Will the Media Give it a Rest Already ?

Dude, I’m tellin’ ya…….

Now here’s one of those topics that would have absolutely no legs to it if it weren’t for the media pretending the public has an unquenchable thirst for more discusion. The octomom is a good example. Not one person I know personally ever gave a damn about this woman. No one spoke about it at the water cooler at work. She never came up in after-work conversations at a pub or a restaurant. My family never discussed her story—-even when we were focusing on current events. But the scenes of the media camped outside her house like Jimmy Hoffa was holed up there…….it made me sick. Making another celebrity out of a nobody.

And the topic that I’m talking about today is just like that. It scraped my nerves just a few hours ago as I saw yet another news headline on my email cover page about it. And then I saw it on the headline runner at the bottom of every ESPN channel. What I’m referring to here is the nonsense that is the steroid issue in Major League Baseball. The alleged 104 players who tested positive some years ago. The “tainted” players and their Hall of Fame credentials. Whether the list of the 104 players should be made public. Etc. Etc.

And the thing about it all that makes me laugh is that the media thinks the public gives a rat’s ass and it is a passionate issue among fans. Once and for all ESPN………IT ISN’T !!!! Nobody but you cares. No one. See the lack of interest details mentioned previously about the octomom. Nobody but you guys ever talk about it. And most hilarious of all is that every sports commentator who feigns surprise and incredulity is a hypocrite of the highest order.

Sportswriters, beat writers, TV commentators, and every other niche within sports coverage has been holding up the same wall that began with organized athletics in the United States. Back in the day, the beat writers and newspapermen would be perched on the bar stool right next to the biggest names in sports after that day’s contest. They’d get loaded together. The star of the team might rip the manager or the owner. But it rarely ever—practically never—-made the papers. Players may have started a barroom brawl. Or pissed themselves at 3pm after drinking all night and missing curfew. It’s like the Blue Wall that law enforcement people and the court officers team up to make the justice system a farce. The same teamwork and loyalty to each other applies here.

The writers and TV people have always known the secrets of the sports world. Not that there is anything wrong with being a homosexual, but they know who is gay and who isn’t. They protect those athletes with a laughable (attempted) position of integrity, dedication to the athlete’s privacy, and their own (imagined) personal virtue. They know who is a skirt chaser and is cheating on their wife and family back home. But the media holds up that wall as hard as they can. They know who the problem drinkers are……men (and women) that could really use someone to step in and help. But they have to hold up that wall. To hell with the athlete’s family and their suffering. They have almost a blood oath to keep the darkest secrets of sports just that—–secrets.

And as far as drugs, performance enhancers, and just plain substance abuse goes, the media has known what has been going on for decades. Back in the 1970s, it was common knowledge that bowls full of the “greenies” and “reds” gobbled by then-MLB players were set right out on the pre-game buffet table. Teams and clubhouses didn’t even try to hide things back then. And the beat writers and reporters knew who was a cocaine addict or a chronic marijuana smoker in the 1980s just like they do now. But everyone held up the wall until federal authorities made a major bust involving Willie Wilson, Keith Hernandez, Vida Blue, Willie Mays Aikens, Garry Templeton, and several other stars of the day. Then the media personnel did the same thing they are doing now with the steroids issue.

They drop their jaws in some of the worst acting examples of shock and surprise that you’ll ever see. They shrug their shoulders and claim they never saw anything themselves first-hand. They put their hands up in the air and exclaim they just can’t believe how widespread the situation is. PLEASE !!!!!!!  I’d sooner believe Joe Isuzu before them. They are in the locker room every single day. They see these people naked every day. They play golf with them. They get to know their wives and children. They are key ingredients to the entire facade !

So not only are they just as much to blame for steroid abuse as the Commisioner Bud Selig, the team executives who encouraged it and looked the other way, and the players themselves……they keep the issue alive with continuing stories and hack acting about not knowing about it. I blame them all….from Tim McCarver to Jay Mariotti to Chip Cary to Joe Buck to Peter Gammons………right up to the legends like Jack Buck, Vin Scully, and Harry Kallas. You all held up the wall and I will never believe for a second that NOT A SINGLE ONE OF YOU never saw a thing. Never suspected anything. Thought every player was clean as a whistle. Then you are the blindest and most gullible “marks” I’ve ever heard of.

And since you won’t ever ‘fess up about being part of the whole scam on us true sports fans, please just put it to rest already. My friends and I don’t hate Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa one bit more than before their alleged steroid abuse. We hated them when they were rookies. We hated them when they were skinny weaklings. And we hated them when they were bulbous-headed steroid freaks. Nothing has changed. I’m sure they’ve been cheating in one fashion or another since junior high-school (grades, test scores, etc).

So just put the whole sorry subject to rest already. 90% of pro athletes are either druggies, philanderers, alcoholics, or criminals. Let’s talk about something new. Like who is actually loyal to their wife or doesn’t  touch anything stronger than milk. They deserve the headlines on ESPN.