Jayson Stark And Mike Schmidt Should Just Shut Up

Can anybody tell me why Jayson Stark even published this article? It's a somewhat serious inquiry because he basically gets punked by his own experts. You'll see what I mean later. :o

It's so wrong to celebrate Manny's return

Widespread love for Ramirez upon his being back in Dodgers' lineup a puzzling thing

Of course, some blowhard at ESPN just had to write a "oh, the humanity" piece about Manny.

If this were a logical world, we'd be greeting him like the team-wrecking, alibi-distorting, female-fertility-drug-popping scoundrel he is. But friends, this planet clearly has lost its grip on logic.

So instead, the reaction to Manny, from Albuquerque to Ensenada, has been -- what else? -- downright hero worship. You'd think the guy had spent the past 57 days curing cancer, dousing tensions in Iran and smoothing out plot glitches for the final season of "Lost."

Wow, dude.

First, you load your words to make Manny's actions seem way more serious than they actually are, while dually challenging the moral fiber of this entire planet for not greeting him with universal disdain. Then, you follow that up by making some ridiculous point about how he is being worshiped like a hero that cured cancer. Really? Is this the kind of shit they taught you at your School Of Journalism, Jayson? Is this your world of so-called "logic"? If so, count me out of it.

Yeah, some people are happy to see him back, but "hero worship"? Really? In what world is this occurring? In reality, Dodger fans are generally happy about his return, although some are decidedly less thrilled, and the rest of the general public seems to be either angered or apathetic about the whole issue. Exactly what part of that constitutes this "hero worship" that you refer to? Talk about being out of touch.

Why is America so ready to forgive this guy of all guys? Because he has fun hair? Because he has a lovable smile? Because he has a long, not necessarily proud, history as baseball's foremost goofball?

Because hardly anybody really cares anymore, you self-righteous, self-important, absolute douchebag of a journalist.

Yeah, maybe steroid revelations were shocking to people years ago when the general public had their collective minds blown when they discovered that athletes with millions of dollars on the line would do anything to improve themselves. However, nowadays, the general feeling about steroids seems to be more apathy than hatred.

This is what people mean when they say there is a disconnect between the media and fans. You claim all this stuff that really isn't true, and then you cite the wrong reasons for all of it. This "acceptance" of Manny has less to do with his personality, and more to do with the current lack of care towards performance enhancing drugs in athletics.

Why would that be enough to outweigh his disgraceful exit from Boston, his indisputable guilt in this case and the dubious alibi his spin doctors typed up to explain his way out of this mess?

It's not, and I don't think you'd find anybody left who really thinks that way. However, I do find it pathetic that, in order to write your shitty article, you had to take the leap from "fans cheering for Manny" to "fans justifying everything bad Manny has ever done".

Remember, this is a guy calling out the fans for flaws in logic. Hilarious.

"That kind of mentality -- 'OK, everyone has done it, so let's just give into it because nothing can be done' -- is getting more and more prevalent," [Columbia School of Journalism professor Sandy] Padwe said.

Exactly, it's just apathy towards the entire situation.

I think it's interesting that Stark included these quotes, because it basically negates his entire "oh my god, the fans only forgive him because of his personality" angle. The same angle that he just spent 16 paragraphs on.

So why don't fans care anymore? Take it away, Mr. Lipsyte:

"I don't think fans are trapped in the righteous indignation of all the sports writers who blew the steroids story as it grew on their watch," [cerebral journalist/author Robert] Lipsyte, a longtime New York Times columnist who also has done work at ESPN, wrote in an e-mail. "Fans understand that ballplayers have the same goals as they do: win. How mad can you get at someone who endangers their health to entertain you (like Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson)? These aren't the crooked financiers or irresponsible politicians who do deserve our anger."

Hahaha. Wow.

Fans not trapped in the same righteous indignation as the sportswriters? Say it ain't so, Bob!

Again, why did Stark include these quotes? Did he realize halfway through his article what an idiot he was being and just say "fuck it, I give up"? Dunno, you tell me.

But that doesn't explain why this man is getting such a heroic welcome back. Does Manny really fit the mold of previous baseball players whose PED stains have been forgiven? Not that we can see.

