Tough choices

There was a time during our post-collegiate days where my sister and I attended a party in which one of the other attendees put Pink Floyd’s The Wall in the CD player (these were the days before the proliferation of mp3 files) and proceeded to tell us about how Roger Waters and Syd Barrett were not on performance-enhancing substances when composing the songs that were presented on the album. The fact that my sister and I didn’t really care about Pink Floyd and what they did to prepare for composing music nor that the guy who had cornered us had not presented a well-thought out argument really mattered.

What mattered, I suppose, is that some random guy at a party (who we suspect was on some type of “performance-enhancing drugs” at the time of his presentation) thought it was important enough to defend the notion that Pink Floyd was clean when writing The Wall in very much the same way people acted when andro was found in Mark McGwire’s locker during his assault on the home run records in 1998. Or the same way some people take up Barry Bonds’ case even though there is compelling proof that he allegedly used performance-enhancing drugs with the notion that, “well, they weren’t illegal when he was using them.”

As if that makes it better.

The point is we want our heroes to be “clean” as well as articulate, thoughtful and model citizens when in reality all they are is human. I don’t know if the members of Pink Floyd ever used drugs, and I guess I don’t really care, either. Drugs, as William S. Burroughs once said, are an inevitable part of life. And, as the late comedian Bill Hicks noted, if a person is so adamantly opposed to drug use, he needs to throw away all of his music, movies, quit his job and should stop watching sports.

Needless to say, none of this realistic, but it makes for interesting reading. In that regard, writer Chuck Klosterman examined the dichotomy of why it’s probably OK that Pink Floyd may have used performance-enhancing substances, but not football player Shawne Merriman in a story for ESPN.

In the story, Klosterman writes that every day sports fans are going to have to make some tough decisions.

More: Why we look the other way (Klosterman)

More: Inside the steroid sting (from SI)

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Speaking of decisions, in Phillies news, Charlie Manuel is taking a long look at right-hander Zack Segovia for a spot in the team’s thin bullpen. According to reports from Clearwater, Segovia meets a very important requiste in that he throws strikes. Hopefully for the Phillies, that leads to getting hitters out.

As it plots out now, the Phillies’ rotation is set up to go Brett Myers, Cole Hamels, Freddy Garcia, Jamie Moyer and Adam Eaton based on Opening Day on April 2.

Meanwhile, Hamels' statistics in Grapefruit League action haven’t been too good. The lefty is 0-2 with a 7.00 ERA in three starts against Major League teams, and in an outing against minor leaguers yesterday in an attempt to iron out some mechanical issues, Hamels gave up four runs, four hits and four walks in a little less than four innings.

The good thing about this is that no one in the Phillies’ camp is too worried about these results… yet.