Barry Bonds and Mark Mcwire belong in HOF

I love baseball. It's the most perfect, beautiful, and poetic game ever, of all time. Ever

I grew to adulthood through the steroid era. Of course we didn't call it that. That's the name it's come to have. Steroids were, until 2006, within the rules of the game. We saw salaries skyrocket beyond what they were in the 1970s. Of course these guys juiced. Wouldn't you to stay in the big leagues where a back up second baseman makes $4,000,000 plus?

That does not mean I am excusing it. Clearly it's outside the spirit of fair competition for an athlete to make their body do what it would otherwise not do. So why to these 2 guys belong (along with anyone else who's accumulated statistics comparable to Cooperstown immortals? Precisely because there were no rules, and usage was commonplace according to most players of the era. If everyone did them, then they put up these numbers, and broke these records against juiced competitors.

Barry Bonds hit 762 home runs over his career, and 73 in a season. He did it when many supplements now banned were legal, and commonplace. Certainly he hit a generous portion of those home runs off of pitchers on the juice. If the steroids make the hitter better, don't they make the pitcher better too? Isn't the affect of steroids on the record book then a wash? Mark McGwire broke the record most said would never be broken - Maris' 61 HR in a season. And he did it against pitchers on the juice. Roger Clemens won 350 games. We already know he did all this against players using performance enhancing substances. Rafael Palmeiro hit over 500 HR.

Why are we disallowed the admittance of our eras' greatest players enshrinement into Cooperstown? Sure - Bonds was, and probably is still, what is commonly called "a dickhead." McGwire admitted using steroids all of his career, after years of denial, and avoiding the questions. So. Canseco used steroids. He didn't hit 500 HR. It's still a magical number.

The beauty of baseball is the permanence of numbers because while eras come and go the game does not change in any great form. 90 feet home to 1st. 60 ft 6 in pitchers rubber to home plate. Parks are symmetrical, or asymmetrical - just as they were in the 20s, 30s, and 50s. Ruth dominated his competition. So did Aaron, and Musial, and Cobb, and Williams. The numbers only go so far. Jim Rice dominated his era, and yet did not achieve the 500 HR milestone. He is in Cooperstown - deservedly so.

Every era has it's giants on the diamond. We have ours, and we deserve to see them in Cooperstown. They dominated all the other juice-heads.

Saved by Springsteen.....

Read this last night, and again this morning.

Don't know where you are regarding Bruce. Many are all over the place. Love - hate - everything between. I liked this list too. Lucky Town is probably the most overlooked Springsteen piece. I think Downbound Train is overlooked as well. I think that Badlands is a glaring omission, as is Promised Land,and Brilliant Disguise. Aside from that it's a good list.

There's something about the personal power lyrics in the songs that got me, and continue to get me. The simple dignity of personal redemption, and the power of faith in yourself, and others around you resonates as well.

Going through a divorce is about the suckiest thing one can do. I know it's my suckiest experience. Having said that I still consider myself a pretty lucky person. No tragic deaths, nor perilously ill children have afflicted me. I probably listened to Badlands, Promised Land, Brilliant Disguise, and Girls In Their Summer Clothes about 400 times (iTunes counts these things - who knew at the time?) while the crisis was all over me. I also listened to True Devotion by the BoDeans too as many times, and a few other songs. The power of redemption is the hope we all need. Don't know where people are in their lives sometimes. We keep that to ourselves - sometimes to a fault - save for the most intimate of relationships.

I don't know what it is about faith and hope that keep us going. In a religious sense so many of us don't express it. Church does not inspire it as often as we need it to. Sometimes I think instead of tired old hymns we should sing Badlands.

"I believe in the love that you gave me.
I believe in the faith that can save me.
I believe in the hope, and I pray that someday it may raise me above these Badlands"

It even reads like a hymn.

Anyway - just been thinking about this. If you know, or sense someone in pain - be there for them. That's why we're here.

WTF?!!??!?!

Don't know where you are on the subject of the expiring Bush Tax cuts of 2001. And why, if it was such a great idea didn't they make them permanent? And why didn't they cut spending at the same time? Anyway - assumptions are: If you're below the $250,000 threshold - "Great."; If you're above that threshold - "Wait a minute!" Things like this quickly turn into a clash of philosophy/ideology, so I hope to avoid that, but don't expect to.

The problem is unless Congress cuts the programs we've - as a population - supported like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, National Defense by a lot - a LOT 33%, taxes have to go up. Democrats won't cut these things. Republicans won't either.

So what is "rich?" Some say if you're in the top 2% of incomes (over $250,000/yr), then you are rich. There's been a lot of buzz over a post (since taken down) of just such a household, and its complaint. http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/09/todd-henderson-we-are-the-super-rich.html The fact of the matter is most of us are doing OK - but not great - on much less than $250,000. Really dude - boo f***ing hoo.

I find it hard to feel bad for someone who is about to be taxed at 39% as opposed to 31% on income over this threshold. This is what we get for 2 Bush terms. The party of small government was not such. 2 wars (necessity is another subject) that were off budget - payed for with "supplemental spending" - unfunded expansion of Medicare Part D. GOP just piled on the debt - and NOW they're worried about it. Not so worried they'll cut spending, or allow taxes (taxes they passed as temporary when they had majorities) to rise.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/09/in-which-mr-deling-responds-to-someone-who-might-be-professor-todd-henderson.html

I don't know the solution. I am certain that a return to the policies that put us in this mess is not the correct one.

Primary night

Not a partisan post here. Most of my friends know where I stand, but I am genuinely concerned about the path of the GOP.

Then again it's their own fault. For a long time the party of small government has done little to fulfill that platform. Cutting taxes, which we all like, but not cutting spending. GOP faithful will blame Dems any way that they can, but the party that had held the White House for 20 of the past 30 years, the House from 1994 - 2006, and the Senate from 98-00, and 02-06 can only blame themselves for the fragmentation it's now going through visa-vis groups like the Tea Party, the Evangelical Fundamentalist Christians.

I don't want to debate the details here, but it seems that the Party of Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt can't be simultaneously shrinking all functions of government, and expanding it's reach into social issues. For all the talk about individual freedoms they sure do take the side of big corporation when it comes to issues of worker rights.

I hope they figure it out. I'm sure Dems don't have all the answers either, but from my eyes they're a little more consistent.

Sometimes a gripe is perfectly necessary....

Dating sucks. I mean - it's a good thing and all, but at this point in my life - with the available time there is, it's a damn shame to waste any free time with someone with which there is no attraction, or connection. It is what it is though, and today it's a big pain in the ass.