WHAAAAAT?!!!!?

In the WHAAAAAT?!!!!? department today we have this. WTF?!? Did I totally miss this?!? Say it with me: The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Now say it ten times fast while stabbing yourself in the eye. Maybe to ease his bruised ego, C. Petegomery Angelos can rename his team the United States of America Orioles of Baltimore.

In other baseball WHAAAAAT?!!!!? news we have the poor Cubs. Jimmy is right. We may never know if God is a man, a woman, or a satyr. But he/she/it is definitely not a Cubs fan. Can't they catch a break? And why does it have to be Prior/Wood all the time? Can't Remlinger and Hawkins suddenly have a case of dyspeptic diarrhea or something? Can't the bat boy stub his toe? Maybe Dusty Baker could develop purple warts on his feet. The Cubs should check with the WTA tour: everybody on that tour seems to have a stomach virus. Maybe do a swap or something? Or maybe they could trade both Prior and Wood to the Miami Heat for Alonzo Morning.

Finally, we have our proud Washington politicians standing up against steroid abuse in baseball. Sorry kids, you're a little late to the game. Now, I am not a steroids supporter and had to hit my head on the wall several times after reading an SI story where anonymous players decried that their colleagues go into games juiced on anything from prune juice to speed to amphetamines. And, yes, I do wonder if 'roids had something to do with the homerun surge of the late 90s. But, all of this aside, doesn't this entire thing seem a bit McCarthian to anybody? Summoning past and future players to a hearing that is going to do what? (And why is Barry Bonds not on the list?) Maybe someone with a law degree can tell me what will come from this hearing.

Yes, baseball only has itself to blame for not getting on the ball sooner ... but it just seems to me at this point that all we have are cryptic charges and grand jury testimony that cannot be used because it was illegally leaked. Even the latest Mark McGwire story is a bit specious. The headlines say that an FBI agent says McGwire did steroids. Then you read the story and it says that his name was mentioned but that he was not the target of the probe nor was evidence collected against him. And then, update! — they change the story. Previously, Wenzlaff was quoted to have said that he gave and injected steroids into McGwire's posterior. Now the story is that he (Wenzlaff) has declined to comment about McGwire but says that he gave steroids to Canseco. Hello! I don't have all day to keep clicking on the story to see what happened. Let's get our facts straight and print one story, okay? Fine, I admit it, I am but a simple man and I do not possess an engineering degree ... but I'm confused.

Here's where I stand on the issue — and keep in mind that my stance could change in five minutes.

• Baseball players did steroids in the past. They continue to do so in the present. They will continue to do so in the future unless a stricter policy is put in place that penalizes first-time offenders and tests blood samples.
• Unless such a policy is put in place immediately, baseball's future is in jeopardy because we will continue to have players accusing each other publicly (a la Canseco) and un-publicly (a la SI or other news agency) for the next umpteen years. We will never really know which statistics are valid. Instead of discussing this great game of baseball we will be discussing 'roids for the next century. Instead of telling our kids that the probability of a 56 game hitting streak is so small that, statistically speaking, if it is to happen at all — baseball's rosters would have to include four lifetime .400 batters or fifty-two lifetime .350 hitters over careers of one thousand games¹ (that is, it is almost statistically impossble), we'll be talking about what type of cream ol' Bashy McBashalot used to clear the 80 home run mark. Instead of talking about the great Jackie Robinson, we'll be talking about how Old Man Bonds is still hitting pulling .300/30/100 even though he's 50 years old.
• Sadly, because of a lack of a policy, we have no irrefutable evidence that anyone took 'roids in the past. Yes, I know. Grand jury. Inflated stars looking deflated, etc, etc, etc. But we have no irrefutable proof. All we have are this person's words against this person's words. Hell, Canseco mentioned Brett Boone in his book. Who's next? Greg Maddux? Miguel Cairo? I fully expect that within the next few weeks Rafeal Belliard will have to defend his 2 career home runs.
• At least in the short run, this is not preventing fans from buying tickets.
• I'm going to go into the corner and cry now.