Why is Clemens taking the fall?

[Hannah Bell]

The real question here is: Why was Clemens dragged in front of Congress in the first place? We can ask the same of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and all the players who have been put under the congressional hot lights. To put it bluntly, why have players, and not team owners, been given the third degree?

Not one owner has ever been called to account for the steroid era in Major League Baseball. Not one person who has called an owner's box home has had to answer questions about steroid use...Yes, individual players may have made terrible personal decisions that sullied the game. But there's a systemic problem here, too. And the absence of corporate accountability around this issue is simply breathtaking...

The roots of the current crisis lie not in the individual moral failings of players like Clemens, but from systemic greed at the highest levels of the sport. The juicing of the game began in earnest in 1994, when a players' strike mutated into an owners' lockout that led to the cancellation of the World Series. The popularity of what was once "America's pastime" sank to a shameful low.

Then, the muscles started coming in--and the bucks along with them. The protracted pitching battles of old were replaced by games that were essentially home run derbies. Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire were, briefly, the heroes of the day. And so, helped by steroids, baseball came back into fashion as a new, juiced-up sport of A-Rod clones. Steroids were simply a quiet part of the marketing plan.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/08/24/why-is-clemens-taking-the-fall

[leveymg]

1. Why is baseball taking the fall, instead of, say, mass murder in Iraq? This Congress is a joke.

Most of our so-called Representatives should be, themselves, dragged in front of a committee and jailed for fraud and perjury. That particularly applies to members of the Investigative Subcommittee, who have utterly neglected their duties.

[Hannah Bell]

2. can't argue with that. they seem to be able to get any number of inconsequential things done.

[leveymg]

4. Goes along with the decision to keep Blackwater/Xe as a federal contractor. See that report?

There isn't even an effort being made to pretend that there are rules for the military, CIA and their contractors. Back to business as normal.

Who's on the assassination list, today, Erik?

[midnight]

6. True.

[Bluebear]

3. You said it. nt

[jobycom]

5. That sums it up. Selig and the owners encouraged steroid use

after Selig's strike, he pushed for higher scores and more home runs, and when they began happening and everyone began speculating on the cause of the increased numbers, the owners and commish kept quiet and enjoyed the publicity. They knew. They tried hard to create plausible deniability, but they knew. And since they didn't stop it, players were forced to use steroids or compete at a major disadvantage with, at a minimum, half of their colleagues. Bonds stayed off steroids and watched players with a fraction of his skills get all the attention and the money and the love of the fans, and no one did anything about it--what was he supposed to do? If you're driving on the Interstate at the speed limit and everyone is passing you, you speed up.

The owners could have stopped it at any point, but the game was hurting and they cared only about the short term profitability. They let it happen, raked in profits from home run chases, and then they left the players hanging when the bubble burst. Players got called before Congress and interviewed by the press, and the owners were shocked, shocked to learn that there were steroids as people handed them their winnings.

Clemens was caught off guard by reports that weren't supposed to be made public and reacted badly to it, and dug himself a PR whole that let Congress go after him. He reacted defensively as his biggest secrets were exposed by people with morals far beneath his already questionable ones. So now he's the scapegoat, and everyone else is relieved the bullet missed them. They may suffer from survivor's guilt over time, but right now they are just glad it is him bleeding on the carpet instead of him.

And the owners just keep on owning, keep on pretending they were all innocent of all that unpleasantness, and just keep raking in the money. They don't care what happens to the help--the names are interchangable anyway--so long as the money keeps flowing. And when someone like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton uses the slavery word, even liberals get all upset about it.

[exboyfil]

7. And I am still ticked off at myself

about caring about the Sosa/McGuire homerun race or Bonds' accomplishments. That could be why I have not watched a complete baseball game in years (really no more than an inning or so), and I could not tell you who won the last three World Series.

I still do like Football (something to do in the cold winter months), but I should probably put that away as being childish as well. I have a bookshelf of unread books I should be reading instead. Now that Kurt Warner is retired and the Saints have won the Super Bowl (a long time dream of my departed father), I have little interest in football this season.

[jobycom]

17. I'm not. I'm ticked off at the owners and Selig for betraying the game.

I've barely watched it since the strike, for a lot of reasons, but I did get drawn into the homerun races, including Bonds's. I'm bothered as much by the lack of leadership after the steroids were exposed as before. I don't really care that they were juicing, but I care that there's been no decision on it. To me, if the players are on steroids they still have to play the game. Bonds still had to hit the ball, Clemens still had to throw it. If I took steroids, I'd never come close to what the lowliest baseball player can do, so I know it's not the steroids that make it possible. It's still fun to watch. Yes, I'd rather them not take them, because I'd rather the playing field be level and I'd rather not see the dangerous behavior encouraged in the players as well as in Little League or any other level.

So to me the home run races were still fun, and Clemens is still amazing for however many Cy Youngs he has won. It's the owners who piss me off. They encouraged this, now they are trying to have it both ways. They want to ignore the problem, keep the money, and let the players take the fall, as though the players were detached from the game they were playing. One of two things should have happened already. Bud Selig should have gone Kinnesaw Mountain Landis and sternly commanded that "No player who used steroids will ever play again, nor will they be allowed in the Hall of Fame, nor shall any of their records be officially recognized by the game of baseball," or he should go Jimmy Carter and say "The steroids era was a mess, and we cannot be certain who was using, and even when we prove that one player was juiced, we cannot be sure that those he faced were not. Therefore, we are going to accept all records and enforce no bans over steroid use from that era. General amnesty is proclaimed. But starting from this moment on, steroids will no longer be tolerated, records will no longer be accepted..." etc, etc.

