As a lifelong Baltimore Orioles' fan let me tell you what a relief it is to know that team members were using drug enhancement drugs. Without the help of these drugs, the team would surely not have been able to nail that second-to-last place in the standings. Thanks for taking the extra step, guys.
In reality, this steroid scandal does make me ask. Who's the bigger idiot - the players who took drugs to desperately hold onto their zillion-dollar-a-year job or the fan who insists on rooting for a team despite consistent efforts to shake my faith?
To wit:
- The Orioles treated my hometown like so much dog dung that said hometown finally felt compelled to break a 40-year Triple A affiliation with the O's.
- The Orioles watched other franchises build success by creating a strong minor-league system and adding a few veteran free agents, but refused to follow such a sensible framework and instead went out and paid big money for washed-up big names who couldn't spell w-i-n.
Yet still, I clung to some notion that this was my team, that to abandon them in hard times was wrong, that the very sight of an Orioles' uniform still did something for me. Things got so bad my brother went off to root for the Yankees, but not me.
And now I learn that they not only were bad, but they had to cheat to even be that good. At least when the Yankees cheated, they won.
Is it the same in politics? Do you find yourself wondering why you stick with certain candidates or certain parties despite their every effort to shake your faith? Is that faith a good thing?
- Terri Hallenbeck
