I was listening to the Tim Conway Jr. radio show while driving back from the gym the other night, and they were discussing what is obviously common knowledge now: Alex Rodriguez admitted to testing positive for steroids back in 2003. The conversation inquired into the discussion going on right now in Major League Baseball where if you are either caught or admit taking steroids during any part of your career, your numbers can be erased from history. A-Rod would start from zero. All five hundred something of his home runs: gone. All those RBIs: gone.
And you know what? I agree with Conway. It’s bullshit. Here are these supposed “athletes” who are taking performance enhancing drugs (ooh) and becoming super-human players to an extent, and doing well, and true athletes’ records and accomplishments are being overshadowed.
What’s sad is, I bet nothing will happen to A-Rod. He’ll get to keep playing. No charges will be placed on him. Maybe he’ll have to pay some kind of fine. But he’ll get to keep playing. Hell, he might even have a chance at breaking the home run record, like Mark McGwire did.
Speaking of douche bags. Mark McGwire. If he didn’t take steroids then I’m Batman. How did this guy fly under the steroid checking radar? How is that even fair? Lance Armstrong, who I consider to one of the greatest, if not the greatest, athlete of the last twenty-five years. He comes out of retirement this year. He races in the Tour of Australia. He doesn’t do that well (he came in like thirtieth or something). And how many times does he get tested for doing a mediocre job in a race: sixteen. Sixteen fucking times!! How is that even possible?! Mark McGwire breaks Hank Aaron’s homerun record juiced up more than high pulp orange juice, and no one bats an eye. But Lance barely finishes a race and the drug lords are all over the guy. He even got tested twice after the race was over? What the hell? Were they afraid he might have an advantage mowing his grass against his next-door neighbor?
And speaking of Mark McSteroid. What about Jose Conseco? Barry Bonds? Seriously. Barry Bonds went from like, my size, to being as big as a house in one season. I’ve been hitting the weights really hard for the last fourteen months and I grew maybe an inch or two in my biceps? If you can’t see the proof any of these guys took steroids, then you’re an idiot. All of these guys should have their numbers and accomplishments taken away.
Besides, all those earlier baseball players did so much crap to their bodies, the sluggers of today should have to hit double their numbers for anything to count. Babe Ruth broke the homerun record like it was nothing, and he did it while smoking cigars and drinking a bottle of whiskey before and after each game. The guy coughed up blood on home plate. If anything, the athletes of yester-year had to work twice as hard to do what they did.
Also, Tim Conway noted, if you took away A-Rods numbers, wouldn’t you have to alter all the numbers of the pitchers he hit homeruns off of, etc. etc? Well, yeh, I guess you would. But don’t they have guys keeping track of exactly how many losses a baseball team has during their entire existence (Go Phillies for being the first to break 10,000 losses, AND we still got the World Series Trophy. Bitchin’) to make corrections on that kinda thing. A few interns sitting around with nothing to do. It can be done.
Now, one last athletic matter: Michael Phelps. Smoke up buddy boy. Michael Phelps got photographed taking a mighty rip from a bong in Britain and all I gotta say about that is: take one for me dude. A lot of people are worried it will spell hella trouble for the fourteen-time Olympic gold medalist. I disagree. I believe it actually makes him a more approachable person. I’ll even go as far to say it makes him human. Yes, he has that endorsement deal with the anti-drug company, but we all make mistakes. Hell, I’m willing to bet it probably wasn’t mistake. He probably a regular Tommy Chong. I grew up swimming for twelve years of my life. Trust me. A lot of swimmers smoked pot, and it didn’t hurt them in the least. I think if anything, this actually makes Phelps more relatable to his fans and an all around normal guy.
In 2006 a study concluded that almost 43% of high school seniors have tried or are currently smoking pot. I guarantee of those 43%, not all of them are the dregs of the senior class. I bet some are honor roll students, drama club nerds, band geeks, and most likely a group of them are star athletes. And those athletes, and the rest of the people in America, who looked up to Phelps as a hero, probably don’t see him any differently.
Besides, all your moron conservatives thought Bush was “one of the guys” because he snorted some coke in the 70s while he was dodging the draft. You didn’t see a problem with that. Well, at least not until he took office and it seemed like all that blow killed every last brain cell the man had.
It seems almost like a double standard. You have these professional (and by professional, I mean high profiled) athletes that play football and baseball and basketball getting busted for steroids and drugs and all they get is a slap on the wrist. And on the other hand, you have sports like cycling and swimming who have this cult following, and the minute one of them does well and excels beyond what seems possible for a normal human, you test the guy so often, he starts to schedule his workouts around the urine tests.
Anyway, I said my piece. I got laundry to finish. And I’m re-reading The Watchmen. And talking to Johnny. And man do I gotta shit. Have a good night everyone. We’ll talk soon.
We will be saved… We’re all like slaves to love…
No comments:
Post a Comment