For those who found Congress' investigation of steroid use in baseball absurd, Sen. Arlen Specter, Repbulican of Pennsylvania and noted Philadelphia Eagles fan, has decided to needlessly up the ante with the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick and "Spygate."
Videotaping their opponents' signals taints the Patriots' and Belichick's success this decade much the same way Bonds' apparent steroid use taints his career home run record: Both would have been beyond great even if they had played within the rules and it's impossible to quantify how much better their cheating made them. (Though I think steroids taints Mr. Bonds more.) And while there are plenty of much more important things to which Congress should devote itself, at least the Mitchell Report was full-blown, needed catharsis.
But with Mr. Specter, Spygate has been covered so exhaustively, I doubt there's anything left to find, unless he wants to investigate every NFL team, including his voters' Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers. (In fact, didn't Specter first inject himself into this when it seemed like Steelers and Patriots were going to meet in last year's playoffs? What poor politicking.) The Patriots and Belichick have paid their steep fines, and hopefully they and the full league have their lesson and won't try this again. Tom Brady is still a great quarterback (and a hunk!), Randy Moss is still a great wide receiver and Belichick is still a great coach. The Patriots will likely make the Super Bowl sans videocameras.
More than anything, Spygate has two unfortunate side stories:
1. Matt Walsh, a former Patriots' videotaper, who during the Super Bowl, as the story gained steam again, insinuated he had many more incriminating tapes of the team's misconduct. There was then a lame four-month dance before Walsh actually met with the NFL and Specter about what he did (and, more importantly, it turned out, didn't do), where Walsh and sports reporters inflated what he did to that of master strategist. I have to agree with Belichick on this one: Walsh was largely irrelevant, especially if his tape collection wasn't broader or deeper than what the Patriots handed to the NFL. In this great anti-climax revolving around a tape collection, there's probably a porn joke in there, but I can't think of it.
2. The Boston sports media. It is unbelievable the relationship they have with the teams and fans here. The reporters -- most especially those on WEEI (and they're not even reporters!) -- loves to moan and criticize at the slightest slip any team has, but also realize those teams are the "golden goose" here, so as much as they throttle, they have to fawn and defend the moment things start to turn around. And then, of course, there's the Herald's John Tomase and his retracted piece about the Patriots taping the St. Louis Rams' practice before the 2002 Super Bowl. (Link to original story here, though much is now hidden in pay-to-read archives.) There has been much intra-biz hand-wringing about what should befall Tomase and certainly the Herald should reverse course and remove him from the Patriots beat because he is now part of the story, if not the story. (Did Judith Miller cover Scooter Libby's trial? Gosh, no.) Really, Tomase's apologetic explanation, which didn't do much explaining or apologizing, only revealed that he went to press based on second-hand rumor without ever calling someone within the organization before making the "9 p.m., this story is going to print in an hour and I need your comment" call, and that Tomase looks, based on his head shot, like someone who's never played football before.
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