With the story of Jason Grimsley coming out last week, professional baseball is looking worse than ever. Steriod use is going from the few, to the many, and in a great column by Mark Purdy of the San Jose Mercury wrote about the possible implications of Jason Grimsley’s testimony, and the possibility of hundreds of ballplayers being outed as cheters:

Not to overblow anything. But by the time this is all over, we may look back on the ugly scenes of this spring — with Bonds being vilified and booed as the only steroid bad guy — and call them the good old days.

Not only that, but Grimsley has been openly critisized by other MLB players for naming names to the FBI, and said that they thought he should have just taken the fall all by himself. Baseball has long been isolated from the real world, on such a higher level than that of any other sport. They are the only legalized monopoly in the United States, and have an unwritten, understood exemption from anti-trust law.

But now, Jason Grimsley, who was released from the Diamondbacks after they learned about his use of steroids and HGH, as well as his possible involvement with trafficking the substances, well… Jason thinks he should still be paid. This is how unrealisitc baseball has become. Someone is essentially fired (sports use the term “released,” but it still means “fired”) for lying and cheating, and they still feel they should receive the rest of their salary. But here is what the Diamondbaks said, and this is why I am now, a fan of their management:

I’m just not in favor of rewarding somebody for the bad acts that they’ve committed, and this guy’s had a career of cheating. He’s a representative of the culture of cheating, and it’s just not something that we’re going to support at all. In my mind, he probably owes us as opposed to us owing him. What he’s really asking us to do, if he files a grievance, he’s asking us to pay him for not performing, when the reason that he isn’t performing is because he was a cheater and he acknowledged his cheating for a long period of time. It’s totally illogical to me how someone should be compensated under those circumstances. - Ken Kendrick, Diamondbak’s Managing General Partner