By Evan Weiner

March 3, 2008

(New York, NY) -- The Salem Witch Trails ended in 1692, Senator Joe Mc McCarthy’s reign of blacklisting came to a sudden halt in 1954 but in the world of baseball writers, The Scarlet Letter (a book which was written in 1850 by Nathaniel Hawthorne) of S, for steroids, has been pinned on the shirt of every player named in the Mitchell Report and it is seemingly being done so for the benefit of fellow baseball writers and certain politicians not the general public.

Just read the prose of one Associated Press writer Tom Withers reporting on Cleveland Indians player Tim Laker who is trying to make the team at the club's Winter Haven, FL training facility.

"Overwhelmed with regret and pained by a short-sighted decision he wishes he could take back, Tim Laker began moving away from his tainted past," Withers wrote with the seriousness of a 19th century writer trying to make the point that Laker needs to repent and regain his dignity. "Laker, a former major league catcher who admitted in the Mitchell Report he injected himself with steroids to gain an edge, expressed sadness and deep remorse yesterday as he discussed cheating the game he loves.

"I made a poor decision, a mistake," a contrite and ashamed Laker said. "And all I can do is ask for forgiveness and move on.''

The writer, like a good many baseball scribes, has become judge and jury in deciding Laker's fate in the court of public opinion. Laker is a cheat when in fact he broke United States federal law in possessing an illegal substance, steroids, without a doctor's approval. But for the baseball writers it is all about cheating not breaking a law.

And players better apologize to the baseball writers or else. The or else is you can end up like Roger Clemens because you didn’t kiss the butts of baseball writers. After all, the baseball scribes matter, just ask them. After all, the baseball scribe is the eyes and ears of the fan who has no access to players. They are acting on the fans behalf.

The funny thing is this. Baseball consumers don't care. At a Society for American Baseball Research gathering in New Jersey on Saturday, some of the people attending the event said that baseball writers were totally out of touch with baseball fans. It is not the first time that has been uttered, nor will it be the last. A writer like sports and now political columnist Mike Lupica is so out of touch with their readership, it is a wonder that New York Daily News owner and publisher Morton Zuckerman has not caught onto this fact. Even the Chairman of the United States House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, said after the Roger Clemens-Brian McNamee performance enhancing drugs hearings on February 15 that he regretted holding the hearing in the first place.

Clemens is now being investigated by the Department of Justice and the FBI to determine whether he lied to the Congressional committee. That, of course, has be met with glee by the baseball writers who plan to punish Clemens by not voting him into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2013 and seemingly are happy that Clemens could end up in jail.

But all of this brings up a very troubling question. Is there a new Mc McCarthyism being practiced by baseball writers and is there a media double standard when it comes to baseball players and other athletes and baseball players and entertainers?

The actor Sylvester Stallone told Time magazine earlier this year that he used human growth hormone to get in shape for his new "Rambo" movie and added that "HGH (human growth hormone) is nothing.

"Testosterone to me is so important for a sense of well-being when you get older. Everyone over 40 years old would be wise to investigate it because it increases the quality of your life. Mark my words. In 10 years it will be over the counter."

In 2007, Stallone was caught smuggling 48 vials of the banned human growth hormone Jintropin into Australia. In May, he was ordered to pay $10,651 in fines and court costs. It was the end of the story; Stallone paid his fine and moved on with his life. No one was calling for the removal of the statue of his Rocky character that sits near entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as a cultural landmark. After the Australian conviction, a statue of Rocky was also erected in the Serbian village of Zitiste. His film Rocky has been inducted into the National Film Registry as well as having its film props placed in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. The film and the props have not moved since his sentence.

Entertainment writers have not editorialized about how Stallone has let down kids for taking drugs but baseball players are role models or at least there is a mythology about athletes as role models. Stallone could not have been a role model because actors and musicians aren't heroes like athletes.

By the way, Republican Presidential candidate John Mc Cain, who in December 2004 said that he would introduce legislation imposing drug testing standards on professional athletes if baseball players and owners did not adopt a stringent crackdown on steroids by January 2005, is being supported by Stallone.

Athletes are divided into two segments, baseball players and others. It seems very few sportswriters have ever complained about National Football League players being suspended for using banned substances. Sports and entertainment writers don't even approach professional wrestling even though the body count from performers that have died unnatural deaths in the past decade have skyrocketed with many of those deaths attributed from the use of
banned performance enhancing drugs.

But for some reason baseball players have the Scarlet Letter S as a permanent part of their wardrobe. Baseball scribes are seeing to that. Perhaps the baseball writers are trying to make up for the fact that they led the cheering in Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig's hope for a "Baseball renaissance" after the 1994-5 players strike (the owners were found guilty of non faith bargaining in that work stoppage) and accepting the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run race as an important part of the "Baseball renaissance" and looked the other way despite whispers in the industry that certain players were juicing.

The Laker article by the writer Withers follows that of others that how Toronto Blue Jays catcher Greg Zaun had a lot of explaining to do and others of the same vein. For some reason baseball, which has endured a betting scandal in 1919 (eight members of the Chicago franchise were banned from baseball for throwing World Series games, giving the victory to the Cincinnati Reds, the players were acquitted after a Grand Jury was convened) and a drug scandal in 1985. The game goes on and it will survive Clemens, Barry Bonds and scorned baseball writers and columnists.

Perhaps Congressman Waxman and others should delve into Stallone's entertainment industry where there is no call for testing of actors and actresses whose bodies are their livelihoods as well and also hold hearings on why non-high school athletes are taking banned performance enhancing drugs. That would force baseball writers, who really are only interested in watching games, to do some real journalism. As far as the players themselves who are now forced to wear the scarlet letter S, placed upon them by the judge and jury baseball writers. There is an awful lot wrong with the way the whole baseball-steroids-HGH affair is being played out. The Justice Department and the FBI are just now looking into Clemens, but where have law enforcement people been over the past 17 years after steroids possession was made illegal? Why did it take until 2002 for an investigation into the use of banned substances to begin, which happened in the BALCO case in San Francisco. After all there were hints for years that something was going on.

Why is the focus just on baseball players in the US? Why haven't there been Congressional hearings about banned performance enhancers in other industries and finally why are baseball writers the judge and jury and placing the scarlet letter S on baseball players? Why does Sylvester Stallone get a pass and no one is looking to throw him in jail when he is caught red handed with HGH and baseball players scrutinized?

The Salem Witch Trails, the Scarlet Letter and McCarthyism live on if you are a big league baseball player.

(evanjweiner@yahoo.com or eweiner@mcn.tv)