GM,
I want to know your thoughts on health care. Obviously, I expect them to fall into the conservative camp, but an experience from yesterday has left me thinking that we could use just a little reform. My health insurance, which I'm completely paying for on my own, is terrible. It's beyond terrible. If I even call a doctor's office, I have a $400 co-pay, and they actually come cut off my arm if I need any non-generic drugs. So I have this cyst on the back of my neck that goes away for more than a year if I just take one sample pack of a common antibiotic. More than a year! I know the drug I want and the dosage, which wouldn't even be enough to harm a gerbil, much less distribute. I've been prescribed it twice--at times when I had decent insurance. Of course, under our system, I must go see a doctor, have him tell me what I already know, and prescribe me a drug for which there is no generic, which means my insurance won't pay for it...
OR...
I could visit one of the dozens of semi-reputable online pharmacies that operate out of India and have help centers set up in the Caribbean, resulting in an 83-percent discount. According to a few hours of research, the legal lines here are blurred. The drug I need is not a controlled substance, so it's completely legal for me to possess even without a prescription. Essentially, I may be aiding in the illegal process of shipping prescription drugs into the U.S., but consumers don't get prosecuted for that unless the amount indicates intention to distribute. This is how many senior citizens get their medicine. An extensive conversation with Victor, one of the online chat guys for the site I went to, gave me little faith that I could fully trust these people. To be honest, though, part of me wants to go this route just so the greedy doctors and drug manufacturers don't win! That sounds liberal, doesn't it?
-JW
JW,
Very. Like cynical and unilateral, "greedy" is one of those words that liberals throw at conservatives from time to time because they've been instructed by focus groups to do so. It's a meaningless slur, a wholly political attack whose power derives from class resentments and the electorate's incomplete grasp of the English language.
After all, what does "greedy" really mean in this case? Desiring profit? Unwilling to be socialized? You're a free market guy, right? Why is it wrong for doctors and drug companies to charge whatever the market will bear for their services? Unless you're ready to suggest that healthcare is somehow different from other economic products, you can't get mad at those who get rich providing it. And once you do make that suggestion . . . well, you've just let go of your last, best reason why healthcare shouldn't be socialized. Simply put, it's a human right or it's not.
All this is not to say that the current system works, of course, and your dilemma illustrates its flaws. As it stands, the medical industry charges what it likes, while the government (in the name of a ridiculous, counter-productive "war" on drugs) criminalizes the act of going outside the system. It's a legal monopoly--an artificial tariff--and its construction is due to that most basic of liberal assumptions: In the end, our lives are in their hands. The government doesn't have the stomach to watch us die from our own stupidity, so they must protect us from it.
Undergirding the healthcare debate is a truth that governs all life on this planet: The quality of _____ is directly proportional to its cost. Socialize medicine and doctors will make less. Pay doctors less and fewer people will submit to the time and expense of becoming one. Lower standards to increase enrollment and stupider people will become doctors. For every action a reaction.
Frankly, I'm tempted by the solution lingering at the extreme flank of Libertarianism. Unhinge medicine from government totally. Throw out the "D" in FDA; get rid of all licensing oversight. You say you're a doctor? Fine. Kill a few folks and prices will fall. Cure a few and they'll rise. It's unthinkable, I know, but it wasn't too long ago that the same could be said of much of today's "progress."
-GM
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Shaking Things Up
JW,
I've always been suspicious of the restaurant chain Steak 'n Shake, a flawless recreation of 1950s diners if 1950s diners had only existed in hell. A marketing gimmick with no proper sense of itself--too slow to be fast-food; too fast to be casual dining--Steak is one of those in-between places that gets my order wrong while charging me two bucks more than the joints you'd expect it from. And while the story I'm about to tell you isn't based entirely in this country's educational problems or the lapse in its basic etiquette, it's certainly illustrative of both.
Rolling through the drive-thru of my local franchise (yes, I eat at places I hate; everyone does), I arrive at the window and receive my bag of food. Now, at most places, I'd allow the car to drift slowly forward while I check my order for precision, but I know that at Steak 'n Shake, it's fifteen minutes if I have to go back through the line, twenty if I go inside. Sitting in place and pulling open the sack, windows down, I hear commotion coming from the kitchen. There's been a mix-up, it seems, and I've been given the wrong bag. Just as I'm about to discover this fact for myself, a booming voice from inside the window shouts a question that most drive-thru workers only dream about: "What the f--k you ohhh-dah?" Stunned, I turn to find myself face to face with a very close relative of Thea Vidale, from the long-defunct TV series that bore her name. And she's pissed. And she snatches the bag out of my hand. She even announces it: "Gimme that bag!" Terrified, I hand it over.
