Tiger Geist

As a sports fan, we’re in an interesting era for baseball:  Who do we trust, who cheated?  Is anyone currently cheating?  Ok, let’s pretend everyone now is clean and clear.  How do we deal with players from 1990 until 2008?  Asterisks for any home run champions?

Well the baseball media has let us know.  No hall of fame for cheaters!  Who cheated?  They don’t know!  Because they didn’t ask enough questions during the steroid era.  I mean, man oh man, Mark McGwire sure confused everyone with those Andro bottles, didn’t he?  No, the media insists, if they knew better, they would have reported it differently.  But the players just did everything they could to hide the truth.  And Bud Selig?  Yeah, he’s the devil!  He handed out steroids to every player so the owners would make more money!  And the writers, they just didn’t know any better!

Yes it was all bullshit.  But the writers have been standing behind this facade for a few years now.  Finally, as fans, we get to see their true colors:  Brian Cushing is caught cheating, and the AP writers get a chance to revote on his rookie of the year award.  Cushing, who is no stranger to steroid rumors, is caught… in September of 2009.  Still plays the rest of the year.  Wins rookie of the year.  No problem, AP decides they can revote on the award.  The result?  Cushing wins again.

Are you kidding me?

Yes, these are football writers.  But how does anyone trust baseball writers?  These are the guys who get high and mighty about hall of fame votes (some writers refuse to vote for anyone on the first ballot, making a mockery of the entire process).  Essentially, I’ve lost faith in all sports media.  Baseball writers ignored steroids for over a decade.  Football writers voted twice for a cheating player, once with full knowledge of the testing (and test failures).  Baseball writers jumped on some random blogger last summer for suggesting a player was juicing. What was their issue?

No one outside of the media can accuse someone of steroids!

Why?

Because only the sports media is qualified to ignore the evidence.