What were you doing 13 years ago?
Put yourself in that place and dig deep. It was the year 2000. You'd made it through the Y2K disaster threat.
It was a new millennium!
We'll get back to that in a minute. Because I do think it's relevant.
This weekend Jack Clark and Kevin Slaten were "fired" from the new STL sports talk radio station 920 AM WGNU.
The station is programmed by insideSTL.com during the week with an affiliation to CBS Sports Radio. I tuned in yesterday to see what goes on during the weekends and I'm not sure what the plan is there…
Clark and Slaten were independent contractors, though. So they weren't as much "fired" as not allowed to come back.
Why?
Because Clark, in the midst of all the A-Rod suspension talk, accused Albert Pujols of using steroids:
I know for a fact he [Pujols] was [on PEDs]. The trainer that worked with him, threw him batting practice from Kansas City, that worked him out every day, basically told me that's what he did.
Albert Pujols did not like this and claims that he will pursue legal action against the station and it's operators. He also released a strong denial.
So again, I ask you… what were you doing 13 years ago? 13 years ago today, what were your conversations about? And how well do you remember the details?
And even if you do, do you really?
Researchers from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University have been researching the brain for some time. And last year they found that a memory of an event, even a significant event, can change each time you tell it.
Like the 'telephone game', but in your head.
So even if Jack Clark is telling the truth. And that a person associated with Albert Pujols confided in him that he was personally injecting steroids into Albert Pujols.
Did he?
Or maybe this person said something KIND OF like what Clark remembers, but his brain has changed the parameters of his memory with each new steroid case coming out and making his career accomplishments seem less meaningful.
Maybe. Maybe not. Northwestern wouldn't let me anywhere near their campus.
I just know that conversations that I had 13 years ago are hard for me to recall. The details of those conversations even harder. And no, I wasn't being told that an up and coming MLB slugger was juicing, but I'm sure I was told something of import.
Couldn't tell you much about it, though.
And that's why Jack Clark (and Kevin Slaten, who as a lawyer should know better) is in the wrong. He made a strong accusation. We all leaned in to see what he had to say. He called Pujols a cheater. We leaned in closer. We asked for proof.
And Clark recounted a conversation he had 13 years ago, with a guy that denies it ever happens.
That's it? That's the proof? At the very, very best… this is circumstantial. I'm not proud to admit it, but I've lied. And somewhere, someplace someone believes something because I said it… but IT wasn't true.
Just because someone said it, it doesn't mean it's true. We covered it in grade school; looks like we need a refresher.
That's the crux of what Clark is dealing with. That's the part he's not considering.
Hopefully he's learned a lesson.
That when you say something is a fact, you need to have evidence. If you say something is a belief, you can whatever you please.
There is WIDE chasm between those two.
And Clark (and Slaten) have fallen in it.
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