Baseball & Politics, for Real This Time

Okay. Now that evil Rangers have been dispatched into the wilderness by the mighty goodness of Barcelona, we can get back on track. And that is, as promised, some thoughts on baseball and politics.

The big news, obviously, is steroids steroids steroids but let's be clear that none of that shit matters. Athletes have been taking drugs since there have been athletes and any self-righteous old-timer who thinks he did it the right way because he didn't inject HGH in his ass between series when he was, instead, hopped up on amphetamines to get by on those awful, cruel day games right after night games is as delusional as he is hypocritical. And, I'm not saying I'm talking about Hank Aaron, but who else could it be? At least Willie Mays, maybe the biggest speedfreak this side of Abby Hoffman, has the balls to stand by Barry Bonds, swollen head and all, while he shatters the record of the aforementioned Hammerin' Hank. If anything, I'd say, these old players might have the right to be disappointed that their drugs weren't as potent or useful as the ones Bonds, Giambi, et al have been ingesting. But any kind of moral outrage is obscenely hollow and short-sighted. These people are Liars or, worse, Naive. Someone should do something.

The real weirdness in the whole steroid thing is that humans are willing to risk everything for something as arbitrary as the home run record. If someone had found copious amounts of horse growth chemicals swimming around the coked-out skull of Ken Caminiti's carcass and said to themselves, "This would definitely be an appropriate price to pay to win the 1996 NL MVP," then I would have to disagree. But there are loads of folks who evidently do think that the lesson from Mark McGwire is less "It is a bad thing to embarrass yourself and your family in front of Congress" and more "Man, wasn't 1998 awesome?!" The Mitchell Investigation is about to name names, and there will be 11 current free agents on the list. No word on whether that includes Mike Cameron, who is already suspended for the first 25 games of next year for abusing some banned substances, or at least not knowing how to use a Whizzinator. We can run down the list of people who've actually been busted for steroids and think that they were all pretty likely targets. Troy Glaus? Obvious. McGwire, Canseco, et al, very obvious. But what about Wally Joyner and Lenny Dykstra and Jorge Piedra and Marvin Benard and Bobby Estalella? I think those are pretty good counterpoints, myself, but what the hell? The world needs a good witch hunt now and again, and since commies are all eradicated and all the Terrorists are being swung up on hooks and beaten like piñatas at Gitmo and Siberia or wherever, who better than Major League Baseball players? Do you hear that, Julio Lugo? We're coming for you, and we're pissed!

The freakshow of the primary candidates for the Presidential Election is another reasonable topic, although I'm a little worried I have nothing to say about them. The Republicans have sent out a whole host of folks who sounded like good candidates in 2004, but this is karmic revenge for selling their souls and probably asses to Karl Rove and BushCo for the last 8 years. You could have Big Bird and Mr. Rogers run on a platform of "Smile, everybody!" and they'd still lose if they ran as Republicans. Even if they promised to make Gandhi the Sec. of State and Orville Redenbacher the Sec. of Yummy. They're doomed.

Well, they should be. The Democrats aren't as good as they look, and if that's not a thought that sums up the Democratic party as a whole, I don't know what is. Clinton is a weird, fiendish matriarch, like an old schoolmaster out of a Dickens novel, only with a little bit better haircut. She said in a debate that Washington lobbyists represent ordinary Americans, and this was a good hint that she's been eating too many mushrooms out of the Capitol's staffer stash or, I fear, maybe she is just very very stupid. She doesn't seem too stupid, though, does she?, so mushrooms is the only logical conclusion. Nevertheless, a bunch of howling idiots support her candidacy, maybe because they're anxious to have a little more estrogen on the evening news. Ah, who the fuck am I kidding? No one watches the evening news. And Hillary would add about as much estrogen to the party as Bill did. To her credit, though, that's far more than has been emitted from Corazón Aquino, Margaret Thatcher, Andrea Merkel, et al. So, good luck with that. After she and Obama (possibly a decent man?), the crowd gets thin. Any liberal who's all pumped about the field of candidates this year would do well to remind himself that Joe Biden is the one that makes the most sense in the debates and then would do well to downgrade the tequila and rum he drinks to things a little more like rubbing alcohol in both flavor and lethal tendencies.

What freaks. The best possible scenario is a Clinton/Giuliani match-up where Bloomberg runs as an independent and Ron Paul carries his internet support to get his 5% for matching funds in 2012, even though it won't matter by then because nobody will win a majority, it will go to congress, who will fight it out for several years before turning it over to the Supreme Court. Then it will get ugly. I suspect Nancy Pelosi will take Clarence Thomas and Anton Scalia hostage and torture them in her horrible basement dungeon every night until they swear under oath that the Constitution is a living, breathing document. Just as they emerge, though, they'll all be killed in a hail of gunfire by a resurgent Tom DeLay, who will then install a grotesque and grisly Dick Cheney, since wounded heavily in the chariot races that Sitting President Charlton Heston instituted on the Mall (reflecting pool paved over and made a kind of luxury box for Mel Gibson and a raving mob of anti-semites to bet wildly and shout "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" whenever a Jewish rider or even a circumcised horse runs by) as Emperor For Life. No, of course, I am not wishing Dick Cheney to be instituted as Emperor For Life but it'd be a hell of a lot more fun than what's going to happen, a stupid frontrunner election that comes down to who wins Ohio or, worse, New Mexico.

In closing, Vegas seems to be offering stupid odds on the NBA Championship this year. Hint: a 7 game series is a hell of a lot more fluky than an 82 game season. So, even if San Antonio and Phoenix are the most likely to win it all, and surely the most likely to win the Western Conference, if you can get good odds on decent teams from the Eastern Conference, take them. Figure the 7th best team in the Eastern Conference is more likely to make the Finals than the 3rd best team in the Western Conference since the West is so top heavy. And you can get Washington at 80-1 right now. You're welcome in advance.