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It Kind Of Makes Me Hate Baseball

One of the few players willing to speak honestly about his cheating. (image via deadspin)

C and I have a running dialogue regarding the terrible behavior of everyone involved in MLB's steroids scandal -- owners, players, press, agents (I know, redundant) -- everyone.

These guys are liars and cheats. They've made millions while ticket prices have skyrocketed and municipalities have raised taxes to pay for new ballparks, and even though they've been caught red-handed, all but a couple have refused to admit any wrongdoing. Who'd have thought that only Jose Canseco would be honest and forthright with the public? Disgusting.

Yet it's not a problem that is limited to baseball. Just look at the real estate industry over the last decade. Or at Wall Street. Or at how W and company sold the invasion of Iraq and then defended his decision. Or at how Republicans in Congress spent money they didn't have while they were in power, but now that they're out of power claim that spending is always morally wrong and bad for America. Changing the story, being disingenuous, refusing to take the blame -- all persist and are symptoms of a deeper social problem, a disease that is causing our society to rot from leaf to root.

I guess baseball truly is America's sport.

As always, The Sports Guy kills it in his most recent mailbag...

We always talk about the tangible effects of the Steroids Era (it screwed up the numbers historically, compromised the competitiveness of the games and tainted some of the nicer memories we had as fans from 1990 to 2007), but the underrated effect was the realization that some of our greatest players were scumbags. Should we have realized this after the Pete Rose scandal? Yeah, probably. But look at some of the greats from the past 50 years. Rose lives in Vegas and spends his days betting on horse racing. Barry Bonds seemed like a truly awful person even before he let his buddy rot in jail for him. Clemens was willing to sell everyone out, even his wife and friends, to try to keep his name clean. Mark McGwire doesn't have the decency to admit that he cheated. Neither does Sammy Sosa or Raffy Palmeiro. A-Rod lied in 2008 on national TV, then lied about the lie. There are 103 names from that 2003 random drug-test list still out there, only none have the balls to come out and say, "You know what? I'm probably on there and I'm ashamed of what I did." And when you think about how many All-Stars cheated over the past two decades -- is the number 70 percent? 75 percent? 80 percent? -- the unwillingness of the commissioner's office and the player's union to apologize publicly or admit any culpability whatsoever is really staggering. Why is Bud Selig still the commissioner? THIS HAPPENED ON HIS WATCH! Why is Gene Orza still running the players' union? THIS HAPPENED ON HIS WATCH! Everyone's collective "apology" this winter seemed to be, "Let's move on, it's spring training, the World Baseball Classic will be fun, fantasy baseball is starting up ... no use crying over spilled milk."

Ask yourself this: Do you feel like the players, union leaders, owners and executives even feel bad about what happened? Because I don't feel like they do. And it makes me kind of hate baseball. I will still follow it, and I will still love the Red Sox, and I will still do the League of Dorks ... but at the same time, when the sport flounders because of the economy this summer, part of me will be thinking, "What goes around comes around."