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Murray Chass can’t let go of Mike Piazza’s back acne

10 METS FAYTOK

20050714CF 10/x Mets’ Mike Piazza takes a curtain call after his 3 run HR in the 8th inning during the game between the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves in FLUSHING, NY on 7/14/05. 9:32:52 PM CHRIS FAYTOK/THE STAR-LEDGER

Faytok, Chris

While I was initially outraged at Murray Chass’s insistence that he knows Mike Piazza used steroids because he saw back acne on him once while walking through the locker room, I have since become amused by it. And a little bit in awe of his tenaciousness in holding on to the point. He wrote this over the weekend:

Attention, Mike Piazza fans and other cynics: A report in The New York Times on Saturday about the Barry Bonds perjury case said that prosecutors said that Bonds’ former girlfriend, Kimberly Bell, “would testify to seeing physical changes in Bonds that are indicative of steroid use, including acne on his back and shoulders…”

If acne is good enough for Federal prosecutors, it’s good enough for me no matter how much Piazza and his supporters scream and whine at my mention of Piazza and the acne that covered his back until it miraculously disappeared when baseball began testing for steroids in 2003 and 2004.

No one has accused Piazza of perjury, but he better be careful with what he says if he ever has to testify under oath.


Well, if back acne is good enough for prosecutors in a comically-misguided, tragically-wasteful and nearly evidence-free celebrity prosecution nearly eight years in the making, it should be good enough for a blogger like Chass too.

Personally though? I’d wait for a bit more before I accuse Piazza of ‘roiding. My brother had back acne when he was a teenager. It was because he was kind of a greaseball who got some bad luck in the genes-that-cause-bad-acne front. Maybe Chass’s New York Times editor back in the day had a brother like that too, because they wouldn’t let him run with these kinds of silly accusations then.

How liberating it is to be a blogger and not have to deal with such petty concerns!