Baseball - The Mitchell Report

With baseball being a sport where the stats of one era are used to compare
the efforts of players to another era, (part of the "integrity" so often
spoken of) we, the fans, have often wished to discount the influence of the
business side of it all. We know it's there and somehow the 8 year old in
each of us wants to believe that a "Bad News Bears" team can win it all,
even at the adult level (aka '77 Yanks).

Even then The Boss kept rehiring Billy Martin, because he put fannys in the seats.

And that's what it's all about - filling seats - not the purty of the game
and it's records. They use the latter at the begining of each spring
training to sell the former to the 8 year old in each of us.

The house that Ruth built was via the HR. People loved that and because of
it, him. He drank, caroused, etc - it was all tolerated for the most part -
because he could hit it out.

When Ruth died, tens of thousands lined up to pass his casket.
(Question - Who among today's stars would they do that for?)

No, the 8 year old in us is outraged, saddened and wanting those who have
violated our sense of right and wrong to be punished.

Because of the drip, drip, drip nature of these revealations over the past
few years, the adult in us has been conditioned to view these latest
disappointments on the same level as we would the latest recall of Chinese
made products.