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[Bill Simmons article] Confronting my worst nightmare

Discussion in 'Other Sports' started by m_cable, May 7, 2009.

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m_cable Contributing Member

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I know we already have a Manny Ramirez suspended thread but I think this article deserves a thread of its own. It's one of the best articles I've read about the sobering conflict of being a baseball fan in the steroid era.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090507&sportCat=mlb

Dateline: May 7, 2014

My son and I have flown from California to spend the week in Boston. He is a little more than 6½ at this point. He has never set foot in Fenway Park. The time is right. He likes baseball. He likes the Red Sox. He's a little sports encyclopedia. I have brainwashed him. He is just old enough to understand the significance of his first Fenway game and, more importantly, old enough that he'll be able to remember the experience decades later.

We bring my father with us. Three generations of the Simmons family taking in a Yankees-Red Sox game for the first time. This should be a wonderful moment. A signature moment, even.

We find our $1,500 seats in the lower boxes near third base. We are sitting in Best Buy's Section 17, which is right between Bob's Discount Furniture's Section 16 and Costco's Section 18. Every section has a sponsor now. The Green Monster is now called "The Pepsi Green Monster" and has a big Pepsi can painted on it. Ted Williams' special seat in right field is now sponsored by Muscle Milk. Even home plate is sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts. Has the logo on it and everything. That's just the way sports work now.

We settle into our seats. I point toward the championship banners over the first-base side. They go in order: 1903, 1904, 1912, 1915, 1916, 1918, 2004, 2007. Ever since Boston won the World Series 10 years ago, I always imagined pointing to that 2004 banner and telling my little boy, "That's the team that changed everything."

So that's what I do. I point at the banner and tell him, "That's the team that changed everything."

"Isn't that the team that cheated?" he asks.

My father and I glance at each other. A few beats pass.

"Well, technically, no," I stammer. "I mean ..."

"I thought they had a whole bunch of steroids guys on that team," he says.

"Well, there have been some accusations, and yeah, some of the power numbers were a little suspicious, but ..."

"I'd do it again!" my dad yells happily.

"Dad!"

I shake my head at him. He shrugs. The thing is, he WOULD do it again. He wanted to see the Red Sox win the World Series in his lifetime. He worried about it constantly. So did I. So did every Red Sox fan. We worried about living a full life, then dying, without ever seeing them win. All of us knew people who fit in that category. None of us wanted to end up in there.

All of us would have made a deal with the devil at the time. And maybe we did. We just didn't know it.

"Nothing was ever really proved," I tell my son, trying to keep up the good fight.

He ignores me and starts rattling through our 2004 lineup with creepy precision. He points out Nomar Garciaparra's remarkable 1999 and 2000 seasons, his subsequent tendon injuries and how his career played out so blandly afterward for reasons that remain unclear. My dad points out the Sox traded Nomar midway through the 2004 season. Technically, that debate shouldn't even matter. Score one for Dad.

"But what about Trot Nixon and Bill Mueller?" my son says. "They missed a bunch of games every year with injuries, put on weight when they were skinny guys, peaked quickly and were never seen again. Same for Mark Bellhorn, right? That's suspicious."

"Well," I say, "their names never came up in anything, so that's not really fair ..."

"And Kevin Millar, he had a few big homer years, then his power numbers went way down once the testing started."

"That's true, but it doesn't prove anything ..."

"And Johnny Damon, he got bigger and started hitting for more power even though he was a singles hitter, right?"

"Well ..."

"And what about Big Papi?" he wonders. "Played for Minnesota, didn't hit for power, came to the Red Sox, turned into the best slugger in the league, and as soon as they cracked down on steroids, he stopped hitting homers again. And he was friends with all the other Dominican players who were linked to performance-enhancing drugs. What about him?"

Silence. Nobody says anything.

Finally, my dad steps in: "He had an inside-outside swing at Minnesota, when he came to Boston, we encouraged him to pull the ball, so ..."

"Come on, Gramps!" my son says. "That's dumb, and you know it."

We glance out to the field. Big Papi is one of Boston's coaches now. After he hit 54 homers in 2006, his career was over within four years. Now he's just a fat guy in his early 40s coaching first base. You would never guess this is the same guy who carried us in 2004, the guy who fueled the Greatest Comeback Ever, the guy who helped convince an entire fan base that, yes, we could believe.

