Today's the day George Mitchell gets to play the role of Captain Obvious, and tell us all something we've known for a while now: Most of our baseball heroes are cheaters.I don't think I'm going to be named in his report, but I've long suspected that my buddy Drew is a steroid user - he's pretty ripped. Beyond Drew, I suspect that a large majority of people I've cheered for for a long time now are going to be unmasked as frauds, cheats, and liars.
Here's what's really interesting to me: So far as I know, Mitchell is simply going to produce a list of 60-80 names of guys who he believes cheated. For most of them, we're probably not going to know how much they cheated, for how long, or for what reason. Some of them cheated because they wanted to be better. Some of them cheated because they were injured and needed to heal. Some of them cheated because they needed a tiny boost to get over the edge during a hitting slump. Some of them cheated once. Some cheated for years. And as far as I know, we're not going to know which ones are which.
There's a powerful message in this whole deal - even if you're not a baseball fan. When you're a cheater, most people aren't going to care how much you cheated, why you cheated, or for how long you cheated. They're just going to care that you cheated. And your legacy is going to go down with the guys who cheated worse than you, for longer than you, and for worse reasons than you.
When you're a cheater, you're a cheater, no matter how much or how little.
Some of these guys are going to be forever "asterisked" because they had a momentary lapse in judgment during a weak moment in their career. The same can happen to us.
Character matters in big things and in small things. Because when people find out you're a dishonest lying cheater, they don't ask anyone to quantify.
4 comments:
It is SO nice to be named among the cheaters using steroids. Thank you Chris Freeland, thank you.
I escaped Mitchell's list, and yours too! I'm feelin pretty good right now, and thankfully everyone will know that all this muscle is all natural :)
I say let’s just let them all pump their not-good-enough bodies full of the magic muscle mixture, completely relieving any cheating allegations (and completely shrinking their little boy bits) so that when you men take the fairer sex to the movies, your need for intense demonstrations of testosterone-run-amok will have been topped off during the World Series, and then your lady friends don’t have to endure the ridiculousness of Alien Vs. Predator.
Just me $.02
OK, so I should be sleeping since the baby is sleeping, but I just keep reading one post after another. I guess you may have heard this a few times but I'm going to say it anyway..You are an awesome writer! God has truly blessed you with so many gifts and I glad you choose to use them for His glory. When I'm crabby tomorrow with my guys then I'm just going to blame you...hey, there's an idea...you can blog about self-control :-)
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