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.