In the end, I finally got my food--a large chili and a cherry coke. It wasn't bad, actually. What's bad is that I've come to expect incompetence and meanness in 75% of my public transactions. As I've said many times before, thank God I'm a blogger.
-GM
GM,
You know, you've told me the "gimme that bag" story a few times in person, and I've always mistaken the lady's impatience for urban amiability. Perhaps you need to work on your impressions. Yes, fast-food joints displease me with great regularity--while still managing to reduce my regularity. With whom should we be more comfortable, though? A McDonald's worker who satisfies every realistic expectation by not smiling, not making eye contact, and not arriving to the cash register within three minutes of my own arrival, or an overzealous Chick-Fil-A employee who seems to care way too much about how I'm doing that day?! I prefer the latter, but some people are overwhelmed by the unexpected friendliness, and it seems like they up their game every time I come in!
Can't we just acknowledge that the ordering, eating, and digesting of any fast-food meal will be a neutral experience at best and then mold the structure of social interaction accordingly? In McDonald's's case, vending machines would do nicely. Don't tell me the technology's not there. Then only one person in the whole operation would have to know how to read and speak English. If they're out of double cheeseburgers, the process is simple. I press the button anyway, and the genius of the bunch translates the order to the automatons. Next thing I know--assuming I don't know anything for 12 minutes--my burgers come sliding down a shoot into a vending machine that sits next to the Redbox outside the store. With that system, I wouldn't have to talk to, look at, feel sorry for, or be annoyed by any of the employees.
As for Steak 'n Shake, I haven't been there in years, but it seems like the drive-thru would be the worst way to capture the experience. I thought the whole purpose of '50s diners was to hang out for three hours after you ate. Think about that next time you're placing an "ohhh-dah."
-JW
I've always been suspicious of the restaurant chain Steak 'n Shake, a flawless recreation of 1950s diners if 1950s diners had only existed in hell. A marketing gimmick with no proper sense of itself--too slow to be fast-food; too fast to be casual dining--Steak is one of those in-between places that gets my order wrong while charging me two bucks more than the joints you'd expect it from. And while the story I'm about to tell you isn't based entirely in this country's educational problems or the lapse in its basic etiquette, it's certainly illustrative of both.
Rolling through the drive-thru of my local franchise (yes, I eat at places I hate; everyone does), I arrive at the window and receive my bag of food. Now, at most places, I'd allow the car to drift slowly forward while I check my order for precision, but I know that at Steak 'n Shake, it's fifteen minutes if I have to go back through the line, twenty if I go inside. Sitting in place and pulling open the sack, windows down, I hear commotion coming from the kitchen. There's been a mix-up, it seems, and I've been given the wrong bag. Just as I'm about to discover this fact for myself, a booming voice from inside the window shouts a question that most drive-thru workers only dream about: "What the f--k you ohhh-dah?" Stunned, I turn to find myself face to face with a very close relative of Thea Vidale, from the long-defunct TV series that bore her name. And she's pissed. And she snatches the bag out of my hand. She even announces it: "Gimme that bag!" Terrified, I hand it over.
In the end, I finally got my food--a large chili and a cherry coke. It wasn't bad, actually. What's bad is that I've come to expect incompetence and meanness in 75% of my public transactions. As I've said many times before, thank God I'm a blogger.
-GM
GM,
You know, you've told me the "gimme that bag" story a few times in person, and I've always mistaken the lady's impatience for urban amiability. Perhaps you need to work on your impressions. Yes, fast-food joints displease me with great regularity--while still managing to reduce my regularity. With whom should we be more comfortable, though? A McDonald's worker who satisfies every realistic expectation by not smiling, not making eye contact, and not arriving to the cash register within three minutes of my own arrival, or an overzealous Chick-Fil-A employee who seems to care way too much about how I'm doing that day?! I prefer the latter, but some people are overwhelmed by the unexpected friendliness, and it seems like they up their game every time I come in!
