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From: mykes@3comvax.UUCP (Mike Schwartz)
Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Mex and Drugs and Base'n Ball
Message-ID: <434@3comvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Mar-86 14:29:49 EST
Article-I.D.: 3comvax.434
Posted: Mon Mar  3 14:29:49 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Mar-86 06:47:05 EST
References: <2610008@acf2.UUCP>
Reply-To: mykes@3comvax.UUCP (Mike Schwartz)
Organization: 3Com Corp; Mountain View, CA
Lines: 34


I am 25 years old, but I remember what a strong influence baseball players
had on me.  I used to play sandlot games where we would pick a real team and
use that team's batting order.  We would even bat lefty if the guy in the
batting order was a lefty.  Nowadays I guess kids are expected to sniff the
white stuff (no, not the foul lines) as well?

Sam Donaldson makes $2.5 million a year for anouncing the news, so I figure
that a lot of ballplayers are worth the bucks.  But they are not paid to
do drugs during the season or during the off-season.  I think Ubberoth has
done a tremendously good thing for baseball and our country by his punitive
actions toward the "admitted" druggies.  You can talk about society all you
want, but the bottom line is that drugs are ILLEGAL and not only did those
players violate the by-laws of Major League Baseball, but they violated the
by-laws of the United States.

Poor Keith Hernandez is crying about losing 10% of his $1 Million salary -
boo hoo.  What a fine example of a man and a ballplayer he is for my kids :).  
If he doesn't think it reasonable to spend 100 hours in the offseason putting
back into the community a little bit of what he took from it (and yes he took
way too much), he can go play in Japan or anywhere but here, or he can go get
a real job.

The players disagree with random drug testing, but pretty soon I believe we
will see drug testing of this type throughout the country.  As a baseball 
team owner, I don't want to see my players on drugs.  As a factory owner,
I do not think it is safe to have employees on drugs.

I believe that the powers to be of baseball have long known about the wide
spread use of drugs in the sport, and have handled it in a quiet way - like
the reason Hernandez got traded from St. Louis in the first place.  Frankly,
I believe it is lucky that any player found doing drugs is not banned for life.
Hernandez and the other 20 players involved in the Curtis Strong case are
fortunate to be able to play baseball.