Game Plan, Part IV

By Michael – Louis Ingram, Editor

BASN

(first presented August 7, 2008)

 

PHILADELPHIA (BASN/BASN/NEWSROOM)— Our current President has been a busy beaver these last seven years.

His agenda to spark his own holy war, ignited by the most primal overtures of “vendetta” belie the jockeying he and his minions within the walls of power have attempted in seeking to undermine every American’s civil rights.

I know — but now you wanna know how does this affect sports? Well, I’ll tell you:

The Bush clan has had their hands in several pies for generations. As far back as the 1920s, the Walker side of the Bush family tree has had a marked influence in sports.

George W. Bush Sr.’s, great-grandfather, George Walker, was president of the U. S. Golf Association in the aforementioned era, and he would later establish an amateur competition between American, British and British Commonwealth golfers, which would later be named the Walker Cup. Another relative, grandpa Prescott Bush, would serve a term as association president in the 1930s.

On the heels of the New York Giants leaving the Polo Grounds for the Bay Area of San Francisco, the New York Metropolitans were formed with Bush money from Herbert Walker, our current president’s namesake.

In addition, all of the incarnations of every version of “the world’s most famous arena”, Madison Square Garden, was also infused with Bush bucks as it moved from 50th Street to its current location at 33rd and 7th Avenue.

Meanwhile, back at El Rancho…

It’s 1988 and Bush Jr., long a baseball fan, decides to buy in Major League Baseball. With a foundering Texas Ranger franchise up for sale, he buys a controlling interest and heads up an eminent domain Bogart to snatch up land for what would eventually be the Park at Arlington after his father wins the election and is named President.

His baseball general manager during that period was Tom Grieve, a former bonus baby and outfielder in the organization. Before Bush would leave the Rangers, Grieve would work on a trade he would later speak on as one where he was aware the principals involved were steroid users.

The point in bringing this out is because the feigned surprise of performance enhancement was simply that — a fucking performance; and a bad one, to boot!

Grieve admitted in a documentary that a trade was made for Jose Canseco in spite of the fact their brain trust felt he used steroids to go with their other acquisitions of Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez and Ivan Rodriguez.

With the Bushes having friendly relationships with influential people like Peter Ueberroth, Fay Vincent, Bart Giamatti and the despicable Bowie Kuhn, there can be no denying there was common knowledge that widespread use of steroids and similar substances were being used throughout baseball.

San Diego Padres’ general manager Kevin Towers would later cry crocodile tears in revealing his knowing former league Most Valuable Player, third baseman Ken Caminiti, was a consistent user.

Caminiti, who later died from a drug overdose in 2004, was league MVP in 1996, and Towers alluded everyone in baseball wanted butts in the seats and damn how it was done; hence his reasoning for “ignoring” Caminiti’s “performance.”

Which brings us back to what we have always suspected: if the executives knew, then the owners knew; if the owners knew, the major beat writers and columnists who traveled with the respective teams also knew.

So for any of the above to feign outrage at the spoiling of the Grand Old Game — or any player caught taking steroids — is just pure unadulterated bullshit.

Which also means the Mitchell Report, for all its sturm und drang, was also 100 % pure Texas homegrown Grade “A” horseshit.

And for every muthafucka that tapped a keyboard or clicked a mouse in railing against players like Gary Sheffield and Barry Bonds, while skating on known users like Jason Giambi (who has still never admitted using steroids), Jeff Bagwell (who used androstenione like Mark McGwire while it was ‘legal’, but was never vilified in Houston) all your accounts of who should get in the Hall of Fame and who shouldn’t are also not worth the splinter-laced Hemorrhoid Helper you wipe your unworthy asses with.

Granted, linear thinking has never been my strong suit; but given the list of 130 plus players who tested positive for steroids in 2003 (whose names are still not public record) and the average career of said players hovering between eight to nine years, it would make for a safe assumption there were enough dirty hands, but not enough soap.

In President Bush’s 2006 State of the Union address, with the Gulf Coast in chaos, Black people — called “refugees,” chided on national television for “stealing” while white people “found stuff,” a nation of millions waited with bated breath for the President to address the fallout and progress of those stranded, lost, deceased or relocated due to Hurricane Katrina.

The President would speak for all of fifteen seconds on the situation in the Gulf Coast, while elaborating for almost three minutes on the destruction of sports due to steroids.

And within that last passage, lies the evil essence of Bush.

He acts like he clueless, but remember, his daddy ran the CIA for 22 years, so he’s forgotten more dirty tricks than you and I could ever conjure up. Even if he was the dunce cap frat boy some make him out to be, he’s always had people around him — very powerful people — to protect him.

And while some of us giggle and laugh and say he’s an asshole, he and his War Kittens have slowly, systematically gnawed away at the soft underbelly of what makes us theoretically the free and the brave like a bowl of fresh Meow Mix.

Bush acts this way because he knows the deck is stacked, and you don’t. It doesn’t matter how skilled a strategist you are or how smart; he’s gonna draw pocket Aces every fucking time.

And as most life is for most Black folks, we have to draw to an inside straight most every fucking day just to maintain our collective sanity.

Before he steps down from office, I humbly predict Bush will try his best to flex the government into tossing Barry Bonds’ Black ass into a jail cell.

I don’t give a fuck how arrogant Bonds may seem, and I don’t know the man — but no one that was privy to this madness should even be considered for prosecution until the fucking owners are put under the hot lamps and have their nuts slow roasted until they sing like James Brown — OW!

Oh, and, of course, no matter how much hue and cry there may be for equal debasement of Hall of Shame pitcher Roger Clemens, who, in spite of throwing his wife under the bus, ran her ass over when it came out about his girlfriend…

Who, in spite of countless accusations of his former trainer, Brian McNamee, looks cold busted as a user and liar, will have a pardon / Get the Fuck Outta Jail card ready and waiting a la Scooter Libby for him as a parting gift from President Bush.

always outnumbered – never outgunned.

michaelingram@blackathlete.com/basneditor@basnnewsroom.com