Can't we just acknowledge that the ordering, eating, and digesting of any fast-food meal will be a neutral experience at best and then mold the structure of social interaction accordingly? In McDonald's's case, vending machines would do nicely. Don't tell me the technology's not there. Then only one person in the whole operation would have to know how to read and speak English. If they're out of double cheeseburgers, the process is simple. I press the button anyway, and the genius of the bunch translates the order to the automatons. Next thing I know--assuming I don't know anything for 12 minutes--my burgers come sliding down a shoot into a vending machine that sits next to the Redbox outside the store. With that system, I wouldn't have to talk to, look at, feel sorry for, or be annoyed by any of the employees.
As for Steak 'n Shake, I haven't been there in years, but it seems like the drive-thru would be the worst way to capture the experience. I thought the whole purpose of '50s diners was to hang out for three hours after you ate. Think about that next time you're placing an "ohhh-dah."
-JW
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
People! They're the Worst!
GM,
Today's edition is just about people--people who are very different from myself, mind you. There is no greater feeling of accomplishment than knowing you've pegged a person. On the rare occasions that I accurately understand the mentality of another person, I consider it an enormous moral victory. Let the stories begin.
STORY 1: On the road yesterday for work, I stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom. As I was walking from my car to the building, I noticed that a mildly obese woman was heading toward it from a different angle. I quickly realized I was moving much faster than she was and that I had a decision to make: "Should I hold the door open for this stranger who is clearly in no hurry to get there?" I decided to be a gentleman and hold it, but when I looked back to see how close she was, she was taking a breather! Again, this woman was mildly obese, not gargantuan. To me, the sight of a 200-pound woman bent over, struggling to breathe, in the middle of a 50-feet walk was perplexing.
STORY 2: I saw an Alabama McDonald's advertise an "Eg McMuffin" on the marquee. Did they lose the letter, or is that a subtle clue that what they're serving didn't come from a chicken at all?
STORY 3: For the second time this year, someone cut me off in traffic to the point of almost causing a wreck, and they promptly gave me the finger! I didn't even react poorly. I didn't have time to! Was this a preemptive maneuver? "Yeah, you're not gonna like that, bitch! And don't bother getting upset, 'cause here's what I got for ya!" Strangely enough, I told a friend about it, and he said the same thing has happened to him! Are they picking on us for driving Hondas???
-JW
JW,
Don't get me started on slow walkers. I lived for a few years in New York City, and while Chinatown was one of my favorite neighborhoods, I learned very quickly that extra time had to be allotted when visiting. Why? Because Chinese people have entered into a pact with one another to do the following things:
1) walk at less than half the speed of other races;
2) move in whatever the exact opposite of single file is.
As you know, the politics of passing people (your cutter-offer and finger-giver notwithstanding) are delicate at best. Hesitant to leave the sidewalk in favor of the busy street but unwilling to bust through the three inches of space between the walkers, I found myself enacting a parody of slow-walking just behind them, practically raising my knees to my chin at each step! Did I get some funny looks? Sure, but nothing compared the guy in the Kim Jong-Il T-shirt.
Sadly, walking too quickly has its consequences, as well. Like you, I sometimes hold doors for members of the opposite sex. I was doing so once at the top of a stairwell when the senior citizen to whom I was extending the courtesy ran to catch up with me. I suppose she didn't want to slow me down--after all, I'd already been standing there for two seconds. As she bounded forth, her feet abandoned her, and she fell to the stairs beneath. Hard. And then she slid halfway to the next landing.
The lesson, I think, is that politeness is passive-agressive at best, downright harmful at worst. Your guy on the road had the right idea.
-GM
Today's edition is just about people--people who are very different from myself, mind you. There is no greater feeling of accomplishment than knowing you've pegged a person. On the rare occasions that I accurately understand the mentality of another person, I consider it an enormous moral victory. Let the stories begin.
STORY 1: On the road yesterday for work, I stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom. As I was walking from my car to the building, I noticed that a mildly obese woman was heading toward it from a different angle. I quickly realized I was moving much faster than she was and that I had a decision to make: "Should I hold the door open for this stranger who is clearly in no hurry to get there?" I decided to be a gentleman and hold it, but when I looked back to see how close she was, she was taking a breather! Again, this woman was mildly obese, not gargantuan. To me, the sight of a 200-pound woman bent over, struggling to breathe, in the middle of a 50-feet walk was perplexing.
