Invited to this little soiree was our star Red Sox ace, Curt Schilling. Curt proved to be the most eloquent of the ballplayers there, fielding a larger number of questions than the others. However, there has been some discussion that the stance taken by Mr. Schilling was less than acceptable. He felt that this steroid problem is something more far-reaching than just the sport of baseball, and that energy should be spent across the board in the professional sports world. He also made it known that he thought baseball would be able to effectively police themselves in resolving this issue. As much as Bostonist loves the guy, one has to believe that that's about as probable as the Red Sox winning the World Se- ... uhhh... as the Cubbies winning the World Series.
How did the rest pan out? Bostonist looks at the rest after the jump.
Sammy Sosa. Yes, he was there masquerading as a bump on a log. Hiding behind a lack of mastery of the English language, Sammy had his opening statement read by a legal representative. The extent of his participation can be summed by paraphrasing his prevailant sentiments throughout the day - "Yes, I agree, Steroids are bad" and "No, I have never taken steroids". OK SAMMY!
Frank Thomas. "Wait, he was there?", you might be wondering. Yes, he was, but you would have missed him if you blinked, or your streaming audio connection to cnn.com shat the bed.
Raphael Palmeiro came out with the most emphatic denial of involvement, pointing to a congressman and physically punctuating his statement with an exclamation point. His involvement in this hearing was to come out and clear his name and discredit the words in Jose Canseco's book.
Speaking of which — Jose Canseco. This man, someone whose credibility has deservedly been brought to task, someone who's admitted to taking illegal substances, and even arrested, still proves to be the catalyst in what has become this giant controversy around steroid use in the Major Leagues. Bostonist feels that "Credibility" and "Canseco" are two words that should never meet in a sentence. Just a few weeks ago Bostonist was on his way home from work when he heard Canseco on WEEI talking about how steroids, when used under correct supervision and training, was a viable and beneficial weapon to use in the quest to be the "best baseball player in the world". It's interesting how things change when he's put in front of a congressional panel. When asked if he still thought that steroids were a good thing, as per what he wrote in "Juiced", Canseco backtracked and mentioned that the book was started two years ago and has since changed his minds on the benefits of steroids. What happened to three weeks ago, Jose? Or did you mean two years of internet time?
As difficult as it may sound, someone managed to come out looking worse than Jose Canseco in all of this - Mark McGwire. By pleading the fifth and repeatedly refusing to answer questions about the past, McGwire, for all intents and purposes, came off looking cowardly and cemented any suspicion as to whether or not he used performance enhancing drugs. In the court of public opinion McGwire's verdict is now an overwhelming "guilty as charged". There was no emphatic denial of involvement, nor a safe admission of mistakes having been made. In the end it is ironic that the person who came out of this the most tarnished, the most battered, the most bashed, was the "good" half of the Bash Brothers.
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