The Diamond Fan

I need to start off this post by saying that I have a great deal of admiration for the folks over at Baseball Prospectus. I appreciate the great statistical analysis and enjoy reading their insights on the game they obviously care very much about. I subscribe to their premium service, so the fact that I’m willing to pay good money to read their stuff when there is so much baseball-related material available for free on the Internet tells you a great deal about how much I respect their work.

That being said, Gary Huckabay’s latest post there on the Congressional investigation into steroid use in baseball strikes me as a ridiculously ill-informed rant. Basically, Huckabay’s position is that Congress has no business investigating steroid use in MLB because:

a) they have more important things to do, and
b) it’s no big deal anyway, and
c) baseball is already cleaning up its act

To make his point, (and perhaps to cover up the fact that he really has no argument to make) he resorts to hysterical playground language, cleaned up to make it fit for public consumption, to wit:

“utterly f***ing ridiculous” (the title of the post),
“piss off” (preemptively to those who might disagree with him), and
“this whole issue is bulls–t”

Very eloquent. (NOT)

To begin with, Huckabay shows a complete lack of knowledge about the Congressional committee system. According to him, Waxman’s committee would better spend its time looking into Pakistan, which is by his reckoning “teetering on the brink of chaos”. Ummm, Gary, that would be the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s job. Or the federal debt: there is a Budget Committee for that, Gary. And so on.

Then there is the it’s-no-big-deal argument. As Hackabay puts it, “We’re talking about small widgets in a small business.” How hypocritical! Here is a guy who spends a great deal of his time writing for an outfit that charges people good money to read what they have to say about a sport that is in his mind, apparently, a triviality. Give me a break! If it’s so insignificant, why do you bother? The fact is that, despite the fact that baseball is a small industry in terms of people directly involved, it matters (at least to some degree) to many people in this country. It is certainly open to question as to whether or not the situation warrants a wholesale Congressional investigation, but believe me, they have spent a lot of time investigating much less important topics, and for someone like Huckabay to make this argument is disingenuous at best, if not downright ludicrous.

And finally, the dismissive,

And before anyone gets the idea of writing me with yet another ironically juvenile “What about the children?!?!?!?” diatribe…piss off. The children are at far greater risk from the advertisement barrages that bracket innings within the game.

Oh, yeah. Every child in America is going to see the Silver Bullet in the top of the 8th and sneak off to Uncle Joe’s fridge and grab a cold one. Huckabay is far too sanguine about the power of Madison Avenue to influence behavior. The risk factors for alcohol abuse have much more to do with having parents or friends that drink than how many beer commercials one sees. In any event, the concern is not “children” per se but more about late teens and young adults who might be persuaded that the only way to compete and have a chance to realize their dreams of being a professional ballplayer is to get on the juice. I think a case can be made that steroid abuse is, at least potentially, a legitimate public health issue. One can argue that the concern is overblown, but to dismiss such concerns with a trite and insulting “piss off” is, well, juvenile.

It is disappointing that a writer at a respectable baseball site like Baseball Prospectus would see fit to post such a poorly thought-out piece.