MISREMEMBERED!

   

MISREMEMBERED! (Yahoo Sports/Frazer Chronicle)

Sometimes the American language takes a beating from the most innocent of places, "misremembered" comes from just that area of American society, baseball. Unless you could call a bunch of grown men, running around in pajama looking attire chasing a little white baseball. I mean one guy hits a ball, and then while other P.J. clothed adults try and catch it and throw it to another P.J. clad adult, while the guy who hit the ball tries to reach a safe restricted area where the guys chasing the ball can't touch him.

To top this whole set of bizarre circumstances off, these guys get paid millions of dollars to practice their "craft." Some of these guys get millions upon millions of dollars even if they can only do one of the coveted things of the game well. To run, hit the little white ball, hit the little white ball with power, field the little white ball and then throw it to a team-mate before the hitter can get to one of the 3 safety restricted areas, can translate into big money.

Baseball is what I'm talking about, that magical, sweet smelling, fun to watch and easy to understand game. Baseball is an "every-boy" game, and can even be an "every-girl" game. Short, tall, skinny or fat, all sizes have played the game and even excelled. Without a doubt, more kids have played baseball than any other sport.

To play much football you got to be big, strong and run like the wind, to play basketball you need to be tall, but to play baseball, there are so many moving parts, "run, field, hit, hit with power and throw," if a kid can do just one of them, he can make the team.

Baseball is the game that get's under a person's skin, it's a subject that virtually everybody talks about at least once during a year. Baseball can draw people together, get fathers and sons talking, and is the most easily identified game in our society.....everybody plays.

The pinnacle of the game.....the place where a dirt poor kid can be the equal of anybody and in rear cases, pass everybody is where Roger Clemens rose. The "Rocket" could throw a baseball through a brick wall, or snap off a devastating curve that would buckle the knees of the best hitters of his day.

But now we find that our hero's did the unthinkable, they fell from grace, took the easy way out and cheated. The home runs, the huge batting averages, the runs scored and the joy that the run barrage brought the fans in the stands weren't real; they were acquired through the illegal use of pills and injections.

Whoopty wow, and a great big deal, so what, and what these guys did, they did with the technology of the day, the same as hitters and pitchers would have done with the technology of their day. Cheating has always been a part of baseball, or isn't stealing catcher's signs to pitchers, or decoding coaches signs to batters and base-runners "somewhat" the same. Putting some illegal substance into your body, which by the way can kill you, getting an edge?

Juicing your baseball bat, sharpening your cleats for the next spike wound a runner will give a 2nd baseman; these are all parts of the game. And now juicing sadly is a part of the game that we all love to varying degrees.

Admit it, tell the world that…."Ya, you cheated," but the game has a long list of cheaters that are in the hall of fame. The spit ball, the emory ball, the head hunting, inside part of the plate pitcher, these guys all took a special interest in "honing" their abilities with a little extra help.

And the owners, bless their mega-buck little hearts, are you gonna sit there and tell me that they didn't know what was happening to their game.....give me a break. As long as there's butts in the bleachers, as long as advertisers continue to buy space and as long as television offers billions for the right to air the games, nothing will change.

My point is simple, "nothing has to change," I like the game as is, I like the extra runs, the majestic home runs and the power ally shots for doubles and triples. The only thing that I don't like is the non-stop talking by the announcers and the color commentators. Put a sock in it, zip your lips, keep your traps shut, let me simply watch the game.

Roger Clemens "misremembered," it wasn't his team-mates or friends, or his trainer or agent, or any of the other people he has working for him. Hell during his heyday, he was making a year what some small countries budget is for the entire year. Roger Clemens "misremembered," he somehow forgot that the first rule of a professional athlete is to win at all costs, if you can't "beat um, cheat um."

I could care less if Roger Clemens used any sort of illegal pill or drug, or if he prefers oats for breakfast instead of eggs, because he took some kind of animal growth drug. In the end, most of these guys will pay for "pumping" themselves up.

Most won't live to old age, most won't enjoy the simple things in life and most won't be able to hang onto their testicles. Misremember that one Roger!