Talk About Irresponsible

As many of you know, I love to read those "Letter to the Editor" columns in the newspapers. They occasionally print letters that can be amusing, touching, smart, as well as totally moronic. And on a rare occasion, I feel the need to comment directly on one that I see that touches a nerve.

Well, this is one of those occasions. I picked up today's NY Daily News and saw an absolute beauty of a letter about Barry Bonds. A guy from Tampa, Florida wrote this one, and he's clearly a Bonds apologist. You just knew that the letters from Bonds' fans would come out. But this irresponsible letter made me wince. And made me angry. Here it is:

A Giant among men
Tampa: Mike Lupica ("Hollow record for bloated slugger," Aug. 8) is wrong to assume Barry Bonds' fans like me believe he did not use performance-enhancing drugs. Of course I know he used steroids, but I don't really care. It's hard to consider it cheating when seven or eight of every 10 players have that same edge. A millionaire entertainer availing himself of the latest science and technology to become an even better entertainer is not a bad thing.
Bill Filippone

Where do I begin with this one? I guess this Bill Filippone's twisted logic is: "If everyone cheats, it's OK that Bonds did." Well, not everyone cheated, bud. Where he comes up with "seven or eight of every ten players" cheats, I don't know. (No one knows, and I won't even try to put a number on it.) I guess if seven or eight of every ten players jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, that would make it OK too? I suppose that since cheating is OK and acceptable, we should all turn a blind eye to it?

But the part of this nitwit's letter that bothered me the most was this:" A millionaire entertainer availing himself of the latest science and technology to become an even better entertainer is not a bad thing." Does this bonehead have any clue as to the damage that steroid abuse does to the human body? Football players and pro wrestlers have died from steroid abuse at young ages, and the damage it can cause is frightening: heart attacks and other damage to the heart, cancer to the liver and prostate, and that's just the beginning. I fear that the worst baseball steroid abusers will die at a young age at a frightening rate as the years go on.

I found the article that Mike Lupica wrote the other day about Bonds that this guy referred to to be excellent, and right on the money. Here it is: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/2007/08/08/2007-08-08_hollow_record_for_bloated_slugger-1.html

Hey, Bonds has his fans, and they will surely look the other way when it comes to his transgressions. But there are other times when I wonder what some people like Filippone actually use for brains. Steroid abuse is no joke. Just ask the families of those athletes who've died premature deaths because of it.