The news that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez failed the 2003 steroids test makes this the most exciting day in the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry for me since the Yanks swooped in and signed Mark Teixeira. And I make no apologies for feeling that way.
Sorry, I'm not going to pretend I think this is a sad day for baseball. I have written for a piece for The Faster Times called "Steroids: The Real Juice Behind Reversing the Curse of the Bambino" - with some of my thoughts on the issue.
As I've said a zillion times over the years, Sox fans should have thought about the very real possibility that the steroids scandal would hit their team. Especially when it came to David Ortiz. But instead, too many Boston fans - not all, but a good bunch - acted like their team's hands were clean on the issue. Too bad, so sad.
Oh, and so much for FoxSports' Ken Rosenthal's self-righteousness on the issue, criticizing anybody who wondered if Ortiz was chemically enhanced.
The thing that gets me the most on this test failure - and that goes for A-Rod too - is that these players knew the test was coming, and they still failed. What hubris.
Wondering if Curt Schilling still wants the entire list of 103 names to come out?
One other note - Jon and I will still be squawking, but we're going to be writing in other outlets as well. I have another piece coming up soon on BaseballReflections.com. Go here to read my article for them about the first half of the Yankees' season.
What do you think? Leave us a comment!
Let's be blunt, shall we? Let's be brutally honest. When you look at who's been accused, when they have been alleged to have done it, what the effects have been, and who on the other teams were (or probably were) doing it...
ReplyDeletePut it all together, and not only have the Yankees been helped LESS by steroid use than any of those teams, but the Yankees have been HURT by steroid use more than any other team!
But as big a story, and as underreported a story, as that is, the biggest story right now is that the Red Sox cheated. They couldn't win honestly, so they cheated. The Yankees didn't cheat: We had no control over how to use the Curse, and then again, as one of the River Avenue T-shirts says, maybe there never was a Curse, the Sox just, uh, underachieved for 86 years! (As long as we're being honest, I checked once, and they were within range of the posteason in September in 43 of those 86 years, exactly half. They didn't "suck for 86 years.") But the Red Sox cheated.
Sox fans can throw away those "Got rings lately?" T-shirts -- if not in the trash, then I can suggest other places to stick them -- and we can bring back the "1918" T-shirts, just add an asterisk. (Not sure if Roger Maris would approve, but I'll bet the Babe would laugh at it!)
All their smack talk these last five years, and it was all a big fat lie. Red Sox fans on July 30, 2009 are roughly in the same position as Richard Nixon fans were on July 30, 1974: They know now, their guy is a crook!
The amazing thing is the date. It was 10 years ago today, July 30, 1999, that I saw my first (and, so far, only) Fenway Yanks-Sox game. (I saw two at the old Yankee Stadium, so far none at the new one, which I suppose is a good thing.) Yankees 13, Red Sox 3. I literally bumped into Bobby Murcer and Tim McCarver on the way out, I had a beer at the Bull & Finch Pub (now actually renamed "Cheers"), and got back to my hotel, still wearing my Yankee cap, and left the next afternoon, getting out of New England in one piece. Two, if you count the cap.
And now, this has happened, 10 years later to the day. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket every July 30. But in New York... or Massachusetts?
Uncle Mike - when aren't you blunt and brutally honest?!
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you made it out alive all those years ago - and if you ever dare to venture back up, let me know. Even a hardcore Sox hater like yourself deserves a less cheesy trendy place to have a beer!
Well, Paul, right now, the trendy place for Boston-area people to drink beer is... the White House!
ReplyDeleteCan we laugh at that joke? As the President himself, who went to both New York's Columbia and Boston's Harvard, would say, yes we can, yes we can!
Uncle Mike, when are you going to join Facebook? I can just imagine your status updates!
ReplyDeleteI wonder now whether we'll learn who the Radowski/McNamee was in the Red Sox clubhouse. This also casts a very bad shadow on George Mitchell whose investigation seemed to only emphasis Yankees and no Red Sox (whom he was a director for). Interesting also how the Players Association, who were strangely silent after A-Rod was outed, are now up in arms over "leaks".
ReplyDeleteUncle Mike - we're just as good as a cop and a professor! Although, do either of us want to hang out with a White Sox fan?
ReplyDeleteCheers!
Can we just all agree that every world series championship starting with 1987 was tainted. Dont ask me why I chose that as a starting date.
ReplyDeleteRyan: If you're going to go back to 1987, you might as well go back one more year.
ReplyDeleteNo.
ReplyDeleteNo, Uncle Mike, back in '86 the drug of choice wasn't steroids. It was cocaine.
ReplyDeleteDo Red Sox fans and White Sox fans like each other?
ReplyDeleteAh, yes, the Mitchell Report. Love how the Boston papers finally concede today that maybe there was a conflict of interest with George Mitchell. Ya think?
ReplyDeleteEmp, I realize we Yankee Fans are not exactly known for our tact -- I guess we think "tact" is a four-letter word, like "Papi" and "Youk" and, of course, "A-Rod" -- but I did think about what the Mutts' drug of choice was. Actually, the drug they were really addicted to was attention. And they got it. Boy, did they get it!
ReplyDeleteAnd considering what dire straits the Boston Globe has been in, I have no problem with them conceding that George Mitchell was the wrong man to lead that investigation. They gotta sell papers, and if that means turning on their beloved Cheating Idiots, then... no problem with that here!
Besides, the Globe is one of the things that make Boston, in spite of certain things, a terrific city. It would be a shame to lose it. Now, if the Herald, a poor man's New York Post, were to go under, that would be a different story.
As for last night's game: For the first time since, believe it or not, the exact same day 19 years ago, July 30, 1990, the Yankees lost and I didn't care about the result because I was so happy that justice was finally done. You might remember that George Steinbrenner had a bit of a problem on that day, and the Yanks lost to Milwaukee. In fact, I was at the Stadium that night. Let's just say the chants coming from the stands, directed at George, were not entirely printable.
Hey Uncle Mike:
ReplyDeleteI can understand how you felt about not caring if the Yanks lost because of george getting banned, but last night's loss bothers me a little because of the errors, more specifically Cano's throwing error.
Nothing to get mad at, but we could've won the game 2-1 if those errors didn't happen. But...that's baseball.
I know what you mean about people thinking we have no tact. They perceive us as obnoxious and spoiled instead of proud and passionate -- but I digress. I know I kidded around about cocaine being the drug of choice in '86, but it makes me wonder if that was semi-popular amongst players in the 70's and 80's. So many of them were built like pipe cleaners! And many had such bad tempers to boot.