Until yesterday when I heard the name Murray Chass, I thought of him primarily because he probably doesn't celebrate his birthdays using actual numbers, because he hates numbers, but I bet he gives each year a code word that coincided with the Presidents of the United States and what number they were in succession. For example this year he is around Double John F. Kennedy plus George Washington, thereby being 71 (JFK was the 35th President and George Washingon was the 1st...I could not find Murray's actual age but he graduated college in 1960 and I assumed his age at the time was 22). Murray Chass hates numbers, blogs, evolution, and those little clear wrappers around mints in restaurants because in his day everyone washed their hands so you didn't need those.
Well today I found a reason to like Murray Chass. I always thought Mike Piazza was
a. The Anti-Christ
b. Gay
c. On steroids
d. On PED's
e. On HGH
Well Murray has proof and it is bacne. I am not sure Mike Piazza used steroids but Murray sounds pretty convinced.
Baseball writers spend a lot of time in press boxes together, and the close and frequent proximity does not always foster positive relationships. For example, Joel Sherman of the New York Post and I do not have any kind of relationship. We have not talked for years. There's no need to bore you with the reasons why.
Probably either a fight over a lady named Dot, Dorothy or Lucille or it could be something incredibly irrelevant two old men fight over like a specific booth at a seafood restaurant. Basically, there is just no telling, so I will speculate no further. Plus Joel Sherman is not old, so it was probably a fight over whether numbers should be used to keep score in baseball or use Murray's system of presidential counting.
But this was a column about Mike Piazza and the suspicion that he used steroids. As I read it, I was thinking I have to send Sherman an e-mail commending and congratulating him for raising the issue with Piazza. It's a subject that was long overdue.
Seriously. Not just because Mike Piazza terrorized my favorite baseball team throughout the 90's, but if there was a case for steroid use, Mike Piazza is in the second tier behind Bonds and Sosa on that list in my opinion.
Sherman, to his credit, doesn't completely buy it. So I was a minute or two away from writing that e-mail. But then I reached the end of the column, and something was glaringly missing. I went back to make sure I hadn't missed it, but it wasn't there.
I am going to go ahead and ruin this for you. Murray did not write the email because Joel Sherman did not mention Piazza's bacne. That's right, Murray thought it was a great column, but because he left off the mention of bacne, then it is a no go on the congratulations for Joel from Murray. He is a stickler for detail...as long as it does not require the use of numbers.
Now as naive as I might have been about steroids, the one thing I knew was that use of steroids supposedly causes the user to have acne on his back. As I said, Piazza had plenty of acne on his back.
I am disgusted at hearing about this, but I also wonder how bad it truly was. For someone like Murray Chass to notice Piazza's bacne is interesting. Murray is older and may not remember which car is his or that Mickey Mantle is no longer playing baseball, but he noticed the massive amount of bacne on Piazza. I wish he had a picture of it, not so I could look at it, but so it could have been posted at Turner Field's JumboTron during his every at bat.
When steroids became a daily subject in newspaper articles I wanted to write about Piazza's acne-covered back. I was prepared to describe it in disgusting living color. But two or three times my editors at The New York Times would not allow it. Piazza, they said, had never been accused of using steroids so I couldn't write about it.
What? So you are telling me the press, the angelic "we love real humans who play without steroids" press helped to not investigate the steroid controversy? I don't believe it because they are so interested now in finding out the truth. I guess if we assume Murray Chass, who hates numbers, can figure out a bacne problem could be caused by steroids another sportswriter could do the same and make the same assumption. So the same people who are blaming every steroid user, every suspected steroid user, Bud Selig, Congress, and Mother Teresa of turning their back on the epidemic also turned their collective back on the epidemic as well in their own little way? How not shocking.
Every sportswriter in America who is in a locker room, this excludes only Jay Mariotti, should have known about this problem if they were able to see any of these players in a state of undress or semi-undress. This is why I have such a problem with all these articles condemning everyone and anyone who ever had an idea steroids were a problem for turning a blind eye to the problem, because the press turned a blind eye as well.
I always took the veto to stem from the Times ultra conservative ways, but I also wondered if it maybe was the baseball editor, a big Mets fan, protecting the Mets.
Exactly. This is not a screed against the press, this is just a reminder they could have reported things like this when they saw them. I also realize not every reporter had a chance to see this type thing but anyone who saw Piazza with his shirt off could have at least suspected it and they would have had a big story on their hands. The same thing goes for every other suspected steroid user, not just Piazza. I hear Bonds had bacne as well, as well as Orel Hershiser.
I am kidding about Orel Hershiser, I just wanted to make sure you were still paying attention.
Then all of a sudden the acne was gone. Piazza's back was clear and clean. There was not a speck of acne on it. His back looked as smooth as a baby's bottom.
Maybe he hit puberty or had some type of surgery done that would have gotten rid of it. Piazza made a few bucks playing baseball so this is a real possibility. I am sure he had access to someone who could take care of this problem. Maybe he had really bad bacne and got it taken care of...there are other reasons he could have had this problem. Steroids is not the only potential cause.
But the method Piazza used became apparent to me. It wasn't medicine or any substance; it was abstinence. This was during the 2004 season, the first season baseball was testing for performance-enhancing substances with identification and penalties attached. If Piazza had been using steroids and didn't want to get caught, he had to stop using. If he stopped using, his back would clear up.
I would like to see Angela Lansbury and Murray Chass team up for an investigative reporting television show, it would probably involve a lot of bathroom breaks and zero high speed car chases.
So Piazza's back cleared up in 2004, the same season MLB started testing with penalties. That is interesting. I am sure there are Mets fans out there and I don't want them to think I am blindly accusing Piazza of using steroids, but ever since his run in with Roger Clemens in the World Series (which screamed of two guys 'roiding at each other) and the fact he came from being a 62nd round pick to the greatest hitting catcher of all time (or at a minimum greatest hitting of this generation), I have been a little suspicious.
He and Brian/Marcus Giles are three guys who I really suspect may have used steroids. Those are just off the top of my head right now, I think I can think of a few others as well.
Murray mentioned abstinence as a way of getting rid of the insane amounts of bacne on his back. I originally had a joke about herpes, abstinence, and Mike Piazza here but it was not even close to being in good taste.
The conversation was aimed at eliciting if Piazza planned to play another season or would be retiring, but I also asked him about steroids.
I don't really think about stuff like that, he responded. I think in a way these investigations there's a positive in putting the whole thing to rest. This game is very resilient. There will be a time when people will say there was an issue and they dealt with it.
I don't think this quote is especially interesting in regard to Piazza's own suspected steroid use but I do think it is interesting in the fact that the issue has not been dealt with and a whole new cans of worms are being opened up. Which is why I think they should just name the entire list of 103 people who tested positive and get it over with.
But it was Piazza's back that undermined Sherman's column. Sherman never asked Piazza about his acne, at least not that he made known in the column. He had raised the subject of steroids, but he didn't ask about steroids-induced acne.
That was the final straw for Murray Chass. If you are going to interview an athlete about steroids, you had better include something about bacne. If you don't, Murray will not find what you say interesting at all and you won't receive an email from him.
I am shocked Murray even knows how to send an email. Last time I checked you had to use a computer to do things like that, computers lead to numbers, numbers lead to using those numbers to measure baseball statistics, and that leads to civil unrest and the dissolution of the United States, and that leads to an Intergalatic fight between alien races to take over the United States territory. He is just trying to avoid that.
What a disappointment. I didn't send an e-mail.
He probably couldn't find the "send" button.
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