With Condolences To Bill Simmons

What a mess Major League Baseball has gotten itself into. The reign of current commissioner Bud Selig really can't be more of a tragedy, only he's the idiot who got himself into this. With the news today that both of the heroes of the Boston Red Sox 2004 and 2007 championship teams, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, tested positive for PEDs in 2003 ... well let's just say that the hour is getting late, and the wheels are falling off this entire era.

It was just the other day I was waxing poetic on Griffey Jr. and I still hope ... heck, maybe even pray at this point ... that he is/was clean. We need someone we can hang our hats on. But with Ortiz (Mr. "anyone who tests positive should be suspended for a year") and Manny (who we all said "he's too dumb to even complete a full steroids cycle" regarding) testing positive, the hit list continues:

- McGwire
- Sosa
- Bonds
- A-Rod
- Manny
- Big Papi

At what point do we stop being surprised? I think I'm already there, personally, but when I loaded up espn.com tonight I still found myself shaking my head. I'm not sure what I was shaking it in. It wasn't surprise, and it wasn't really disappointment either. The Sports Guy writes about people entering what he terms "the Tyson Zone" (scroll almost all the way to the bottom of the page, or just CTRL+F and search for Tyson Zone for Simmons' explanation). Basically, a person in the Tyson Zone is so crazy that no matter what you hear about them it doesn't really surprise you. I'd like to suggest that all of Major League Baseball has entered into the Tyson Zone. I honestly can't say I'd be shocked by anything at this point. You could tell me that Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux were using at this point, and my only thought would probably be "well they weren't using very effectively since they never topped 90 MPH with their fastballs."

To be clear, I am not saying Glavine or Maddux used, anymore than I think that Griffey used. In fact, of all the superstars from the steroids era, I'd have to say they are the most pristine. But I am saying that nothing could really surprise me anymore. Baseball has put itself in an awful situation, and I'm not sure what they do with it. George Mitchell and his report has got to be considered a bit of a fraud now; there were tons of Yankees on the list and pretty much no Red Sox. Anybody now believe that Mitchell (a Red Sox insider) was, if not actively trying to distort the truth, at the very least actively not trying to taint his team?

You now have even more of the era tainted, but beyond the statistical taint we now have the biggest moment in baseball in my life tainted. Look, McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, A-Rod, they all have one thing in common: they didn't win a World Series. No champions were directly tainted by a huge superstar. But the 2004 Red Sox, with their improbable comeback from down 0-3 to the "hated" Yankees, as well as ending "The Curse of the Bambino" ... well that team was iconic. That team was the single most memorable baseball team in my lifetime. And now they are the single most tainted aspect of baseball's steroids era.

Sure, the individual records have been tainted for some time, but that we can mentally undo. We can mentally say "Maris is still number one with sixty-one" and "Hank Aaron is tops with 755." We can do this all too easily ... but how do we deal with a team who was tainted in such a drastic way? I'm not sure, but I'm pretty certain Bill Simmons is going to have reconsider whether he really can die in peace after all. For once I actually have to agree with Ozzie Guillen: get the list out, the whole list, so we can move on. Get the whole list out, just so we can see how deep this goes, and so we can begin to deal with it.

And so, on a day when my beloved Cubs traded two promising young right-handers for two lefties (one who is average, and one who is awful), I can't even complain about how we blew the chance to get what we really needed (Freddy Sanchez) from the very team we just let rip us off. No, I'm here no longer wondering how we got here ... I'm just wondering where we go from here on out. I finally do have an answer, however, for the Cubs fan who called in to WGN radio after Sosa's positive test. The caller argued that he was now happy that the Cubs collapsed in 2003, blew a 3-1 lead in the NLCS, and brought all the heartbreak on. He was happy because, in light of Sosa's positive test, if we won it would have now been empty. At the time I thought "well, there's another Cubs fan justifying us choking." Now I can't help but agree. Having tainted personal records is one thing. Tainting an entire franchise and a couple of World Series titles? My condolences Mr. Simmons...