Howard Bryant is Prolifically Stupid

Dude, give it a rest already.

If you happen to be Sammy Sosa or Alex Rodriguez, or even Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds or Rafael Palmeiro, at this point, invincibility has been your best friend. You won. You got away with it. The large majority of your peers, your bosses and the people who pay to watch you play the game agree that using anabolic substances is cheating. On March 17, 2005, Sosa and Palmeiro testified to the House Government Reform Committee that using steroids was cheating.

Yet, you've all been caught and faced no sanction.

Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. More wrong than a dog fucking a donkey sucking on your mother's toes (and that shit is real wrong).

The jury is still out on Sosa and Rodriguez. At the very least, their images have been permanently altered; for Sosa, his 2005 Congressional testimony is already being reexamined, seemingly with the likelihood that perjury charges could be brought. Those two have been outed too recently though to really analyze the situation.

Unless of course you're Howard Bryant and you only need 4 days to write 2 articles analyzing what everyone and their mother already new about Sosa. Then you can draw as many conclusions as you like.

As for the others, we're past the point where we can say they got away scott-free. Roger Clemens is still under investigation by the FBI and a Grand Jury was convened to consider indicting him with perjury charges. That sounds exactly like the retirement I always envisioned for myself.

Barry Bonds, the all-time home run leader in MLB history, could not find a team to play for while he was still willing. Oh, and he's also under federal indictment for perjury. Man, I wish I got to relax like millionaire ex-baseball players do...

So far Rafael Palmeiro has the best case for being "untouchable." Except for the fact that he'll almost assuredly be the first player with 3,000+ hits and 500+ home runs not to be inducted on his first ballot. Oh, and he used Viagra.

Perhaps the Hall of Fame voters will punish you when it is time for induction, but from the institutions that matter -- Major League Baseball and the National Baseball Hall of Fame -- silence has governed.

Comprehending the second-greatest organizational failure in the history of the game has been left as an individual choice.

The second greatest organizational failure, eh? Then what was the first?

There is nothing clean about the steroids disaster. The commissioner is...

Nope, that's still the steroid scandal. Skip ahead, skip ahead...

The two greatest organizational failures in baseball history have closely mirrored the larger society.

Right. You mentioned that already. What's the other one?

The first -- the 60-plus years of segregated baseball -- reflected the unfortunate attitudes of the times.

Phew! That one took a while!

And are you sure about that, Sparky? First, isn't that more of an organizational failure for America than it is for baseball? It's not like everyone was walking around holding hands and we weren't telling people where they could stand, sit, eat, or shit and we weren't burning crosses on people's lawns and we weren't chastising mixed marriages and baseball was the only one saying you can't play with us. All of those things were happening all of the time, in and out of baseball.

And! Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to a minor league deal in 1945 and brought him up to the majors in 1947 a full 7 years before Brown v. BOE of Topeka. So how exactly is that a failure on baseball's part? Wasn't baseball more trailblazing than they were failing?

The second -- the cynical, industrywide [sic] choice of money over integrity -- not only has poisoned baseball in the form of a runaway PED scandal but also has damaged institutions such as Wall Street and the banking industry.

You heard it here first (well, really, second because Howard Bryant keeps bringing up the same, tired, woefully inaccurate point, but I think you get my meaning) - - Major League Baseball is the reason why you had to foreclose on your house!

Did baseball choose money over integrity? Youbetcha. Was it the first time in history? Sub-question: are you out of your fucking mind?! I can count on one hand the number of times someone chose integrity over money.

And Jose Canseco offering steroids to every man, woman, and child in the 90s did not cause Wall Street to become greedier or GM to keep shitty books.

Now some tired stuff about how baseball says they want to move on, the cheaters are still getting away with it - - essentially everything he said in his article from two days prior - - so we'll just skip all of that.

Does management really want to rid the game of performance enhancers? If it does, here is what baseball should do:

Oh this should be good. This article is only 5 years removed from when every sports rag had to peddle a similar article out there. OK, Howie - - lay your innovation on me.

1. Selig must place any player found to have used anabolic substances on baseball's ineligible list for at least a portion of his Hall of Fame eligibility. Keeping players out of the Hall of Fame is the only language players understand. Because of the money, they are untouchable.

So is it money that players respond to or is it the HoF? This whole time the greed of the MLB has caused all of America's problems, but now the revolving doors of the Hall of Fame (which are remarkably non-revolving) are the roost cause of inflation.

The commissioner needs to create a sliding punitive scale: 10 years on the ineligible list after the last active game for the 104 players whose names were on the 2003 survey testing list or in the Mitchell report or who violated the league policy from 2004 to 2009; lifetime ban for anyone caught using steroids starting in the 2010 season.

I really want to see who was on that 2003 survey list. But, it would be a really shitty thing to keep those players from the Hall of Fame. Why? Because they said they wouldn't get in trouble! Interesting strategy here, Cotton: let's have the MLB lie to improve it's moral standing.

Bryant adds something about character and integrity and writing on HoF plaques, which aren't altogether terrible insights, but I'm really sick of reading his article.

Let's part with this:

Such steps are not perfect, but they represent a start beyond the talk, a stronger deterrent for players. And in some way, they address the areas important to the public: the Hall of Fame and the idea that players not only escaped punishment but were rewarded for doing so.

Howard Bryant is really pimping this retribution thing hard! Are you starting to hear the jealousy in his voice like I am? One thing's for sure: if steroids could make you a better writer, Howard Bryant would be all hopped up on that shit. And I would have to say they certainly couldn't hurt at this point.