STORY 2: I saw an Alabama McDonald's advertise an "Eg McMuffin" on the marquee. Did they lose the letter, or is that a subtle clue that what they're serving didn't come from a chicken at all?
STORY 3: For the second time this year, someone cut me off in traffic to the point of almost causing a wreck, and they promptly gave me the finger! I didn't even react poorly. I didn't have time to! Was this a preemptive maneuver? "Yeah, you're not gonna like that, bitch! And don't bother getting upset, 'cause here's what I got for ya!" Strangely enough, I told a friend about it, and he said the same thing has happened to him! Are they picking on us for driving Hondas???
-JW
JW,
Don't get me started on slow walkers. I lived for a few years in New York City, and while Chinatown was one of my favorite neighborhoods, I learned very quickly that extra time had to be allotted when visiting. Why? Because Chinese people have entered into a pact with one another to do the following things:
1) walk at less than half the speed of other races;
2) move in whatever the exact opposite of single file is.
As you know, the politics of passing people (your cutter-offer and finger-giver notwithstanding) are delicate at best. Hesitant to leave the sidewalk in favor of the busy street but unwilling to bust through the three inches of space between the walkers, I found myself enacting a parody of slow-walking just behind them, practically raising my knees to my chin at each step! Did I get some funny looks? Sure, but nothing compared the guy in the Kim Jong-Il T-shirt.
Sadly, walking too quickly has its consequences, as well. Like you, I sometimes hold doors for members of the opposite sex. I was doing so once at the top of a stairwell when the senior citizen to whom I was extending the courtesy ran to catch up with me. I suppose she didn't want to slow me down--after all, I'd already been standing there for two seconds. As she bounded forth, her feet abandoned her, and she fell to the stairs beneath. Hard. And then she slid halfway to the next landing.
The lesson, I think, is that politeness is passive-agressive at best, downright harmful at worst. Your guy on the road had the right idea.
-GM
Monday, August 3, 2009
Erasing the Games
JW,
I read with dismay your claim in Friday's post that "as far as the NCAA and [the University of Michigan] itself is concerned, those Final Four appearances in 1992 and 1993 didn't happen." Seriously, enough with the jokes.
After all, you can't possibly be arguing for the punitive value of the most ridiculous "discipline" in all of sports. You can't possibly believe that Michigan fans stopped celebrating their Final Fours when the verdict came down, or that Webber, Howard, and Rose felt any less proud of what they'd achieved. Yeah, the program took some hits several years later. Sure, they wiped away some records and took down a banner or two. But isn't it true in the end that the Internet is the real record book? That the banners hang in our hearts?
A stupid line, maybe, but not a false one. Consider, for example, the fate of my beloved Memphis Tigers, whose close call in 2008 remains the most vexing, intolerable moment of my sports-watching life. Take away Mario Chalmers' three and we're national champions, and I'm here to tell you that the NCAA could dismantle the program piece by piece (and they might) without altering my happiness one bit. A Final Four banner? A scholarship or two seven years from now? A season of postseason ineligibility? All would pale in comparison to that win.
Of course, my position is based on the assumption that college sports are hopelessly corrupt, and that college athletes are amateurs only to the extent that they aren't directly paid by the NCAA. Change that and I might sing a different tune.
-GM
GM,
I admit that I view the Fab Five differently than steroid pushers, and almost anyone would have to admit as much. On the court, Chris Webber, Juan Howard, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, and that other guy (I never remember the other guy) were good enough to get to the Final Four two straight years. Maybe they wouldn't have been at Michigan were it not for the corruption, but it takes a greater mental stretch to deny them their accomplishments than it takes to deny David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez theirs.
I did mention Ben Johnson and Floyd Landis, and those are completely valid comparisons. Those guys probably won because they cheated, and they cheated. So the respective governing bodies thought it over and, without hesitation, stripped the sprinter and cycler of their awards. All of a sudden, though, because baseball doesn't operate with a clock and because nobody knows for sure which home runs were the result of the juice, some folks are willing to just ignore the offense altogether. I refuse to be in that camp, though. Can we safely assume that steroids provide unfair advantages for those who cheat and at the expense (in this case, a literal expense) of those who play by the rules? Yes. The penalties should logically follow. "Oh, you cheated? Yoink! I guess that trophy isn't yours after all."
