Well, ladies and gents, are we ready to talk some baseball?
I said, are we ready for some horsehide analysis?
Well, too bad! SOMEBODY has to do some sports commentating around here, and it may as well be me. So today, I’m putting on my batting helmet and stepping into the box as your new, occasional sports guru.
I realize baseball doesn’t hold quite the same appeal for people as it did in years long past, and this has caused great consternation and head-scratching among loyalists. Why, they ask each other, aren’t Americans as hot for the national pastime as they once were, in the “good ol’ days?”
Are you kidding? Have you been following baseball in the past, oh, decade or more? Here, let me solve this one for you: the reason people aren’t as into baseball anymore is simple: the bunch of overpaid, whining, spoiled-brat assholes who play the game. Sure, being an asshole in professional sports is nothing new. Just ask Ty Cobb. But lately, and especially in baseball, being an asshole has reached such grandiose, epidemic proportions that it overshadows the game.
And don’t think I’m going to be one of those sports fans who is an eternal apologist for his favorite team either. My team, the Baltimore Orioles, has become the laughingstock of the sport this past season, and I freely admit it. It’s not bad enough that the Birds haven’t had a winning season since 1997. It’s not bad enough that their strategy as far as acquiring players seems to be stuck in 1997. It’s not bad enough that the team’s owner, Peter Angelos (speaking of assholes) spent most of the off-season trying in vain to stop nearby Washington from getting their own team (a team that went on to have a better season than his own). It’s not even bad enough that Sidney Ponson, once a promising pitcher, morphed into a drunk-driving, judge-punching lunatic. The guy’s heroes appear to be Dwight Gooden and Mike Tyson. But this business with Rafael Palmeiro is the pinnacle of stupidity.
As I’m sure everyone knows, the baseball world has its britches in an uproar over the steroid issue, and no amount of adjusting itself on national TV can relieve the discomfort. Oh, sure, steroids have been a problem in professional sports almost since they were invented. Not as big a problem, perhaps, as paternity suits or brawls on the field, but they’ve always been lurking just under the surface. Not even Barry Bonds’s obvious involvement could bring them fully to the forefront. Sure, Bonds used steroids, everybody pretty much knew that almost as soon as the investigation began. And everybody knew he was an asshole, whether they liked to admit it or not. But it’s hard for the baseball establishment to really bust down on a guy when he’s racking up the kind of numbers Bonds was, with or without a little help from his friends, so to speak. So there was lots of heated talk, but nothing really came of it, at least nothing that would really affect the game so you’d notice.
All that changed when Jose Canseco’s tell-all autobiography (read: he talked into a tape recorder and somebody else pieced together a coherent book out of it for a large pile of cash) was released. In it, Canseco alleged that steroid use was widespread in baseball, and was an “open secret.” And yet some people still had the nerve to act surprised.
Come on, haven’t we been through this before? There was Barry Bonds, of course, but what about that whole thing back when Mark McGwire was trying to break the home-run record, and it came to light that he was putting SOME sort of muscle-building substance into his body, besides carrot sticks. Since he was Mr. Superstar, they decided it was okay, because it wasn’t technically a steroid, and things continued on as usual.
So after Canseco’s “shocking allegations,” baseball adopted a new, tougher drug-testing program, and preached the gospel of “zero-tolerance.” Congress was holding hearings on steroid use in baseball, but like most Congressional hearings, nothing was expected to come of it. And things would’ve continued on as they would again, although the bats seemed to be noticeably quieter, if it had not been for Rafael Palmeiro.
Palmeiro, a well-respected, well-liked infielder for Baltimore, testified before one of these Congressional hearings, and swore that he had never used steroids. And a month later, he tested positive for steroid use. Palmeiro, naturally, said there must be some kind of mistake, that he didn’t do those kinds of things. Then he apologized for his “mistake,”, thus contradicting himself. Was he sorry he DIDN’T do it? Huh? And then he went on a ten-game suspension, during which he wasn’t greatly missed, judging by the team’s continued half-ass playing.
Palmeiro returned, presumably clean, but under a cloud. The Feds were talking about perjury charges against him for lying under oath, and various folks in the business were beginning to make noises about wiping his statistics clean. And this just mere months after he had his 3000th base hit! So it was totally understandable that after his suspension was up, he wasn’t exactly setting the scoreboard on fire. I mean, the guy was depressed, right? Ostracized by his teammates, maybe picturing at those three thousand hits going down the shitter. Oh yeah, maybe not being on the juice contributed to his poor hitting as well. You think?
Soon after his return, Palmeiro went on the disabled list for some petty injury. Well, what the hell, the O’s weren’t too keen on using him anyway, after he made them look like fools. So Palmeiro retreated to his mansion in Texas to nurse his broken fingernail, and announced that he would “soon be able to explain” why he tested positive. One can imagine the long nights of pondering, trying to concoct a good excuse. “Okay, how about this: I got it from having unprotected sex with some chick on the road in Minnesota. Maybe you can test positive by banging somebody who does ‘roids? ……… Nah, too complicated. I know! How about, I was at a party ……… and my drink tasted funny, but I wanted to be sociable and not complain, so I drank it. And the next thing I knew, I was waking up with all my clothes off, and my ass was sore, but damn, I could sure swing a bat!”
The excuse he finally settled on was that teammate Miguel Tojada had given him a vitamin injection, and had secretly spiked it with steroids. He should’ve stuck with the date-rape excuse. Not only was it proven that Tojada didn’t shoot him up, but Tojada was pissed, and rightly so.
So Palmeiro’s out of a job at the moment. The Birds want no part of him, and neither does anybody else at this point. Who wants an over-the-hill former superstar who not only practices better batting through chemistry, but also tried to smear a teammate when he got caught? “Palmeiro? Ah, I dunno. Look, don’t you have any decent players from Double-A Dubuque you can give me instead of him?”
Don’t get me wrong. I was actually quite the fan of Palmeiro’s until this shit came up, ever since that game against the Blue Jays in June of ’98. Remember it? What happened was, the game was tied at 4, so they went to extra innings. A LOT of extra innings. In the fifteenth, they made the announcement that, according to the rules, they would have to stop playing after this inning if nobody won, because it was past 1:00 A.M. (This rule, according to my buddy Caveman Dave, was precipitated by a Phillies double-header that lasted almost until dawn.) So anyway, the O’s came up to bat, and Palmeiro knocked in a three-run homer to win the game, 7-4.
So what’s in store for ol’ Raffy next season? If it involves pinstripes, I suspect it will also involve lots and LOTS of booing, and probably getting pelted with trash from the stands. He’ll probably whine into a tape-recorder about how unfair it all is, and how put-upon poor little Raffy is, and credit himself for the success of every team he’s ever been on, including his pre-school T-ball team back when he was four. He’ll blame “the system,” talk about the lean years, and credit his personal savior, Jesus Christ, for getting him through. And on and on, all the other fallen-sports-hero cliches. Somebody will transcribe his ramblings into another “tell-all autobiography,” probably called Palmeiro: My Story, which nobody besides sports commentators will actually read. On the other hand, perhaps Raffy’s future involves somewhat wider stripes.
At least he still has plenty of money, so we won’t have to watch him on The Surreal Life for another few years. I hope.
Hey, Raff! You know what those steroids do to you? They make you grow golf-ball-zied tits and make your balls shrivel up like Raisinettes! Play ball!
Fizzy’s World Series Prediction: Angels over Cardinals in six games.
Today’s inspirational song lyrics are courtesy of Nashville Pussy:
“For all the people you just let down, you can pay us back by never comin’ around!”