"And what about Manny?" my son asks. "He tested positive for performance enhancers in 2009 with the Dodgers. How do you know he wasn't using that whole time?"

"Well, we don't," I say. "But that was kind of a fluke -- he had a doctor in Florida who prescribed him a banned substance, and ..."

"Come on, Dad, I read your Red Sox book. You said that at least you knew Manny couldn't have ever used steroids because he was too dumb to figure out how to stick to a cycle. Then he tested positive. You were, like, his biggest fan. You wrote a big piece after he got traded that was so long, it took me a week to read it."

"I told him not to write that column," my dad says. "Manny needed to go. He was a selfish jerk. Your father had blinders on ..."

"Come on, that's not fair," I say. "I loved the guy. He was on the team for more than eight years. He helped us end the curse. He made our lives as Red Sox fans more fun. He was like family. I wasn't gonna dump the guy from my life after everything he did just because his agent poisoned him against the team."

"But you defended him and said he was a good guy at heart," my son says. "And then he cheated, right? So how does that make him a good guy?"

I take a deep breath.

"It doesn't make him a good guy," I say. "You don't understand what it was like to follow baseball before you were born. There was a strike in 1994, and the World Series was canceled. Everyone hated baseball. Then Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa started hitting homers, and the balls started flying out of the park, and it was so much fun that everyone looked the other way. We didn't care that these guys were practically busting out of their skin or growing second foreheads. We really didn't. All the cheating made baseball more fun to watch. We were in denial. It was weird.

"Then, Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in a season, and that was like the turning point. We realized that things had gone too far. We blamed him for cheating and looked the other way with dozens of other guys who might have been doing the same thing. Brady Anderson hit 50 homers in 1996; we didn't care. Bret Boone had 141 RBIs in a season; we didn't care. Big Papi went from 10 homers to 41 in four seasons; we didn't care. Roger Clemens was washed up, but suddenly he could throw 98 miles per hour and win Cy Youngs again; we didn't care. Eric Gagne saved 84 straight games and threw 120 miles an hour; we didn't care. Good players started blowing out tendons nobody had ever heard of; we didn't care. Pitchers blew out elbow tendons and shoulder ligaments routinely; we didn't care. This was the deal. They cheated; we pretended they didn't. It's really hard to explain unless you were there."

My son tries to soak everything in. That's lot to process for a 6-year-old.

Finally ...

"So when the Red Sox won in 2004, did you know some of the guys might have been cheating?" he asks.

"At the time?" I answer. "No. Either we were in total denial, or we just didn't care."

"I'd do it again!" my dad yells happily, getting another withering glare from me.

"You have to understand," I say. "EVERYONE cheated back then. You know how I drive 80 on the highway even though all the signs say to go 55? That's how everyone thought back then -- the signs said one thing, but everyone did the other. There were so many people cheating that, competitively, you almost had to cheat to keep up with everyone else."

"So why didn't the people in charge get everyone to stop cheating?" my son asks.

"I wish I knew. The players' union didn't care, the commissioner's office didn't care, nobody cared. Until it was too late."

"So you won the World Series twice because of Manny and Papi," my son says, "but they might have been cheating the whole time, and so were some of their teammates? Dad, your whole book was about how you could die in peace because they won in 2004. If they cheated to win, does that make what happened OK?"

The question hangs in the air. And hangs. And hangs.

"I don't know," I finally answer. "I still haven't figured that part out. Again, you don't understand what it was like. Everyone was cheating, so the playing field was kind of even, as weird as that sounds. You can't imagine how depressing it was to be a Red Sox fan at the time. Things always went wrong. We hadn't won in 86 years. We were the whipping boy of the Yankees. We always expected the worst to happen, mainly because the worst always did happen. That 2004 title made life easier for everyone. We could just follow the team without all the other negative crap. Does that make sense?"

"I guess," he says, nodding. "But Manny was your favorite hitter on that team. And he tested positive later. Is he still your favorite hitter?"

"Yes and no," I say. "No, because he cheated. Yes, because whether he was cheating or not, I can't forget watching him hit baseballs on a daily basis. I just can't. You should have seen him. Perfect swing, perfect balance, perfect everything. He was a hitting savant. That's the funny thing -- he didn't NEED to cheat. The guy was put on the earth to hit.

