Hedging the Bet

FOR THE BENEFIT of our russian friends, permit me to say that perhaps the greatest american contribution to world culture is baseball, and millions of people all over japan, china, korea, mexico, cuba, the dominican republic, and venezuala might agree.

The europeans are catching on, and my understanding is that there is actually a russian baseball program for olympic purposes. Baseball has a brilliant future internationally. American professional baseball is keeping a close eye on chinese baseball, with good reason; the chinese are flocking to the ball park by the millions.

In america one must not use steroids and play baseball, and because of this several great baseball players are not allowed to enter the homorary society of great baseball players called the "Hall of Fame."

One is almost tempted to think that in a country which has so strongly expoused the virtue of personal liberty it might not be a good idea to try to regulate what people do to or put inside their own bodies.

Why not stop worrying about whether people use steroids, or caffeine, just play the game, and see where the chips fall? Steroids, like cigarettes, would probalby one day vanish naturally, through unpopularity and education concerning their negative side effects.

very soon now the great cyclist lance armstrong is expected to dramatically announce that, yes, after all the stress and strain, he indeed did use performance enhancing drugs. Ho hum. I have used caffeine before running quarter marathons.

For all our ranting about freedom, we americans are an obsevvively legalistic bunch; one third of the world's lawyers are american, and it sometimes seems one third of the world's laws are also american.

Pete Rose, one of the greatest baseball players ever, is kept out of the hall of fame because he gambled. As if gambling has anything to do with how good a player he was. The real gamblers are the guys who keep Rose out of the Hall of Fame; the billionaire owners who gambled their way to great wealth by pursuing successful business enterprises, which are always a gamble.

 We congratulate america's billionaire baseball team owners on their highly successful gambling careers, and we urge them to not punish other people for so doing, particularly great players like pete rose.

Like a good and great philosopher friend of mine once said "a gambler is anybody who gets out of bed in the morning." Amen to that , bro. You got that right.