The Steroid Show strikes out (and other annoying sports puns)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43422-2005Mar17.html

Question: If an athlete testifies about steroids and no cameras capture it, will we have to worry about any more athletes testifying?

It’s a silly question, I know, because there is no way we could have realistically expected TV news cameras to ignore this spectacle. The lure of baseball’s best, elbow-to-elbow, scowling and sobbing, proved irresistible to most Americans, whether they were baseball fans or not. So the cameras lined up, the politicians pontificated, and the players evaded. Reporters fired sports clichés faster and less accurately than a Curt Schilling fastball. The steroid show was in full swing.

Was any of this news? I’m sure there are a million ways to justify coverage, but did we learn anything useful?

Well, just in case you started pondering any of these questions, Congress of-fered up this convenient rationalization: This is for the kids.

That’s right. Mark McGwire and company were hauled in front of The House Government Reform Committee to set an example to kids all over. Listen up kids, if you take steroids, you might break baseball’s most cherished records but you will eventually face a day of embarrassment in front of our nation’s legislators. Scared straight now?

Here’s an idea: if you really want to scare kids off of steroids, make baseball players show us how the drugs really affect them.

According to webmd.com, men who use steroids might develop breasts, have their testicles shrink, experience impotency, become bald, get acne, and de-velop jaundice. Now those are real deterrents not to mention great TV. Let the cameras line up to see Mark McGwire with breasts. So Jose Canseco isn’t bald yet, but there is a long line of other effects that we could explore with parental warning. Are those pimples on your back, Sammy?

But no…. We have to suffer through politicians asking the tough ones: Do you think using steroids is cheating? Are you kidding? You subpoena star sluggers under the guise of serving the public and you inquire, “Is it cheating?”

Why are the networks even covering that? During the political conventions, broadcast networks boycotted much of the proceedings because they bemoaned them as being too boring and too scripted. Can’t we apply the same standard here? Please? For the kids?

I guarantee you if the athletes testify and no cameras show up, Congress will move on to real work.