 |
 |
| Andy Pettitte | Sean Marshall |
| 5 - 7, 5.81 | 3 - 4, 4.43 |
OK, so Chris Sampson beat Sean Marshall last time we faced the Cubs rookie, and Andy Pettitte pitched pretty well last time out against Atlanta.
And we gotta win two of three in the Windy City. OK.
But if you'll pardon me, the words this evening seem to be flowing in the direction of the scandal of the moment.
Forgive me.
So you have two players, both cheaters who have used performance enhancing drugs, both with a bunch of incriminating evidence against them.
The first player, not to make him sound altruistic or anything, admits his sins, and in a mistaken belief that it will help his cause, names other cheaters, and aids a federal investigation.
The other--although he, too, admits having used PED's, but says it was "unknowingly"--admits nothing else, and proceeds apace with his long established pattern of denial and mouthpiece subterfuge.
Neither player has tested positive for banned substances, but one player has at least seen enough of the writing on the wall to quit the game in disgrace.
Guess which player MLB wants to go after, hard?
You know, I've always supported our beloved commissioner more than most. I knew that it was much too simplistic to blame one person for the '94 strike. I knew that the Wild Card would be good for the game, and good for the Astros. And I knew that blaming the Commisioner for a tied All Star Game misses the facts that 1) the grievous harm supposedly done to our pasttime was, on further inspection, non-existent, and 2) that if blame for running out of players just HAD to be placed, usually we look to the manager.
So I ain't Bud's biggest fan, but I'd say he does alright, given the leverage he necessarily yields to the owners, to the players union, to Fox, shit, to everyone but Topps Baseball Card Company.
But he looks like a freaking idiot here, a hypocrite. Earth to Commissioner Selig: if you can suspend a no-account reliever like Grimsley for 50 games in the absence of a positive test, you can do the same to Barry Freaking Bonds.
The least you could do is keep your freaking story straight, Bud.
My esteeemed opposition on this matter tries to convince us that this is a Witch Hunt with sole target Barry Bonds, but it actually looks to me sometimes like they're gonna bend over backwards to keep from confronting him.
It seems that the vengeance MLB takes, at least early on, is going to be reserved for those without the union clout and the heavy stats.
Oh, and go Astros.