Take me out to the Ball Game
We’re doing something a little different here… a reader emailed us a message on the subject of the Congressional baseball hearings. We’re going to publish the letter as received, then add a few brief comments of our own.
Dear Sten Gazette,
I watched or listened to most of the congressional hearings on steroid use in baseball yesterday. I was mostly interested just to see what kind of drama might play out. I do think that baseball has done a poor job keeping steroid’s out of baseball, but it currently is against my moral fiber to have the government get involved with issues like this one. I do see the need for the government to enact laws and regulate certain aspects of American citizens’ lives for the better of Americans as a whole. But I do lean towards the side of less state regulation. So I watched the hearings with somewhat of an open mind and maybe a bias toward what was best for baseball, but generally thinking that the government should stay out of the issue. I also assumed, going into it, that the players union was mostly to blame. I thought that Donald Feer was probably the one to blame for any so-called steroid crisis in baseball, and I still may think that. But I’m trying to remain open-minded since I don’t know all the facts.
I did form one opinion after listening to the whole thing. I’m going to paraphrase here because I don’t remember the exact words that were used. But this is the way I understood the conversation between one congressman and Donald Feer to go. The congressman asked Donald why baseball now has a “5 strikes and your out” policy towards steroids, which is an illegal drug, when adults in the congressman’s district get caught with drugs one or tow times and they go to jail. Donald replied by saying that they were trying to stop the use of steroids in baseball, but not ruin players careers and their lives. To do this the baseball union thought it was a better policy to give players a chance to reform, and they believed the so called 5 strikes and you are out policy was the best way to do this.
That really got me thinking about a possible bigger issue. Is it the best policy for the government to send first or second time offenders of drug possession to jail and in essence ruin their lives? Or would it be a better policy to try and reform drug offenders and help them find a way out of the life that has drawn them into the world of drugs? Maybe baseball has the most constructive way of dealing with the steroid issue.
Currently in my own opinion, if I was Donald Feer, I may have answered the original question from the congressman like this. “I don’t agree with the laws you have enacted to deal with drug offenders and I believe drug offenders who might be young and immature should have a fighting chance before we put them in prison and ruin the rest of their life. Maybe these drug offenders could use a little help getting out of their current situations and they might one day be positive contributing American citizens.”
All that being said, I was wondering if you might want to comment on this and possibly write a SG article?
We stopped being baseball fans when they introduced designated hitters and cut the strike zone in half, or when baseball stopped being baseball. In its current form we regard Professional Baseball as being about as much sport as, say, Professional Wrestling. It’s a money-making exercise where the only thing that matters is putting butts in seats. If you think of steroid usage as a form of cheating rather than “drug abuse” then you have to wonder what all the fuss is about. Cheating in a professional sport? How Un-American. If kids follow that sort of role model we’ll end up with business and political leaders who think nothing of lying and cheating.
The hearing was a farce from the moment it was announced. Like professional sports, Congressional hearings are a form of theater, and their primary purpose is to put the committee members in the spotlight. This one did not disappoint.
But the ease with which you contrast the baseball ‘roids policy to federal policy in the “War on Drugs,” is very pertinent. If nothing else, it is the proof that the hearing was an empty exercise. We get the impression that most people think Congress has a couple of better things to do than investigate MLB. Unless the purpose of the hearings was to take our minds (and our brains) off of other issues. Like the budget, which is hardly getting the attention it deserves.
–SG
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