicated that this report lacks teeth. I read the report- not in it's entirety- but I have to agree with the overall consensus, a lot of it is "he said, she said.
Look, there could be many positive outcomes as a result of this report- the main one highlighting that players are setting a bad example for our nation's youth- but the bottom line is that the underlying purpose for this report is to salvage whatever is left of Bud Selig's lagacy. I could care less if former Sen. Mitchell negotiated treaties. He did what he did within the legal parameters of the law- and for the greater good of the game- but ultimately what he suceeded in doing was driving a wedge between the league and the players. In no way am I saying that the ALL the corrobrated and circumstantial evidence is bogus and that EVERY player should be exonerated, I'm just going out on a limb and stating- for the record- that a little more concrete facts could've been presented. Ergo, go back to my first sentence and I say again the real reason this was initiated was to save what was left of Selig's commissioning face.
So in closing don't beat up the local sport radio guys because there just echoing what everyone out there is already reporting. AND by the way, HOMEBOY, there were 18 players mentioned in the report who had ties to the Yanks vs. 12 who had ties to the Mets. Not sure where you learned to do math but that's not 50%.
Definitely a sad day for our national pastime, but not sure for all the reasons you think...........THANK GOD for the NFL (National Felons League).
Maybe I need to reiterate something here. First off, I said that it SEEMED like half the players mentioned in the report were Yankees (please see 2nd paragraph). Next, the point I was making about Francessa and Kay is that because of their well known allegiances to the Yankees, their criticism of the report must be taken with a grain of salt. Once a number of Yankees appeared in the report, anyone could have predicted that they would criticize it. The question we have to ask ourselves is is this criticism due to inherant flaws in the report or because it smears the Yankees? I believe that even if the report was flawless, they would still have the same things to say because of their allegiances to the Yankees.
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