Sorry, But It's Baseball Season Again.....

Ah, baseball....

The sounds, the smells, the green grass under the clear blue skies. The boys of summer are back, so sit back with a cold one and a dog and enjoy the greatest game there is.

And start talking about cheating all over again.

It is shocking - SHOCKING! - that baseball players would cheat, right? But apparently, they do. What I have been struggling with is what makes A.J. Piernyskslksdfykjsdfski (yes, he is not worthy of correct spelling - or perhaps I am too lazy. You choose.), the veteran catcher for the Chicago White Sox, NOT worthy of lots of public scorn and from-the-author's-high-horse pieces about the fabric of the game being torn apart.

The Squid Bandit is no friend of Barry Bonds. It needs to be said (by me anyways), however, that there is more direct evidence that cheating helped increase A.J. Pierzynski's on base percentage than cheating increased Barry Bonds' on base percentage. Can my readers help me with reconciling the disparate treatment of the two players?

By all accounts both guys are grade A jerks. Both cheated. For one we can measure exactly how it helped, yet the other is more vilified. I can even make a reasonable argument that lying about being hit is the greater evil over taking steroids. So again, why less outcry over one and not the other?

Baseball is great. The sights, the sounds, the smells. The cheating, the hypocrisy, the media ridiculosity (yes, I just made up that word). The American Pastime.