Toke me up at the ballgame
September 25, 2002 ~ 9:11 a.m.
So now we know why the New York Mets� baserunning was so catastrophic this season. The team has come under fire based on allegations of marijuana use on its roster. A Newsday investigation found that three Mets players, pitcher Grant Roberts in particular, had smoked the drug this season. The current events magazine even published a photo of Roberts smoking a bong, although the team contends that the photo is four years old, when Roberts was still in the minor leagues. But the story has in effect only heightened union head Donald Fehr�s resolution to begin drug testing on players next year. Although three players were highlighted by Newsday, it is suspected that seven or possibly more players had partaken in the drug on game days.
Mets manager Bobby Valentine denies all rumors of marijuana use, and is adamant that he never confronted Roberts about use of the drug. �I guarantee you, no one was in uniform and smoking marijuana, unless they were running around with a whole lot of Visine in their eyes,� Valentine quipped. �I grew up in the �60s, I think I could tell by looking in a guy�s eyes if he was smoking dope.�
Then how to explain an error-laden season in which the Mets dogged the bases and couldn�t win one home game during the entire month of August?
�Marijuana is not a performance enhancer. I don�t think anybody would want to get in there and try to dodge a 95 mile-per-hour fastball,� said Valentine. Hmmm � but if you were one of the players who had just taken a few hits, would you care about your batting average? You can certainly imagine poor Mike Piazza, who had to battle suspicions over his sexuality, getting high to escape the cajoling. I suppose you would have nothing else left to lose regarding your pride, so when the high heat whizzed past you, you wouldn�t care if the umpire just called strike three on you, even if you thought the pitch was a ball. �Hey, that cloud looks just like the woman I slept with last night,� you would mutter (especially if you were Piazza) as you trudged back to the dugout.
One question I would love to ask Valentine � Did you ever have to wake any of your players up at the end of an inning?
As for play in the field? Forget about Golden Gloves for this team. More like, Dude, where�s my glove?!
The Mets� third-base coach was probably pulling his hair out all season. �No, no, you tag the base before running home!�
Seriously, I write this in all fun and jest. I like the Mets. They are New York�s working-class baseball team, unlike the rich, powerful, greedy, monopolizing scourge of baseball known collectively as the Yankees. The Mets are an entertaining team.
Seriously, though, no matter what your position on marijuana, whether to legalize, decriminalize or keep illegal, what matters is that these guys are paid millions � thousands at the very least � to play baseball for a living. They need to stick not only to the rules governing the game according to Major League Baseball, but the rules governing society as well.
You can�t smoke or drink as a player either, at least not on game days. Babe Ruth used to whack home runs while tanked and Carl Yaztremski used to sit in the dugout between innings puffing away. But those days are over. These guys are professionals and need to act like it.
With rumors such as the Mets pot scandal, it�s no wonder Major League Baseball is in the tenuous state that it�s in.
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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