"But he did cheat," my son says.

"He did. Yes. He did."

"So he's not your favorite player from that team now?"

"He never was; Pedro Martinez was. Manny was my favorite hitter. I loved Pedro the most."

I am dreading the next question. I am dreading it. I do not want him to ask it. I know it's coming.

"Did Pedro cheat?"

Silence.

I take a deep breath. So does my father. You can't describe in a few tidy sentences, off the cuff, what it was like to watch Pedro Martinez pitch in 1999 and 2000. To paraphrase Joe Mantegna in "Searching for Bobby Fischer," Pedro was better at pitching than you or I will ever be at anything. He had swagger. He had four A-plus pitches. He had everything. He spurred me to buy tickets from scalpers when I was broke. I would do it again. I watched Pedro Martinez pitch at his apex at Fenway Park. I get to brag about this when I'm old. He's the one guy who didn't cheat. He definitely didn't cheat. I bet anything, the man did not cheat.

Do I say this to my son? No. He wouldn't believe me.

"I looked at Pedro's numbers," my son says. "He peaked for like three years right as the steroids era was going, then he battled injuries and never did as well. Fits the profile, right?"

"Nah, I don't see it," my father says. "He was skinnier than you are. Steroids make you bulk up. Pedro was like a buck-sixty soaking wet."

"I don't see it, either," I say. "I don't think he did."

"But you don't know?" my son asks me.

"Honestly? I don't know anything anymore."

We look at the 2004 banner again. I always thought that, for the rest of my life, I would look at that banner and think only good thoughts. Now, there's a mental asterisk that won't go away. I wish I could take a pill to shake it from my brain. I see 2004 and 2007, and think of Manny and Papi first and foremost. The modern-day Ruth and Gehrig. One of the great one-two punches in sports history. Were they cheating the whole time? Was Pedro cheating, too? That 2004 banner makes me think of these things now. I wish it didn't, but it does. This makes me sad. This makes me profoundly sad.

My son can read it in my face. I am sad. He can see it.

"That's OK, Dad," he says, rubbing my shoulder. "Everyone cheated back then."
Click to expand...

#1 m_cable, May 7, 2009

droxford Member

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newsflash:

MLB sucks

MLB is over-sponsored, over-hyped, corrupt, full of steroid-abusing athletes, and is a boring, boring game.

It really is.

I don't see how anyone can watch it at all any more. Like boxing.

If you notice something from the article... the only thing left in baseball is nostalgia.

That's it. That's all.

Just nostalgia.

Men remembering the good ol' days. Of Fenway park, or Wrigley field, or whatever. And trying to give to their sons the same memories that they grew up with. But ya know what? You can't. You can't because the baseball that men grew up with is gone, and the baseball that their sons are growing up with is complete and utter crap.

Even that nostalgia is hard to muster when the icons of your memories are clouded by banner ads.

Give it up.

Watch basketball.

Once you give up hope, you'll feel much better.
 

#2 droxford, May 7, 2009
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droxford said:

Give it up.

Watch basketball.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but I couldn't help laughing at this. Basketball has enough problems of its own with all the head office corruption and refs manipulating games.

#3 fadeaway, May 7, 2009
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fadeaway said:

Sorry, but I couldn't help laughing at this. Basketball has enough problems of its own with all the head office corruption and refs manipulating games.
Click to expand...

Basketball certainly isn't perfect, but it's a whole lot better than baseball.
 

#4 droxford, May 7, 2009
bobrek Politics belong in the D & D

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droxford said:

Basketball certainly isn't perfect, but it's a whole lot better than baseball.
 
Click to expand...

In your opinion....

#5 bobrek, May 7, 2009
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Good read, thanks for posting.

#6 Kate81, May 7, 2009
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droxford said:

Basketball certainly isn't perfect, but it's a whole lot better than baseball.
 
Click to expand...

Disagree.

I pretty much lost interest in basketball after the 2002 WCF and just got back into it a couple years ago and even now I'm not the biggest basketball fan.

I've followed baseball almost nonstop since 94 despite the strike. Everyone's different.

#7 Poloshirtbandit, May 7, 2009

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droxford said:

If you notice something from the article... the only thing left in baseball is nostalgia.