But Padwe thinks American sports fans have reached the point now that, as "half-hearted" as Manny's admission might have been, "It comes off as, 'OK, I did take something.'" And that at least puts him in a different category from Clemens, McGwire, Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro.

"Those guys never did come clean," Padwe said. "And had they come clean, they would have been forgiven. I really believe that."

Again, it's like Stark is setting himself up and then knocking himself down with quotes that he choose. Dude must be a masochist or something.

But there is another way Manny separates himself from virtually all the other world-famous members of the PED crowd:

He served his time.

He's the first star player in the history of this drug agreement to get caught and take his 50 games' worth of penance when he was still a prime-time, middle-of-the-order All-Star. So maybe, for many people, just doing that time is enough.

Probably, because people don't really care in the first place. You know, like you proved by...uh...quoting Sandy Padwe and Robert Lipsyte earlier in this article.

Don't think that stops Mr. Stark from making more dumb points though.

And if that's [serving his time] really all it takes now, it's a sign that we've crossed a line into a whole different dimension, in terms of how the public is going to view "steroid guys."

Maybe, now that this sport has penalties this stiff, people are going to treat baseball players who serve their sentence the way they treat NFL players like Rodney Harrison and Shawne Merriman, who came back after their suspensions with no apparent damage to their reps.

"I think we are in a different realm," Padwe said. "I think this is probably what's going to happen, that people who are going to get suspended, or have been suspended, are going to be viewed as having served their time, and now they'll get a second chance, which is also supposedly part of the American way of life. So they serve their time and then it's over and done with -- until it happens again."

So maybe this is just an indication that baseball has finally pulled even with the other sports on this issue. You serve your suspension. You throw together some kind of half-baked statement, sort of owning up to what you did. Then you resume your regularly scheduled life. And we guess that's good.

Well, i'd rather have them come forward and be completely open with the public, but being on par with the rest of the sports in regards to performance enhancing drugs sounds just fine to me.

But Schmidt, for one, is appalled by the idea that that's what we've come to.

"Accountability, morality, substance, trust, honesty and so on, are all on a steady decline in our country," Schmidt said. "And Manny's world, like some other 'worlds' we know, is perpetuating it. At this rate, 20 years from now, pro sports are going to be just like pro wrestling -- marketing to the masses who just want to be entertained."

Okay, just a small warning here before I proceed, because some of you might not want to read some dumb rant about old fucks like Mike Schmidt who whine about "the olden days".

***Start Rant***

Really, Mike? Morals and values are in a steady decline in America because of things like an apathetic reaction to Manny? Wow. If only society could be like when you were growing up, right? Things were so much better back then, weren't they? Uh...no.

Morality? Respect? Accountability? Is he serious? Schmidt grew up during a period in American history where morals and accountability were looser than any other time in this country's existence. Everybody was fucking everybody. Drug experimentation was everywhere. People were spitting at their own soldiers. Yet, Schmidt somehow expects us to just forget about all those past moral transgressions of his generation? He expects us to instead concentrate on how supposedly terrible things are now because of this generation's reactions to steroid use in sports? Give me a fucking break.

So no, in short, I don't like Schmidt's insinuation that it's my generation that is causing the apparent "steady decline" in morality. Sorry Mike, but it's not my generation that is screwing hookers while leading an anti-prostitution charge. My generation didn't abandon public official duties and his family to screw some woman in Argentina either. Nor did my generation blatantly cheat on his cancer stricken wife.

So please, don't file the general public's non-reaction to Manny's return as evidence of a supposed steady moral decline in American society. Spare me with that bullshit.

***End Rant***

But we do share Schmidt's view that there's something appalling going on here. Does Ramirez deserve a second chance? Absolutely. But does he deserve to be celebrated by anyone who isn't a tunnel-visioned Dodgers fan? Absolutely not.

The main problem with Stark's entire article is that his whole point was effectively disarmed by quotes he voluntarily included in his piece.

One expert he talked to essentially told him that people are not so much celebrating Manny as they just don't care anymore. Another mentioned how out of touch sportswriters are with their fans. Yet, in his conclusion, Stark restates his original assertion anyway. It's an act of defiance in the face of all evidence that's so delusional it's almost admirable.

So while Stark's article started out as a piece about the "illogical" state of the current sports fan, it ironically provided deep insight into what has truly been wrong with this whole steroid era: the people who covered it.