Raffy's Big Mistake
I'm sure you've seen the headline by now -- just over two weeks after collecting his 3,000th career hit, Rafael Palmeiro has been suspended 10 days by MLB for a positive steroid test. My thoughts on this matter are threefold:
1) Crazy as you and I may think/know he is, Jose Canseco's claims in his tell-all book Juiced are looking more and more credible by the day. Palmeiro was one of the few players Canseco explicitly accused of steroid use based on his own first-hand knowledge.
2) With that said, I'm not ready to get too carried away here and say that Rafael Palmeiro has been injecting himself with liquid extract from an elephant's ballsack or anything crazy like that. My guess is this violation was not for hardcore testosterone or nandrolone or whatever the other big gun steroids are. I bet this is some weird supplement that has traces of that stuff in it. Of course, we'll probably never know exactly what Palmeiro tested positive for, so it's easy for me to speculate without any real repercussions. Which I like.
3) I am of the opinion that it should not be allowed for a player to say he took steroids by accident. To me, this is like the old "dog ate my homework" or "that elderly woman ran out in front of my car" excuse -- everyone uses it, and it's just not flying. I'm sure there are some cases where a player actually does ingest steroids accidentally in some bizarre substance, but the fact that it's basically every single player's defense pretty much discredits them all in my mind. It's just not that believable. Pro athletes' bodies are their livelihoods. They know exactly what they're putting in there.
4) Okay, I said I had three things to say about this, but I just realized a fourth. In March, Rafael Palmeiro told congress he had never used steroids. I'm no Capital Hill insider, but I'm guessing lying to congress is generally a bad thing.
1) Crazy as you and I may think/know he is, Jose Canseco's claims in his tell-all book Juiced are looking more and more credible by the day. Palmeiro was one of the few players Canseco explicitly accused of steroid use based on his own first-hand knowledge.
2) With that said, I'm not ready to get too carried away here and say that Rafael Palmeiro has been injecting himself with liquid extract from an elephant's ballsack or anything crazy like that. My guess is this violation was not for hardcore testosterone or nandrolone or whatever the other big gun steroids are. I bet this is some weird supplement that has traces of that stuff in it. Of course, we'll probably never know exactly what Palmeiro tested positive for, so it's easy for me to speculate without any real repercussions. Which I like.
3) I am of the opinion that it should not be allowed for a player to say he took steroids by accident. To me, this is like the old "dog ate my homework" or "that elderly woman ran out in front of my car" excuse -- everyone uses it, and it's just not flying. I'm sure there are some cases where a player actually does ingest steroids accidentally in some bizarre substance, but the fact that it's basically every single player's defense pretty much discredits them all in my mind. It's just not that believable. Pro athletes' bodies are their livelihoods. They know exactly what they're putting in there.
4) Okay, I said I had three things to say about this, but I just realized a fourth. In March, Rafael Palmeiro told congress he had never used steroids. I'm no Capital Hill insider, but I'm guessing lying to congress is generally a bad thing.
posted by The OCC at 8/01/2005
5 Comments:
Lying to Congress is probably a lot more common than we think.
The only guy I ever believed when he gave the "I didn't take it on purpose" defense was this guy. Hey, he was at a party. Could happen to anyone.
First of all, don't I feel like a bozo for saying Raffy probably wasn't on a hardcore steroid. Turns out he was on one of the most potent of them all. Whoops.
jdg -- your comment made me think about people smoking steroids at parties and other social functions, which is kind of a funny image.
jmals -- now that Giambi has rediscovered his stroke (or some undetectable new home run hitting tonic), I find Bret Boone to be the most tragic example -- not that I feel sorry for him -- of a fallen star in the steroid testing era. The guy just looks to be completely done.
It's annoying to hear Raffy say "I didn't do it on purpose", but he didn't exactly get away with it. I mean, he's getting the punishment regardless of his excuses, and obviously nobody really believes him. But it would be much more satisfying to see him break down sobbing like the killer in a Law & Order episode and say, "All right, all right, you caught me. I did it. I did it all. And I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids."
Speaking of Jose, he's coming across as this season's Eric Estrada, (with a little more sass), on the Surreal Life.
Bronson Pinchot, on the other hand, comes across as a total serial killer, with bondage fetishes.
This was on topic, right?
No.
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