World's Strongest (Baseball) Man Competition

As we all know, on Wednesday, February 13, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on the use of steroids and HGH in baseball. No, I mean the self-serving attempt to glorify the Mitchell Report. No, that's not it either. I got it. It was the Congressional attempt to vilify both Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee. I will go into details about the Congressional hearing itself on another occasion.

This is about what the hearings accomplished. If you listen to each and every single sports commentator, the hearings answered not one single question that existed prior to the hearing. Although most people believe the Roger Clemens took either Human Growth Hormone or steroids (or both), that belief existed prior to the hearings. No questions have been answered. Or at least that is what every analyst and reporter believes.

They are wrong. We finally have the answer to one of the great and unsolved questions in baseball history: The Great Chuck Knoblauch Throwing Dilemma. (The dilemma was great, not necessarily Chuck Knoblauch.)

In addition to Clemens, McNamee claims that he provided and/or injected steroids and HGH to Andy Pettite and Chuck Knoblauch. Both Petitte and Knoblauch have admitted to using. Now, Clemens is by far the most accomplished of the three players, but if you can remember back, Chuck Knoblauch used to be a pretty fair player as well. Knoblauch was the rookie of the year in 1991, and he was a four time All-Star. Like many good players from small market teams, he ended up on the Yankees. Once on the Yankees, he played fairly well, very well in stretches, until, he forgot how to throw the ball to first base.

This must have been very difficult for the man once dubbed by SportsCenter anchors as the "Fundamentally Sound Chuck Knoblauch". Nobody could explain why instead of making the short throw from second base to first base Knoblauch would often throw the ball into the dugout, off the wall or into the stands. Now we know why. He simply became too strong for such a short throw. Thank you Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for answering the Great Chuck Knoblauch Throwing Deilemma.