One of the cooler things for me over the past week (more on the other things later) has been the return of Chicago sports on my radar. Although the internet makes it easier to track and follow how teams are doing, I wasn't surrounded by others who experienced the same ups and downs as fellow Chicago fans. There's a lot to be excited about nowadays in the Chicago area sports scene: the Bears have a quarterback, the Bulls and Hawks are young and talented, and the Cubs are trying to regain my trust after two seasons that ended in the depression I've experienced multiple times in my life. Oh, and those Summer Olympics things are probably going to be here in 2016 if Mayor Daley gets his way. But the story that broke yesterday was kind of a slap in the face to Cub fans and professional sports in general.In case you didn't know, Sammy Sosa was one of 104 players to test positive for steroids in 2003.
As a die hard Cub fan living in Chicago, the summer of 1998 was a great year. I got to see many of Sosa's 66 Home Runs as a student living near Wrigley and attending DePaul. The Cubs were big at that point, but not huge and tickets were pretty easy to come by for games early in the season. Like the rest of the city, I was swept up in Sosa fever by the all-star break, and he amazed many of us by hitting baseballs out of the park on what seemed like an everyday occurence. He had a Superman quality to him, one we believed in, one we rooted for, and one we look back on like a Fairy Tale.
Even the most casual fan had an opinion on whether Sosa and Mark McGwire would break the Home Run record, and here in Chicago the Cubs and Sosa were THE game in town. Checking scores every chance I got, watching every Sosa At Bat, checking what McGwire did that day, these were the things I spent my time on in the summer of 98 and I was not alone. My buddies and I even bought tickets for a Brewers game in late September and sat in the left field bleachers in the hopes we'd catch a McGwire home run, maybe even the one to break Roger Maris' record. He did homer twice in the game, no one caught a ball. And we had a lot of fun in Milwaukee, since it was a nice meeting place for the guys in Madison and elsewhere in Big 10 country.
I was listening to sports talk radio while running errands this morning, and there's a combination of feelings from the callers: anger, denial, and most notably indifference. It was almost as if we all knew he cheated, and the story from yesterday made complete sense. I too feel indifferent about it, which is kind of sad when I think back to how much of my life I invested in the Sammy Sosa scam. And it wasn't just here in Chicago, folks did it in Los Angeles/Boston with Manny Ramirez, Texas/New York with Alex Rodriguez, San Franciso with Barry Bonds, and the list can continue on to nearly ever 'star' baseball player over the past 15 years. We were scammed by guys who took shortcuts to success, and there has yet to be an apology from one of those guys.
All we get are denials, excuses, and press releases that say nothing. The chain of events after each of these stories goes something like this:
- Folks like Ari Fleisher (if he can help Bush he can help anyone) and other PR agencies craft the message
- The player rehearses it
- They trot him out for a public statement and softball questions
- The player disappears for months never to be heard from again
These guys have broken laws (illegally obtaining prescription drugs), stolen our money and time, and sent an awful message to the next generation: that cheating is not that big of a deal. We saw it on Wall Street, in Politics, in Real Estate, everywhere we look, and none of them apologizes with an honest attempt to make right their wrongs.
Rather than blaming their positive test on their doctor, their trainer, whomever, I'd love to see these guys come together and take accountability and do something to repay the fans--the ones who pay their salary. Some ideas for the Sosa/Bonds/Ramirez/Rodriguez/McGwire/Palmiero gang:
- Donate some cash back to MLB to lower ticket prices. Better yet, buy some tickets and donate them to families struggling with the economy.
- Volunteer your time teaching kids how to play the right way.
- Help the MLB and other major sports understand how you got your hands on the drugs, and what they can do to clean up the game.
- Give up your records, stats, and everything you did under the influence.
- Apologize to folks like Hank Aaron, Roger Maris, Willie Mays, and everyone else who worked their asses off to achieve greatness.
I'm not the kinda guy to say I'm done with baesball. I'll be glued to the TV for most of the summer in front of Cub games, but I'd like the Cubs to win their title fair and square when they finally do it. And if they're not going to win it, I want to be sure that they're losing to a team that did it the clean, fair way.
Well put. I think the reason for general apathy around this is that the horse(s) have left the barn and there is no reeling them back in. Part of the reason for this, is that our society has become overly permissive and overly tolerant. These are two important, civil virtues that in excess, contribute to decline in any social system. Hence the standing ovations from these guy's home crowds when they "come back" and the mainstream media that allows for the boilerplate script you accurately described to be executed with minimal scrutiny. Combine this with the general jackass opinion of the average pro-sport fan base that says: "I don't care what he does, as long as he bats over 300, hits 40 hrs and brings us a pennant." And you have what we have today. Apathy, mediocrity and a lot less substance.
ReplyDeleteI too will still go to the games and watch them for what they are, a spectacle rather than an honest sporting event. I think Jose Canseco will wind up being one of the great sages of our time when MLB, pro sports and society in general finally succumb and legalize all this shit. Then we will be able to enjoy our 600 foot homeruns without any pangs of scrutiny...Hell, maybe we'll be treated to a few on field heart attacks or compound fractures on a check swings. ESPN could even make up a new, hip category for such highlights: "Roid-snaps” or how about “Anabolic bloopers”?