Outspoken

With the tease of 60 degree days, it's hard not to imagine it's April right now. This is always the toughest part of the year, convincing myself I'm an NBA fan to kill the time. I watched Texas and Texas A&M last night. I can't impart on how boring college hoops is if it's not your team or if you don't have a few bills on the game.

With Spring Training around the bend, things are moving off the stove and onto the field, thank God.

Two big questions surrounding training camp right now is the injury status of '07 World Series MVP Mike Lowell and Jason Bay (probably right about him tomorrow). Rumor is that Lowell is planning to be ready to roll for the Sox opener against the Rays April 6th. Lowell comes in probably in a strange state of mind. Coming off being a folk hero to spending a lot of last season, especially toward the end, riding the bench due to some nagging injuries was a little hard to swallow I'm sure. On top of that whole flirting heavily with Mark Teixeria thing could have made for some awkward moments.

Word is that he's not bitter about the whole thing, because he would have ended up on the block had Teixeria been signed. You have to be able to see past what he's saying. From what I read Lowell acknowledged Teixeria is a better offensive player but more goes into signing a player than numbers, basically saying he's probably an asshole and will disrupt the team's chemistry. Hey, after all the clamor of trying to resign the guy after '07 I'd be a little pissed too.

A-Rod and Bonds are both on trial. One in the all important court of public opinion and the other in real court. David Ortiz decided to use a camera and a couple microphones to sound off about the whole issue. Watching it sort of felt like what it must have been like watching Senator Larry Craig talk about how much he didn't like gay guys and gals wanting to get married. Two minutes before being busted in a Minneapolis airport playing footsie with an undercover cop in the men's room.

If he's clean, then fine. He's just being a holier than thou asshole, which is okay too because he has a point. If he's lying and he winds up on some report of him juicing, yesterday's interview will be played non-stop. My advice to players wanting to take a stand, take a stand. Just don't do it for an audience. Do it behind closed doors and under the protection (whatever is left) of your organization or the players union.

Big Papi did make a great point regarding the treatment of players who either admitted or were outed in regard to their steroid usage. Parading them in front of Congress like they are capital murderers or child rapists is ridiculous. The economy sucks, we're still fighting a war most people disagree with and my state tax refund could be held up if Missouri follows Kansas' lead. Stop worrying about fucking baseball. If the people running the show can't take care of the problem, don't want to take care of the problem or just pretend it doesn't exist. Why not follow your lead you've taken with the rest of privatly owned business and deregulate? Why baseball? Wanting attention can make you do funny things.

All ranting aside, Ortiz said they should ban A-Rod for the whole year. I agree, I want my team to win the East again.

Everyone and Their Brother

Ignoring this will make it go away, right? Because not getting involved in the self-serving, empty and greedy practices of this era in baseball will make it non-existent in my reality. It's basically the ending of "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4," a complete laugh of a movie, but somewhat plausible.

If reporters and sportswriters are trying to save the game from itself by exposing the game's biggest stars, then a gold star should be reserved for the reporter privy to the report that listed Alex Rodriguez as a participant in the steroid era. Everyone knows. It has been on the front page of the paper here in Kansas City. Like it or not, it's news.

You'd be kidding yourself to think that baseball is the national past time any longer. Telling those of us that would rather watch the Padres and Diamondbacks play out an extra innings pitchers dual at 12:30am on a Wednesday night than go to bed could be difficult, but the NFL displacing baseball in terms of popularity is an argument you won't hear from me.

Of course, this doesn't diminish the cultural relevance and impact. You could spend time relating the mirrored implications between society and baseball, most of which are true. But the elephant in the room is America's willingness to cast stones at fallen superstars, yet line up to slam down their hard earned pay and watch them cheat away as the circus travels from city to city. Our propensity to knock the top 1% off their pedestal and rescue them by telling them they are just like us is as American as apple pie at this point.

What would send the biggest message to Donald Fehr and the players association he presides over? By not consuming the product they put out. It's hard to imagine a game I used to play with friends as a kid as a product in the same way as I view Coke or Pepsi. If Doritos changed their flavors to just liver and onions, would you keep eating them?

It's hard to imagine not spending Saturday nights at 'the K' here in town, or beautiful summer Sunday afternoons on the couch watching the Brewers and Pirates. This latest transgression won't change my wanton desire to waste my summer away watching too many games that exceed normal human consumption. I've even put my name into the lottery to secure my Kansas City Royals Opening Day (well, home opener) tickets because they play, that's right, the New York Yankees. Not that I wouldn't do this anyway (actually, my thoughtful wife did it for me), but I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge there wasn't some special incentive.

Now we live in a world where the games top player cheated. It's hard not to recall Roger Clemens mowing down would-be Boston hitters in the third game of the 2003 ALCS after giving up two runs in the first. You remember this game even if you don't think you do. Manny takes exception to a high pitch from Clemens, the benches clear and Pedro takes Yankee bench coach Don Zimmer down to the ground. Sure we know Clemens is guilty, but who is to say some of the Sox weren't either?

It's hard to put a stamp on this and say it's over, because it's not. Not until everything that happened from the mid-to late ninties until earlier this decade is brought up and stumped to everyone under the sun. They either admit there was a problem, fix it now and move on. Or, we continue in the perpetual motion of waiting for a juicy scrap to fall from the table to bring back to the rest of the hive to buzz over. I'm just hoping that the biggest fish has been fried and we can get on.