Swinging and Missing

I’m not one to rip on a columnist unless they are either CubsTalk or they really deserve it.

In today’s Tribune, Phil Rogers comes up with one of the biggest pieces of crap I’ve seen since the four month old ate her first prunes.

Phil starts with a reasonable thesis. Many people believe that Bud Selig and baseball owners ignored steroid abuse in baseball because they needed the explosive offense to help the sport recover from the 1994 strike. Phil responds, "Not only are the accusations that Major League Baseball was complicit in the steroid scandal untrue, they also are incredibly unfair."

That’s a great basis for a column and is an angle that should be explored. Unfortunately, Phil does the exploring. He brings up several points that would tend to support his thesis:

"MLB has done a good job in recent years to reduce, and hopefully eventually eliminate, steroid usage among players."

"Barely more than a year ago, union lawyer Gene Orza told a seminar that steroids are no more dangerous than cigarettes. That's the mindset that Selig and his top labor lawyer, Rob Manfred, have faced in trying to get cooperation from the Players Association."

Let’s start here. First, Orza is quoted out of context and not quoted, for that matter. Also, we know cigarettes are some of the most dangerous, addictive consumer goods ever produced. To say that steroids are not as bad as cancer sticks is very faint praise. For all the reporting Phil does, it’s possible Orza said that only cigarettes are more dangerous to a ball player than steroids.

Phil’s next point:

"Selig signed off on steroids testing for minor-league players before the 2001 season. He would have loved to have put it in for the big leagues at the same time but needed union approval."

Uh, wasn’t steroid abuse a problem when Selig got the job back in 1992?!?! What took 9 years?

"MLB closed its eyes to the situation because the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run race in 1998 "saved" baseball. It was an exciting time, sure, and baseball was still getting out from under the adverse effects of canceling the 1994 World Series. But fans had come back in big numbers after the strike. The sport did not need saving."

Attendance isn’t the only measure of a sport’s popularity. TV ratings, athlete Q ratings, size of network TV contracts, radio contracts. These are all better measures, especially given the level of corporate purchasing of tickets. Phil presents none of this supporting info, likely because doing so would undermine the column.

Lastly:

"The other is that MLB still is just paying lip service to testing because a first violation gets a player only a 10-day suspension. Even Mike Wallace on "60 Minutes" contrasted that to the two-year suspension a juiced athlete can get in track and field. But there is no union to protect cheating sprinters. Track and field and many other Olympic sports essentially are run by dictatorships. You are comparing apples to oranges here."

Crap. The NFL only imposes a 4 game suspension for steroids. Now, the MLB equivalent would be 40 games. Given MLB’s history on general suspension length, 10 games is a standard penalty. Steroids are just slightly worse than corking your bat. That’s lip service.

It pains me to read stuff as amateurish as this. You get better info on most Cubs’ blogs. At some point, the teams should provide more access and media packs to the most popular "non-credentialed" writers.