McGwire and Steroids
My eight year-old son, who is a huge baseball fan and a huge Cardinals fan, saw Mark McGwire's picture in the paper this morning under a headline about steroids. He said, and I quote, "Mark McGwire didn't use steroids, no way! He's one of my favorite players. I love Mark McGwire. I love Ozzie Smith. I love Bob Gibson. I like Stan Musial." (Aside: it's amazing how kids' minds work; you'll note that he's going backward through history, as if he has a mental chronology of Cardinal greats.)
I am going to be so pissed if it turns out that McGwire did use steroids, and I expect a lot of fathers are going to feel the same way. My boy has a Mark McGwire lunch box for crying out loud!
I am going to be so pissed if it turns out that McGwire did use steroids, and I expect a lot of fathers are going to feel the same way. My boy has a Mark McGwire lunch box for crying out loud!
posted by PDB at 10:06 AM
1 Comments:
UPDATE: As a lawyer, I'm sensitive to the logical conundrum created by the Fifth Amendment's right against self-incrimination. On the one hand, it is important that no man can be forced to testify against himself -- this is, among other things, a guarantor against coercion, torture, the Rack, etc. (Put differently, the Fifth Amendment provides an assurance that the State must prove criminal conduct beyond a reasonable doubt -- the individual does not have to prove the negative that he didn't commit the crime.)
On the other hand, the logic of the common sense layman's reaction to someone "taking the Fifth" is irrefutable. If you were innocent and could say so truthfully, you just testify truthfully that you didn't do X. If you can't testify truthfully that you didn't do X, you open yourself up to prosecution whatever you testify. If you say I didn't do X, you've committed perjury. If you say I did do X, you face prosecution for X. The only way you don't face prosecution is to take the Fifth, but, in that case, the lay public understands exactly what it is that's going on.
The McGwire situation is a sad, sad day for baseball.
Post a Comment
<< Home