Open the Pod Bay Doors, Hal
Great googaly moogaly! A member of the baseball punditocracy actually admits that he and his cohort were asleep at the switch during that magical summer of ’98!
Here’s Hal McCoy in the Dayton Daily News:
Notice how McCoy constructs his admission. By golly, any weasel would have been proud to have written that!
Yes, he says, we “probably” should have been more vigilant. But there was no proof! And it’s all the fault of those evil bastards at the MLBPA!
The writers glossed over the ugly steroids story in ’98, Hal admits – but it wasn’t their fault! There was no proof! You can’t blame the writers if there was no testing back then to catch players in the act!
Of course, we still haven’t found a way to retroactively test players in 1998, so there’s no more “proof” that McGwire juiced now than there was back then. So how in God’s name can McCoy (and the rest of his crew in the baseball punditocracy) rationalize tarring and feathering McGwire now, after snoozing through 1998 because there wasn’t enough “proof?”
No worries – Hal’s got it covered:
I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve watched almost every episode of Rumpole of the Bailey. Based on this experience, I’ve come to the conclusion that if the prosecution is touting Jose Canseco as its more believable witness, its case might be a wee bit shaky.
McCoy admits that McGwire was not “caught in the act.” In 1998, the only “proof” that McGwire doped were rumors and innuendo. In 2007, the nature of the “proof” hasn’t changed – except that it’s getting more play in the newspapers and on the air. Just because people are yelling about it now doesn’t make the “proof” any more (or less) true.
Here’s Hal McCoy in the Dayton Daily News:
Should the baseball writers have been more vigilant at the time? Probably. But how? Unless one catches a player in the act, where's the proof? Major League Baseball's hands were tied, as far as testing, by the Players Association.
Notice how McCoy constructs his admission. By golly, any weasel would have been proud to have written that!
Yes, he says, we “probably” should have been more vigilant. But there was no proof! And it’s all the fault of those evil bastards at the MLBPA!
The writers glossed over the ugly steroids story in ’98, Hal admits – but it wasn’t their fault! There was no proof! You can’t blame the writers if there was no testing back then to catch players in the act!
Of course, we still haven’t found a way to retroactively test players in 1998, so there’s no more “proof” that McGwire juiced now than there was back then. So how in God’s name can McCoy (and the rest of his crew in the baseball punditocracy) rationalize tarring and feathering McGwire now, after snoozing through 1998 because there wasn’t enough “proof?”
No worries – Hal’s got it covered:
After [Jose] Canseco's book, Juiced, stood the game on its sometimes-flat head, the steroid issue emerged from the dark corners of the clubhouses. Like him or not for his motives, Canseco's book opened eyes and was believable.
I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve watched almost every episode of Rumpole of the Bailey. Based on this experience, I’ve come to the conclusion that if the prosecution is touting Jose Canseco as its more believable witness, its case might be a wee bit shaky.
McCoy admits that McGwire was not “caught in the act.” In 1998, the only “proof” that McGwire doped were rumors and innuendo. In 2007, the nature of the “proof” hasn’t changed – except that it’s getting more play in the newspapers and on the air. Just because people are yelling about it now doesn’t make the “proof” any more (or less) true.
posted by Bob at
2:48 PM
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