Editorial: Looking for heroes in all the wrong places
THE HERALD’S VIEW
The Monterey County Herald
Article Last Updated: 12/14/2007 02:06:17 AM PST
Thursday’s baseball bombshell was sort of good news for San Francisco Giants fans and anyone else who tried to defend Barry Bonds. Knowing that he wasn’t the only one to cheat makes his steroid use a tiny bit easier to accept. Strike that. Understand, not accept. And the news — sporting news is seldom good news when it makes the front page — may make some of us feel a little better about how we were in denial when we cheered Barry’s record-beating homers. It turns out that a lot of fans in a lot of cities were just as guilty of leaving logic at home when they paid their $48.50 for right-field seats.
But that’s as far as we can stretch the upside. From the larger perspective, the long roster of chemically enhanced ballplayers contained in the Mitchell Report on Thursday was another blow to the national psyche. It was another reason to cash in the season tickets. It was another nudge to buy your kid a chess board instead of a mitt. It was another reminder that we’ve been looking for heroes in all the wrong places.
Pitcher Roger Clemens winning the Cy Young award a record seven times used to signify prowess, virtuosity, even greatness. Now it apparently signifies the ability to be sneaky for years on end. The ability to lie to cheering crowds. He needs to refund every penny he ever charged for an autograph. Charge for autographs? They wouldn’t. They would.
Here is the full story.
A very interesting article. We’re not even taking about injuries with aluminum bats.
We used to have something in this country call “innocent until proven guilty”. Where is the proof that Roger Clemmens ever took steroids?
None! We now have the new method of vigililante news reporting cause it sells! I hope Clemmens will sue the MLB and I hope others will sue the hell out of the USCF for smearing their names.
No. There will be a new chess scandal when use of brain steroids will be discovered in chess sets of some famous GM’s. Also, the discovery of corked pawns and bishops will rock the chess world. Nothing but scandal will come of it! I hear that Fischer has claimed from his sick bed that the queens he used throughout his carrer were actually cross-dressing kings! He felt the need to come out of the closet about the same time as Jodie Foster. Oh the humanity, oh the scandal!
fight back: Sloan already HAS sued the USCF for smearing his name – he argues the USCF itself is liable for the fake posts made in his name, allegedly by a USCF board member. That guy Ray Gordon, also a target of the so-called “Fake Sam Sloan” posts, has made noises about suing the USCF for libel, too.
It’s nice that the article puts in a plug for chess, but honestly, I don’t have a great deal of confidence that chess players would serve as better role models if they found themselves in the national limelight.
Of course, I would like the opportunity to find out for sure and be proven wrong.
This comment has been removed by the author.