‘fess up, Roger Clemens. Understand, I am a fan of the New York Mets (and the SF Giants). When Roger Clemens was a high school boy the Mets courted him big time. He spurned our love (money) (cost us a top draft pick too) and went to college (University of Texas, I think). Now, Clemens’ family didn’t have anything, so where did he get the gall to turn down the Mets fat cheese? I bet someone who didn’t want him to play for our team gave him some blubber under the table. Clemens ended up signing with the Boston Red Sox (after he graduated from college). He got a serious injury early in his career, nearly didn’t amount to anything in the major leagues. He got surgically repaired, and as they say, the rest is history. I hate Roger Clemens for spitting on the Mets. I hope he rots in jail. Heh!
Check out this present case. It’s like I told ya (yap), it is a racehorse business. A club owner outlays millions of dollars for a top player and for some reason the guy doesn’t perform up to scratch. Gotta dope that animal, Braa! In the Henry “Hank the Hammer” Aaron era, a $100,000 a year player was a giant star. Now, the big baseball stars make 15, 20 million dollars a year. Hank is Mr. Purity, but if someone had told him that they could remake him with a few injections (so he could play in the big bucks era), well, temptation would flow.
Those who are defending Roger, who say he is believable, are covering the essential fact…why he absolutely has to say he didn’t do steroids. Andy Pettite doesn’t have a chance of going down as the greatest pitcher in history. History will say that Pettite did what everyone else involved with baseball at the time was doing. Roger Clemens has a chance to go down in history as the greatest, so he has everything to gain by going the whole yard. And the owners of baseball are riding with him 100% of the way.
Anyway, he’s my enemy for not signing with the Mets. Now he is going to pay. Good. P.S. – sports fans are allowed to hate.
The tragedy of an uninformed opinion. On Wednesday, February 6, I told a very intelligent, highly educated friend of mine that his opinion that there was “nothing wrong about our football team playing a home game in Guatemala”…did not make sense. He said that I had no right to say that to him, that he was entitled to his opinion. I apologized. I think that my friend formed his opinion without having all the facts, and so I will attempt here, in a nutshell (without all the FFB stink), to get him acquainted. Hopefully, he will see the light.
There was a quarrel between two private bodies, the semi-pro football league and the FFB. The National Sports Council (NSC) (a public body) intervened to resolve the dispute between the two important members of the football family. The FFB, fat with FIFA money, sneered at the NSC. The government (a public body), through the Ministry of Sports, stepped in to resolve the matter. The FFB, fat with FIFA money, sneered at the government.
The government had the ace in the hole all the while…discipline the renegade (now illegal) FFB, and take a ban from FIFA. Many in the football family advised the government to deal with the FFB, because that organization was stifling the growth of football. The government played “softball” with the FFB, treated them, despite everything that showed the contrary, like honorable gentlemen.
It was embarrassment enough, for whatever reason, that Belize did not have a football field prepared for the World Cup game. There were many options, all embarrassing for Belize. Playing the “home game” in Guatemala was the unthinkable. It was an act born in malice…ingratitude…the action of snakes. It is unpardonable!
In the coming weeks we will have to hear the stories of Jim Brown, John Carlos, Tommy Green, Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali, men who used sports to better the lot of their brothers and sisters. Maybe we need to hear the stories of a hundred honorable heroes who have made sports noble. For sure there is no nobility at the FFB. Tragic.
Belize did not invent ball. You have seen people pushing a lawn mower…with cha-cha-cha on their feet. You have seen people remove the safety guard off equipment. You have seen people use pesticides and drugs without reading the label. They did not “invent” these things, but they will show the “inventors” how to use them.
The same way the lawn mower comes with a list of instructions for safe and efficient handling, the ball comes with a culture, a code of conduct to make it prosper. There are a few people at the top of the pyramid in Belize football who have barely a clue to the culture of sports. They know about chasing ball, and nada about the world culture of ball.
At the end of the day, what is a ball? Is it food, clothing, or shelter? What makes us love a ball? Ball is a world we have created. It is a special world where players (virtual soldiers) test their skills and endurance in an arena where the rules apply. It’s kind of paradoxical. In most everything else among the heathen “all is fair,” but in the most hedonistic “civilized” endeavor, sports, athletes and administrators are expected, demanded to be noble. True, boxing tolerates a lot of rowdiness (it’s natural), and the “fix” is in on horseracing. But, we consider those activities more entertainment than “sports.” Football, and softball, and baseball, and basketball, and cricket are true sports. Athletes who participate in these sports are expected to respect the code.
There is a code of conduct for teams representing nations, too. Saving ink, no, absolutely no national team in the history of the world, has ever played a “home game” on hostile soil. And we chose to!
Fortunately, this nation, as evidenced by the massive outcry, does not support this shameless behavior.
P.S. There is a ridiculous argument about that FIFA is corrupt, so we should not be surprised by the cold-blooded treachery of the illegal FFB. What an absurdity! Dehn fu pay!