Steroid Hearings - Suggested Opening Statements

If I were the legal counsel to the baseball players testifying in the congressional hearings on steroids, here is the advised opening statement I’d suggest:

Sammy Sosa: “Why would I need steroids when I’ve corked every bat I’ve ever owned. If I was on the juice as well, I'd have hit 100 in '98. When you have a few teenage suicides stemming from corking the bat, then call me.”

Raphael Palmeira: “Look, you have to understand, Viagra wasn’t approved by the FDA until 1997. I was looking for a performance enabling drug, and the best I could do was to take some performance enhancing drugs. Sadly, all those extra homeruns I hit during that time were only on the ball field; in the bedroom, I couldn’t even lift the bat. So go ahead, judge me if you will, but you would have done the same. Ask Bob Dole.”

Jose Canseco: “I have the IQ of a wooden doorknob.”

Curt Schilling: “Let me tell you what steroids can’t do. They can’t heal every tendon in your body in time for game 6 of the ALCS. Say your Achilles tendon snaps like an old rubber band - for that you need an industrial sized stapler, two inch steel staples, and a fifth of bourbon to deaden the pain a little. Then comes a cortisone shot from a needle so big the mere sight of it would make most men puke and pass out. Sure, cortisone is a steroid, and I took it – you gotta problem with that?”

Mark McGwire: “With the exception of Schilling, and let’s be honest nobody knows why in the hell you guys called him here, you have three Hispanics, a black guy, and a red-haired guy. If this doesn’t prove the fact that red haired guys are the subject of rampant hairest discrimination, then I don’t know what does. Look at you all up there with your black and brown hair – you make me sick. Look, I could have dyed my hair black before the season of ’98, and there would have been no way every guy in America wouldn’t have been rooting for me over Sosa – as it was, people were split 50/50. You can talk all you want to about steroids, but we both know what real social problem is on display here. And we are not alone anymore – supporting me in the gallery today are Bill Walton and that actor guy from CSI Miami who tries to act tough.” At this point, the Hatcher stands up in the gallery and starts to sing “We Shall Overcome.” Big Mac, Bill Walton, and CSI Tough Guy join me right away in chorus. It’s a beautiful moment.