Love this time of year. Winter’s harsh grip is releasing my shriveled-from-frost gonads, and millionaires in Arizona and Florida are playing catch on green fields and answering dumb questions from reporters on almost every subject, including the little debacle on Capitol Hill between Congress, Clemens, and McNamee.
That circus doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care because the sport can’t be damaged much more by those types of allegations and accusations. When the angels of truth are Jose Canseco, John Rocker and an ex-trainer who keeps used syringes for years on end, the sport, industry, and way of life have pretty much sunk as low as it can get.
This was more about saving Roger Clemens’ plaque in the Hall of Fame. Here’s some sad news for you, Rocket: you ain’t got much credibility, and in the five years it’ll take you to become HOF eligible, the Department of Justice is certain to catch you lying to Congress on something. Either way, the memories will not fade: you, McGwire, and Bonds are the symbols for baseball’s steroids era, and none of you will see a HOF plaque in the next decade, if at all. That’s reality. (Tastes bitter, doesn’t it, Roger? Would you prefer it in a syringe?)
To clear the palate, here’s some good quotes about baseball courtesy of Mark Newman at MLB.com.
“That’s the true harbinger of spring, not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of a bat on a ball.” — Bill Veeck
“I see great things in baseball. It’s our game — the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism, tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us.” — Walt Whitman
“I believe in the Church of Baseball.” — Annie Savoy
“God, I just love baseball.” — Roy Hobbs in “The Natural”
“People all say that I’ve had a bad break. But today — today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.” — Lou Gehrig
“I think I was the best baseball player I ever saw.” — Willie Mays
“His fastball looked about the size of a watermelon seed and it hissed at you as it passed.” — Ty Cobb
“I guess all these left-handers is alike, though I thought this Allen had some sense. I thought he was different from the most and was not no rummy, but they are all alike Al and they are all lucky that somebody don’t hit them over the head with a ax and kill them, but I guess at that you could not hurt no left-handers by hitting them over the head.” — Jack Keefe, Ring Lardner’s character in “You Know Me, Al”
“They give you a round bat and they throw you a round ball and they tell you to hit it square.” — Willie Stargell
