By Ed Attanasio
Like Abe Lincoln once said: You can fool some of the people some of the time.
Well, Rafael Palmeiro, you fooled Congress for a short time, but now the truth has finally come out. You’re suspended from baseball for taking steroids. All the posturing and denials in the world won’t keep the heat off you this time. You lied and got caught and now you’re attempting to say it was all an accident. Doing ads for Viagra was an accident. Getting caught doing steroids is a travesty.
I really believed you when you testified on March 17, Raffy. You were so direct and defiant that I couldn’t imagine that you were lying. You looked good up there with Sammy, Mark and Curt. You couldn’t separate yourself from them fast enough.
You almost scowled at the Congressmen and women when you emphatically said, “I have never used steroids. Period. I don’t know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never.” Maybe the period should have been a series of three dots (…), because obviously it wasn’t then and isn’t now that cut-and-dried.
Whoever coached you prior to your testimony did you a real disservice, Raffy. They must be from the old school of “deny, deny, deny.” Your advisors undoubtedly told you that the more vehemently you deny something, the more likely the public will believe you. Barry Bonds tried it and former track star Marion Jones attempted it in the Balco case, but the bottom line is that a lie is a lie.
You can package it any way you want, but in the end it’s a falsehood that you’ve tried to sell. We bought it for awhile, until now. All you’re getting is a 10-day suspension, that’s true, but we all know that the penalties down the road will be much harsher than missing a couple of series for an Orioles’ team that is slipping in the standings faster than a plumber’s work pants.
Now the whole question about whether you belong in the Hall of Fame will haunt you. As only the fourth player to get 3,000 hits and 500 home runs, you’ll forever be amongst elite company in baseball’s sacred record books. But, will history be kind to you? I don’t think so. I believe that baseball fans will be tougher on you than you were on Jose Canseco for uncovering this whole mess. You’ll now know how it feels to be the lone guy at the other end of the table. The one that everybody once respected and now can’t be trusted to tell the truth.
At least Canseco was honest. He made a mistake, and regardless of what his motives were, he stood up and admitted it to the world, both in front of Congress and in his book. Raffy, you may think Jose is a rat, but at least he didn’t take the easy way out. Many people thought Mark McGwire looked silly dodging questions at the hearing, while you came across as righteous, completely up-front and forthcoming. Now we know more, and looking back, maybe you should have taken McGwire’s approach of “don’t quite deny.”
The most pathetic thing about all of this is now that you’ve been caught, Raffy, and you’re still in denial. You said you accidentally took steroids. Just like Richard Nixon accidentally directed the Watergate break-in. Or like when Bill Clinton accidentally had sexual relations in the White House with Monica Lewinski.
There was nothing random or unintentional about any of it. Raffy, you’re like the kid who gets caught shoplifting a candy bar, and when the security guard pulls the candy out of his pocket, looks up at him and asks, “How did that get in there?”
Face it, Raffy—you’re busted. This whole charade has gotten bigger than your bulging biceps and it’s time to come clean. To get caught after you boldly pointed your finger at Congress is not just an extreme embarrassment; it’s also a slap in the face to every fan out there. Because you can fool us once, like old Abe said. But, like Roger Daltrey of the Who sings, “We won’t get fooled again.”