Thursday, July 11, 2013

Major League Baseball's paranoia

And so the witch hunt continues. It's almost like the offices of Major League Baseball have sunk into their own version of the 1936 film Reefer Madness. That flick was originally intended to warn young people of the perils of cannabis (marijuana) use, but was so outrageously "over the line" with it's portrayals of how the "demon weed" would cause people to rape, loot, pillage, murder, and eventually go totally insane, that it eventually became a cult classic. Nowadays, people look back at it and laugh like they would watching a 3 Stooges routine.

Maybe someday our descendants will look back and laugh at what Major League Baseball is doing right now -- but for the time being, it is decidedly not funny. In fact, it appears to be nothing short of an all-out persecution, vendetta, inquisition, crusades, jihad, purge, ethnic cleansing, holy war -- take your pick.

In it's never-ending quest for blood, justice, payback (again take your pick) over the whole steroids and other PEDs fiasco a while back, MLB is trying suspend a whole slew of players for very long stretches of time. Their dirty laundry list consists of any players they can tie to the now defunct Biogenesis, a company that advertised itself as an "anti-aging clinic". And oh, by the way, allegedly did a little business on the side selling a few dubious goodies to professional athletes.

Evidently, while MLB has found a way to not only access the files of Biogenesis, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to assume Bud Selig's henchmen are also rooting around in emails, phone logs, texts, and have coerced such companies as FedEx and UPS to cough up their shipping records to various addresses they deem relevant.

And now -- surprise!! -- the players they want to implicate aren't willing to talk to MLB. Well, guess what? They'd be crazy if they did. MLB has assumed the role of prosecutors trying to revive "cold cases". Innocent or guilty -- what accused person in his/her right mind would sit down and have a chat with the people that are on a mission to destroy their lives over a "crime" they may or may not have committed several years ago?

What's even more outrageous is at the time some of these "offenses" allegedly occurred, there was no law on the books saying such things were illegal. Worse yet -- the league itself didn't even have rules against it. Yet now MLB wants to go back in time to punish those they have deemed "wrongdoers". Well gee. While they're at it -- why not dig up my dad and give him 40 lashes for the way he used to blister my behind when I got out of line? People frown at that sort of behavior too these days.

Methinks by continuing this steroid witchhunt, MLB is acting like the cops still trying to find Jimmy Hoffa. People need closure, they say. What they fail to realize in their one-track mindset is there will NEVER be closure as long as these zealots keep ripping the scabs off the wounds of the innocent people that are trying to put such things behind them and get on with lives, for no other reason than to say they "closed a case".

Like Hoffa, PEDs don't matter anymore. Despite all the huffing and puffing by some that apparently have nothing better to do -- we'll never know for sure the full extent of either. Why not just move on?

By most accounts, players are tested so often these days for "banned substances" that the chances of anyone being "dirty", at least for very long, is minimal, at best. They'll get busted.

So what's the point in going after ghosts of the past? 

Oh wait. Of course. I almost forgot. MLB threw all it's mighty resources at the likes of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens in two very high profile trials. These were their "poster children". The worst of the worst, they should be made examples of, and duly punished. Oops. Despite all the king's horses, and all the king's legal eagles, Selig's boys couldn't convict either one of them of any kind of substance abuse. Millions upon millions of baseball dollars were devoted to this mission, but in the end, they crashed and burned. The defendants walked.

But now yours truly suspects that, like a typical cop or prosecutor that has been frustrated with their initial efforts, MLB is pissed. No Viagra will be necessary for these guys. They've already got a raging, um, attitude going on. Somebody's going to get screwed somewhere.

To all of which I say -- settle down boys. Let it go. It's over. Or at least it will be if you'll quit with the Hoffa routine and let baseball fans return to the game they love.

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