Mr. Clemens goes to Washington

Whether or not you watch or even care in the slightest about sports, you would have to have been stuck under a rock for the past oh.....I don't know...at least 4 weeks to not know that the greatest pitcher to ever walk the planet had to answer to Congress allegations of Steroid and Human Growth Hormone today. I'll not bother you with the back-story or the details. I'd rather just draw you a simile to describe the greater problem in Major League Baseball.

Since the early 1990's, many of the highest officials in baseball were calling for drug testing. Not necessarily for steroids per se, but for amphetamines, cocaine, and marijuana. In 2003, 12 - 13 years later, they finally got the players union to agree to steroid testing. No HGH testing, and no amphetamines testing.

The Problem - Part I:

Obviously, from the late 1970's on, illegal drugs had steadily become a problem in our society, and baseball was no exception. Enter the 1990's, and baseball and our nations back-room chemists came up with new, more productive (and symmetrically more dangerous) drugs for the boys of summer to try.

The Problem - Part II:

A man named Donald Fehr entered the picture as the legal council for the MLB Players Assn. He spearheaded the crybaby antics of the players and caused the strike and subsequent cancelling of the 1994 season, mere weeks before the playoffs and world series. The animals were now clearly running the farm.

The Problem - Part III:

In an effort to lure angry fans back into the empty ballparks of 1995 through 1997, baseball looked the other way. Way, way, way, the other way. Home runs started flying out of the park faster than Michael Jackson volunteering to chaperone a 3rd grade field trip to SeaWorld. Calls for more stringent oversight within the confines of MLB (which included the aforementioned drug testing again) were thwarted by our old friend, Donald Fehr.

In each case, Fehr stated that he was only doing his required job as the appointed legal counsel of the players. More on this statement, later.

If you have a 17 year old son or daughter who is consistently skipping class in their senior year of high school, who is the school coming after to get to the source of the problem? Correct: The Parents.

If the nation of Turkey is found to have been shipping heroine into Iraq, and we suddenly had 5,000 service men and women hooked on the shit, would Congress be calling some private or staff sergeant to appear before them? Of course not. General Highpants would be there.

Although there is a certain level of individual responsibility in both these examples, the oversight authority investigating each matter would take up the main dialog with the powers that be. So why is Roger Clemens appearing before Congress, and not baseball commissioner Bud Selig, his predecessor, each and every owner and general manager, and definitely why isn't Donald Fehr - the ultimate enabler - answering the hard questions?

Fehr said he was only acting on the players behalf. I have news for him: If the players wishes were for no drug testing of any kind for nearly 20 years because they knew they would be caught, he had no legal obligation to follow such instructions. Therefore, because he argued, stumped, litigated, and continually quashed any and all attempts to pass qualified drug rules, he himself is guilty of any number of crimes. Coercion; Aiding and Abetting persons in the commission of a felony; Misrepresentation; Fraud; Perjury; and who knows what else?

This thing is a farce based upon this. If you don't go after the people truly responsible, that's just plain wrong. Don't get me wrong; Roger Clemens is no victim.

We the fans are the victims.