Kurt Streeter Is Outraged That People Aren't Outraged

I personally believe steroids is cheating. I personally believe those people that take steroids should be punished to the fullest extent that MLB decides these offenders should be punished. I would also have no problem with a note of some type being put in the record books to signify which players were caught cheating using steroids while they were playing baseball or a note if it was found out after that player was retired he used steroids. I believe Hank Aaron is the all-time homerun champion and that Barry Bonds would have been a first ballot Hall of Fame player without steroids, which makes me kind of sad. Same thing with Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez. I also am incredibly tired of talking about steroids and finding out which players have used them, and I think my feelings are representative of many other people's feelings.

Everytime another player is suspended for using steroids it's like just another brick in the wall. No one is surprised or outraged because at this point we just assume everyone, excluding Adam Everett, are on steroids. There's nothing to be angry about. If you think your favorite team is going to lose a game or you expect someone to lie to you, you don't get surprised or outraged because the outcome met your expectations. I think this is true for a lot of people...Kurt Streeter being the exception. This article was on either the Big Lead or Deadspin yesterday but I felt like covering it as well.

Am I out of touch? Am I too angry, too outraged about Manny Ramirez and his dope-induced exile to baseball purgatory?

No, you are exceptionally late to the outrage party. That party ended several years ago when the arguably greatest pitcher of this era and arguably the greatest hitter of this era were both caught having used steroids. Then the party got jumping again when arguably the second best hitter of this generation got caught having used steroids, but now everyone is very hungover and just wants to eat some Bojangles and sleep all day. No one is in the mood to be outraged anymore. To be outraged at this point is to be naive. Because to be outraged means you didn't expect it to happen.

Striking how many are willing to treat their favorite player as if he's just gone off on a nice holiday. All will be forgiven, as long as No. 99 comes back swinging a fat bat.

Baseball is a results oriented sport, if Manny comes back and starts showing good results again the fans will be happy...especially if he is not on steroids. Remember, his use of steroids actually benefits the fan in a way, because it makes the Dodgers a better team. It is also cheating and everyone wants a clean game so that is something fans have to balance. It has come to many baseball fan's attention that we do not have and will not have a clean game any time soon, so rather than hold up signs saying "cheater," we just cheer for our favorite teams and hope they win.

"Hey, he cheated, everyone has their crutch, it's not that big a deal," said Mike Calame, 45, sitting near the left-field foul pole at Dodgers Stadium the other day. He shrugged a shrug I'd end up seeing time and again.

Using steroids to gain an advantage is very clearly cheating but what does Kurt Streeter want everyone to do? Quit watching baseball because it is tainted? Never cheer for the players who tested positive and hope they fail? We are a forgiving society and those people who take their punishment without making a lot of noise get a lot of good will from the public and will be forgiven quickly. Manny did this.

So, sitting here in the press box during the Dodgers' Saturday win against the Giants, the question comes. Am I, along with the other journalists who are breathing fire about this sordid story, simply out of touch with a huge slice of our audience, the who-cares-who-takes-what crowd?

I would not say he is out of touch with a huge slice of the audience, I would say by acting outraged and writing columns talking about what a massive cheater Manny Ramirez is, Kurt Streeter is overestimating how shocked his audience is after every revelation. At this point it would not shock me if any player in MLB is found to have used steroids. There is only so much outrage the fans can muster before they have to accept they enjoy a flawed game.

Baseball is entertainment. The fans aren't naive enough to believe those who entertain us don't cheat just a little bit in the process of entertaining. Baseball fans want the game to be clean, but have accepted the fact it is not. Those who get caught get punished, which is the best we as fans can hope for.

You bet I'm out of touch, and that's the very reason it's important everyone in the media keep laying the wood to the rule-breakers and ne'er-do-wells.

I like how he portrays the media as the white knight who rides in to make sure the game is fair and no one is cheating and blames the fans for being apathetic. Which group of people had better access to know and suspect the steroid problem in baseball? The everyday fan who watched on television and in the ballparks or the columnists who saw the players everyday in the locker room, saw them around in just towels, and heard the rumors?

The fans are the victim of the steroid use in baseball and the media kept its head in the sand just long enough to fein ignorance. I'm not buying it. Don't chastise the fans for not caring about steroids in baseball and try to be the one who is above the fray. The media didn't care and ignored the problem long before the fans had the chance to.

Someone has to draw the line. Someone has to keep hold of standards.

