I shouldn’t be surprised by stories like this — Nuclear Power Gets Boost From Top Campaign Cash Recipients — and yet surprised I am. Money is poison to good policy.
Author: hankkalet
Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.
Runner’s diary, Friday
It was a beautiful morning for a run, so I took my weery and sore legs onto the pavement and busted out three miles while listening to Real Animal by Alejandro Escovedo.
Court nixes local sex-offender zones
Not everyone is going to agree, but the court is right on this. If the state wants to create sex-offender-free zones, the state can do so. Leaving it to the municipalities results in a hodge-podge of regulation that does little more than chase registered offenders from town to town.
Runner’s diary, Thursday
Another day, another four miles (34:32) and the shin seems to be getting worse. I know I should rest it, but I feel like I’ve not been running enough recently to rest anything.
iPod: R.E.M., Document
The taint of steroids
It appears that we can add Manny Ramirez’s name to the list of tainted sluggers, based on today’s report that he is about to be suspended 50 games for a positive steroid test. The interesting question, of course, is what this means not only for his Hall of Fame chances, but for the Hall of Fame chances of all players from the present era — players who played the bulk of their careers over the last 20 years.
Consider this list of players from the era who slugged at least 500 home runs (from Baseball Reference):
- Barry Bonds 762
- Ken Griffey 613
- Sammy Sosa 609
- Mark McGwire 583
- Rafael Palmeiro 569
- Alex Rodriguez 553
- Jim Thome 545
- Manny Ramirez 533
- Frank Thomas 521
- Gary Sheffield 500
That’s 10 players — of the 25 all-time — who played the majority of their careers after the mid-1980s. Of these 10, only three — Griffey, Thome and Thomas — have not been linked to steroids. McGwire, the only one on the list eligible to enter the Hall, has been snubbed for two years now, which seemed to make sense — until you consider that the steroid era has tainted so many players of all abilities that we can’t be sure that the players we think are clean really have been.
A-Rod is the case in point. He was the one guy — along with Griffey — who everyone viewed as squeeky clean on the issue and who nearly everyone was rooting for to pass Bonds and remove the taint on the record. Now, however, he is mired in steroid controversy, his accomplishments called into question.
I don’t think steroid users should be rewarded, but we have to acknowledge that the homerun barrage that has left the record book a shambles was not a product of steroids alone. A host of factors — smaller parks, more sophisticated workout regimens, awful pitching, a tendency to swing for the fences — contributed.
But the one thing that I think has become clear — at least to me — is that guys like McGwire, A-Rod and Manny have been playing by the rules as established by the culture of baseball and are likely not exceptions.
