Just some thoughts

I was reading Buster Olney's Blog today and I came across where he was talking about how some former players are livid with the players association over the Mitchell steroid investigation. Olney says:

"I've had a whole lot of conversations with a whole lot of ex-players who believe the union leadership absolutely failed to represent their interests in the Steroid Era. I bet there are a bunch of former players who would be perfectly willing to talk freely with Mitchell's investigative staff because they feel their own accomplishments have been tainted by the unrestrained steroid use -- and they blame the union leadership, in part, for what occurred. There are ex-players who will feel little or no allegiance to the union leaders on this issue."



Which to me begs the question what is to stop a former player from suing the players association. What do I mean? Let's take Fred McGriff as an example. McGriff hit .284/.377/.509 with 493 home runs and 1550 RBI in his career and is generally considered to have not taken steroids. He's also generally considered unlikely to voted into baseball's Hall of Fame. What is to stop McGriff from arguing that the players association's turning a blind eye to steroids devalued McGriff's career. While many players may have had monster seasons while taking steroids McGriff had quite productive seasons without steroids. His teammate Jose Canseco was more famous but did he deserve to be? Due to the startingly huge numbers put fourth by many of the players now under suspicion of steroid use McGriff's quietly consistent career never received the attention of Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmerio and Sammy Sosa. Getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame means thousands of dollars in autographs and memorabilia as well as a huge achievement. Can't he argue that the players association and MLB itself turning a blind eye to steroids took that away from him? So could Jim Rice. So could Dale Murphy. I wonder if anyone at MLB or the player's association has considered this?


Globe Staff Photo / Barry Chin)

I was glad to see the Boston fans treated Kevin Millar the way he deserved to be treated by giving him a standing O in his return to Boston. Millar was the heart soul of the Red Sox the past three years and deserved to be treated like it. Despite helping to lead the Red Sox to the playoffs each of his years in Boston Millar was booed savagedly last season when his bat disappeared. So take heart Johnny Damon as soon as you leave the Yankees you'll be welcomed too.

Bad news for the Red Sox as Coco Crisp's broken finger is going to keep him until the end of May. The Red Sox have been getting by with Dustin Mohr and Wily Mo Pena in center but need Crisp back if they want to stay in contention. Francona will have a tough call to make when Crisp comes because Kevin Youkilis has been awesome in the leadoff spot.

So I just finished watching the White House Correspondent's Dinner and I have to say it was awesome. The Republicans invited Stephen Colbert to perform at the dinner. It became apparent that they put about as much thought into this as they did when they decided to invade Iraq. Judging from the faces of Bush and his surrounding lackeys I have to imagine that none of them had ever seen or heard of Colbert. The host of the Report proceeded to roast everyone in the room with any ties to the Republican Party. It was essentially what is said on every episode of the Colbert Report said diectly to the President's face. To Colbert's credit he didn't back down in the face of the President and he let him have it. When a joke his bombed Colbert said "Just shot me, ....oh wait, the Vice President isn't here." He said that comparing this administration to the Titanic was a bad analogy because this administration wasn't sinking like the Titanic, it was in fact soaring. So actually the Hindenburg would be a better. Comedic genius. Most comedians invited to this thing would have pulled their acts back and kissed the president's ass. Not Colbert. Watching Tucker Carlson talk about how Colbert had bombed after the show ended just showed how absolutely clueless these Fox News morons are. The fact that the Colbert Report is a paraody of most conserative elements of Fox News and the Republican party appears to be completely lost on the very people it mocks. Colbert couldn't have written it better himself.