Morning Rant

Thought I'd try a little something different this morning. Instead of individual posts - I'm going to try a Lileks style Bleat or in this case a Lynch style rant.

Steroids in Baseball - anyone else watch the proceedings and come away thinking, "hey I guess you don't have to be too bright to be a US Congressman"?

The one argument I'm very tired of is the one where people say that these players were great athletes to begin with and that it is a great skill to hit a baseball. These people would have you believe that steroids did add to the player's success but the player would have been successful without the drugs.

People who dope horses in order to "fix" a race don't dope a mule, enter the mule in the race and then expect it to win. They dope a horse that was already good enough to be in the race with a chance to win in the first place.

Sure Jason Giambi was good enough as an amateur to play on the US Olympic team but would he have been MLB MVP material without steroids? Same thing for Ken Caminitti or Jose Canseco. It is the MVP Awards and huge contracts that steroids got for them that gets my goat.

People attempt to fix horse races in order to get a big payoff. That's the same reason baseball players take steroids - for the big payoff. The only difference is the paper that holds the riches for the fixer is a betting slip and for the player it is a nice fat Yankee contract. In my mind - both are equally fraudulent.

The difference between the two seems to me to be the fact that if a fan of horse racing thought that the horses were being doped at a certain racetrack then those fans would probably avoid spending any money at that racetrack. In baseball it was just the opposite. The owners knowingly turned a blind eye to steroids and the fans flocked to see the product that was being put on the field. It is this bit of caveat emptor that keeps me from being too worked up on the issue. I mean - who didn't have suspicions that Canseco, Bonds, McGwire and Sosa were juicing?

I still think my idea of drug testing every member of a team once they clinch a playoff birth would work as a very good deterrent. I also wouldn't shed a tear if the government dropped the nuclear bomb and used RICO laws to seize the assets of players who juiced and got huge contracts because of it.

Bonds, Giambi and Sheffield all used BALCO and they conspired to use the drugs to gain multimillion contracts. That's a form of racketeering.

March Madness - I had Pacific over Pitt and Nevada over Texas but the Wisconsin-Milwaukee upset over Alabama hurts because I had Alabama beating BC in the next round. I also pegged Iowa to upset Cincinnati. In fact I had Iowa making it to the Great Eight. That hurts. I never do good in picking brackets.

Having said that - today I have Old Dominion in a 12 vs. 5 upset over Michigan State plus St. Mary's over S. Illinois in a 10 vs. 7 upset and Mississippi St. over Stanford in a 9 vs. 8 upset.

Some of the games are in Worcester today and I might go downtown to scalp a ticket to the games with my buddy Tim.

Terri Schiavo - I haven't blogged on the subject because folks like Greg at What Attitude Problem? have done such a good job covering the subject. However, I feel compelled to mention this thought that I can't escape thinking any time I hear or read anything about the situation.

Even though I know this is a thought probably better kept to myself - I can't stop thinking that Terri's faithless husband better have some pretty good bodyguards because at some point someone will realize that to keep Terri breathing it might take making the husband stop breathing.

I bet some well off defenders of Terri have probably tried to buy off the husband. Give him a million in exchange for his signature on divorce papers - that sort of thing. If his spite runs so deep to turn down such an offer then you have to think that if some people out there are willing to bomb abortion clinics to "save" unborn babies then you would have to think a person with a face, a name and completely helpless would also be a cause they would kill for.

If Terri's husband died then custody for Terri would go to her parents who want her alive.

Now in no way do I advocate such a drastic course of action. I am just saying I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.

Misc. - I still think the only person who can save the CBS Evening News is Strong Bad. If they made Strong Bad the anchor then the ratings would be huge. It could even cause Peter Jennings to don a Mexican wrestling mask.

Here endeth the rant. I'm out of breath and out of coffee.