"Let's Move On"

Yesterday, I dropped the sentence above at the very end of the Manny and Ortiz post. It was met with some friendly disagreement in the comments so I just wanted to take a moment to clarify the point.

The overriding sentiment from the commenters was that the Sox fans had their fun with all the steroid controversy surrounding the Yankees and now it's time to give it back to them.

Sox fans were merciless with Jason Giambi until the day he left, no doubt. They got various steroids chants going for Andy Pettitte on the heels of the Mitchell Report, but those have largely subsided. They were anxious to point out that they had the "clean" years of Roger Clemens' career. But let's see how aggressive with the "You-Took-Ster-Oids" chants they are next time A-Rod comes to Fenway. Like any other fanbase Red Sox Nation has it's fair share of dickheads, but most people with a reasonable amount of frontal lobe activity are going to realize they are now the pot calling the kettle black. If any of the fackin' Sullies and Murphs do start to get mouthy, Yanks fans can counter with "So-Did-Pa-Pi". What are we going to do beyond that?

I'd be lying if I said there wasn't an element of personal satisfaction and Soxenfreude involved in all of this. There more certainly is. Aside from the Yankees, it's the most central theme of this blog, for fuck's sake. But any of the idiots who were foolish enough to point the finger at the rest of the league, and really thought they were going to skate away with no stars on the Red Sox being implicated in PED use, and thought that 2004 was a gift from God, pure as the driven snow, just took a shot to the solar plexus. And that's good enough for me.

This news doesn't change what happened in 2004 from our eyes, though. The '04 roster of the Yankees included A-Rod, Gary Sheffield, Kevin Brown, Jason Giambi and almost certainly some other guys who haven't been outed yet. Their cheaters were a microscopic amount better (or just luckier) than our cheaters.

What we are heading towards is a realization that almost nothing is free from the stain of PEDs, one player and subsequently one fanbase at a time. Very few individual accomplishments and absolutely no Championships in say, the last 15-20 years or so are going to above reproach.

Like always, the Yankees are at the forefront of this, like they are in almost every aspect of baseball. We as Yankee fans are again ahead of the curve. Whether you like dragging people into the mud with you is a matter of personal preference, but it don't get a whole lot out of it.