Letters to the Editor
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Proof reading
should be confirmational bias. Sigh...
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Pulling a "Wes"...
Hockey was boring enough (at least on TeeVee) AND then they went and cancelled a whole season...
And you wonder why the sport has become a not-so funny joke...
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Pulling a "Wes" (part 2)
Did I mention that Hockey sucks...
And so does Marino Rivera ("just doesn't have location", hah!)...
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Pulling a "Wes" (part 3)
"Soccer" sucks too...
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Well
Even though I get very tired of hearing about baseball on here, I am not one to tell you what to write about. I just make sure not to go to the second page and hope the stats people look at us who do that.
However, the steriods story is an important story(even though I skipped it and went straight to the GS-Dallas coverage). The real reason I think it is important is to show how money and fame gets you a pass in this country. These people are breaking the law, breaking the contract with their employers, their business associations, etc. Yet, they (mostly)keep their jobs and if anything, get a slap on the wrist.
The rest of us would be fired, jailed, and have a hard time making any kind of living for our remaining time here.
Julian
PDX, OR
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Fails to see the problem.......
Sports, especially major professional sports, are an entertainment industry. Do we refuse to watch attractive actors and actresses because they've havd plastic surgery or botox? So why does it affect "integrity of sport" somehow if an athlete takes particular drugs when everything ELSE about them - education, diet, upbringing - is a highly artificial regimen designed to make them excel at sport. Professional athletes haven't been just like you and me for decades.
If someone feels that a Barry Bonds homerun would be more entertaining if he had a certificate of no artificial substances in his body, please explain why.
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Thanks for not Eulogizing Josh Hancock
Fifteen years ago my boss was killed in an auto crash. We took some time off to remember him, but we had work to do and we did it. We too had recently buried another co-worker who died young, and by recently I mean a few months before, not five years before. So I guess I think the coverage of this was way overblown.
I must admit to having no knowledge or memory of Josh Hancock as a baseball player before his death, and the hagiography ("best teammate ever!") we've seen since doesn't obscure the fact that the way he died appears to have been negligent, not tragic. I'm sorry for his family like the family of anyone else who dies needlessly, but when a person with an athlete's reflexes is unable to get out of the way of a huge tow truck flashing its lights on an uncrowded freeway late at night, it's not quite the professor at Virginia Tech blocking the doorway, if you know what I mean.
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Well, Julian...
Even though I get very tired of hearing about baseball on here, I am not one to tell you what to write about.
We all have our crosses to bear. ;-)
Baseball is the only sport I follow 365. I actively detest football and all that surrounds it, both at the college and pro levels. From my perch, both the NBA and the minor-league NHL are a snooze. College hoops are OK in March if I can get around the rank corruption in the elite (and not-so-elite, too) men's programs. I follow women's hoops, but chalk that up to being a Tennessee alum. And King doesn't write about the women's game, wisely staying away from that with which he is unfamiliar.
It's a huge compliment to King's writing that I read him year round, even when the subject matter (like those other sports) is not to my taste. Come to think of it, the only season that's as much fun and as eagerly anticipated as baseball season at our house is the opera season. Maybe King could write about the Met's opener in November, you think?
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Ok, time for some irresponsible accusations to spice up the Mets story
Todd Hundley? Yeah, he had to have been juicing. Vince Coleman? He needed something to help recover quickly from being run over by a tarp and something to help with his firecracker throwing aim. Don't even get me started on Howard Johnson. His forearms looked like turduckens and he once check-swung a home run. Jeff Kent? The porn-stache is used to hide the injection scars.
Yes, it is safe to say that the jockstrap washer from the Mets is telling the truth. I say, throw out all records from the 85-95 Mets.
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Record books spotlight the issue
One reason the steroids story in baseball has made a bigger splash is the assault on the record books in the late 90s/early 00s, perhaps resulting from juice. In my day, ya see, hitting 40 homers was a big year. Someone hitting 50 happened once every decade or two, and only big power hitters had a chance to top 30. Once lead-off hitters starting pumping out fifty, it was clear this was no longer the same game.
College football players are bigger and faster, but the game still looks pretty much the same, albeit faster. Baseball has come back to earth the past few years, but for a while it was looking like a video game. That made the steroids angle hard to ignore, and Bonds approaching Aaron keeps the issue vital. One of the grand records falling from a Gentleman of the Game to a cheater and a lout focuses the mind on the lack of integrity in the game.
Still, comparing who did PEDs with who set records will never be quite as tantalizing as comparing who beat drums during Lewinskygate with who is on the DC Madam's list...
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A Sportswriters Issue
King,
I've always felt that the PED scandal was the result of 2 factors: sportswriters suffering from guilt that they ignored the issue for so long and secondly because it began to involve Barry Bonds, a man almost universally loathed by the typing class.
King, please write about this issue more. Help us understand if there is a difference between use and abuse of these drugs. Help fans understand how the testing process works. If Radomski names names and names drugs, help us understand what those drugs do. Did taking the drugs make that player better? Why is that substance banned.
I would like to learn something about PED usage beyond the hand-wringing, guilt-tripping, axe grinding screeds of most sportswriters. You are pretty good at this, i think. So have at it.