Thursday, July 26, 2007

Vengeance ≠Justice

I’m not one to put too much faith in conspiracy theories – although to dismiss all such theories entirely is an act of closed-mindedness – but I have to say that I can’t help but wonder if the commissioner’s office doesn’t have it in for the New York Yankees.

When this whole steroids investigation started, I objected to Bud Selig’s choice of Senator George Mitchell. Further, when the commissioner’s office leaked Jason Giambi’s confidential test results and then blackmailed Giambi into cooperating with the Mitchell investigation, I cried foul. To me, both acts appear orchestrated to agitate or harm the Yankees. Although one could say that they merely demonstrate Selig’s lack of tact and propriety, it’s hard to dismiss these two events altogether.

In my estimation the steroids investigation has been set up as a giant spider-web meant to ensnare Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi. Any “collateral damage” added to the body count would provide Major League Baseball with the welcome appearance of getting tough on the issue but would ultimately not deter Selig and Mitchell from their top two prizes.

Last week, Gary Sheffield spoke on the record with HBO’s “Real Sports.” In that interview, he admitted to using both “the Clear” and “the Cream”, products that have been identified as performance-enhancing drugs and on the Major League list of banned substances (Section 2(B)42). Although Sheffield asserts that “steroids [are] something you shoot in your butt” the fact remains that Sheffield corroborated his own grand jury testimony that he used products that are designated as steroids (irrespective of how they are taken).

Why is it that Giambi’s translucent reference to steroids, “I was wrong for doing that stuff,” warrants him being hauled into the commissioner’s office while Sheffield’s blatant admission of the same offense merits not even an eyebrow-raising by the media, let alone the MLB powers that be? Is Selig that preoccupied with Barry Bonds’s imminent record-setting homerun that he can’t tap Senator Mitchell for another blackmail session?

That’s more or less the point here: Selig is so fixated on catching Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi – the two most-prominent baseball players discussed in “Game of Shadows” – that he seems to be totally disinterested in meting out unprejudiced justice.

I hate Barry Bonds. But I hope he hits his homeruns while Selig is in attendance today and tomorrow. Those two criminals deserve eachother.

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