Hmm, Something's Missing...

Something was absent from today's much anticipated statement by Nationals Catcher/Pusherman Paul Lo Duca. Something besides an admission of guilt, that is. As a piece of public relations the statement was pitch perfect. Stan Kasten himself couldn't have been more opaque. In fact, Capitol Punishment saw fit to run Paul's opus through the vaunted Stan-speak translator. But the duplicity isn't really what bothers me. I wasn't holding my breath waiting for Paulie Lo Down to pop out of his spider hole and apologize for using PEDs and running an amateur drug ring out of a few major league clubhouses.

What I would like to have heard is something like this:

I want to apologize to my family, all my fans and to the entire baseball community for being too stupid to pay cash for my drugs, which might have helped me avoid a starring role in Senator Mitchell's cursory, half-assed examination of baseball's "steroid problem." I grant you that most baseball players are not frustrated closet astrophysicists, but catchers are supposed to be more cerebral than the average bat-toting Neanderthal and there is no doubt that I have disgraced the august backstop fraternity. Except for Piazza, that guy's dumber than a bag of hammers.

I recognize the importance of my role in calling a game and handling a pitching staff and I'm frankly mortified that I wasn't bright enough to realize that writing personal notes to my dealer on team stationary is only slightly dumber than hiding national security information in a hollowed out pumpkin. I'd also like to take this opportunity to extend a big middle finger to Sprint, because if my cell phone hadn't been TOAST! I would never have written anything down in the first place.

I am fully committed to being the best player and person I can be, on and off the field, for the Washington Nationals and the entire baseball community. So that I can avoid creating further distractions, I respectfully decline to communicate using anything other than a system of clicks and whistles from this day forward.