When I watch baseball, I can usually manage to look past the fact that many of the players are cheating on their wives. I can briefly forget that they're making staggering, undeserved sums of money because fans don't know when to say no to absurd ticket prices and corporations get a kick out of see their names on ballparks. I want each swing to be real, though. I want to know which players are great, which teams are better, and who really is capable of amazing physical feats. Without that small assurance, we're just watching overpaid circus freaks run around a square.
-JW
I read with dismay your claim in Friday's post that "as far as the NCAA and [the University of Michigan] itself is concerned, those Final Four appearances in 1992 and 1993 didn't happen." Seriously, enough with the jokes.
After all, you can't possibly be arguing for the punitive value of the most ridiculous "discipline" in all of sports. You can't possibly believe that Michigan fans stopped celebrating their Final Fours when the verdict came down, or that Webber, Howard, and Rose felt any less proud of what they'd achieved. Yeah, the program took some hits several years later. Sure, they wiped away some records and took down a banner or two. But isn't it true in the end that the Internet is the real record book? That the banners hang in our hearts?
A stupid line, maybe, but not a false one. Consider, for example, the fate of my beloved Memphis Tigers, whose close call in 2008 remains the most vexing, intolerable moment of my sports-watching life. Take away Mario Chalmers' three and we're national champions, and I'm here to tell you that the NCAA could dismantle the program piece by piece (and they might) without altering my happiness one bit. A Final Four banner? A scholarship or two seven years from now? A season of postseason ineligibility? All would pale in comparison to that win.
Of course, my position is based on the assumption that college sports are hopelessly corrupt, and that college athletes are amateurs only to the extent that they aren't directly paid by the NCAA. Change that and I might sing a different tune.
-GM
GM,
I admit that I view the Fab Five differently than steroid pushers, and almost anyone would have to admit as much. On the court, Chris Webber, Juan Howard, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, and that other guy (I never remember the other guy) were good enough to get to the Final Four two straight years. Maybe they wouldn't have been at Michigan were it not for the corruption, but it takes a greater mental stretch to deny them their accomplishments than it takes to deny David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez theirs.
I did mention Ben Johnson and Floyd Landis, and those are completely valid comparisons. Those guys probably won because they cheated, and they cheated. So the respective governing bodies thought it over and, without hesitation, stripped the sprinter and cycler of their awards. All of a sudden, though, because baseball doesn't operate with a clock and because nobody knows for sure which home runs were the result of the juice, some folks are willing to just ignore the offense altogether. I refuse to be in that camp, though. Can we safely assume that steroids provide unfair advantages for those who cheat and at the expense (in this case, a literal expense) of those who play by the rules? Yes. The penalties should logically follow. "Oh, you cheated? Yoink! I guess that trophy isn't yours after all."
When I watch baseball, I can usually manage to look past the fact that many of the players are cheating on their wives. I can briefly forget that they're making staggering, undeserved sums of money because fans don't know when to say no to absurd ticket prices and corporations get a kick out of see their names on ballparks. I want each swing to be real, though. I want to know which players are great, which teams are better, and who really is capable of amazing physical feats. Without that small assurance, we're just watching overpaid circus freaks run around a square.
-JW
Friday, July 31, 2009
One More Steroids Story. We Know. We're Sorry.
JW,
I'll be the first to admit that the post-2004 Red Sox overdid things a bit. The bandwagon jumping, the movie, the simultaneous success of Boston's other franchises--all contributed to the fact that a lot of people I know are positively gleeful about yesterday's news that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez tested positive for PEDs the season before (and probably the season of) their championship. Forget the fact that the '03 and '04 Yankees were practically batting with giant syringes. The Red Sox are tainted, and we're reinstituting the curse.
Here's the thing, though: I just can't bring myself to care that the Sox were juicing. I watched every minute of that ALCS. Hell, I watched every minute of the Wild Card round and the World Series. Our twenty-five guys beat your twenty-five guys, period. I don't care if they did meth between innings. They won. I saw it.
Bear with me for a moment while I explain. More than any other game, baseball works on three distinct levels. Aesthetically, it's far and away the most pleasing of our major sports. Its sights, sounds, and smells are enshrined in the American experience, and while the fact of steroid use may offend our notion of purity (itself an absurdity), it doesn't change the perfection of the grass, the crispness of the uniforms, or the crack of the bat. Without the aesthetic beauty of baseball, the regular season wouldn't exist as a spectator event. The games mean nothing. Who would go?
