Hate Mail: It's not you, it's blasphemy
Hank Aaron set the career home run record with grace and humility, overcoming hateful racists with a sweet temperament and relentless power. Then he stayed above the fray when nuked-up Barry Bonds was stalking his record. No surprise -- that's Hank. Always classy. Always positive.
For his next positive contribution to baseball, I have a suggestion for Aaron:
Stop talking.
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| Did Hammerin' Hank whiff this time? (Getty Images) |
Stop talking.
Think, for the love of God. Think.
This is the problem, of course. Nobody thinks for themselves. People just accept the thinking of others as fact, which makes me wonder how anyone made it to this continent in the first place. According to the thinking of others, the world was flat. You couldn't get from Spain to America.
Well, here we go again. You can't go from here (the unending steroid era) to there (closure) by releasing all 104 names from that 2003 list of drug cheats. It won't happen. But people think it will, because people aren't thinking.
Here's what Aaron said this week in an interview with the Associated Press.
"I wish for once and forever that we could come out and say we have 100-and-some names, name them all and get it over and let baseball go on," Aaron said. "I don't know how they keep leaking out. I just wish that they would name them all and get it over with."
Let baseball go on? Get it over with?
This will never be over with. Ever. Releasing those names won't end anything, because it will never end. The speculation, the rumors, the leaking ... there will always be another name, another cheater. Don't you see that?
Look, you remember the first, and so far only, big-time list of names that busted baseball's steroids cheaters, right? It was the Mitchell Report in December 2007. That report listed 89 players.
Guess who wasn't on there?
A-Rod. Sosa. Ramirez. Ortiz.
See my point? The 2003 list won't end squat. Because the 2003 list, just like the Mitchell Report, won't include every cheater. Some will have cycled off steroids just before those 2003 tests. Others will have avoided detection because of the sophistication of the specific steroid they took. And so forth.
That's the practical side of this issue, but there's another side. An ethical side. The players agreed to take those steroid tests in 2003 for one reason, and one reason only -- because the results would be kept anonymous. Those were the rules of engagement, and they were agreed upon by both sides even with both sides knowing there were cheaters in their midst.
The tests were agreed upon because of their anonymity, and to change the rules now, in mid-stream, would be unethical. It's wrong. Your curiosity to know the names on the list -- and look, I'm as curious as anyone -- doesn't outweigh the ethical violation of releasing those names. It's the same thing with the Erin Andrews hotel tape: Your curiosity to see what she looks like naked (again, guilty) doesn't change the fact that you don't have the right.
So don't listen to Hank Aaron. Don't listen to the bleating of baseball writers, either, because good grief can baseball writers bleat. The only group of people more illogically self-righteous than baseball writers are church leaders. (Both groups have exceptions. And you know who you are.)
Don't listen to active players, either, when they ask for the release of the 104 names. At best they're misguided, and at worst they're lying. By asking for the list, a guilty player could be trying to come across as innocent -- would a guilty player ask for those names? -- without worrying that the union will call his bluff and actually approve the release. It's tactically a smart move, but only if everyone falls for it. So don't fall for it.
Last week, Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo volunteered that he took Androstenedione when he was with Boston in 2003. Arroyo then went a significant step farther and said he stopped taking Andro after hearing that it was oftentimes made with traces of the steroid Winstrol. And those hypothetical traces of Winstrol, Arroyo said, could have landed himself on the list. See, he doesn't know who's on the list, but he knows he could be.
Arroyo is confessing, in other words. Confessing before he gets caught. It's a brilliant move, and it might even be honest. Then again, he could be lying. The truth could be this: He took Winstrol in 2003, he knows he took it, and he's afraid his name is on that list.
This will never be over. Ever. And the truth is, baseball couldn't handle the truth. Neither could the average baseball fan. You don't want to know how many players were on the juice before those 2003 tests made a dent in things. You don't. Trust me.
For some reason, and there's a point to this, radio shows like to call me for my opinion. Well, I know the reason. You see the way I write, right? Imagine me on radio. No delete key. No editor reading over my shoulder. It's me, unfiltered. Well, I bring that up for a reason: For years, radio shows have asked me to name one player, just one, who would stun me if he were caught using steroids.
Every time, I say the same name. It's got to be a skinny guy, I say. A skinny guy whose game isn't predicated on power. And only one name comes to mind, but this name always came to my mind. I felt it was bullet-proof.
His name was Bronson Arroyo.
This will never be over.
