Jim Leyland was asked for his reaction to the David Ortiz steroid saga this weekend. This is what he had to say:
“I don’t condone steroids or any other type of growth hormones or anything else, but I could care less, and, for the most part, I don’t think the fans give a (bleep). The people that care about it are the people that probably don’t like baseball.”
“Do we want to peck until we get every last name out? What’s the difference? I don’t condone any form of cheating, but I’m tired of press conferences about steroids. Who am I to judge? It’s none of my business.”
“I’m not trying to prove (baseball) innocent. We’ve made some mistakes. The worst era in baseball was when guys were found guilty of using cocaine and other (bleep) because they could’ve gone out there and hurt someone.”
Thank you wise old man! This is now my favorite geezer since Santa Claus. My favorite old guy used to be Morgan Freeman until I found out he was bangin’ his step-granddaughter. But I digress…
The media is really trying to push the idea that steroids and other performance-enhancers are irrevocably damaging the relationship between the fan and their teams. This constant bombardment of stories regarding new players and new allegations is trying to tell us that, yes, this information really MATTERS to us. And while I too do not appreciate nor condone professional athletes creating legends built on some degree of lies, I am not naive enough to think performance enhancer usage is some new, controversial phenomenon.
As early as the 1960s, it became clear that professional athletes of all sorts, including Olympians, were utilizing amphetamines (“pep pills”), tranquilizers, cocaine and other drugs in elite sports in order to gain some sort of edge in competition. However, the definition of cheating has changed throughout history. Today’s athletes use air-inflated soles on their spikes, they run on fast artificial surfaces and they wear aerodynamic body suits. Moreover, even training in many instances was considered cheating in the early nineteenth century.
I guess the question is, does the media simply have the wrong idea in thinking baseball’s fans care so deeply for this issue or is the media intent on making us care? The fact of the matter is that after all is said and done, the Mannys and the A-Rods of the world go back to the cheers of millions. Maybe the everyman baseball fan just has an understanding of the situation that the media will never allow itself to have: “cheating”, by some definition, will always exist.
I know that if my entire livelihood and success depended on it, I’d gladly take a needle in the butt!
