Baseball's Latest Drug Problems

SPORTING GOODS

This business about the Sox imbibing is getting curiouser and curiouser.

The Red Sox emphatically disputed a television report that some of their starting pitchers drank beer in the dugout during games this season.

The staunch denial included statements from pitchers Jon Lester, Josh Beckett and John Lackey, as well as club president/CEO Larry Lucchino and former manager Terry Francona.

It came a day after Lester was candid in admitting that reports were true of Sox starters drinking beer in the clubhouse during games they weren't pitching in.

In a statement released Tuesday, Jon Lester, John Lackey and Josh Beckett denied reports they drank beer in the dugout.

"The accusation that we were drinking in the dugout during games is completely false," Lester said on Tuesday night. "Anonymous sources are continuing to provide exaggerated and, in this case, inaccurate information to the media."

The report of pitchers drinking beer out of cups in the dugout came from WHDH-TV (Channel 7) in Boston early Tuesday evening. The station cited two team employees as sources.

As a recovering serious imbiber, I can say that this really doesn't look good. And Jon Lester's admitted culpability is especially bothersome. It's not as if he's been a paragon of health.

Meanwhile, to demonstrate that they really have their heads where the sun doesn't shine, four sanctimonious US Democratic Senators (one of whom is from Connecticut and sadly isn't named Lieberman) are

trying to save the children by urging Major League Baseball to ban chewing tobacco during baseball games. From the AP:

“When players use smokeless tobacco, they endanger not only their own health, but also the health of millions of children who follow their example,” the senators wrote to union head Michael Weiner. The letter was signed by Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, and fellow Democrats Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Senate Health Committee Chairman Tom Harkin of Iowa.

The senators noted that millions of people will tune in to watch the World Series, including children.

Maybe someone should point out that baseball games start late enough on school nights that kids rarely see much spitting. Also, baseball’s ratings are so awful that there are statistically only about two or three dozen impressionable children watching at any given time.

With an absolutely unwatchable St. Louis-Texas Series about to begin, I couldn't have said it better myself.