No Speakee

The names are still falling from the sky like bird shit. Big names--only the big names. There will be a few more trickling out over the next year.
Predictable and kinda funny. Like Sammy Sosa preparing for another walk through a testimonial minefield. Sosa walked the legal line in 2005, almost as well as he lined sixty-plus homers in three straight seasons--something no other player has ever done. "To be clear, I've never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs," Sosa told the gub-mint. It was technically true. And it was the gub-mint in front of him. They don't care about honesty anyway, not until reporters come around. The gub-mint is all about technical truth. Find a hidey-hole in that law; they are the best at this game, because they write the books.
The major league players' union got their humps kicked back in February 09, when the A-Rod story broke. Maybe the union is negligent in letting this leak. They don't protect their players. Looks like that was true. The union has failed again. People like HOF pitcher Goose Gossage are saying, "Screw it--just tell us all of the names at once."
This is more evidence, if needed, that baseball isn't football. When Patriots coach Bill Belichick ran up against Spygate, remember how quickly Commissioner Goodell moved to bury the tapes. TOO quick, some might say. But you have to admire the NFL's efficiency. It was third-and-long, and Goodell converted.
Speaking about Sosa, ESPN's Sportsnation asks, "Unlike the A-Rod situation, could this be classified as 'well, duh' news?" This question puzzles me. Since when was Alex Rodriguez's name being linked to PEDs a 'well, duh?'
Some sports talking heads and journalists (not the same thing) keep saying "we were all fooled" when talking about Mark McGwire, Sosa, Barry Bonds, and so on. But the 'we' they mean is Them.
Once Rafael Palmiero got dragged in the wake of this, you knew no player was off-limits from suspicion. You knew that it wasn't just the top 1% of players using performance-enhancers--it was the very good players, too. And the just-makin'-it players, and the Triple A players with all likelihood, and maybe even those big sausages that race between innings.
We don't know who did what. Keep in mind that the idea of pitchers benefitting from PEDs is still fairly recent. At first, we all assumed it was mostly the sluggers. Turns out they were just the most visible.
Nearly every big-timer of the last two decades has been either suspiciously evasive, or a proven augmenter. So by the start of the 2008 season, there were about five players on the so-called innocent list. A-Rod. Derek Jeter. Albert Pujols. Manny Ramirez.
That list is now halved. Pujols isn't on the radar, but then, neither was Rodriguez a few years ago. And baseball's golden boy, Jeter?
People like Peter Gammons say of Jeter, "that's still the one name that would surprise me." This seems to be the prevailing theme, online and in casual convos with fans. I've got to wonder why they still feel this way. Why would they be surprised? How could any name shake you by this point?
Only the youngest stars are squeaky-clean. So far. They have the advantage of fresh starts. Evan Longoria. David Wright. Prince Fielder. Joba Chamberlain. Jacoby Ellsbury. Baseball's old guard, like the smarmy Bob Costas, will hang their derbies on this idea, this hope--that the newest and best will prove clean.
Be sure not to fall for this. Any real baseball fan or player knows that the game has quietly allowed cheating, in whatever form, since its inception.