I Guess Nobody Listens to Racist Assholes Anymore...

"Gentlemen, nature works in a mysterious way. When a new truth comes upon the earth, or a great idea necessary for mankind is born, where does it come from? Not from the police force or the prosecuting attorneys or the judges or the lawyers or the doctors; not there. It comes from the despised and the outcast; it comes perhaps from jails and prisons; it comes from men who have dared to be rebels and think their thoughts; and their fate has been the fate of rebels. This generation gives them graves while another builds them monuments; and there is no exception to it. It has been true since the world began, and it will be true no doubt forever."

-Clarence Darrow, 1920

Yeah... so John Rocker is a racist, hate-filled sack of shitty-pitching douche. He's also probably right. Er... about steroids, that is.

Remember Canseco?

Sure, I realize that it's not exactly the best logic to believe on first blush every steroid revelation put forward by self-serving, washed-up pieces of shit. The problem is, they're the only ones talking because they're the only ones who've been thrown out of the fraternity. They've already lost their reputations. They've got nothing to lose. (Hey, maybe Tim Johnson has got something to say...)

While I don't imagine that the timing of Rocker's comments this week was accidental, the fact that they were a thinly veiled cry for attention doesn't necessarily alter the gravity of his allegations of a systematic cover-up of his positive drug test, and of union doctors telling players about the right way to administer steroids. It's unfortunate that they've been so overshadowed by the soap opera that is McNamee vs. Clemens, because what Rocker suggests cuts so much deeper to the heart of baseball's performance enhancing drug culture.

Forgive the dated references, but if you think of the whole Clemens drama like it's the Watergate break in, the kind of shit Rocker is onto becomes the whole sleazy, corrupt Nixon administration itself, from the president right on down to the petty thugs.

(For fuck sakes look it up if you don't know what the fuck I'm on about in that last paragraph. The adults are talking.)

Even baseball's toothless program caught 5-7% of all players when they were tested anonymously in 2003. A quick math lesson tells us that 3 teams would make up 10% of the thirty in baseball, so even at the low end of the spectrum that's a full team and a half full of players who tested positive. On top of that are people like the BALCO crew, who used undetectable, designer steroids, or anybody else who beat the testing. And, as Bob McCown was pointing out today on Prime Time Sports, these are guys who see physicians a lot.

That's a whole lot of people with potential involvement. And nobody knows anything? Bullshit.

Crucifying Clemens like he's the only one who did this kind of thing, while a hell of a lot of fun, isn't going to get us to the bottom of anything. We already know Clemens is a dick, McNamee is a fucking weirdo, Pettitte says "y'all" too much (and what is he, Mexican? Really tanned?), and congressmen are grandstanding pieces of shit. Rocker's allegations are plausible, bigger, and far more interesting. Now that this Clemens nonsense is over for the time being, can we maybe pay fuckface a little more attention?