Jamie Moyer Is Sad About These Kids And Their Steroids

Spring Training is here (huzzah!), but all people want to talk about is steroids. Anyone wearing a baseball hat will be asked about it, but no opinion carries more weight than Jamie Moyer's.

The 46-year-old "soft tosser" is the oldest man in the worldbaseball, so the young ones out there should just gather 'round and get some wise thrown at them. I mean, why won't someone please think of the children?

"That's got to be a huge distraction to that clubhouse and just to that environment," Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer said. "I couldn't imagine a 23-year-old kid, a first-time roster player coming into that [Yankees] clubhouse. It's got to be mind-boggling. How do you focus on your job?

"People say, ‘That's part of it, you just deal with it.' You know what? It is, but to put that on a kid?

And if you think it's tough for the rookies just coming up, how do you think he feels?

"At times, I'm almost embarrassed as a player to be in the middle of this," he said. "I haven't taken them, I haven't tested positive, but still I'm a part of it. You're guilty by association and it's embarrassing.

"I've never really had anybody out on the street, a fan or somebody say, ‘You know what, you should be ashamed.' But I feel that way sometimes. You sit and watch on TV, and that's our industry."

But it's not himself that Jamie is worried about. It's the young people who get hurt the worst.

"What a horrible example we set, as athletes in general in professional sports, for college athletes and high school athletes," Moyer said. "I wish at some point we could talk about the players who didn't use steroids or aren't using. That's what we should be celebrating instead of the ones who have or are."

It's a shame we have to talk about it. Hopefully people can learn a lesson. But we've been saying that for years, and (names) keep coming out. I just wish there was some way we could expose it all and be done with it, just get rid of it."

All this sadness makes me want to go sit on a porch swing somewhere and dream about a simpler time, when women were ladies and auto cars weren't so darn fast.

"The choices – the peer pressure, the money – I don't get it," he said. "I just don't get it."

Moyer then shook his head wistfully and walked off toward the barn, forlornly kicking the dirt at his feet.

Moyer is ashamed for the game [Yahoo]