There's equality for ya!

In this month's "go figure" section of Sports Illustrated:

$510,000
Amount won in a
settlement by a man
who sued the A's for
sex discrimination
because he was not
given a souvenir hat
the club handed out to
women at a game on
Mother's Day 2004.

So I lied

Ok, so in my introductory post I wrote that I wouldn't be blogging about sports, and I apparently lied. I came across this story at today, and I have to say a few things. First, I have no idea who Tejada, nor do I care. I also don't care whether anyone else in baseball ever used "performance enhancing drugs." All right, so that isn't entirely true either. I care when it comes to records. I do think Barry Bonds' home run record is different than Hank Aaron's, and I do think Bonds' use of drugs (or, should I say alleged use) should be noted in the record books.

This issue has been driving me crazy for months, and I, who really don't know anything at all about baseball or most other sports, have been interested in this ongoing drama for one reason: I don't think the Senate has any business holding hearings on this issue. I'm sure there are all kinds of reasons why the Senate needs to hold hearings on steroid use. But give me a break! We're involved in a war in two countries, our deficit is growing exponentially, and we may well be entering a recession. Further, over 40 million Americans (including approximately 9 million children) are uninsured and our schools are going to pot. Surely the Senate (and the FBI for that matter) has better things to do than listen to rich baseball players reveal that their trainers gave them shots of steroids. I think their time (and my tax dollars, quite frankly) would be better spent tackling the bigger problems listed above than talking to baseball players all day.