A Public Confession

Hello dear readers,

Today I come before you, heart in hand, with a tacit admission of guilt that is not easy for me to bear, and even more difficult for me to disclose. With the recent allegations and, some might say, damning evidence against such former sure-shot Hall of Famers as Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and the milk guzzling former Marlins batboy, the natural beauty and timelessness of the sport of baseball have been called into question. Children growing up today must wonder if all of their idols will one day disappoint them, regardless of arena. Having been a bastion of truth and honesty until now, I humbly stand before you with a confession.

I, too, am guilty of using performance enhancers.

That's right. The very blog you are reading right now has been tainted by unspeakable use of performance enhancing materials, utilized during a period between last December and now, which has caused the material therein to be worded better and perhaps more verbose than would otherwise be the case. It started innocently enough over the winter, while I was dabbling with the Microsoft Word thesaurus. While my original goal was to merely find substitutes for repetative words such as "social", "network", and "douchebag", I soon found myself dropping the Shift+F7 several times daily.

Things began to spiral out of control shortly after January. I started sneaking dictionaries into public restroom stalls for a quick hit. I surfed over to Plinky for blog post ideas, though I still maintain that it was for research purposes only. I even--and it pains me to admit this--signed up for the Wordsmith.org "Word of the Day" email newsletter. Excuse me, I need a moment...

I can no longer keep up this facade. I do not, in fact, know everything. I read books, I have done research, and I have occasionally found synonyms or looked up the definitions of words I was unsure of. It's not something I'm proud to admit, but the pressure I felt to live up to my self-imposed title of "raddest f***ing Blogger alive!" (undisclosed Friday night, 1:37am) lead me to double and triple check each hastily crafted insult and laughable claim. I've even gone back and edited previously published entries. Yes, I know. As my audience grew, I found it harder and harder to stop.

Why come out now? Why voluntarily turn myself in, metaphorically speaking, and issue this mea culpa? With today's breaking news about Manny Ramirez testing positive for steriods, I knew it was only a matter of time until the microscope would be trained my way and I too would be exposed for the juicer I am. Of course, Ramirez maintains that he simply was taking a prescription fertility drug.

Now I know what you're thinking. A simple capsule that could actually make a man larger? [smarmy chuckle] But that wasn't Ramirez's problem, and it's not mine, either. The opposite, if you must know.

So while Ramirez begins his 50 game suspension without appeal, I come before you offering to not blog for the next 50 minutes. Yes, I realize that this could be viewed as excessively harsh. In the end, it may cost me a few readers. I am prepared to deal with that. I thank you for sticking by me through these shameful times. Doping to cover your weaknesses is never cool, whether on the ballfield or in bed (or in Rafael Palmiero's case, both). It takes a lot of courage to come out and admit that you don't know everything, and it also takes a whole lot of that certain part of the male anatomy. Not that I'm bragging.