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Father's Day: Darren Baker asks the question...and Dusty has no answers
Roster Update: Angel Guzman to the DL with a right triceps strain, Kevin Hart called up from Iowa.
Happy Father's Day everyone.
I've mostly been shoulder shrugging since the story came out that Sammy Sosa was on the positive test list for PED's that the MLB Players Association didn't destroy. To me it was old news. After the "Steroid Era" cloud passes and everyone in it washs off the stink, I wonder what will be the impact on what baseball should consider one of it's most important assets, the kids who fall in love with the game because of their father's (or mom's, but today is father's day) love of the game.
On this father's day, one of the things I treasure most is that my son is a Cubs fan and a Baseball fan. So when I read this brief Fred Mitchell article in the Tribune, it made more impact on me than when the Sammy news was leaked in the NY Times.
"The worst part for me is that I don't know what to tell my son [Darren]," the Reds manager said after Saturday's Civil Rights Game luncheon at the Duke Energy Center. "He asks me, 'Dad, are there any good hitters not on something?' I just tell him that everyone is under suspicion. I will just be glad when it's all over."
From the previous era of baseball scandal, when gambling almost ruined the game, Shoeless Joe Jackson, supposedly was asked by a young fan who's hero was involved in the throwing of the 1919 World Series, leading to the now infamous quote: "say it ain't so, Joe."
So when Dusty Baker was asked the modern day version of this question, he answers with questions:
"Who knows if it's real or not," Baker said. "And if it is real, still, what do you say?"
Before Sosa, manager Baker's tenure in San Francisco was clouded by the most obvious player with body shape changes, it seems that if he was paying attention, he should have had a clue as to what was going on with Sammy.
Asked if he was aware of Sosa's alleged steroid use with the Cubs, Baker replied:
"I had no way of telling because I had never seen it. They asked me the same thing in San Francisco. I don't think any manager knows."
Tough Questions. Unsatisfying answers. It brings to mind the proverb attributed to the 3 wise monkeys, See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. From now on, I'll just file that proverb in the outhouse with Monkey see, Monkey do.
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