Secondly, and most importantly for the purposes of our discussion, baseball works because we care who wins individual games . . . down the stretch and in the playoffs. As such, we're concerned about fairness. Or are we?! After all, it's no accident that the Pittsburgh Pirates haven't won the World Series since 1979. Consider the fact that the difference in 2009 payroll between the top spender (the Yankees) and the bottom (the Marlins) is over 164 million. In last season's NFL, by comparison, the spread was 68 million. In the NBA, it was 56. Simply put, the gripes of even a squeaky clean Yankees team would be nothing compared to those of the Milwaukee Brewers. They got outspent in 2004 by 155 million.
Finally, baseball works on a historical level. Even I'll admit that it's fun to sit around arguing about which era was more dominant, which players most clutch. Sadly, the very notion of comparing players from different eras is a fallacy. I know I'm not breaking any new ground here, but factors like the historical game's racial barrier, the vast improvement in conditioning regiments, and the watering down of the leagues through expansion (to name just a few) have made inter-era comparisons ridiculous. Hell, forget inter-era. The ballparks are different sizes! What, exactly, are we supposed to be comparing?
Rather than parse our many asterisks, future generations (quite comfortable with their own performance enhancing drugs, by the way) may wonder what the big deal was. After all, athlete are no longer role models so much as emblems of the highest possible financial and cultural success. And success requires sacrifices. Even ones that make the rest of us a little queasy.
-GM
GM,
I don't care for your attitude. Let's get some things straight. One, steroids have been on baseball's banned substance list since 1991. Well, so was cocaine, but few would consider that type of usage to be cheating the game of baseball. So there's an argument that Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds did nothing but break the law and that they didn't actually cheat. It's a poor argument, but it has a hint of legitimacy. It wasn't until 2002 that the slowest, weakest, most indecisive commissioner I've seen in my lifetime, Bud Selig, managed to begin penalizing players for positive tests. Even then, it was a joke, but there was no mistaking it--baseball's stance was that the use of performance-enhancing drugs was cheating, just like a spitball or a corked bat.
Ask Ben Johnson, Floyd Landis, and the Michigan basketball program what happens when you cheat. All of a sudden, you didn't win! That's right! All of a sudden, there's some "retroactivity" in the bullpen. Not everyone on those Wolverines teams were cheaters, but as far as the NCAA and the university itself is concerned, those Final Four appearances in 1992 and 1993 didn't happen. I have a problem with your "our guys beat your guys" attitude--starting with the fact that you have no reason to be a Red Sox fan. But I disagree with it anyway. They scored more runs, but if you cheat, and you get caught cheating, no matter when, you don't win. It's only baseball's stubbornness that prevents them from taking away Alex Rodriguez's 2003 MVP award. He was caught cheating that year! Imagine if the Tour de France rules committee said, "Floyd, we realized you cheated and that your cheating probably allowed you to win, but we're gonna let you keep your title." Would anyone ever, ever have reason to believe in the legitimacy of a race again?! Would they even keep watching???
I demand the same type of integrity from baseball (and demanding that baseball keep up with professional cycling's character isn't asking all that much). My respect and interest for the game has withered significantly--not because players tried to get an edge, but because the sport has repeatedly failed to drop the hammer. To my knowledge, no member of the 2004 Red Sox has a positive test from 2004. The same goes for the 2007 club. As soon as they find one, though, they're stripped of their title in my mind, and baseball should impose the same penalty. It is a big deal.
Finally, to answer your point about fairness, I'll talk to you like I would a liberal:
Not everything is going to be equal. Some people are dealt better hands than others. Let's look to be fair first, equal never. There is a difference.
-JW
I'll be the first to admit that the post-2004 Red Sox overdid things a bit. The bandwagon jumping, the movie, the simultaneous success of Boston's other franchises--all contributed to the fact that a lot of people I know are positively gleeful about yesterday's news that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez tested positive for PEDs the season before (and probably the season of) their championship. Forget the fact that the '03 and '04 Yankees were practically batting with giant syringes. The Red Sox are tainted, and we're reinstituting the curse.