I could live with either decision. Then at least I'd have some sense that the game's integrity was restored, and that what I was watching now was going to be recognized as a real game and a real record in the future. I'd have some feeling that the game mattered beyond the profits of the owners, that I was doing something by watching other than making rich people rich (not that I have a problem with rich people getting rich, just not by screwing me).

And GO SAINTS!!! I waited a lifetime for that, too. I grew around Brett Favre, even met him as kids, so I want to see him have a great final season. SO I got three story lines in football this years. I live in Texas, so I want to see the Cowboys win a Super Bowl, I want to see the Saints win another Super Bowl, and I want to see Brett Favre get to the Super Bowl. Yeah, only one of those can happen, and it's likely none of them will happen, but this is one of those rare years where all three of those are actually possible. :)

[TZ]

15. Will they use the slavery word for Clemons? Doubt it

Clemons testified voluntarily. And he knowingly lied. I don't like liars and any and all should be prosecuted. Oh yeah and steroids are fucking dangerous and abusers SHOULD be prosecuted. I don't go for its "legal in baseball" so its okay shit. Don't give me this the owners turned a blind eye shit either. people should be responsible for their actions and all of these CHEATING SCUMBAGS should answer for stuff they KNEW was wrong.

[jobycom]

16. So you want to jail half the players but not the owners?

It's like "A Few Good Men." The commanders create an unofficial rulebook the players have to follow, then when the players get caught, the owners hang them and pretend innocence. The leaders who gave the orders didn't right them down, so they go free, while their hired goons take the fall. The question to me isn't whether Clemens should go to jail, it's why he deserves a worse fate than the people who ordered him to do it. And when the owners say "I don't care how, but you find a way to keep up with Andy Pettite," when both you and the owners know Pettite is juicing, that IS an order to juice. Clemens could have chosen some moral holier-than-thou route and quite instead of taking steroids, but why would he? He'd be broke, and no one would care. The fans never cared, the owners never cared--it's like refusing to speed when everyone else is and the cops aren't stopping you--all your moral stand gets you is curses from everyone you are slowing down.

[yesphan]

18. He should have retired earlier.

Clemens made in a single season more than any number of DU members make in a lifetime.
Unless he was just burning stacks and stacks of money, I seriously doubt he would have gone broke.
I think it was his massive ego that steered him in that direction.
I've not much pity for him, sorry.

[jobycom]

21. That hardly relates to what I said.

He wanted to pursue his own idea of happiness (and as you say, it couldn't have been about money). I've heard people have that right, or are supposed to, whether we like them or not. For whatever reason, he wanted to stay in the game, and if he stayed clean, the juiced players were going to drink his milkshake. Look at the timeline of the accusations against him. He started juicing long after the trend started, which means he tried to stay clean longer than most players. In the end, he either had to do what the owners were encouraging all players to do, or retire on a principle no one else cared about.

So naturally he gets left standing when the music stops. Him and Bonds. Neither started all this, neither was in a position to stop it, and both are going to become the symbol of it. It's a fucked up world.

[Uben]

8. Clemens is a scumbag....

...and deserves what he gets. If he was using, he should accept his punishment and shut the fuck up. If not, he has nothing to worry about. I've met the guy, and was appalled at his totally narcissistic behavior.

[FSogol]

9. Because you just don't lie to Congress.

(Unless you are an Oil company exec, Tobacco company exec, Car company exec, Banker, Financial company exec, Health Insurance company exec, etc, etc.)

:shrug:

Why Clemens and not other ball players? Sosa and Palmairo are foreign nationals and McGuire took the 5th.

[hack89]

10. He wasn't dragged - he volunteered to testify

then he lied.

Former Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, the top Republican on the House panel at the time of Clemens' testimony, called it "a self-inflicted wound."

Clemens had been prominently mentioned in the Mitchell Report, Major League Baseball's own accounting of its steroid problem, and he went to Capitol Hill on his own to clear his name.

"Clemens was not under subpoena. He came voluntarily," Davis said. "And I sat there in the office with (committee chairman) Henry Waxman and said, 'Whatever you do, don't lie."'

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/19/sportsline/main6787425.shtml

Stupidity and ego are a bad combination.

[TZ]

13. Exactly. And some of us view drug abuse of a controlled substance

(which is agaisnt the law) as bad behavior. That crap is nothing to mess around with but they've got everyone convinced they are harmless wonderdrugs...:grr:

[TheCowsCameHome]

11. He's cooked, by his own actions.

It's do or die time for this guy.

[dionysus]

12. because he volunteered to testify and lied his ass off. next?

[Upton]

14. How come when Bonds was indicted

for perjury, I didn't see any threads like this?

[Forkboy]

20. Go ahead and say the answer. You know you want to.

[Warren Stupidity]

19. Roger volunteered for the fall taking.

I have no idea what was going on inside that 'brain' of his.