Wes knew how he sounded, but he went on, blurting out the truth, about baseball, potatoes au gratin, the aurora borealis, searching for the one thing that would quell his anxiety.
We interrupt the usual stream of disturbing news -- which includes Tiger Woods's emergence from "family therapy," the New Mexico basketball coach Steve Alford's being reprimanded for yelling at an opposing player, and Alex Rodriguez's latest dabbling with the truth in baseball doping issues -- to announce that it is National Sportsmanship Day.
Although the joyously cathartic thunder of voices at the top of the ninth inning was, for obvious reasons, about so much more than suited-up men on a diamond, never have I witnessed or felt the sheer American truth of baseball more deeply.
He had always, he believed, been better than McGwire, but one of the awful truths about baseball is the simplicity of its measurement.
Oakland R.&D. at first consisted of applying hidden truths about baseball unearthed by hobbyists -- Harvard statistics professors, research scientists, Wall Street analysts turned amateur baseball analysts -- and ignored by organized baseball.
But then I became confident in myself again when I remembered an eternal baseball truth: when it comes to communicating about baseball, truck companies are the absolute worst (and stuff).
The truth is that baseball has been an enabler in Strawberry's addiction, paying him a handsome salary and keeping him in the limelight but also -- and this is the key point -- shielding him from the need to confront the truth of his addiction.
Is everyone taking truth serum in baseball?
"To tell you the truth, I'm a baseball fan," he said "And I strongly believe you have to be a baseball fan before you can have a specific team.
And Major League Baseball has a particularly jaundiced view of Canseco, who has depicted himself as a truth-teller after linking baseball stars like Mark McGwire and Iván Rodríguez to performance-enhancing drugs in "Juiced," while at the same time acknowledging his own use of such drugs and endorsing them when used in a "proper" manner.
