Something has been really bothering me lately, even more so than usual.
The amount of control any one person can wield over another using the power of the Internet. We’ve slowly devolved into a society where we believe what we read without any conscious thought. There’s no double-check, there’s no logic or reasoning, there’s ‘I read this online, so it must be true.’
I started thinking about this during the recent MLB Hall of Fame voting. Now, I’m going to start with the fact that at some point in the last 30 years, the Hall of Fame became a sort of Morality Shrine…if the Morality Shrine had an entrance guarded by hundreds of men who helped you make the so-called ‘wrong decision.’ The Baseball Writers of America (BBWA) looked the other way during this ‘Steroid Era’, happy with the results it brought. Better ratings, a more exciting product, fan interest reinvigorated after the Strike, baseball was making a comeback. McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, countless others brought baseball from the brink.
Now, guys were getting huge, Barry Bonds head expanded to three times its normal size, Roger Clemens was throwing bats at people, and what were the stories? Things like “Roger Goes Batty’. And now, 10 years later, these same people have somehow found a mile-high horse to decree ‘You are cheaters! You deserve to be punished! How dare you impugn the honor of the game?!’ Let’s face it guys, it’s a museum. A museum of famous baseball players. There is a morality clause to get it because, get this; they wanted to let a baseball player who died in WWII to make it.
He didn’t.
I’m sidetracked.
The point is there is absolutely ZERO scientific proof that Steroids makes you a cheat. For years corking a bat was considered cheating, but now it’s shown that it actually hurts you’re chances for a home run. Does it matter?
No.
“But it helps you recover! You can train longer!” Yup, totally accurate. But so does pain medication, chiropractors, getting shot up. Where do you draw the line? Is there a line? These players are being paid millions of dollars to produce, who are we to judge how they get back on the field?
But they do, by not judging for someone like Jeff Bagwell. Arguably the greatest NL 1B in the pre-Pujols era (Thanks JP!). He has never tested positive. He was not the Mitchell Report of suspected users. But he hit a lot of homeruns in the 90s and early 2000s. So, obviously, he is a suspect. Never mind the lack of evidence. He is guilty in the eyes of the public.
Why!?!? A baseball writer I really respect, Tony Massaroti, came out and said (I’m paraphrasing), that he thought Bagwell was HOF-worthy, but he wanted to wait to see if he could find out more information for next year’s vote. In the same segment, he announced he voted for Roberto Alomar.
Why wouldn’t you wait to find out more information on the 2b? Because he didn’t hit as many homeruns? The message being sent it you are guilty if you hit homeruns, but if you played good defense and hit doubles, then you pass the morality checkpoint.
It’s asinine.
What if a well-respected reporter came out and just said a statement of “He was unusually durable, that makes me wonder…” I mean, c’mon. The ‘cloud of judgment’ would hover over him instantaneously like he was ‘Bad Luck Schleprock’ from the Flintstones.
I probably just dated myself.
And I am so far off the subject.
There ya go. Read that. This woman in a small-town didn’t like the fact that a guy stole glances of pretty women as they walked by.
So she went online and accused him of being a pedophile, drunk, drug addict, etc on a social networking-esque site.
She made separate accounts so she could corroborate her own story. Faked back and forths, cussed out people who defended the guy, the whole nine yards.
He brought fourth a clean background check, but it didn’t matter. He’s the pedophile. He can’t get a job in the city anymore. No one cares that he’s innocent, or what the whole story is. He’s the guy who does drugs and bangs little kids. Awesome.
When asked in court why she wrote those things about Cooley, Ballew answered, “I watched him and I can tell a pervert. Every time a pretty girl walked by, he would look at them. I get a feeling.”
And that feeling ruined a guy’s life, and no one in the town is willing to find out about it.
Way to go society. I’m going to go edit the wiki page of a local mayor, maybe he’ll have to step down because he was once a member of a satanic cult or something.
Which reminds me!
And most people will only remember Aaron Rodgers is a jerk.
