Congress and Baseball

"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government." --Thomas Jefferson

"When I was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing. I told him I wanted to be a real Major League baseball player, a genuine professional like Honus Wagner. My friend said that he'd like to be President of the United States. Neither of us got our wish." --Dwight D. Eisenhower

At first I was put off by the notion that our federal government should meddle in the affairs of a private entertainment entity like baseball. After all, I find that the free market usually polices itself on matters that get public attention. A big suspension and some community service time should keep basketball stars from slugging fans, and hockey has a year to figure out it's own shortcomings in the market. Baseball last year put in a solid testing program, and it will work to keep the drug out of the game. That's that, and nuff said. Then I saw the Jefferson quote above.

Is it possible that congress is actually taking a leadership role on something important for a change? Nobody likes heros more than Americans. The number of people who wanna "be like Mike" is enormous. For most young people the only way to approach mike-like proportion (in both physical and public stature) is to use some enhancement. We can't have steroids in the nations locker rooms dispensed like salt tablets, without getting a generation's worth of medical problems; so maybe it's a good thing this is getting attention from the top.

I'll be watching this with some interest, and perhaps more than a little regret that a dozen other more important topics are not given this much focus by our legislators. That's not to say there should be any laws enacted from this. Laws are usually bad. Talking about stuff, that's usually good.

Yes, I know it's mostly grandstanding by the lawmakers. They didn't get to where they are without awesome grandstanding capabilities. A message this important just needs to be made from positions of leadership. Then everybody should just shut up and play ball.