The Sex to Steroids Formula …

Posted: December 11th, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball | 8 Comments »

OK, got all sorts of fun little posts planned for the holiday season. I’m hoping for the first installment of a new feature “Joe at the Commercials.” I have about a dozen posts lined up that were inspired by a recent re-read of the Bill James Historical Abstract. I have a few ideas for the next installment of my “excessively long essay about a sports legend” series — we’ve done Bo Jackson, Herschel Walker’s freshman year, Evel Knievel, who should go next? I’m thinking possibly Priest Holmes’ under-appreciated and legendary 2002 season, Mark Fidrych’s rookie year or maybe I’ll take some requests.

And there is also the task of going through the 2.4 million Pozcars applications. Oh yeah, that was a good idea. We’ll start off our march to Christmas with a closer inspection of one of the great quotes I’ve ever seen.

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Every so often — it’s pretty rare, it usually only happens once or twice a decade — I will run across a quote that I must read over and over and over again in a determined but futile effort to unlock the mysteries locked inside. This has been a banner year for such quotes. Already, we’ve had the amazing Mike Gundy rant and I still believe if you watch that rant enough times, open your soul to it, you might make a little more sense of the confusion in the world today, perhaps even unravel the secrets of the universe.

And now, just a couple of months later, there is another quote that — if you can find a way to wrap your mind around it — may bring us all a little closer together and little closer to the meaning of life.

The quote comes from Shepherd Smith, which may sound like a character in your child’s school play but, no, apparently this is a real person with real concerns for our children. Shepherd Smith was so concerned that he created The Institute for Youth Development, a non-partisan, non-profit Institute dedicated to helping children avoid the five big risks: alcohol, drugs, sex, tobacco and violence.*

*Question: Isn’t that really three risks since alcohol and tobacco (well, nicotine anyway) are, technically, drugs? I guess if you said something like “The goal is helping children avoid the three big risks, sex, violence, drugs, but by drugs we are also including alcohol and smoking, which are technically drugs but they are legal while there are those illegal drugs, so maybe it would be better to say the four big risks, you know, sex, violence, legal and illegal drugs, though I guess those other drugs are illegal if you are underage, so maybe I had right the first time …” well, it could get confusing. Carry on.

Shepherd Smith cares in that non-partisan, non-profit way that will occasionally get him on Larry King, and from what I can tell from the 3.4 minutes I have spent studying his organization (or at least his organization in 2004 … the Web site’s a bit dated), he really does seem committed to helping children in a non-judgmental, non-Fred Mertz sort of way. I do suspect however that Shepherd Smith might not have liked rock and roll in the 1950s.

Anyway, his quote.

He said: “What Bill Clinton was to oral sex, Barry Bonds is to steroid use. Only in reverse.”

I have read that quote at least 25 times already, and I still have absolutely no idea what it means. Oh, I know what he meant it to mean. A later quote in the story indicates that he meant that while Bill Clinton’s dalliance with Monica inspired many young people to experiment sexually — like kids need an excuse there — the Bonds drama has encouraged many young people to avoid steroids. Brian Blake (from the federal drug czar’s office**) says that steroid use has tumbled among teens since 2002, and it may be that the public reaction to Bonds’ has played a role in that.

**OK, I’m curious, how do you get to be a czar in America? You’ve got your Drug Czar, the War Czar, the Postal Service Czar. I wanna be a Czar of Something. Maybe I can be Pozcars Czar. By the way, you people are flooding the Pozcars email. Why didn’t you buy the book at this pace? Oh yeah — money. Forgot.

Anyway, that may be what Mr. Smith MEANT the quote to mean. But some of the greatest philosophical statements of all times go beyond the author’s intended meaning. Many do not realize their own genius. Here’s an unknown fact: Many philosophers have studied and cherished Rene Descartes’ quote: “I think therefore I am.” They seem unaware that the full quote was actually, “I think therefore I am tired and could use a beer.”

I believe Mr. Smith’s quote means so much more than he intended. Look at it again: What Bill Clinton was to oral sex, Barry Bonds is to steroid use. I mean, think of the depths there. It’s boggling. He has found a way in that sort of six degrees of Kevin Bacon way to connect Bill Clinton to Barry Bonds, sex to steroids, politics to baseball to our court system to, you know, sex and drugs, and hey, you may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one, I think from there you can see that we’re all brothers and sisters in this crazy mixed-up world. I mean that enough would make it a brilliant, life-altering quote.

But, then, he gives it the genius Sixth Sense twist. He says, “Only in reverse.”

Whoa. If that doesn’t blow your mind, I don’t know what can.

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