I have about 20 minutes before I go up to the big screen to watch Barry Zito outpitch the Yank's hitters, unless of course the rain strikes again -- it's so damp here that salamanders are invading my house. So in the best sports writing tradition, I will string together random thoughts to fill out a column:
Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the phone company.
Other than the Yankees, I'm pretty open to rooting for any team or player. (Yes, I became a fan when I lived in Boston. Duh.) This appalls at least one of my brothers, who thinks being born in the East Bay means you can't even root for the Giants (they're in the area and a different league, so why not?). He'll let me have the Red Sox, since I lived in Boston for so long, but other than that he disapproves of my diamond promiscuity. But I figure: fandom is autobiography. If you lived in a place, or like a certain player, why not follow him? If (G*d forbid!) Barry Zito leaves the A's next year, I'll still watch him with interest -- even to the shores of Yankee Stadium. . . . (What you can't do is go directly from the Red Sox to the Yanks: Johnny Damon, you're dead to me!)
And speaking of Bay Area Barrys, I may be the last person in America who thought Barry Bonds didn't use steroids (look, you can do a lot with weight training and proper nutrition! and even more tellingly -- he hasn't gotten smaller (hello, Jason Giambi) once the steroid investigations began). I still like him. I think he gets sort of a bum rap because he doesn't play along with the press, but as a cranky middle-aged guy myself, I sympathize. And yes, I do think race plays a part in it. Sammy Sosa of the ever-present smiles (when the cameras were rolling) got more of a free ride (people, he corked his bat -- and ineptly, at that). Yeah, I think America prefers its black men smiling and modest. (For the record, I'm not of African descent, unless you count the Portuguese side.) I'm not condoning steroid use, but I'd like to say: (1) No asterisks on the records, please. After all, many of his opponents are also juiced, which levels that field out a bit. And don't tell me about Babe Ruth and his hot dogs and beer: he played in segregated leagues. There's always an asterisk: a bad wind, a lucky hit, a roll in the dirt, rain that didn't happen. . . . (2) I'm not so sure steroids are really an advantage in baseball. Yes, you can get bigger (though, you know, you still have to work hard with the weights: you just don't shoot up and it happens), and even more important you can recover faster, but after a certain point being bigger works against you in baseball. It's not like football, where you run into people. The huge biceps might help you hit, but that might be cancelled out by unwieldy fielding. You have to play defense as well as offense in baseball. So I'm not so sure that "cheating" is really the right label for steroid use in baseball. And (3) sometimes there's a fine line between allowed nutritional supplements and those banned. Having said all that, yes, I'd prefer players didn't take steroids, and yes, it's been obvious for years that some of them are, so let's not pretend to be shocked, shocked! at this discovery, and (though I cannot stress enough that players should stop shooting up) I have to agree with Susan Sarandon's remark last year that steroid use in sports is maybe not one of America's current major problems. And she was in Bull Durham, so I'll take her word for it.
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