Lying

When I was a kid, my mother saved dimes in a box which she kept in a drawer of the buffet in the dining room. I started stealing these dimes to buy comic books (Captain Marvel, Little Lulu, The Blackhawks, Donald Duck) usually a dime at a time. It went on for months until it was obvious dimes were missing.

My mother finally confronted me one day, asked me if I had been taking dimes, and I told her I had not. She took me down in the basement and paddled my little eight-year-old ass. As she was thwacking me, she angrily said, “this is not for stealing dimes, this is for LYING to me.”

This shocked me because my mother was a kind and gentle woman who rarely raised her voice and rarely got angry. But here she was, angry as hell and keenly disappointed in me. I got over the pain of the paddling, but I never forgot how upset she was. And I never forgot those words. This is not to say I never lied after that, I did and I do occasionally to spare someone’s feelings, but outright lying is something I try very hard to avoid.

Which brings me to Rafael Palmeiro… I’m a lifelong Oriole fan, and I’ve always liked Palmeiro. He’s been a very steady player throughout his career. He's quiet and unassuming and supposedly a good family man. When he got his 3,000th hit last month, it looked like he was a sure bet to get into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Now, he has tested positive for steroids after telling Congress he never ever used them.

So, he lied. He apparently thought he needed to take steroids to reach the 3,000 hit mark. He knew he had tested positive when he got his 3000th hit. He knew he had tested positive when the Orioles raised the “Congratulations, Raffy” banner on the warehouse at Camden Yards. He lived the lie.

It’s not really the use of steroids that gets me although they are clearly bad news (tiny balls, balloon heads: not cool). What really pisses me off is that he lied. The lie, like in so many other cases (Nixon - Watergate, Clinton -Lewinsky, Stewart - insider trading), is worse than the action.

Disappointing.