The Futility Infielder

I'll be the first to admit that I don't really like writing about steroids. The topic tends to anger my blood, though as I've reviewed some of the things I've written over the past year or so in preparation for my 15 minutes (or whatever) on MSNBC's Connected Coast to Coast (12 noon EST/9 AM PST Wednesday), that anger isn't solely directed where you might expect, at the players who may or may not have used illegal performance enhancers.

It's an anger that encompasses the owners for bargaining in bad faith for over thirty-five years and trying to break the Major League Baseball Players Association with tactics like collusion and picket-line-crossing replacement players. That ill will has prevent them from creating an environment of trust in which they could join the players in developing a sensible testing program prior to the 2002 Collective Bargaining Agreement. It's an anger at Commissioner Bud Selig for keeping his head in the sand while such a debacle took place on his watch.

It's an anger that also directed at the nation's sanctimonious sportswriters, who are only too quick and too happy to turn on those players whose pedestals they've invested so much time constructing. It's an anger at the writers who feel perfectly at home taking shots at a guy like Jason Giambi for not talking about what, on the stern advice of his both federal prosecutors and his own counsel, he has no business talking about at this time. It's an anger at the writers who stand on their soapboxes feeling qualified to act as judge, jury, and executioner without acknowledging that the players tainted by this scandal have not been charged with any crime in a court of law.

It's an anger at the political grandstanding that has produced these Congressional subpoenas. There's a lust -- a prurient interest, as the lawyer for the commissioner's office put it last week -- to find out who did or didn't use illegal performance-enhancing drugs that threatens to trample such pillars of our society as due process and the right to privacy. This is a three-ring circus that may well turn into a witch hunt, with pitchforks and torches available at the concession stands.

What follows are a handful of links to my writing on the topic of steroids. Reviewing these in a late-night cram session as I prepare to go on TV tomorrow later today, I'm proud of their quality despite my distaste for the matter. I think they comprise some of my best work over the past year, and I stand behind every word I've written:

• March 5, 2004: Avoid the 'Roid Noise

• December 4, 2004: The Giambi Debacle

• February 9, 2005: Bad Moon Rising

• February 11, 2005: You're F------ Kidding Me, Right?

• February 15, 2005: This Week in Juicing

• March 10, 2005: Here Comes the Witch Hunt

Labels: steroids