The Double Standard Standard

More baseball. More steroid talk. New person of interest.

Shortstop Miguel Tejada of the Houston Astros today was sentenced to one year of probation for withholding the truth from Congress when asked what he knew about specific and alleged performance-enhancing drug use by other players. He was not in court at the time of the offense. Nor was he in the act of testifying before Congress or a subcommittee. He was not even under oath at the time. Also note that the "probation" is NOT a suspension from baseball.

To read more on my feelings about Congress wasting public time and resources on something so non-critical as professional sports, please refer to my previous post, "Moeroids". For the full extent of my thoughts regarding steroid use in baseball, you'll want to read, "I Just Didn't Care".

Today's blogal-bludgeoning goes to the following statement from Assistant US Attorney General Steven Durham. I've got no issue with Mr. Durham whatsoever, and I don't want to detract from his point about the importance of honesty.  

"If Congress or a representative of Congress asks somebody a question in their official capacity, that question must be answered truthfully. There are no options to prevaricate or withhold the truth or parts of the truth."

Tejada Gets Year Probation for Misleading Congress, by Howard Fendrich

Mr. Durham obviously must have forgotten about whom he was speaking, as Congress certainly has perpetuated its fair share of deception, half-truths, and outright lies - all whilst engaged in its fiduciary duty to the people of this country. Do we, the people, not have the right to that same expectation of complete integrity?

Hypocrisy is a pretense of virtue. I think the real story here is not the wrist-slap given to Miguel Tejada. It is not the message to children that crime never pays or 'just say no'. No, the message of import herein is the valuable parenting lesson taught by Congress, "Do as I say, not as I do."

Moeroids

The big story in the news today was about Alex Rodriguez admitting to having used performance-enhancing drugs several years ago. If you recall my earlier post on this topic, you'll understand that I'm a bit leery about getting into this again.

To me, we - and by "we" I mean society, journalists, congress - we are not focused on the key issue. "We" are mistakenly concerned with cheating and lying and scandals and records and asterisks. 

It's true that Barry Bonds perjured himself to a grand jury and that offense constitutes a crime.

But my question is, why was Barry Bonds made to sit before a grand jury in the first place.

Baseball is a sport. Sport is entertainment. Why not leave it to baseball fans to decide whether or not to buy the product that professional baseball is offering? We vote with our pocketbooks everyday on any number of products. The Dixie Chicks suffered in album sales and radio air time for their anti-George Bush remarks. Tom Cruise is arguably punished at the box office for his occasional bizarre behavior and comments. Kobe Bryant lost tens of millions in endorsement deals due to to his indiscretions. Why then are we not capable of dealing with A-Rod?

I heard a radio interview with the author that broke the story in Sports Illustrated. Her main point was that A-Rod now must explain himself. Why? What do we expect him to say? We already know why any player takes performance-enhancing drugs - to enhance their performance, hence the term. 

Why are we not issuing subpoenas to supermodels? I understand their blemish free physiques may be the result of PhotoShop "enhancements" and plastic surgery.

Is this any different than the high school or college student pulling an all-nighter to cram for finals with the help of caffeine or No-Doze?

The part that really upsets me in all of this is the government's involvement. Does anybody remember the baseball senate hearings several years ago? What a waste of taxpayer dollars! The drug testing in which Alex Rodriguez participated was purported to be anonymous and not subject to discipline. Why then do we know the identities of so many perpetrators? Why then are these individuals being punished? True, maybe they have not been suspended by Major League Baseball. But dragging their names through the press and talk radio and forcing them to testify before congress hardly seems like a reward.

I want my government to focus on the well-being of the citizens of our country. I don't want them conducting federal investigations and televised hearings about a game. Let's assume for a moment that all of the offenders are somehow prosecuted. How do we benefit? Will America then be better off? Will it be safer? Will it be stronger? More powerful? More financially sound?

The responsibility for teaching children about the many undesirable ramifications of drug use falls to parents - not professional athletes. Charles Barkley said it best in an old Nike commercial for which he penned the script, "I'm not a role model." He has long argued that parents and teachers need to be the role models for children, NOT professional athletes. Here's an excerpt.

I think the media demands that athletes be role models because there's some jealousy involved. It's as if they say, this is a young black kid playing a game for a living and making all this money, so we're going to make it tough on him. And what they're really doing is telling kids to look up to someone they can't become, because not many people can be like we are. Kids can't be like Michael Jordan.

See Barkley's Wikipedia entry for the full details. 

Let's let the free markets decide the outcome of this debate. Assume responsibility for instilling strong values in your children. If you can't support the behavior of certain professional athletes, then don't. Don't attend games. Don't buy hats or t-shirts. And for heaven's sake, Congress, before addressing the critical issue of steroids in baseball, could you please look at things that are actually important to our sovereignty and security?

I Just Didn't Care

I was talking casually with a couple of friends and the topic of steroids came up - specifically, steroids in professional baseball. I'm the kind of guy that is a little bit informed about a lot of different subjects. I try to have an opinion one way or another because it makes for interesting conversation - at least for me.

One of the guys lamented how drugs had ruined baseball, so I naturally took an opposing viewpoint so that we could continue the discussion. I brought up points along the lines of 

• Not being able to dismiss the past 25 years of baseball history as invalid
  
• Pill-popping players were mostly hurting themselves
• If everyone was doped up, the playing field was more or less equal

I didn't know it at the time but I was in way over my head. The two baseball PhDs I was talking to had obviously dedicated a lot more brain cycles to the subject than I had. They were quite passionate about the topic and I had apparently struck a nerve with both. The conversation quickly escalated into much more than I had bargained for. I felt like Bugs Bunny trying to sneak out of the bottom of a dog pile during the commotion.

The short of it was, of course I think it is wrong to use drugs. And of course I think it is wrong to cheat. And of course I think using performance enhancing drugs in competition is cheating. I was just trying to spark a lively conversation, but evidently I lit a full-on five-alarm fire. Problem was, I simply don't care enough about the subject to spend any material amount of time or energy pondering its finer points.

I need to be more careful in the future.