Yes, and that is the Commissioner of Baseball, Bud Selig. He's another guy who stuck his head in the sand. Kurt Streeter? Well he is just complaining about the problem and trying to be morally outraged that the fans don't seem to care about the problem. The fans did care about the problem until they saw the Steroid Era was a massive cover up by the media and baseball management who did not report on the things they saw, by the players actually doing the cheating, and by MLB and the Union who had no steroid testing in place. Every single group here is culpable and just because you, Kurt Streeter, decides the line needs to be drawn now doesn't mean anything. If you were the one drawing the line and holding up standards ten years ago then the fans may be able to join you, but right now, we just want to watch baseball on television and in ballparks.

It's when we lose track of this, when we as a society are willing to cut too much slack, when we in the press stop drawing a hard line, that deep trouble comes.

The Steroid Era is ending. Players are being tested and those that continue to use are being suspended. If you want to draw the line, find a time machine and start writing articles like this circa 1997.

Who cares what Ramirez or Barry Bonds or A-Rod put in their bodies? So long as my team is on top, so long as I get to drive around with a "World Champs" bumper sticker, it doesn't really matter.

I like how the media simplifies the thoughts of the fans so well. It is partially true the fans just want their teams to win, but they also want a clean game that doesn't have steroid users in it. It's really much deeper than that though. If the culture of baseball didn't care about finding out who used steroids and who did not a few years ago, why should the fan care now that those same people who used steroids are being outed?

Fans want baseball, not to hear more stories of athletes lying, deceiving and sticking hyperdermic needles in their ass.

My wife teaches third grade at a school a mile from Dodger Stadium. Is this what she should tell her kids, a group that has adored Ramirez since he arrived in town? "Kids, it doesn't matter if you cheat."

He did cheat and now he has been punished. Was the punishment severe enough? MLB seems to think so. Instead of Kurt's wife saying it doesn't matter if you cheat, she should say, "If you cheat, then you will get caught and punished."

If cheating were in the open, if it stared us in the face, if a select group operated with different rules right there in front of us, maybe we'd wise up.

I completely don't understand what everyone is supposed to do. There are zero options or solutions being presented by Kurt Streeter here in this column.

There was a select group operating with different rules right in front of the locker room media and baseball management for years and they did not wise up. Why should anyone expect the fans to get outraged now? Again, I don't speak for everyone, but I would think we are all very tired of steroids and just want the offenders to be punished so baseball can go on.

How would you feel about Tiger Woods if you saw him take a mulligan every time he sprayed a drive? How'd you like it if, when the Cavaliers played the Lakers, they started six players and L.A. started five?

That is kind of different than steroid usage. Steroid usage is cheating by enhancing your performance, while those two examples are completely changing the rules of the sport to give one person or team an advantage.

Even worse, the cheats are sending the ugliest possible message about living healthily, especially to the kids who deify them.

I know I have written this 100 times so far today but now that offenders are being punished why is the fan supposed to be outraged? No one gave a shit about the kids in the late 1990's and early 2000's, and now that the offenders actually have a punishment handed down to them it seems like it should suffice. I don't know what else should be done, other than walk around angry all the time about it and chastise the offenders every time they are at bat...which I am sure A-Rod and Manny are going to actually get a lot of during road games.

"I'm afraid people don't really understand how horrific this stuff is, they don't know what it does, they don't know that it can kill you," said Dr. Anthony Butch, director of the UCLA Olympic Analytic Laboratory.

Smoking, drinking, driving an automobile at any point, flying in an airplane, eating unhealthy, and getting the flu can also kill you. I would guess more Americans do those things every year than those that use steroids. Steroids is a problem, there's no doubt about it, but I am personally more concerned about my children smoking at a young age and driving a car than shooting up steroids in their room.

Steroids are a drug and there are side effects and horrible things that can happen when any drug is taken.

"What kind of message is this sending?" he asked after I'd told him how many people didn't really care. "You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see the fans stay away. . . . We can't send the message that cheating is OK."

The fans do care and they are tired of their heroes cheating. The fans of MLB are not apathetic people, quite the opposite, they really care about the game. Unfortunately many fans are responding with little caring at each new steroid user revelation because that is how baseball responded to the problem. Let's be clear, the fans aren't the problem and did not create the problem. If baseball wanted steroids gone, they could have taken steps to have done it a long time ago and they didn't.