Here's the thing, though: I just can't bring myself to care that the Sox were juicing. I watched every minute of that ALCS. Hell, I watched every minute of the Wild Card round and the World Series. Our twenty-five guys beat your twenty-five guys, period. I don't care if they did meth between innings. They won. I saw it.
Bear with me for a moment while I explain. More than any other game, baseball works on three distinct levels. Aesthetically, it's far and away the most pleasing of our major sports. Its sights, sounds, and smells are enshrined in the American experience, and while the fact of steroid use may offend our notion of purity (itself an absurdity), it doesn't change the perfection of the grass, the crispness of the uniforms, or the crack of the bat. Without the aesthetic beauty of baseball, the regular season wouldn't exist as a spectator event. The games mean nothing. Who would go?
Secondly, and most importantly for the purposes of our discussion, baseball works because we care who wins individual games . . . down the stretch and in the playoffs. As such, we're concerned about fairness. Or are we?! After all, it's no accident that the Pittsburgh Pirates haven't won the World Series since 1979. Consider the fact that the difference in 2009 payroll between the top spender (the Yankees) and the bottom (the Marlins) is over 164 million. In last season's NFL, by comparison, the spread was 68 million. In the NBA, it was 56. Simply put, the gripes of even a squeaky clean Yankees team would be nothing compared to those of the Milwaukee Brewers. They got outspent in 2004 by 155 million.
Finally, baseball works on a historical level. Even I'll admit that it's fun to sit around arguing about which era was more dominant, which players most clutch. Sadly, the very notion of comparing players from different eras is a fallacy. I know I'm not breaking any new ground here, but factors like the historical game's racial barrier, the vast improvement in conditioning regiments, and the watering down of the leagues through expansion (to name just a few) have made inter-era comparisons ridiculous. Hell, forget inter-era. The ballparks are different sizes! What, exactly, are we supposed to be comparing?
Rather than parse our many asterisks, future generations (quite comfortable with their own performance enhancing drugs, by the way) may wonder what the big deal was. After all, athlete are no longer role models so much as emblems of the highest possible financial and cultural success. And success requires sacrifices. Even ones that make the rest of us a little queasy.
-GM
GM,
I don't care for your attitude. Let's get some things straight. One, steroids have been on baseball's banned substance list since 1991. Well, so was cocaine, but few would consider that type of usage to be cheating the game of baseball. So there's an argument that Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds did nothing but break the law and that they didn't actually cheat. It's a poor argument, but it has a hint of legitimacy. It wasn't until 2002 that the slowest, weakest, most indecisive commissioner I've seen in my lifetime, Bud Selig, managed to begin penalizing players for positive tests. Even then, it was a joke, but there was no mistaking it--baseball's stance was that the use of performance-enhancing drugs was cheating, just like a spitball or a corked bat.
Ask Ben Johnson, Floyd Landis, and the Michigan basketball program what happens when you cheat. All of a sudden, you didn't win! That's right! All of a sudden, there's some "retroactivity" in the bullpen. Not everyone on those Wolverines teams were cheaters, but as far as the NCAA and the university itself is concerned, those Final Four appearances in 1992 and 1993 didn't happen. I have a problem with your "our guys beat your guys" attitude--starting with the fact that you have no reason to be a Red Sox fan. But I disagree with it anyway. They scored more runs, but if you cheat, and you get caught cheating, no matter when, you don't win. It's only baseball's stubbornness that prevents them from taking away Alex Rodriguez's 2003 MVP award. He was caught cheating that year! Imagine if the Tour de France rules committee said, "Floyd, we realized you cheated and that your cheating probably allowed you to win, but we're gonna let you keep your title." Would anyone ever, ever have reason to believe in the legitimacy of a race again?! Would they even keep watching???
I demand the same type of integrity from baseball (and demanding that baseball keep up with professional cycling's character isn't asking all that much). My respect and interest for the game has withered significantly--not because players tried to get an edge, but because the sport has repeatedly failed to drop the hammer. To my knowledge, no member of the 2004 Red Sox has a positive test from 2004. The same goes for the 2007 club. As soon as they find one, though, they're stripped of their title in my mind, and baseball should impose the same penalty. It is a big deal.
Finally, to answer your point about fairness, I'll talk to you like I would a liberal:
Not everything is going to be equal. Some people are dealt better hands than others. Let's look to be fair first, equal never. There is a difference.
-JW
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