Catching The Minnows And Letting The Whales Swim Free

And is there a double standard in the way Bonds was treated versus the how Roger Clemens is heralded as a nose-to-the-grindstone workhorse?

The Mitchell Report certainly contains a great deal of sexy sizzle. First and foremost, it names names: including MVPs Mo Vaughn, Miguel Tejada and Barry Bonds as well as former all stars like Eric Gagne and Lenny Dykstra. It also names a man being called the Moby Dick to Mitchell’s Ahab: seven time Cy Young award winner Roger Clemens…As Yahoo Sports Dan Wetzel wrote, “Year after year he peddled the same garbage, Roger Clemens was so dominant for so long because he simply outworked everyone. It played to the nation’s Puritan roots, made Clemens out to be this everyman maximizing his skills through singular focus, dedication and a commitment to drinking carrot juice, or something. It’s all gone now, the legend of Rocket Roger dead on arrival of the Mitchell Report…The Mitchell Report confirms not only suspicions about Clemens, but also the existence of an outrageous media bias and double standard. While seven time MVP Barry Bonds was raked over the conjecture-coals for years, Clemens got a pass. Two players, both dominant into their 40s, one black and one white, with two entirely different ways of being treated. It doesn’t take Al Sharpton to do the cultural calculus.

It’s the same narrative we have politically in America today. The buck stops at the bottom not the top. Dave Zirin continues his excellent analysis:

The idea that owners and GMs facilitated these measures while leaving the very conditioning of players to themselves simply strains belief: this is George HW Bush saying he was “out of the loop” on Iran-Contra. This is Dubya saying, “I never read” the National Intelligence Estimate before claiming World War III is on the horizon. In other words, this is the way people in power stay in power during times of crisis: take some heat, blame the underlings, cry some tears, and call it a day.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.