The * Era
How many different hundreds or thousands of sportswriters were in ballclubs' locker rooms over the last 15 years? I suppose none of them overheard a single ballplayer mention steroids. It couldn't be that they were too afraid of never getting quotes from any player ever again to sayanything about it.
Where were the networks and their outrage when they were making hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising revenue off the 1998 Single Season Home Run Race? I suppose none of them noticed how strange it was that TWO guys knocked out more home runs in the same season than anyone had in 37 years. It couldn't have been the money - just a coincidence - and besides, baseball NEEDED McGwire and Sosa's race. How many times did we hear that?
Just how many individual 50+ homer seasons had to happen in a four-year span before someone started using the word "unnatural," instead of "magical," to describe the power surge?
How many pitchers had to throw 98-mph fastballs fresh out of high school before someone noticed it? And why the heck didn't the geek draft-day reporters ever think to speculate on why so many more high school prospects at all positions, who came from a world where steroids were unregulated, were developing so much faster than prospects drafted out of college, who should have had edges in both age and baseball experience but came from a world regulated by the NCAA's steroid prohibitions?
It couldn't have been a conspiracy - just a coincidence. Maybe the players are right when they talk about how stupid the people who control the content of baseball coverage are; in fact, they must be right: only the worst kind of idiots in the world could be immersed in the daily life of baseball for the last 15 years and truly have been caught off guard by this mess.
Isn't it about time that the sports media who've been so scathing of late in their attacks on baseball and the MLBPA admit their own culpability in the Steroid* Era fiasco? The public's trust in baseball has been violated, sure, but if someone doesn't go on TV and address this issue, we'll lose our trust in baseball journalists, too.
Where were the networks and their outrage when they were making hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising revenue off the 1998 Single Season Home Run Race? I suppose none of them noticed how strange it was that TWO guys knocked out more home runs in the same season than anyone had in 37 years. It couldn't have been the money - just a coincidence - and besides, baseball NEEDED McGwire and Sosa's race. How many times did we hear that?
Just how many individual 50+ homer seasons had to happen in a four-year span before someone started using the word "unnatural," instead of "magical," to describe the power surge?
How many pitchers had to throw 98-mph fastballs fresh out of high school before someone noticed it? And why the heck didn't the geek draft-day reporters ever think to speculate on why so many more high school prospects at all positions, who came from a world where steroids were unregulated, were developing so much faster than prospects drafted out of college, who should have had edges in both age and baseball experience but came from a world regulated by the NCAA's steroid prohibitions?
It couldn't have been a conspiracy - just a coincidence. Maybe the players are right when they talk about how stupid the people who control the content of baseball coverage are; in fact, they must be right: only the worst kind of idiots in the world could be immersed in the daily life of baseball for the last 15 years and truly have been caught off guard by this mess.
Isn't it about time that the sports media who've been so scathing of late in their attacks on baseball and the MLBPA admit their own culpability in the Steroid* Era fiasco? The public's trust in baseball has been violated, sure, but if someone doesn't go on TV and address this issue, we'll lose our trust in baseball journalists, too.
posted by Dr. Chuck | 6:29 PM
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