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Today's
Stories
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America
Sharon
Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?
Ron
Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs
Ben
Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days
Richard
Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!
Gilad
Atzmon
Politics and Jazz
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.
Website
of the Day
Voice of the Forest
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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Weekend Edition
December 4 / 6, 2004
Backdoor Attack on the Players'
Union?
Steroids
to Heaven
By
DAVE ZIRIN
Some genetically engineered chickens
are coming home to roost for Major League Baseball. Grand Jury
testimony from the Bay Area Lab Company (BALCO) investigation
has been leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle, and the clucking
has begun. We now know that former MVP and Yankee first baseman
Jason Giambi admitted under oath to using all kinds of steroids.
Reigning National League MVP Barry Bonds, in further transcripts,
conceded to administering a "flackseed oil cream" that
he found out was a steroid after the fact.
Giambi in particular took grand
jurors down a harrowing rabbit hole of steroid use during his
2001-2003 seasons. He testified to injecting human growth hormones
in his stomach and testosterone into his buttocks. Giambi in
addition rubbed an undetectable steroid knows as ``the cream''
on his body and placed drops of another, called ``the clear,''
under his tongue. He also admitted ingesting a Female Fertility
Drug called Clomid, which some medical experts say can exacerbate
a pituitary tumor. Giambi suffers from such a tumor. His revelations
occur in the wake of the drug related death of 1997 National
League MVP Ken Caminiti who admitted to steroid use and a horror
show of health problems in the months before he died.
Now baseball is suffering yet
another PR debacle, as their biggest stars start to resemble
self-contained chemistry sets. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig scurried
to point fingers at the players and their union as the root cause
of steroid abuse because they have the temerity to fight the
strict unilateral testing Bud drools for. Selig said Thursday
in Washington, D.C., "We're going to leave no stone unturned
until we have [a very tough program] in place by spring training
2005." But as Selig attempts to use the scandal to turn
the tables on the union he abhors, Big Bud and all MLB owners
need to take a long, hard look in the mirror.
Steroids and their link to
increased power numbers appear to be a fact of life in baseball's
recent history. Only 17 times has a player hit 56 or more home
runs. Eleven of those seasons came between 1997 and 2001, including
all six 63-plus campaigns. Adrian Beltre, in this first year
of a marginal steroid testing program, led the NL in home runs
with 48. That number would not have made the top five in 2001
when Bonds set the all time mark with 73 dingers. The moon-shots
were epic, and Major League Baseball loved every minute of it.
It was Major League Baseball that hyped the hypo using sluggers
of the mid-late 90s. It was Major League Baseball that rode the
1998 home run battle between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa - commonly
called "the home run race that saved the game" - to
a returned popularity not seen since before the lockout/strike
of 1994. It was Major League Baseball that approved Nike's "Chicks
Dig the Long Ball" ad campaign. It was Major League Baseball
that spent the '90s building ballparks the size of Dick Cheney's
hot tub to encourage high scoring and increased home run totals.
It was Major League Baseball that advertised its Home Run Derby
and All Star Game two years ago using cartoons of players with
freakishly huge muscles, slamming the ball out of the park. And
it was Major League Baseball that rewarded the big bashers with
eye-popping contracts.
Fraying Bonds
Of course the Moby Dick of
the BALCO investigation is Barry Bonds. The cloud of steroid
use has followed Bonds since, at age 37, he hit those 73 homers
and reeled off four consecutive MVP seasons. He is at the top
of his game and threatening the hallowed home run marks of baseball's
great legend Babe Ruth, and Henry Aaron. This column, to much
derision, has defended Bonds and made the case for his innocence.
I stand by my most basic assertion that muscles cannot be equated
with the ability to hit a ball (although they can make a great
hitter hit for more power) or a potential all-star would be in
every Gold's Gym across the country. Bonds is more than a basher.
He is a lifetime .300 hitter with more than 500 stolen bases.
He is not a lumberjack taking hacks at the plate. I also still
believe that if Bonds was a knowing habitual user, every bit
of anecdotal evidence would have had his body breaking down,
not gaining in strength.
Therefore until I hear otherwise,
I will stand with the 15% of people in a recent National Poll
who believe Bonds' story that he did it once and without knowledge.
As baseball columnist Tom Boswell put it, "Granted, the
presumption of Bonds's innocence now hangs by a thread. But Bonds
is such an odd, extreme, gifted and alienated character that
he might do almost anything. Or not do anything. Just out of
perversity." That is the most charitable commentary on Bonds
I could find. More typically, pundits are brandishing torches
and pitchforks, as if he was handing out condoms at Bob Jones
University. Former pitcher Jack McDowell, in an unintentionally
hilarious assertion suggests he would have made the Hall of Fame
if not for juiced players...[yeah me too.] McDowell believes
that Bonds, Giambi, and anyone caught with an illegal substance
should be banned for life, their names erased from the record
books. He then derides anyone who thinks this is a "witch
hunt". No, an actual "witch hunt" usually involves
a trifle less sanctimony.
I'm Sticking
With the Union
Yet the brunt of the attacks,
as Selig has signaled, will be aimed directly at the players
union. The union has been attacked, slandered, and even brought
in front of Sen. John McCain's Commerce Committee for not walking
lock step with the Major League owners' draconian testing proposal.
The union believes quite correctly, that unless testing is done
impartially, in other words not operated exclusively by Major
League Baseball, the owners will use this power to request blood
and urine samples on a whim to find ways to harass players and
void burdensome contracts. If this sounds far fetched, it's exactly
what the Yankees are doing right now to Giambi in an attempt
to save $80 million. The stakes are high and the union is rightly
not signing off on anything that moves just because Selig and
McCain are pressuring them to do so. [As an aside, there is Ruthian
hypocrisy in McCain's concern about the health of players when
he cheerleads the use of chemical and biological agents, including
depleted uranium in Iraq. Let him grandstand for "healthy
living" in the barely funded cancer wards of Baghdad.]
It's certainly true that steroids
don't belong in baseball. They can destroy your body and even
kill you. But as long as baseball pays the big money to the big
bashers and glorifies the long ball, drugs will be ingested and
as long as players are pressured by agents and management to
keep up with the guy in the locker next door, there will be more
Giambis to come. That's not the union's problem, or even the
player's problem. That's on owners who see players as pieces
of equipment, easily disposed and easily replaced.
Dave Zirin has a book coming out, What's My
Name, Fool: sports and resistance in the United States (Haymarket
Books) comes out in spring 2005. To have his column sent to you
every week, just e-mail edgeofsports-subscribe@zirin.com.
Contact the author at editor@pgpost.com
Weekend Edition
Features for November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
|