The Chris Moeller Archives

Steroids for everyone!!

Blogging about the content of a 12 hour Congressional hearing reminds me why I was willing to leave a career as a news reporter. But here are a few random thoughts on the steroid hearing-- random because I watched a majority of the proceedings in inverted order, taping it at work until 6, and watching the more significant testimony by MLB's leadership before the earlier part:

1. I had some unexpected and perverse fun watching some members of our radical right-wing Congress chastise Major League Baseball for being pushed around by what I call the last effective union in the country. In this matter, unfortunately, the union has done a disservice to its members by not pushing for steroid testing and protecting the reputations of the innocent in their rank and file. Nevertheless, my left wing sensibilities enjoyed the part when Georgia Republican Lynn Westmoreland told MLB lawyer Rob Manfred, "Down home, we got an expression- 'You got your head handed to you' in collective bargaining." He wanted to know why the owners couldn't negotiate more severe punishments in the agreement.
The players' union is the most powerful player in this story, as it is in most stories that involve baseball. Bud Selig, despite being perhaps the most incompetent captain of industry in America, can actually point to his record on this issue with pride, I believe. This is a radically unpopular belief, but he implemented thorough minor-league steroid testing seven years ago, shortly after the McGwire/Andro story broke. He did nothing at the big league level, but the union would have made any move completely impossible.

2. Discussion topic: a baseball fan at work compared the mixed steroids message from Jose Canseco to the marijuana issue surrounding "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin said he smoked pot to aid the creative process. This guy is full of smoke, though (pun intended,) because Sorkin has never been a hypocrite. He thinks pot should be legal, but, indeed, Canseco is all over the map. His opening statement that he wanted to do everything he could to help the fight against steroid use by young people had me in hysterics. It's the exact opposite of what he's saying in his book.

3. By the way, did you know Canseco wrote a book? At one point today, he began a reply with the line, "There's a chapter in my book dealing with this issue..."

4. I was genuinely moved by Mark McGwire's opening statement, which I think adequately spoke to the stated goals of the committee, particularly the part about sending a message to the youth. I know that the majority of people who spent the day drinking green beer and watching basketball will allow the media to summarize this story for them, and the media focus will be on the fact that Mac never categorically denied that he used steroids. In all candor, I was praying that he would. But that being said, he was absolutely right when he stated that the players called to testify would not be believed regardless. The public makes up its mind as soon as they see the photo of the person taking the oath. I hope everyone also considers the fact that McGwire was being asked to forego his Constitutional right to privacy without any probable cause whatsoever, and on general principle alone, all of the players at the table should have told the committee where they could stick it.
I hope McGwire will be able to return to his retirement with the level of privacy that he seeks, but I know he'll also be busy raising Donald Hooton's surviving children in Plano, TX. Otherwise, how will these children ever learn how to make smart decisions?

5. Did anyone else notice on ESPN's bottom-line ticker that the Cardinals lost their first inning lead to Baltimore during McGwire's seven minute statement? The irony of the ticker was certainly lost to the participants in the committee room, but viewers across the country were given a running reminder that baseball was continuing despite the hearing.

6. I also noticed on the ticker that Barry Bonds had arthroscopic knee surgery today. I believe it's fair to say-- using baseball terminology-- that Congress walked Bonds intentionally to face McGwire.

7. Sammy Sosa did fine. Nobody wants to badger a guy who doesn't speak the language. Congress learned this a half a century ago when they called Casey Stengel to Washington to defend baseball's anti-trust exemption.

8. Fittingly, Sosa arrived with the largest entourage.

9. My exposure to Congressional hearings is so limited that my mind still drifts to Michael Corleone in "The Godfather, Part II" when I watch someone read a statement. Raffy Palmeiro's speech came the closest to Michael's. He even had a part about "When my family came to America..."

10. I take back everything I said about Curt Schilling this week. I thought he made the committee his bitch. He was stern, quick on his feet, and "all aces" on the issues of player loyalty and public disclosure. McGwire went after Canseco's heart with an emotional speech, but Schilling went for his jugular. I thought he was going to dive across the table a couple times. I would have stood and cheered at several points in his testimony, but I was so impressed, I was beginning to envision him, one day, as the GOP nominee for President, whipping the snot out of John Kerry.

11. Three cheers for Dennis Kucinich for calling out the committee for making the players the focus of the steroid issue when their bosses were also profitting. He credited it to "the win-at-all-costs mentality that has infected not only sports, but business, media... and politics." Political steroids, he said, are called PACs and special interests. He was "vintage Kucinich" when he addressed Sosa in Spanish. Sammy sat stunned for a second. He's become so accustomed to pretending he can't understand English, he momentarily forgot that he understands Spanish.

12. I want it known publicly that I'm calling my own citizen committee on the issue of steroids... in government. I consider steroids to be a very serious public health problem in the U.S., especially among our impressionable youth, so I'm calling Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California and a hero to children, as my first witness. Arnold is a former body builder who says he doesn't regret using steroids because they made him what he is today. I am also calling President Bush, the only man named in Canseco's book who was never in danger of having to testify. He made steroids a critical issue in his re-election campaign, and I want to know what he knew when he ran the team in Arlington, and when he knew it.

posted by CM @ 11:44 PM