That's it. That's all.

Just nostalgia.
Click to expand...

It's a fictitious account of a retrospective dialogue taking place in 2014.

#8 thacabbage, May 7, 2009
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bobrek said:

In your opinion....
Click to expand...

my opinion to

#9 peleincubus, May 7, 2009
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ROFL....it only took 1 post for the obligatory "baseball sucks" post.

Good article, thanks for posting.

#10 Uprising, May 7, 2009
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Uprising said:

ROFL....it only took 1 post for the obligatory "baseball sucks" post.

Good article, thanks for posting.
Click to expand...

yeah. I totally fell into that. Sorry.

It was a good read, though.
 

#11 droxford, May 7, 2009
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bobrek said:

In your opinion....
Click to expand...

#12 RHostetler82, May 7, 2009
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droxford said:

Basketball certainly isn't perfect, but it's a whole lot better than baseball.
 
Click to expand...

Nothing is better than baseball.

#13 BMoney, May 8, 2009

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BMoney said:

Nothing is better than baseball.
Click to expand...

Damn straight.

Except for basketball, football, and sometimes golf and soccer.

But it's definitely better than hockey though.

Yeah, take that, hockey.

#14 AstroRocket, May 8, 2009
Severe Rockets Fan Takin it one stage at a time...

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I'll watch baseball ever so often, it's not too bad...

but...

it's...

so...

damn...

slow...

#15 Severe Rockets Fan, May 8, 2009
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NBA, MLB, NFL....

All have become duplicates of WWF, just wrapped in some pseudo-historical notion of legitimacy.

Seriously. I firmly believe that.

Watch them for entertainment. Don't watch them for sport.

If you're attached to a team (like, say, the rockets?).....it's painful. You've got to learn to dissociate yourself. I have not quite figured out the trick myself.

#16 rhadamanthus, May 8, 2009
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rhadamanthus said:

If you're attached to a team (like, say, the rockets?).....it's painful. You've got to learn to dissociate yourself. I have not quite figured out the trick myself.
Click to expand...

that's the fun of it for me. i hate it and get so pissed off when the rockets lose in the playoffs, but i have come to a point in my life where i can simultaenously get so angry and at the same time realize that this feeling doesn't mean much in the long run. i think it's good for the soul to experience different emotions.

i guess in that way i agree with you that it's more entertainment than sport. personally, i enjoy the drama that can surround sports. that's why i spent more time in the garm yesterday than i have since the trade. i've long called professional sports (and college football/basketball) soap operas for men.

#17 Rocketman95, May 8, 2009
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Groogrux said:

i guess in that way i agree with you that it's more entertainment than sport.
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That would not bother me except that there still exists this supposedly grand "aura" of sportsmanship. It's a lie. And I find it disgusting.

Even that could be glossed over I suppose, except that more often than not this blatant hypocrisy is outright endorsed by the very same leagues that proclaim themselves apart from it. It's maddening.

I don't and never have watched WWF (even as a kid. My mom would not let me) But even I know that the WWF is at least being honest about the bull**** they're selling you.

From a certain point of view, it also explains why I'm liking the olympics more and more. Sure, it's commercialized - but with that many nations competing you can feel pretty confident that the playing field is quite leveled - it's pretty difficult to embed an advantage for one particular country with 130 other countries also desiring to win.

#18 rhadamanthus, May 8, 2009

bobrek Politics belong in the D & D

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rhadamanthus said:

...From a certain point of view, it also explains why I'm liking the olympics more and more. Sure, it's commercialized - but with that many nations competing you can feel pretty confident that the playing field is quite leveled - it's pretty difficult to embed an advantage for one particular country with 130 other countries also desiring to win.
Click to expand...

Do you feel this way about the "judged" Olympic sports?

#19 bobrek, May 8, 2009
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bobrek said:

Do you feel this way about the "judged" Olympic sports?
Click to expand...

Any subjective "grading" is bound to be unfair at some point.

The problem is that the NBA blatantly endorses it. I'm sure a cadre of apologists will now flame me to a crisp, but I don't know how anyone can defend the league's reactions just within the current playoffs, nevermind the last several YEARS.

#20 rhadamanthus, May 8, 2009

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