Miami Student

I've decided to go ahead and throw my hat into the fray concerning steroids in baseball, but I'm not going to talk about which players are using steroids. I'm not going to talk about the House Committee on Government Reform. I'm not going to talk about Bud Selig or Donald Fehr. And I am definitely not going to talk about baseball's new steroid policy. Instead, I want to focus on the owners and general managers of baseball teams - the front office. Much has been made of San Diego Padres General Manager Kevin Towers's revelation that he suspected the late Ken Caminiti of using steroids. Caminiti won the MVP award in 1996 but later admitted to using steroids. Towers has expressed grief and regret over the fact that he never confronted Caminiti about the drug use and has said he feels some sense of guilt over Caminiti's death. It's not Kevin Towers that I want to talk about either, though. The real issue in baseball has been the response of several other front office figures in the weeks following Towers' admission. In essence, many of the league's front office personnel said that even when they had suspicions that a player was using steroids, they could do nothing about it. What they mean is that they didn't want to do anything about it. The thrust of the argument that the front office personnel around the league are advancing is that because steroids were not banned by baseball they had no recourse. Moreover, many GM's feared that if they confronted a star player about steroids, it would destroy the trust between a player and the front office, and in turn, no one would be better off. …

You have asked yourself the question. Your mom, dad - even your aunts and uncles - have all asked you for an answer to the question. "What are you doing?" That is the question that always comes at you and that you rarely have a way to answer. It makes you look stupid, like the New York Yankees after they lost four straight games in the ALCS. You stumble and stutter something lame, hoping to impress or just get onto a different topic, like your hair cut. Why don't you just be honest? Tell them exactly what you are doing. Exactly. No sugarcoating or lies, no boasting or bravado, just the plain, simple, clean truth. Tell them that you aren't doing anything at all right now, haven't done anything recently and that unless sleeping counts as doing something, you aren't planning to do anything tonight. …

Over spring break I had the pleasure of visiting my friend, Ian, who attends the University of Pittsburgh, as well as the pleasure of spending two days in a semi-coherent alcohol and drug-induced haze. Even in the midst of a state of mind where the burning embers of an incense stick appeared to be an entire world where an apocalyptic firestorm was sending the terrified villagers screaming for their lives and begging their gods for mercy, I managed to make an observation (warning: it will be an entire rambling paragraph before I actually get to that point, if you'd like to skip ahead). You see, my friend Ian has several black friends because Pitt, unlike Miami, has actually taken the radical step forward of letting black people attend their school. Furthermore, we hung out with Ian's neighbor, who happens to be all Big East First Team forward, Chevon Troutman. In an interesting side note, Ian became acquainted with "Chevy" (which is my nickname for him; he calls me "Mr. Sprinkles") because Ian's female roommate hooked up with him. I have since decided to pursue a similar strategy with Miami's best basketball players by trying to get my roommate, Dave, to hook up with one. So far, the results have been mixed at best. Anyway, the observation I made was that whenever Chevy or another of Ian's non-Caucasian friends were around, he suddenly became Carson Daly hosting the BET awards. Every word or sentence out of his mouth ended in "yo." …

No... for the umpteenth time. No, and personally I almost find that downright offensive. I am a black male student that (contrary to some students' beliefs) earned my way into Miami academically. Imagine that: A black male in college who doesn't play a sport? What has the world come to? Well folks this isn't ESPN... this is college and some black male individuals either didn't pursue sports in college, or their sport wasn't offered, or simply aren't gifted enough to play sports. Hard to believe but true. We're not all here to entertain. I'm not writing this because I fit the profile of the "typical oversensitive black individual who purposely looks for more reasons to complain about what I haven't been given." As harsh as that sounds, that isn't me. I'm just plain sick and tired of being asked this question from supposed bright individuals here at this school. If you can't relate then picture someone asking you for the last two or three or four or five years you've been here, "What's your name?" "Are you a Republican?" "Are your parents rich?" "Do you wear North Face?" "Do you say 'like'?" …