Baseball Has Been Berry Berry Good To Me: PSU Track and Field Alumni Golf Visits The Hall of Fame

Utter ramblings about the sport I love, and am quite worried about.

Baseball has been my favorite pro sport for my entire life.  That's even when basketball was my chosen participant sport  (because I wasn't good enough at baseball despite leading my team at batting average my final year as a Little Leaguer!).  When I stopped growing in the eighth grade, my basketball game deteriorated to the point that I had to find a new sport.  Hence running!  Because it was the only not-quite-a-team-sport I could participate in without being disastrously nervous.  I was even punished in my Senior year as the number 1 runner because I ignored the coach's order to run with the pack, instead setting our home course record...  Had to run JV the next week.  Still won the race despite starting the race 1 minute behind the others with an inside-out shirt.  Reset the course record as a JV non-counting runner.  The Coach later apologized when I got 5th at States even while injured.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, Baseball.

A beautiful PSU Track Alumni Bracelet photo at the Hall of Fame!

Larry Mangan and son  at the Hall of Fame

This brings me to my dismay at the current state of affairs of the Gentle Sport I have always loved.  In my extensive curious browsing of PED testing in MLB, I have come to the conclusion that 4/5 players are probably gaming the system.  You may disagree.  You will probably defend those players you have followed and admired the most.  I used to be the same way, but have gradually educated myself to the reality we are dealing with.  Hundreds of millions of dollars in reward will make even choir-boys turn to the Dark Side.  Random testing and HGH testing weren't even on the table until now (2013).  Micro-dosing of PEDs is so intricate now that only those with IQs of 50 or so, or those duped by others are the only ones ever generating positives up until now (see Jose Conseco and his half-sized identical twin brother Ozzie Conseco!).

Ozzie once tried to impersonate Jose.  Not even sight-impaired spectators believed it.

No matter what testing achieves going forward, the rewards for thwarting those efforts will be much greater.  It won't be long until someone becomes the first $1 Billion player (remember when Mickey Mantle   won the Triple Crown in 1956 and asked for a $5000 raise and was denied! He had a Winter job to make ends meet, and made cigarette ads to line his pocket-book!)

So a visit to the Hall of Fame will expose you to many of the Clean Heroes of the sport (and a few dirty ones as Larry points out).  My hero was always Steve Carlton mostly because of his performance AND his disdain of the Press.  Say what you will about the revelations of his eccentricities, he was right about the Press.  His disdain was mostly due to his revulsion at Bill Conlin for writing inaccurate and defamatory items about him.  Carlton's hatred for Conlin later became more real when it was revealed that Bill Conlin was a life-long serial child molester.  A rather astute judge of character can be added to my reasons to love Steve Carlton.

Larry sends us this photo of his hero, Roberto Clemente.  Take the time to compare Roberto with today's "best" player Alex Rodriquez, both on and off the field...

A real hero. Thanks to Larry Mangan for the HOF photo..