"He Took It In The Butt"

That was the headline in the Trentonian newspaper last week when Roger Clemens had his pristine name dragged into the steroids circus surrounding Major League Baseball. I just thought that was funny. I had one small thing to add to this, then I'll crawl back in my hole. I just watched Mike & Mike In The Morning, a sports talk show that also airs on TV, and they had callers commenting on whether they believe Clemens, who vehemently denies using steroids or HGH, or think he's lying like so many other ballplayers have when confronted with evidence. The very first guy who called said he was giving Clemens the benefit of the doubt, and so did the last guy who called, and I think the segment that I watched only had three callers. Mike and Mike wondered why they didn't hear this kind of benefit when Barry Bonds denied his intentional steroid use under oath before a grand jury a few years ago ("I thought it was flaxseed oil"). I have an answer--he did receive the benefit of the doubt, from a large number of black people. I remember all the polls that came out back then charting the racial divide among people who believe that Bonds was innocent. It was like 50 or 60% of all blacks polled, as opposed to something in the teens for whites. But hardly any of those blacks were taken seriously. Those polls were trotted out by sports talk people as some sign of the apocalypse, or worse, a sign of the bad role models those poor black people were choosing. But they didn't actually speak to those black people to find out why they felt that way. And here's Mike & Mike wondering why Clemens is being trusted and believed while Bonds wasn't. Um, I don't recall them taking calls from Bonds supporters, and neither did any other sports talk show I listened to. They didn't want to. He was a dirty black guy breaking the all-time home run record, and he didn't deserve supporters. But here's a bunch of white darlings loved by the media, like Clemens and Andy Pettitte and some little scrappy guys who would have never put up the numbers they did if not for juicing, and the media in general seem to be falling over themselves trying to cushion the blow and accept their word as bond. Makes me shake my head. And for the record, yeah, I believe they're all guilty, Bonds and Clemens and all the other idiots writing personal checks to clubhouse guys and putting "STEROIDS" in the memo line. I don't think they're conjuring up evidence to get back at any of them. I just think that some athletes are so addicted to winning at all costs and so used to getting anything they want any time they want that they believe that if they keep saying they're innocent, the whole thing will eventually go away. And for that, I think they're all floating turds, black, white, Latino, or green alien.