Spring Break
Blame names to regain fame
Jeff Ellis
Issue date: 2/26/09 Section: Sports
Pointing the finger at someone else is a common practice stemming from one's inability to live up to their actions. The fear of being seen and known by everyone around you as a liar and a cheater for committing an unjust and immoral act is scary, and no one wants to deal with that.
Being a recent trend, especially in baseball, why not take others down with you and bend the truth so that you are viewed as a victim instead of a suspect? Knowing that you are guilty of an act but never actually received and dealt with deserved punishments for that act can place a huge weight and burden on your shoulders that is repeatedly too hard to bear.
Often times, placing the blame on someone else preserves your reputation, all while helping one avoid the wrath they so lawfully deserve to put up with.
Apply this situation to the hotly debated steroid scandal surrounding major league baseball, and a handful of names including Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez will emerge atop stories and web searches. All once idolized for their baseball prowess and incredible "natural" abilities, these players are all more recently identified for their abuse of steroids and the number of leaps and bounds they went through to cheat the game of baseball.
Being in an environment where perfection is strived for and consciously knowing that you are incapable of achieving those goals can lead to a feeling of inferiority, especially in a major league club house. This is a common emotion felt by humans everywhere, not just baseball players. The need for perfection drives some people to take the easy way out, and no, I am not referring to the previously mentioned names, but rather baseball in its entirety.
Yes it is possible to put in more reps, take batting practice more often and more seriously, and hone your skills honestly instead of injecting steroids to harvest fake strengths and numbers. Of course a substance is going to be abused if it is not monitored correctly, which is why these statistically sound all-stars and baseball prodigies are now the scapegoats in an attempt by Major League Baseball as an organization to avoid the blame of a yielding and ineffective drug testing policy, as well as the title of a cheaters league. MLB needs to enforce its policies to the extent of banning players from the game for an entire season, if not several. If a substance is illegal and it has been said by a huge majority of your employees that players are abusing this drug, why not test everyone? Test every player from every team periodically but consistently throughout the entire season.
Being a recent trend, especially in baseball, why not take others down with you and bend the truth so that you are viewed as a victim instead of a suspect? Knowing that you are guilty of an act but never actually received and dealt with deserved punishments for that act can place a huge weight and burden on your shoulders that is repeatedly too hard to bear.
Often times, placing the blame on someone else preserves your reputation, all while helping one avoid the wrath they so lawfully deserve to put up with.
Apply this situation to the hotly debated steroid scandal surrounding major league baseball, and a handful of names including Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez will emerge atop stories and web searches. All once idolized for their baseball prowess and incredible "natural" abilities, these players are all more recently identified for their abuse of steroids and the number of leaps and bounds they went through to cheat the game of baseball.
Being in an environment where perfection is strived for and consciously knowing that you are incapable of achieving those goals can lead to a feeling of inferiority, especially in a major league club house. This is a common emotion felt by humans everywhere, not just baseball players. The need for perfection drives some people to take the easy way out, and no, I am not referring to the previously mentioned names, but rather baseball in its entirety.
Yes it is possible to put in more reps, take batting practice more often and more seriously, and hone your skills honestly instead of injecting steroids to harvest fake strengths and numbers. Of course a substance is going to be abused if it is not monitored correctly, which is why these statistically sound all-stars and baseball prodigies are now the scapegoats in an attempt by Major League Baseball as an organization to avoid the blame of a yielding and ineffective drug testing policy, as well as the title of a cheaters league. MLB needs to enforce its policies to the extent of banning players from the game for an entire season, if not several. If a substance is illegal and it has been said by a huge majority of your employees that players are abusing this drug, why not test everyone? Test every player from every team periodically but consistently throughout the entire season.
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