The Rocket vs. Congress

Posted by Blake on Feb 14, 2008 - 12:13 am

Roger Clemens showed up on the Hill today for a Congressional hearing on the alleged steroid use throughout his legendary career. There have been a few infamous (and hilarious) moments in these steroid hearings already, such as Rafael Palmeiro pointing at the panel (a la President Clinton) and claiming never to have taken steroids months before being busted, and Mark McGwire claiming he ”wasn’t there to talk about the past.”

The NFL had another hearing like this with their pension issue over the summer, from which we still haven’t seen any real results. Many people are asking what the point is to all this. Are these hearings really necessary? Doesn’t Congress have more important things to worry about than what Roger Clemens may or may not have had injected into his rear end? What’s up with Henry Waxman’s mustache? The answer to these questions, and more, after the jump.

Glad you could make it. Anyway, according to a Boston U. professor (Red Sox bias, maybe?) Congress has ”every right to investigate baseball and other sports,” because the federal government has a stake in the fates of the major sports.

Sports have received extensive government assistance at the national, state and local levels. It’s dishonest for baseball officials to claim that a steroid abuse scandal among players and league officials is “private business.” The reality is that the sports industry has greatly benefited from exemptions to the anti-trust laws, subsidies for stadium construction and an assortment of federal tax breaks.

There you go. In addition, there are dozens of Congressional hearings every week on a very wide range of topics, so the idea of a few of them concerning steroids in baseball isn’t really that far-fetched. The earlier steroid hearings probably got the ball rolling on the now-famous Mitchell Report, so we could see some results from this hearing too. But I wouldn’t count on it any time soon.