Im Sorry, VERY Sorry

Written by Lenny Melnick

Sunday, 24 February 2008

I am truely sorry for telling you to Not to draft Albert Pujols this year.(if he has s big year).I am also asking you for forgiveness if I have advised you to Draft Hanley Ramirez this year ,if his shoulder puts him on the DL. But most of all I deeply regret telling you to draft Rich Harden last year..But..Its ok to draft him this year..Sorry from Lenny, but Im not the only one who's sorry! Look at what Shaun Powell of Newsday has to say:

I'd like to say to those coaches, athletes and readers I may have offended with stories I've written in the past, I'm sorry, they were mistakes.

Well, actually, they weren't mistakes. They were based on opinion and done intentionally.

And I'm not sorry about writing them, either

Rather than be disingenuous and a complete phony, I came clean, unlike scores of athletes these days who insist on playing us for fools. Whenever they get busted for using performance-enhancing drugs or misbehavior or whatever, they come groveling to the public for forgiveness and manage to follow the same tired and transparent script. First comes the apology. Then they admit to making mistakes. And it's all a bunch of bull.

Truthfully? They're not sorry for what they did. They're sorry they got caught.

And they didn't make a mistake. That's what a third-grader does in math. They made a choice. There's a difference.

This is important to point out right now, because 2008, only months old, already is loaded with whimpering, cowardly and back-tracking athletes who are begging to be pardoned by a bunch of people they take for suckers. That would be you.

It began just 11 days into the new year when disgraced sprinter Marion Jones, while wiping moisture from her cheeks and standing outside a courtroom, said: "I truly hope that people will learn from my mistakes."

Uh, mistakes? Not quite. Jones willingly took steroids both before and after the 2000 Olympics, when she became America's Golden Girl and made a ton of money that, as it turned out, was dirtier than her urine and veins. Jones made a choice. And the saddest part of all? She didn't need steroids. She was the fastest high school sprinter in American history. She would've done plenty without drugs.

If Jones were truly sorry, as she claimed between sniffles, she would've stopped taking drugs after the first injection. She wouldn't have waited until the feds gathered up enough evidence to drag her to court, where she confessed only because of the threat of serious jail time. She wouldn't have insisted all these years, with much indignity, that she was clean. No, Jones is sorry she got caught. Jones is sorry she wasn't fast enough to outrun the truth.

But at least her forgiveness plea wasn't hilarious, unlike those coming from the ballplayers named in the Mitchell Report.

Eric Gagne, the reliever for the Brewers? He apologized to his team for causing "a distraction that shouldn't be taking place." Meaning, he's sorry the Brewers had to read in the papers about him getting shipments of HGH.

That's it. That's all. He's sorry for the bad publicity. Only one problem: The Brewers' organization said there was "no distraction." So Gagne is sorry about nothing.

"I'm just here to help the Milwaukee Brewers get to the World Series and playoffs and that's all I really care about," he said.

At least he didn't turn phony and say he was sorry about the message it sent to kids, as most of these steroid users claim.

Two others named in the Mitchell Report ran to religion for relief: Andy Pettitte and Glenallen Hill, who said he felt he "owed it to God" to come clean. Well, you think God already knew? Plus, Hill said he was "not as candid as I should have been regarding my use of performance-enhancing substances."

When was he ever partly candid? Did we miss his half-confession before the Mitchell Report was made public? No, we didn't, because it never happened. Again, he stayed silent only until he was exposed.

In his apology, Matt Herges of the Rockies also went running to his God, saying he "made a poor decision rather than trusting the abilities the Lord has blessed me with." That's the problem. Had the Lord blessed him with a little more ability, he wouldn't have needed steroids.

Finally, there was Paul Lo Duca, our old friend formerly of the Mets, who was named 37 times in the report. Lo Duca, like the others, followed the script, making an apology and admitting to "mistakes," although not getting specific. When asked what he was apologizing for, Lo Duca said: "Come on, bro. Next question."

In hindsight, it wasn't a very wise question. We know what Lo Duca was apologizing for.

A better question: Why are you apologizing?

Why do any of these athletes even bother? They're not sorry for what they did, only for what we now know.

Just think. Someday we're gonna get the mother of all apologies once Roger Clemens stops misremembering.