Congress Asks Justice Department to Investigate Tejada

So, are they outraged at those guys because they did steroids or because they were never officially caught? If the former, where is the "outrage" for the NFL players who we know for a fact were cheating? Where are the hour-long Sportscenter specials about the two star defensive players in the AFC Championship game who have been suspended recently for taking steroids?

If it's the latter, then we're all complicit. We dug the long ball and started watching/going back to the ballpark once that started. I'm not going to act self-righteous about this when I sat there and watched baseball knowing there were guys who were probably juicing.

But if people were truly outraged over something, they wouldn't support the game. Look how people weren't coming to the games after the strike. That's because people actually were outraged about something. I'm not sure how you even mixed up my bringing up MLB's revenues and Congressional hearings. They have no bearing on each other, nor should they.

 

this argument is going in circles, players use steroids, players hit home runs, baseball becomes popular again, congress investigates steroids, congress shouldn't investigate because baseball is popular, baseball i popular because players hit homeruns, players hit homeruns because of steroids, congress investigates steroids, on and on and on and on

 

I don't care either, but that doesn't mean it isn't wrong.

I just told why baseball revenues went up and you totally ignored it. ballparks, ballparks, ballparks, ballparks

 

Who as argued that Congress shouldn't investigate baseball because it's popular? All we're saying is that there can't be that much outrage by the fans due to MLB's revenues and attendance figures.

 

I think it's wrong too. But I don't think Congress should be wasting time investigating the matter.

I didn't ignore it, I dismissed it. So, even if people are outraged by something, they'll still spend their hard earned dollars on it because of the pretty ballparks. Please.

 

you don't think these new stadiums attract more vistors than the old ones? you don't think people like going to minute maid for the attraction of the ballpark?

 

Of course they do. If they were outraged, however, I don't think they would. Hell, this will be MMP's 9th season. If baseball fans were in such a frenzy about the rampant cheating going on in baseball, do you really think, they'd still go pay hard-earned money to sit in a pretty buidling to watch cheaters?

C'mon.

 

I absolutely think they do. But that park is 8 years old now. It's hardly a novelty to the people of this city. If it lasts as long as the Astrodome, it's about 20% through it's useful life already. I think it's great.

But I believe if people are truly outraged they're not gonna spend the money to support MLB despite the fact that the ballpark is a nice place to visit. Perhaps we're defining outrage differently.

 

No - where do you get the "it's fine!" angle. Nobody said it was fine. But at the very least some form of official punishment has been meted out, and in theory, he is no longer profiting from his misdeeds. Unless a time machine is invented, the same will not happen for baseball's cheaters.

Also, it's pretty apparent that you're intentionally ignoring the fact that Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, and the rest of baseball's supposed cheats are all longtime icons, and household names who have been icons for decades and apparently represent the best ever. You're asking why the attention for these guys is not commensurate with Shawn Merriman?

Shawn Merriman is a pass rusher in a small city on the west coast who had a good season or two. And he was in a single Nike commercial. I know who shawn merriman is, but unless he is wearing a chargers jersey with his name on it, i couldn't pick him out on the street if he was standing next to me. I mean I recognized Brandon Jacobs the other day, but only because he had a huge gold & diamond studded chain that said "BJ2" on it and someboy said "hey brandon you're the man!"

But anyway I've explained this a bunch of times in this thread as to why baseball players are treated diffferently, all fairly logical explanations, but you keep on with the "baffled" routine. As i said before, I find it not so baffling, whether or not you or I think it's justified or deserved.

 

It's that simple.

 

It's like boxing.If they were serious about doing something about this,it would have been long ago when Bowie Kuhn was commisioner.

 

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7709958?MSNHPHMA

Baseball's never been in better shape
by Ken Rosenthal

Steroids? Congress cares. The media cares.

Fans, barely at all.

Baseball has never been more popular, and every trend line continues to point upward.

A record $6 billion in revenues last season. Record advance ticket sales in a sagging economy. More fans enjoying the game in more ways than ever before.

While commissioner Bud Selig deserves his share of blame for the Steroid Era, the sport's evolution into a financial behemoth will be his greatest legacy.

The explanation goes deeper than the sport's history of withstanding scandal, from the 1919 Black Sox to the cocaine trials in the 1980s to the gambling allegations against Pete Rose in the '90s.

