diversion: the baseball I told you so edition

a new day dawns
The big baseball news of the week made my jaw drop when it hit alert screens all over the inter-tubes. (No, speculation about Yankee 3rd basepeople does not qualify as “news”.) When Ryan Braun (and the toughest employee union in the country) conceded a 65 game suspension it showed that two things are very likely to be true: the evidence coming out of the scummy Biogenesis folks is very strong, and Major League Baseball is going to go very hard after everyone it can reach. So … many more shoes to drop.

If you care about MLB at all and if you’re a Manhattan Loft Guy reader for a good while, you may remember my diversionary post about the last time this bubbled strongly. In my February 26, 2012, diversionary Sunday: Ryan Braun is NOT "innocent", I pointed out the limits on what had been established when Ryan Braun won his appeal. In light of this week’s plea bargain, Braun was obviously as guilty then as he is now.

There’s a long piece yet to be written by me about the contradictions inherent in the “relationships” between sports celebrities and fans (they’re performers who don’t owe us anything; but why are they marketed by teams and purveyors as likable and reliable?), but for now (if you have the appetite)I will just link to one of the more thoughtful (less hysterical) pieces holding Braun to account (from Josh Levin on Slate) and some links to the guy I linked to the last time that are in performers-are-just-performers camp (Craig Calcaterra, here, here, and here). I again disagree with Calcaterra, but he is making a case about as well as it can be made.

Particularly if you don’t need those links, or have much of an appetite for this tawdry stuff, I offer Forget PEDs, Baseball Is Fun As Hell Right Now from Jonah Keri Grantland, not as an antidote so much as a suggestion. Even a Yankee fan can appreciate this stuff. Not in the Bronx in 2013, but it’s a beautiful game.

© Sandy Mattingly 2013