Midgets, Morons, MSNBC

In the course of this blog's outrageously awesome research department (otherwise known as a nasty addiction to MSNBC.com), I have discovered why Americans no longer win international basketball tournaments, competitions and Olympics.

We are too short.

In all sincerity, how can one help but feel sorry for America. We used to be the tallest nation in the world, now we're short and fat.

But we still have our fallacious moralists.

Yes. Obviously. Indubitably. This guy is %100 correct. Clearly, declaring anything wrong while not being perfect yourself is hypocritical and pointless. Indeed, Bond's blatant cheating is acceptable, because, after all, other people have, at some point in time, cheated. Yes. The logic is irrefutable.

I know I normally leave the cantankerous, rambling soliloquys regarding the deprevation of morality to Mr. H.R. Williams, but really, this article is simply too inane to pass up. And sadly, it is rather reflective of America's general ideas about these things.

A) You can't ever claim someone else is doing something wrong because you aren't perfect either. Yes, that is a complete non sequitor, but what do you care?

B) Everybody is doing it, so you can't get upset by it. Yes, because obviously the more prevalent, quotidian and ubiquitous immorality becomes, the less disturbing it is.

C) It is instinctual; you would do it also. Quite so, because after all, the odds of someone having self-control in thie day and age are so low, that we believe simply because something comes naturally, that it is somehow ethical. Sure, that makes sense. Like when I just "naturally" want to kick Mike Celizic in the nuts, no one can complain because it was "instinctual".

Barry Bonds--knowingly or unknowingly, though we all know that such a control freak would not unknowingly do something like this (wow. I fit almost as many "knows" in there as Donald Rumsfeld)--cheated. He said so to a grand jury. This is reprehensible behavior, and one should not succumb to the puerile logic of any Mike Celizic in the world regarding his illicit overtaking of the home run record.

Of course, none of it really matters anyway. If Babe Ruth played in today's game (and hadn't spent his first several years as a pitcher), he would have hit 1,200 home runs.

And he did it all with a career .342 average. In case you were wondering, Bonds' is below .300.

And yes, the fact that Babe Ruth was a womanizer and drunk is reprehensible. I say this despite, having at some point in my life (I know, it is hard to believe) done something wrong. Oh aren't *I* a hypocrite. *wags finger at self*

~The Sports Maunderer~

P.S. In Bill Simmon's latest mailbag, a reader emailed him with the knowledge that he had recently bought the 1987 world series on DVD. Tim McCarver (Joe Buck's baseball buddy) at one point (I kiddeth not) uttered this sensational piece of insight:

"If you are a contact hitter, you've got to make contact to play in this league"

I feel like your life would be incomplete without this knowledge.