It’s clear that we’re going to discuss steroids and baseball for the next 40 years and there’s nothing we can do about it. There’s really no avoiding it as players associated with P.E.D’s are either voted into the baseball hall of fame or excluded from it. If “cheating” players like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are let in it will lessen the integrity of the hall of fame and if they’re not let in some of the best baseball players ever will not be in the hall of fame, also lessening its integrity. So while I am so sick of debating something as trivial and stupid as steroids, I better get ready for another half century of arguing about it.
It seems people either fall into two camps regarding this issue. You either think steroids have somehow ruined the integrity of the game or you just don’t see what the big deal is. I personally fall into the not giving a shit about it camp and mostly because I’m just sick of the “debate” over it which I pointed out before, will never end. Before I lose my sanity completely let’s just stop caring so much about something we can’t change.
That’s the thing about the whole mess that makes absolutely zero sense to me. Why investigate it at all? What will it prove and who will benefit from it? I think the answer is that clearly no one benefits from it. Let’s look at this, baseball takes a credibility hit for allowing players to use “cheating” substances, the players of this era lose all credibility, and the fans get reminded everyday that for the last 15 years we watched “tainted” baseball. The worst part is that because of this stupid debate I will have the mental picture of Jose Conseco injecting a needle into Mark McGwire’s ass for the rest of my life.
I apologize, but not allowing the best players I have ever watched play into the hall of fame is not going to help anything. I will always remember Roger Clemens as the best pitcher I’ve ever seen and Barry Bonds/Alex Rodriguez as the best home run hitters I’ve ever seen. Who gives a shit if a plaque gets put up at the boring baseball hall of fame in boring Cooperstown, New York? Seriously, I grew up outside of Utica, New York and Cooperstown makes Utica look like metropolitan area.
Let’s just stop pretending that it’s steroids that are lessening the integrity of the game as if the MLB has any integrity to begin with. We’re talking about a league that instead of putting in some kind of salary cap decided to implement a luxury tax to apparently give incentive for bad teams to not spend money on their players. Then the media makes the Yankees out to be evil for spending money yet cheers on the signings of other big market teams like the Phillies and Red Sox while ignoring that the Pirates make money purposefully screwing over their fans and not putting a competitive team on the field. It is a ridiculous and a totally unfair system but most people just think it’s just the Yankees who make it unfair.
It goes beyond just the salary structure though. I watch games nightly with wildly different strike zones and see numerous blown calls on the base paths that could easily be corrected with a replay system. The outcome of games being determined by the umpires lessens the integrity of the game far more than steroids. We should not have to guess what the strike zone is every night and there is no way in hell we should have to deal with blown calls on the bases, especially not in 2011. Between this and the salary issue baseball has far bigger issues to take care of to strengthen baseball’s integrity than a wild goose chase trying to figure out what players did or didn’t take performance enhancing drugs.
What’s truly amazing about the entire thing is that NOBODY has empathized with the players and when I say nobody, I mean nobody. Like if we were all in the same position we wouldn’t have done the same thing? Also, in most of the cases we’re looking at, the substances in question were legal when they were taken, so we’re really going to punish players for that? It’s just insanity that we hold athletes who for the most part are uneducated to this super high moral standard. Politicians, CEO’s, and Wall Street investors knowingly cheat us out of our own money every single day but we feel more cheated because baseball players hit too many home runs in the late 90’s and early 2000’s?
It just doesn’t make any sense, none of it. It doesn’t make sense we’d care about steroids in baseball when it’s pretty obvious that they play a far bigger role in other sports. It doesn’t make sense that we’d care about it more than we care that some teams spend 200 million on their players and some 25 million. It doesn’t make sense that we think steroids effect the games more than umpiring. Let’s just be rational about this, steroids are not an issue, we are making them one. In no way does investigating players who’ve taken them in the past prove anything or benefit anyone and not allowing some of the best players ever into the hall of fame certainly doesn’t solve anything. If you feel you’ve been that cheated by these players just trying to get better at the sport they entertain you by playing, then get over it because you’re most likely being cheated in ways that have actual impact on your life. So yeah, I’m a little down that we have to talk about it for the next half century.
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