John Rocker: Steroids make baseball a ‘better game’
John Rocker: A voice of reason above the hysteria.
Rocker, the former Atlanta Braves closer noted for saying racist and/or other kinds of controversial stuff, actually made a lot of sense in a recent interview regarding performance enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball. Well, not total sense, but some.
First, the attention-getting part: Talking to CBS Sports Radio in Cleveland (one of Rocker's stops from 1998-2003), Rocker said that MLB was "better" when he played because of steroids. In his day, Rocker says, guys did performance-enhancing drugs to "almost keep up with the Joneses" (presumably not Chipper Jones-es).
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With MLB threatening in June, and then re-threatening this week to suspend perhaps 20 players in the Biogenesis fiasco, it seems like a good time to sit ourselves down, take a breath and let crazy ol' John Rocker give some #realtalk:
“Honestly, and this may go against what some people think from an ethical stand point, I think it was the better game. At the end of the day when people are paying their $80, $120 whatever it may be, to buy their ticket and come watch that game, it’s almost like the circus is in town. They are paid to be entertained. They wanna see some clown throw a fastball 101 mph and some other guy hit it 500 feet. That’s entertainment. You’re paying to be entertained.”
And, are you not entertained? Rocker clearly was being biographical when he says "Some clown throw a fastball 101 mph." Later in the interview, Rocker admitted (as he has before) that steroids helped him recover on the second and third straight day. And that they should be legal today, for any player who wants them, to use. Why? Because trying to catch most of the users is practically futile:
"The best tests out there, the ones the Olympics use, can only test for 500 molecular combinations of 50,000 possible combinations. ... They're going to cost ya', but the guys who want them can certainly pay for a chemist to build them ."
There's audio of the entire conversation, which also mentions Rocker's charity work — with SaveHomelessVeterans.com and the Ronald McDonald House — for which he sounds authentically devoted. Rocker is a tough nut to crack.
Anyway, there you have it from accused racist and admitted PED user John Rocker. Maybe you want to take his advice with a shaker of salt. Maybe you want to review your own belief system. Maybe you want to just ignore him.
Just remember what they say about being paranoid: Just because you are, it doesn't mean they're not out to get you. And only Nixon could go to China.
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