Yes, eventually we should forgive him; everyone deserves a second act. But we should also regard Ramirez as tarnished, deeply so, now and for good.

Manny is tarnished and part of the reason Streeter got a lot of indifference from the fans is because he talked to Dodgers fans who want Ramirez back to help the team. If he asked fans of another team they would give Ramirez hell for using. That's how it is.

A sign we need more who are angry and indignant and offended. Count me in this last group. It's my job.

Actually you're job was to tell the public many years ago about this problem and that didn't happen. The fans were angry and offended, but just want to be able to enjoy a clean game of baseball but also expect nearly every star player to be caught using steroids at this point.

I want everyone to know I actually laughed at Bill's Twitter post about Mark Cuban not having to apologize to Kenyon Martin's mom because he has a tattoo of a woman's lips on his neck. I thought it was kind of funny.

Now we have Peter's MMQB-Tuesday Edition up, and yet again, my question did not get posted. I will not give up though.

From Cliff Prince of Midlothian, Va.: "Everyone always points to the strength of schedule when predicting how a team will do, but with the parity in the NFL and the changing year-to-year of the strength of these teams, it seems a poor indicator of things to come. That rough schedule the Steelers had last year ended up 133-120. Given the state of the NFL, I think its better to assume that the schedule will be slightly to the inverse of the previous year's strength. Your thoughts?

Come on. Peter has no real thoughts. Just things he thinks he thinks.

But let me ask you this: Right now, at this point in May, would you rather have a schedule that LOOKED the way Pittsburgh's looked last year (with New England, the Giants and Indianapolis), or would you rather have the schedule Pittsburgh has for 2009 (with Detroit, Kansas City and Oakland)? You never know how the situation is going to play out with the schedule, but looking at it now, you know the Pittsburgh slate this year looks a lot easier than a year ago.

So Cliff had a point, but Peter would rather ignore that valid point and just go back to how the schedule looked rather than admit that a team's strength of schedule at the beginning of the year sometimes is a lot easier or harder than the team's strength of schedule at the end of the year. It can change drastically. Don't bother him with your facts, just look at the schedule and make guesses about which schedule looks harder.

And there's no reason, just because Josh McDaniels didn't tell Cutler categorically that he would never be traded, that Cutler should stage a wildcat strike from the team with three years left on an existing contract.

But for those that have forgotten, Peter thinks it is perfectly fine for a quarterback to stage a wildcat strike and demand a trade to specific teams when that player has previously retired with years left on his contract even though the head coach and GM didn't tell that player categorically he would get the starting QB job.

But let's not kill Cutler because the Denver defense gave up 30, 30 and 52 points, respectively, in the last three games last year.

One of those 30 point games was against Carolina who Peter ranked 18th in his power rankings. (Sorry, I am still miffed and I don't even really care, imagine if I actually respected Peter's opinion.)

Not really a slam of Buffett. Just a point that it's pretty desperate when you tie your marketing fate to him. Just thought it was odd, and I will be surprised if it sells many tickets.

Yeah, it makes much sense to tie your Super Bowl halftime marketing fate to Bruce Springsteen playing halftime for twelve minutes. The Dolphins-Buffett may not sell tickets but we are talking about it aren't we?

From Phil of Bear Creek, Vt.: "I fully agree with you that the Buffett deal is weird. I think its weird as hell, and makes me wonder about the business acumen of some of these "professional" football men. But, with that said, I don't think you fully understand Buffett's popularity. Saying he hasn't had a hit since 1977 is like saying the Grateful Dead weren't popular because they rarely made the Billboard top 10. Buffett has a HUGE following. Again, agree with your point 100%....but don't diss Buffett.''

Does Peter only listen to top 40 radio? If so, he must think Lady Gaga is a legend.

Nestor Aparicio of WNST radio in Baltimore, who basically rewrote Buffet's Wikipedia page and concluded: "Honestly, I think it's a great relationship and smart branding on both sides. But again, nothing can make the Dolphins institutionally "sold out" in a fickle South Florida market that has always eschewed "Northeast-style" passion for the NFL. Or even Midwestern passion. Too much sunshine there, too many pretty girls, too many options.''

Yep, it probably is hard to sell tickets down there. Whatever can work they go for I guess.

Next week we need to get published in the MMQB-Tuesday Edition. I don't know exactly why, but it is my mission now. He has to answer my Aaron Curry question at some point.