After All the Testimony and All the Doubt, the Show Must Go On

Talk about a photo to market baseball and the start of spring training: Commissioner Bud Selig and players' union chief Don Fehr, right arms raised, being sworn in to testify on Tuesday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's hearing on steroid use in baseball.

For several hours, the two most powerful men in the sport told committee members they would do everything they could to rid the game of illegal drugs in response to the recommendations of the Mitchell report.

Also testifying was the author of that report, former Senate majority leader George J. Mitchell, whose document seemed to place personal trainer Brian McNamee in the role of a human jersey wall across the entrance of baseball's Hall of Fame.

Not to mention McNamee's most famous former client, Roger Clemens, whose promise to testify at the next Waxman-Davis Show, Feb. 13 (see StubHub), takes place two days before the start of spring training.

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) proclaimed, according to George Vecsey of the New York Times, "Every fan who bought a ticket to see games for the past 20 years has been witness to a fraud -- and an industry promoted as honest that is in fact rooted in cheating for profit."

How's that for sending Selig and Fehr out of the building, perhaps wondering when baseball became the world doping punching bag and thinking how did this happen?

Issues for me, but maybe not to every fan.

"The business of baseball has not been negatively affected by hearings and news coverage of the [steroid] story," Nationals President Stan Kasten replied when asked in a telephone interview if the steroid/Clemens story will impact Washington's franchise. "We're consumed by a young, interesting team that is moving into an exciting new stadium."

Like always, as questions and doubt remain, the game survives and, incredibly, thrives.

A Rule Foolishly Followed

Please don't tell me about rules regulating uniforms for high school track athletes. The Montgomery Invitational meet director, Tom Rogers, was just wrong to disqualify Theodore Roosevelt runner Juashaunna Kelly recently because she wore a uniform that adhered to her Muslim faith but not some high school federation stipulation -- a uniform Kelly had worn for several years without a problem.

Adults who supervise high school sports are expected to be smart and see the big picture. Rogers missed on both counts.

Fond Days in Green Bay

Old-school fans can jog their memories before tonight's NFC title game between the New York Giants and the Packers at Lambeau Field in very cold Green Bay, Wis.