Wednesday, March 16, 2005

March Madness

In addition to the NCAA tournament beginning tomorrow, we get treated to the baseball steroids hearing (on ESPN!). I'm not going to watch, but I'm looking forward to reading about it, and seeing the highlights.

Following up on Matt's earlier comment, while I agree this whole thing could be a bit of a circus, and certainly risks serious congressional grandstanding, I'm not sure it's such a bad thing. Yes, NFL shouldn't get a free pass, but one difference is that typical NFL heroes -- quarterbacks and wide receivers -- are unlikely to benefit hugely from juicing. On the other hand, Sosa and McGwire -- both implicated in the scandal -- almost singlehandedly saved MLB back in 1998. MLB's own estimate is that their home run race made the sport over $1.5 billion. So if those guys juiced, baseball benefited financially from an illegal activity. And if HS students started juicing as a result, it's not a victimless crime.

In any case, I think we can all agree about this: one good thing about this whole steroids thing is we get to read all about Dick Pound, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (or WAD Agency, for short). This has really thrusted him back into the limelight. (I would google his name to get some of his (um) juicy quotes, but I'm afraid what I might find...)

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