A Quick Note About Peter Gammons

As I was driving to work this morning I heard ESPN baseball reporter Peter Gammons ripping everyone involved in the Congressional Steroid Hearings (which, by the way, are stupid for numerous reasons, but we'll discuss this later). Gammons was hard on McGwire, relatively soft on other players (He said something along the lines of "most players I've talked to just want to get a policy in place and move on. They don't want to be dragged down into this." I'm paraphrasing of course, so the quoted language may not be entirely accurate.), but especially tough on Commissioner Alan H. "Bud" Selig and Union Kingpin Donald Fehr. Gammons was critical of their feigned ignorance, stating that they must have known about the steroid problems for years. He also stated that if Fehr "really was ignorant of the problem, that he should go talk to a player." He does, after all, represent them.

While Selig and Fehr deserve a lot of criticism, I would like to address Peter Gammons for a second:

Peter, if this was such a wide spread problem, and if talking to the players was all it took to understand the severity of the problem, where the hell were you ten years ago? You are, after all, a reporter, no? It is your job to investigate and discover newsworthy bits of information about baseball. Moreover, you have a reputation as an insider. So, Peter, did you know about the extent of the problem? You seem to be well connected in the sport. Do you know of any specific players who have been using steroids over the last ten years? If so, why haven't you reported it? If not, as the problem is so widespread, why didn't you know about it? Either way, aren't you incompetent? Perhaps baseball has allowed this to go on for too long, but didn't you let them get away with it?

Before you go around throwing stones at the Commish, the Kingpin, Canseco, McGwire, and everyone else, you may want to install some vinyl siding on your glass house. And if I was an attention-seeking member of Congress, and I heard Gammons say what he said on the radio this morning, he would have a subpoena in front of him the next day, because I have reason to believe that Peter Gammons has inside information about the participants of a rather large illegal drug ring. Hypocrite.

I just had to get that out of my system.