Miguel Tejada was sentenced to one year of probation for misleading Congress about the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle writes that Tejada only regrets getting caught.
Nice going, Miggy. Way to represent The Good Guys.
Incidentally, who decided a $5,000 fine was any way to punish a guy making $13 million? Couldn’t the feds have ordered Tejada to pay whatever the government spent proving he’s a liar?
Anyway, about eight seconds after Tejada’s plea-bargain agreement was announced, the Astros issued a statement saying how happy they were to have this whole thing behind them.
In other words, let’s all forget that this guy is a cheat and that we got fleeced on this trade.
As for Tejada, he hasn’t exactly been forthright. He has confessed to what he got caught doing and nothing more. And there appears to be more there.He played the contrite card when he showed up at spring training until someone asked about his use of steroids and HGH.
He bristled and said he wasn’t going to talk about it. Now that’s coming clean.
He doesn’t have to admit anything. The Mitchell Report does it for him. It’s right there on page 201 along with photo copies of checks to ex-teammate Adam Piatt for $3,100 and $3,200.
Piatt said he provided Tejada with steroids and human growth hormone, but he has no way of knowing if Tejada actually used the stuff.
Unfortunately Justice is right and even more unfortunate is that this is the way it’s going to be when it comes to the steroid era in baseball. The players that used will deny or only own up to what they were caught with. The owners will continue to look the other way and hide under the umbrella that is Bud Selig. And Selig will continue to act like the victim in all of this.
The players, owners and Selig will continue to ask to move on. And eventually, the fans will probably oblige because we’re not going to stop going to the parks.
