It is HILARIOUS that he chose Luis Gonzalez as a re-MVP considering that (no joke) Gonzalez WAS THE FIRST PERSON WHO REALLY TIPPED ME OFF TO STEROIDS.  He looked like a caricature of himself in 2001.

This dude was an average outfielder at best and then suddenly in 2001 he was a power machine?  In 1999 and 2000, he OPS’d over .900 for the first two times in his career at ages 32 and 33.  Then at 34, he OPS’d 1.117 and hit 26 more homeruns than he had previously. 

And this, to Reilly, says, “Totally clean!”

REALLY!?!?

I wrote a LONG email (hoping to tie up the hack’s email address) with what Cameron Martin said. 

What happens, when morons like Reilly, find out Piazza or Gonzalez did steroids?  Are we going to start shouting to give the 7th place finisher the MVP?  How does he know that Piazza or Gonzalez didn’t do steroids?  Is he gonna rail against them when he finds out that they did??

An article like that makes me SO freaking mad.  And I hate the explanation, “that’s his job - to get a response.”  No.  Rick Reilly is irresponsible, knows nothing, and I can’t believe he writes for the World Wide Leader of Muck when I’m stuck here in Con Law II, listening to Scalia’s opinion declaring statutes banning racially based “fighting words” unconstitutional . . .

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but has Sammy Sosa ever been connected to steroids? Sure, he corked his bat, but I don’t recall ever seeing him accused of juicing.

Also, as others have said before, the idea that Luis Gonzalez was clean is laughable. If I had to pick one player whom I think did steroids even though there is no concrete evidence of his usage, it would be Gonzo.

Well, Sosa did forget how to speak English in front of Congress that one time when he was asked about it. I also think Reilly himself, in his SI days, also asked him to pee in a cup, and he refused. I’m sure if that man asked me to pee in a cup, I’d say no as well, but Reilly took it as an admission of guilt.

I say lets do one better, lets go all the way back through history, figure out who WOULD have taken steroids, if they had the opportunity, and take away their awards too. That would be a fun game. Teddy Ballgame, always looking for an edge. Babe Ruth, didn’t care a lick about his body. Ty Cobb, he probably was anyway, he was so despicable. They are posthumously banished from our memories.

If RR can be irresponsible, why can’t we???

LUIS GONZALEZ TOOK STEROIDS!!!  I KNOW HE DID!!! 57 HOMERUNS MY A**!! 

Pass it along

Of course Reilly has evidence that Sosa was juicing.  Sosa refused to show Reilly his peni—err, submit to a Reilly-administered (!) steroids test about five years or so ago.  That’s proof!  If Rick Reilly invades your personal space and out of the blue demands that you do something incredibly personally invasive for the benefit of his career, you sure as heck better do it—that is, if you don’t want to be convicted in the court of Judge Reilly and spend the rest of your career paying for it.

Seriously, though, I refuse to even read his articles on TWWL.  I don’t want to bump his traffic numbers, and I’m more than convinced that I’m not missing anything at this point.

But do you remember when he was a really, really good writer?  Ah, memories….

Isn’t there all kinds of insinuations about Piazza’s steroid use? I mean, 62nd (I think) round draft pick, only as a favor to Lasorda, goes on to become the top offensive catcher of recent memory? Lasts late into his career, avoids typical aging-catcher injuries, and continues to mash 500 foot homeruns? How can he be awarded Caminiti’s MVP when they were likely on the same sauce?

Eff Rick Reilly.

When I read this garbage, I was horrified that someone in the mainstream media could legitimately write such bunk.  Then I thought maybe I was missing the point.  Maybe Reilly was making a joke that we can’t believe anyone is clean, that he is making a mockery of the people calling to erase records and return awards.  But no, its just irresponsible pseudo-journalism.

I’m suspicious that many writers actually know a bunch of the players that were using, but since they didn’t report it at the time and don’t have proof, they have to be quiet about that now.  If PEDs were really that prevalent, and beat writers are in the clubhouse EVERY day for 6-8 months, it seems preposterous that they didn’t observe anything.  As a result of keeping those stories quiet they have compensated with their over the top outrage to people like Rodriguez, Bonds, and Clemens.

If PEDs were really that prevalent, and beat writers are in the clubhouse EVERY day for 6-8 months, it seems preposterous that they didn’t observe anything.

These guys are in the clubhouse every day (a key distinction that separates them from the lowly bloggers), yet every single one of them missed the biggest story of the last 15 years. There seem to be three possibilities:

a. They’re not doing their jobs.
b. They’re too chummy to give us the dirt.
c. Clubhouse reporting is a lot less valuable than they say it is.

I vote for (c). I’m sure that (a) and (b) apply to a large segment, but surely someone would’ve broken this.

Pete:  I think you should have added - d) too fearful of writing what they observe because keeping the job was more important than investigating a story.

Granted it must have been difficult for some not to dig deeper and try to undercover a story but I suspect that for most the idea of ruffling the feathers by being the first to push the issue was too great.  Generally the first folks to blow the whistle get to deal with all the negative fallout, which in this case would more than likely have ended their careers as a baseball beat writer and I doubt many wanted to lose that gig.

Not sure I want to call them coward but realists who struggled with the fear that doing what may have been the right things was too costly to bear.  Of course many of them can now be called hypocrites as they are ripping players for not coming forward and reaping the negative consequence for exposing the inner working of the clubhouse.  The MLBPA does not forgive those who break ranks - just ask Kevin Millar and a few others who to this day are still tarnished as being strike breakers and will not be covered by PA.