3/14/2005

Congressional Investigators of Steroid Use in Baseball said to have the wrong motivations

George Will gives Congressmen Tom Davis and Henry Waxman a trashing.

The committee has discovered that its duties include informing all Americans, and especially children, that dangerous and illegal behavior is dangerous and illegal. So the committee has subpoenaed some baseball and players association officials and some current and retired players, including Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Committee staffers say it has not subpoenaed Barry Bonds because his presence might make the hearing a media circus. Heaven forfend.


Canseco also gets a just discussion:

The one witness eager to testify is Canseco, who is flogging a book in which he accuses many players of using steroids. Jeff Merron of ESPN.com read the book — has Canseco done that? — and found:

Canseco says that during spring training 2001, when playing for the Angels against the Mariners and their second baseman Bret Boone, "I hit a double, and when I got out there to second base I got a good look at Boone. I couldn't believe my eyes. He was enormous. 'Oh my God,' I said to him. 'What have you been doing?' 'Shhh,' he said. 'Don't tell anybody.' " But in five Angels-Mariners games that spring, Canseco never reached second base.

He recounts game six of the 2000 World Series — which ended with game five. He recalls baseball in 1982 being "closed" to Latinos — although there were 62 major leaguers from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and more from other Latin countries.

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