Rick Reilly Contributes

In the ESPN magazine dated September 8, 2008, Rick Reilly's column Life of Reilly has an article entitled "A Lot of Guys in the Minors Got Hosed by Steroids. They Should Sue."

Reilly's a character who spends lots of his time working on the "funny bone" of the reader. And this piece has a funny concept, although not to those who "got hosed", and someone in Hollywood should be keeping all of his/her resources open to anything. IF so, this should be something in consideration.

How about, A Harold Ramis production with Rick Moranis as one of his star players who "got hosed?"

Reilly speaks of a player, Mitch Jones who has nearly 200 home runs and in nine (9) years and he doesn't even have an at-bat. Why didn't he make it? Reilly offers: Because he was dumb enough to start his career at the exact wrong time in baseball history: during the Pharmacy Era, when old guys got young with syringes and injured guys got well with shipments from Mexico.

Reilly goes on to say: Stanford labor law professor emeritus William Gould IV says the idea "is very interesting" but that they'd need to prove three (3) things to win:
(1) A correlation between steroid use and better performance. (Please.)
(2) That baseball turned a blind eye to steroid use. (Exhibit A: baseball's own Mitchell Report. It blames Bud Selig and players association COO Gene Orza for allowing steroids to spread like crabgrass. Mitchell said there was a "code of silence" in baseball. You think? Oriole David Segui (Diego's kid) told his GM that he wanted to go to Florida to pick up juice, and the GM never reported it. A Twins visiting clubhouse attendant found a used syringe and told manager Tom Kelly, who never reported it. The thing has more conspiracies than an Oliver Stone movie.)
(3) "Nonstatutory labor exemption considerations." Gould IV says. That's just so complicated it makes our head ache, but a good shark would gobble it right up.

Mitch Jones played in the Yankees farm system from 2000 to 2006 as a corner outfielder and first baseman. He hit 39-HR in a season and nobody even blinked. That's because the Yankees had Jason Giambi at first and Gary Sheffield in right. And guess who were both cited in the Mitchell Report? Giambi and Sheffield.

(thanks to Rick Reilly of ESPN magazine and his Life of Reilly column dated 9/8/08.)

Kevin Marquez