Baseball Watergate

Baseball players being questioned by a congressional panel in 2003. Andy Pettitte talking 3 hours with another congressional committee looking into baseball drug use. Roger Clemens declaring that he won't take the fifth. Barry Bonds facing perjury charges for lying to first grand jury panel. What's going on here, baseball watergate? This is a bunch of garbage! I thought the Mitchell report was going to put an end to this. Allow baseball to sweep this under the rug and get back to business. Well baseball is trying to do that with it's latest, stricter drug testing policy. But no, journalists, politicians and the like want the story to stay blown out of proportion.

Baeball watergate? Yes. That's what it is. It's a bunch of media hype tailored to create and sustain intrigue related to America's favorite sport. It's political activity with no reason other than to react to and harbor the media whims. Politics and bad journalism, just like watergate! It's not about evil. It's not about breaking the law. It's not about the harm substance abuse has done to baseball. Because all of those effects have been visited and talked about. Baseball itself is trying to move forward. But the journalists need stories. The bogus politicians react to those stories. The pessimists need to feed their pessimistic minds, so there's a newspaper or book to be sold.

Although stories like political misdoings or baseball's growing pains are intriguing, there's a limit to how long these stories can be reported or re-reported. Sooner or later, those books won't be bought, those news reports won't be read or watched and then the media will settle for fresher more relevant stories and the bogus politicians will find another victim for another grand jury investigation. But this story is old, and if you don't know it by now, you'll soon be free from it anyway. Because baseball watergate is fizzling out.

Tags: - baseball - watergate