So what is traditionally one of my favorite times of year is here --spring, and the start of baseball season. My long-suffering Mud Lake Mafia broke out of the gate at a turtle-like pace, and after two days of games, now rests perilously in 14th place in a league of 16. They are batting a meager .203 and the pitching staff, despite an earned-run average is 4.85, has accounted for 75% (18) of our first 24 "points."
I'm liable to focus more on the MLM because my beloved Michigan Mafia softball team has finally retired en masse, and Aidan is no longer playing little league baseball. Those are two big losses for me -- activities and friendships that helped sustain me a year ago when I hit bottom, emotionally.
Besides my fantasy team, there is the real team I root and my kids for, the San Francisco Giants. The Giants will host this year's All-Star Game in their beautiful park. Everyone is watching as the old slugger, booed everywhere except at home and widely trashed in the press for using steroids, among other unpleasant behaviors, like cheating on his wife (not a crime, except morally), tax evasion (alleged by his ex-girlfriend), arrogance, allegedly blaming a teammate when he tested positive for using Human Growth Hormone last season, which was not illegal, technically, but did nothing to burnish his badly tarnished reputation.
The spurned ex-girlfriend said he told her he used steroids, and the web of evidence as disclosed by two Chronicle reporters is pretty persuasive. The only problem is that although many baseball players have now tested positive for illegal drug use, Bonds is not one of them.
It also has to be remembered that at the time he allegedly took this stuff, it wasn’t expressly prohibited by MLB.
There's actually one other problem, a very serious one from a journalistic perspective. It turns out that the Chronicle's "confidential source," the man who leaked damaging excerpts from Bonds' grand jury testimony, was hardly a neutral party, but a lawyer for the man at the center of this whole brouhaha -- Victor Conte -- the drug dealer maestro who convinced various athletes in many sports that his magic potions would help them succeed.
There actually is zero evidence that these "performance-enhancing" drugs work. It's most likely, in my view, that their main effect was the placebo phenomenon, where the person taking them convinces himself he is stronger, more capable, and so on.
Therefore, this entire controversy is likely off base, to use baseball parlance. Bonds had already accomplished something no one in history ever did before long before these allegations first surfaced. He stole 500 bases and he hit 500 homeruns.
Thus, he already was ensured a place in the Hall of Fame before steroids were even a twinkle in his jaded eye.
Regardless, the hacks still have their way in this country, especially when it comes to knocking down successful people. Sports writers, political writers, commentators of all stripes routinely knock down those they have previously built up.
***
I had hoped to discuss several books I'm reading, and several websites I'm enjoying, but this has been a day of extended obligations, not to mention parenting. The three little ones seem restless tonight, maybe it's the changing weather, and I fear by the time they finally fall asleep I will too. If not, I'll be back.
***
That was hardly an overwhelming vote of confidence for continuing this blog. Maybe I'll have to think through what I'm doing. Is the silence of lurkers golden? It seemed right to raise the question, but some may have thought it merely rhetorical, as I've said many times I write because I have to write.
Tonight, I had to write again, and I suppose that says much more about me than about any potential audience...
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