Field of Dreams 2050

Whether or not you liked the casting of Kevin Costner in the film Field of Dreams, if you like baseball you loved the movie. Purists, rookies and amateurs all can agree they would watch the movie again. Some may have even cried.

When Shoeless Joe asks, Is this Heaven?, everyone knows what he’s asking about. He loved the game. The only thing he wanted to be part of was playing baseball.

It inspires thoughts of America’s greatest past time and takes everyone back to their child hood when all you needed on a hot summer day was a stick and a ball. Everything else just seemed to work itself out.

When the sequel comes out in 50 years… and there WILL be a sequel… who do you think appears out of left field where Shoeless Joe Jackson did?

I support the writters who are placing the induction of Mark McGwire into the Hall of Fame as a non-priority. I think his appearance in the Senate Committe Hearings was poor and his reasoning shaddy. Everyone behind that table is suspect and turned the whole agenda into a circus (Palmiero’s finger pointing – Sosa’s translation chirade).

It will be appropriate that 50 years from now, the past decade will be referred to as “The Steroid” era. And that Bud Selig will be recognized as the worst commissioner of baseball for letting this decade happen.

It would be nice to see if the likes of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds and Rafael Palmeiro are kept out of the baseball Hall of Fame. I doubt it as the voters will soon forget and cave in on maybe the last vote for each.

Granted Shoeless Joe was given the opportunity despite a scandal he was involved in. But I can’t imagine, and I hope it doesn’t happen, that any players from between the years of 1995 and 2005 are allowed to be resurrected to play in a cornfield baseball diamond in the middle of “heaven”.

In the movie is an exchange between Shoeless Joe and Ray where Shoeless talks about all the guys that wanted to play and that they had to beat ‘em off with a stick.
Hopefully Shoeless Joe will have beat The Clear out of Barry and The Andro out of McGwire when mentioning who wanted to play in 2050.

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Dan Patrick at ESPN covers all bases pretty well in his article Baseball, steroids and the truth.

I just have to respond

Yes it’s a tired subject, but some still dont’ get it. This is in response to the Sports Law Blog at Why is Steroid Use Considered Cheating?.

This being the “Sports Law Blog” I find it interesting that especially in this article, you neglected (willingly) to mention any references to “precedence”.

First and foremost, beyond any sport rule book, IT IS AGAINST THE LAW! IT IS NOT LEGAL! (Doctors notes excluded)

The ‘fallback arguement’ is less about those from the past (as they too could have used them) as much as it’s about those who choose to obey the law and play as the spirit of the sport intends, which is, bring all the you (and only yourself has to bring) – I’ll bring mine, and the best man will win. When steroids are introduced, the man cheating brings a bench player while the other meets the challenge head on. The terms coward/Peter Pan syndrome come to mind.

As far as eye-surgery’s go… it’s not any other improvement that the guy already had wearing glasses in the first place. And Greg DID wear glasses but mostly wore contacts. Get the facts straight.

HGH, Andro, etc are in the same bucket.. the “meaningful difference” isn’t justified, rather the (knowingly) strong Baseball Players Union was able to keep that off the negotiating table. You should be asking, “why hasn’t the union OFFERED these things to the banned substance list?” — Simple, the union knows that there are too many guys using this right now which would put them out of the game, not by violation, but because those things keep them from the minors.

Back to precedence, the spirit of sport and competition is about fair play (hence rules). Rules are there for those who don’t have the integrity within themselves to play for the competition, the betterment, etc. To those who excuse onfield behavior by coining the phrase “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying”… you know who you are, you should be ashamed to think you belong being mentioned in the same breath as Montana, Mayes, West, Robinson…