[sumo] [off topic] [Baseball] Mitchell steroid report; Joshua's blatant misinformation

[Charles Finberg]

Boy, do I hate to post this -- and believe me there is a lot that I'm NOT
saying (see, if you must, archived message at
http://www.webtrek.com/pipermail/sumo/2006-September/005202.html)  -- but I
wanted to re-check (merely on his own chosen database) Mr. Maciel's dubious
assertion about reportage of baseball and steroids -- which he has backed by
a WEBSEARCH LINK, no less, because if it's on the Web it must be true.  And,
here's what I have found:

Instead of the overly narrow search run by Mr. Maciel, I searched the
archive for "baseball and steroid" instead:
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FA0B17FA3F5C0C758EDDA10894DB484D81

Guess what!  There were several pre-1996 hits on substance abuse in baseball
-- in an archive which only dates back to 1981.  There was for example an
entertaining personal experience piece by George Vecsey from 1983:
http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=baseball+steroid&d=&o=&v=&c=&n=10&dp=0&daterange=full&sort=oldest

Also, in 1988, Orel Hershiser is described as "one of the few remaining
successful athletes in the world who has not been publicly or privately
accused of steroid use within the past two weeks":
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE7DA103CF937A35753C1A96E948260

Even to Scott Kahn and me, there is a world beyond the New York Times online
1981-onward archive!  When I was Joshua's age, we used to go to a special
building to do research, called a ... it was full of, you know, these
flip-through printed things, some of which were MORE THAN 25 YEARS OLD!!!  I
think some may still exist if Oskar Werner didn't burn them all.

As for the Mitchell report, I'd recommend that interested readers track down
the comments of David Cornwell (a lawyer who has a bias, as he has
represented some athletes).  In my personal opinion, if Sen. Mitchell had
done while he was a prosecutor what he did in yesterday's report and
interviews, he'd be severely disciplined by the Maine professional conduct
board.  This is not a question of innocence or guilt, for even the guilty --
indeed, especially the guilty -- deserve due process.  I will leave it to
others to critique the substance.  It was illustrative to me that Jose
Canseco was excluded from the presentation, ostensibly because it was only
for the "Press" (as opposed to whom?  The public whom the Press serves?).
"We can't let this become Jose Canseco's circus!  This is OUR circus!"


On 12/13/07, Charles Beauchamp <beauking1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Oh I am sorry,
> your lousy internet search skills and misinformation are due to your
> selective use of tools.  If you had just said that to begin with you
> wouldn't have looked as..well actually it is due to your selective use of
> tools that you are looking so ignorant.
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Joshua Maciel <joshua.maciel at gmail.com>
> To: Sumo Mailing List <sumo at webtrek.com>
> Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 6:05:03 PM
> Subject: Re: [sumo] [off topic] Mitchell steroid report; Joshua's blatant
> misinformation
>
> No, I checked the NYTimes online archive for 'brady anderson steroids' and
> the first article that popped up was from 1998.
>
> You can check it
> yourself<
> http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=brady+anderson+steroids&d=&o=&v=&c=&n=10&dp=0&daterange=full&sort=oldest
> >
> .
>