Tuesday, February 10, 2009

(4) Comments

Quicky A-Rod thoughts (no Mets in the 103 right?)

SS

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The text of A-Rod's apology reads much better than it sounded. On tv it just seemed like he needed to get in the words naive and stupid as many times as possible.

Does anyone actually use the phrase loosey-goosey when not apologizing to Peter Gammons? Is that a phrase Alex uses when clubbing in Miami.

Question to everyone: what are you mad at? Why do you care anyway? Root for the guy or don't. Watch the games or don't. At the end of the day it's just television programming for the summer.

People were much less interested in steroids before a surly black man put up the biggest numbers.

Jeter's quote still bothering me. The correct answer would have been "no." (Read down the blog if you don't know what I'm talking about.)

I guess Jose Canseco is less of a crazy-talker than people made him out to be.

I really look forward to getting back to Mets talk around these parts but (a) its hard story to ignore and (b) the Mets don't do anything good or bad and I can only wax poetically about Lee Mazzilli so many times.

Of the 103 players left on the list none were Mets right? I have an idea about one but I'll get lynched if I voice it.
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4 Responses to "Quicky A-Rod thoughts (no Mets in the 103 right?)"
Adam Solomon said :
February 10, 2009 at 9:21 AM
"People were much less interested in steroids before a surly black man put up the biggest numbers."

Wow, playing the race card whenever we can shove it in, are we?

So are you implying that the baseball community at large got a whole bunch more racist sometime between Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds, that they have a prejudice against surly people, or did that comment just have no point except that you like the feel of keys on your fingers?
SS said :
February 10, 2009 at 9:42 AM
Not the baseball community, the fans...and not on that timeline. I think people got a lot more interested in steroids when Bonds started moving up the list. When it was McGwire the country celebrated and chose to ignore that he was twice the size of baseball players. Everyone (but Costas) chose to ignore that the majority of 50 home run seasons in the history of baseball happened in the late 1990s.

When Bonds started moving up the charts suddenly people started asking questions. He wasn't the hero America wanted as their champion. I don't think the combination of being surly and black helped his cause. America accepted semi-surly in McGwire and accepted black in Aaron...but for some reason Bonds was the devil. Why does Bonds make people so angry?
Adam Solomon said :
February 10, 2009 at 11:33 AM
Well, that's the thing. The fact that we can't pigeonhole America's distaste for Bonds into anything except "well, maybe being surly crosses over our black-person tolerance threshold" means we might be digging too hard for reasons besides this: Bonds pursued the most important record to baseball fans (far more so than the single season record), and on top of that, a decade after McGwire and Sosa, when steroid use was actually common knowledge.

Re: McGwire, note that he's not faring too well with fans or anybody (say, HOF voters) these days, either.
SS said :
February 10, 2009 at 11:43 AM
McG isn't loved now. None of them are. I just think we're in a world of hypocrisy now - "Summer of 98" books, Fox coverage, a tickertape for Sosa in NYC, love for one of the great Bosox of all time at Yankee Stadium.....somewhere around Bonds people got a little choosier with their heroes.

There's nothing to be done about the last 15 years but moving forward. That's why I think Selig should wave a magic amnesty wand - just like the Maris asterisk was officially removed, he should declare that the numbers are what they are. Corked bat, grease on a ball, stealing signs from the center field scoreboard, steroids...it's all a matter of degree of cheating aka trying to gain an advantage. Doesn't make it right. Doesn't mean I wish it hadn't happened. Move on.

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