Deeper than the notion that juiced players produce juiced revenues, going back to the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home-run duel in '98.

Deeper even than the increased competitive balance that has resulted in 15 different teams claiming the 16 available postseason spots the past two seasons and seven different World Series champions in the past eight years.

Baseball not only is the sport with the longest, richest history, but also the perfect sport for the Information Age, an advantage that MLB officials are exploiting to maximum benefit.

In with the old, in with the new.

No matter where you live, you can pay to listen to your favorite team on satellite radio, pay to watch your favorite team on cable television or MLB.com, pay to buy tickets on-line.

The Internet gives baseball a perfect platform not only for streaming video and ticket sales, but also fantasy leagues, merchandise and collectibles. Yet, compelling as the new technology is, it is only one element of a larger story.

Baseball, after the players' strike of 1994 and '95, finally began operating as an efficient business, says Andrew Zimbalist, a professor of economics at Smith College and the author of several books on baseball, including, "In the Best Interests of Baseball? The Revolutionary Reign of Bud Selig."

"Selig got the owners more or less on the same page for the first time in the sport's history with revenue sharing," Zimbalist says. "That encouraged them to do some strategic planning, which they hadn't done before. They had just responded to crises."

The biggest crisis in recent times, Zimbalist says, was free agency. The owners spent decades fighting the concept, even paying $280 million in collusion penalties in the mid-1980s. Rather than market players, the owners tried to tear them down. Not the best way to build a sport.

Since the strike, though, Selig has introduced one new bold idea after another, everything from the wild card to the World Baseball Classic, from revenue sharing to the industry growth fund — and, last but not least, Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM).


MLBAM, baseball's new-media arm, generated $36 million in revenue in 2001, its first year of existence. That number grew to more than $450 million in 2007, according to the Sports Business Journal.

"(Our) people did want to get ahead of the curve," says Bob DuPuy, baseball's president and chief operating officer. "Because of the nature of our game — the fact that we have 2,400 games, the fact that fans care about statistics, the fact that we could reach a new generation of fans — people really did envision that this could be a big deal. But I don't think anyone anticipated in 2000 just how pervasive the Internet would be in just seven years."

MLB.com streams live video of more events than any web site in the world — more than 12,000 in 2007. It moved a record 27 million tickets online last season, representing 34 percent of all tickets sold. And the site's new deal with StubHub.com gives fans a chance to purchase tickets through the secondary market as well.

The NFL cannot duplicate that type of activity — its schedule consists of only 16 games, a higher percentage of games sell out and network television is the only outlet for viewers. The 162-game season gives baseball a distinct edge in generating new-media business. The sport, in essence, boils down to 30 different reality shows, all of which take place over six months — and all of which can be distributed on a variety of platforms.

Baseball attracts all sorts of fans — memorabilia collectors, ballpark aficionados and history buffs; fantasy players, sabermetricians and, of course, good old-fashioned devotees of their teams. The NFL gets devotees and gamblers, a potent combination. But while gamblers buy tickets and watch television, most of their money isn't going to the league.

Where do steroids fit into this? They don't. Fans mostly view sports as entertainment. Performance-enhancing drugs are perhaps more of a problem for baseball than for football, distorting the generational comparisons that link a Babe Ruth to a Barry Bonds. But such comparisons are flawed to begin with — Ruth, for example, played 154-game seasons against all-white competition — and no one can measure the true impact of performance-enhancing drugs. Rather than try and figure it all out, fans just shrug and cheer for their favorite teams.

"Obviously fans are resilient — that's clear," Zimbalist says. "Obviously fans have mixed emotions about performance-enhancing substances. Baseball has to stay within the threshold of acceptance. If it's fighting the problem, then fans are accepting."

Well, after a decidedly slow start, baseball is fighting the problem — futilely perhaps, but fighting it nonetheless. Meanwhile, the game endures, just as it did after the Black Sox scandal, the cocaine trials and the furor surrounding Rose.

"There's a comfort factor passed down from generation to generation," DuPuy says. "The sport has been around 150 years. It's out in the open, pastoral rather than violent. It's something that people turned to during the Depression, during World War II, after 9/11. People rally around the game, find it to be a real comfort."

 

Agree or disagree, that was an awesome article. Well-written. Thanks for posting it.