by Kent Sterling
Sosa, McGwire, and Palmeiro looked like lying tools at the senate hearing into PEDs in baseball, but why were they there in the first place?
Colts tight end Weslye Saunders has been suspended for the first eight games of the 2013 season because of a positive test for PEDs. Ryan Braun, Alex Rodriguez, and at least a dozen others await their fate in baseball’s ongoing crackdown against PEDs, and the induction ceremony at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown next weekend is going to be a lonely one as exactly zero players were elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Outside the Hall of Fame are players who have amassed statistical evidence of greatness that would under ordinary circumstances make them sure fire first ballot inductees.
What’s all the fuss? Everyone seems to be on the same page that using steroids and human growth hormones to gain a competitive advantage is wrong, but why is it wrong?
Lance Armstrong has been vilified for being a cheater and a liar, and the anecdotal evidence that damn near everyone else was doing the same thing seems substantial enough. Armstrong’s greatest sin was in being the most successful cheater while treating teammates with arrogant indifference.
Why do we care that he doped? And why do we feel cheated by former baseball players like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, and Rafael Palmiero?
The ballplayers did very little that most of us wouldn’t do in the same circumstance. If you were a talented player with an injury that needed a chemical goose to heal, wouldn’t you do everything you could to get back on the field to allow for that cash flow of millions per year to continue? And as a fan, did you care that McGwire was popping Ando like Chicklets?
Back in the day, ballplayers swallowed handfuls of amphetamines to get ready to play just like college students have always done to maintain a grueling study schedule. Do universities test kids to make sure their grades weren’t the result of wolfing down a couple of greenies?
I received an email this morning that frames the argument very well:
Kent,
I’m not a writer, a columnist, or blogger. I’m just a fan of baseball. The lack of inductees this year into the Baseball Hall of Fame is more of a travesty to baseball than steroids itself. I was a teenager during the steroid era. I chose not to use steroids to further my baseball career while I was in high school. I definitely needed something to strengthen my arm while I transitioned through puberty. I knew the risks of steroids at the time (this was 20 years ago), and chose it was not a path I wanted to follow.
With that being said, baseball was in major decline after the strike in 1994. Attendance was poor and fans were not taking to the game period! Suddenly, steroids happened and homeruns were hit at a ridiculous amount from Bonds, Sosa, McGuire, Palmero, etc. What happened? Excitement was restored to the game of baseball and fans returned. I’m not an expert, but I knew during my high school, college, and early post-graduate career everyone in baseball turned to steroids (the writers turned a blind eye at the time). I lived in San Francisco and St. Louis and witnessed the reaction crowds had to the homeruns first hand.
Writers want to be holier thou and exclude these players from baseball, when in reality steroids helped to save the game at that point in history. I don’t agree that we should exclude these players from the HOF. They will always have an asterisk by their names because of the generation they played, but there is a reason it is called the HALL OF FAME. Whether these players are ever inducted into the Hall of Fame or not, they will always be famous in the history of baseball.
Writers need to get over themselves.
Scott Kennedy
I get the outrage people have toward cheaters, but why are PEDs against the rules in the first place? For the illegal substances, there are laws that have been enacted to prevent use, and punish those who do.
As for the lying that the cheaters employed to stay out of trouble, I have no respect for that at all. They should have stood up and said, “Yeah, I did it, and so what!” That would be a guy I would put in my hall of fame.
Busy week . . . catching up.
PED’s should be banned because it isn’t healthy nor pure. As far as the purity of it, it kind of reminds me of Evel Knievel when he tried to make the jump of the Snake River Canyon. What he rode, was not a motorcycle. It was a rocket with wheels. He stepped out of the confines of “motorcycle” jumping and did . . . something else. To me, that is what PED’s do. It doesn’t chart what human beings in the normal confines of humanity does, it alters it to something else.
There probably isn’t much of an argument against the health problems that steroids can cause. We don’t have to look past Lyle Alzado to visit that.
Therefore, to allow PED’s, you provide pressure for people who do not want to enter into those kind of health risk to do it just to compete with those who elect to do so – and at the same time, destroying the purity and integrity of the game. To me, it is a no-brainer.
But where’s normal in this whole scenario? The methods for improvement with fitness, psychology, nutrition, and use of unbanned substances have radically altered the methods available for achieving potential. Normal is out the window. Why should HGH use be treated differently than other chemical cocktails is a good question.
I wish life was simpler – like when guys got in shape during spring training – but those days are gone.
My line is at chemically altered bodies. I am not talking about vitamins or other things that could be found in foods if one had the time and nutritional patience. I am talking about chemical advantages that can only be gotten through artificial means.
Perhaps there are substances that fit this description that aren’t banned; I don’t know. Maybe they should be. I just know that the integrity of the game is important because not only are the McGuires and Sosas of the game competing with each other, but they are also competing with the Babe Ruths and the Roger Maris’s of the glorious past.
You can also look in the other direction. Someday they may come up with some kind of bionic science that will make all the great performances we see now lackluster. Should THAT be allowed?
I agree. It was better when life was simpler and men wore fedoras to the ball game.
“As for the lying that the cheaters employed to stay out of trouble, I have no respect for that at all. They should have stood up and said, “Yeah, I did it, and so what!” That would be a guy I would put in my hall of fame.”>i>
So…it is OK to cheat and when caught say “Yeah, I did it, and so what!” That implies that people don’t have to stand up and accept responsibility for cheating until they get caught? For those that claim baseball is full of cheaters and has been for years, I think that cheating by using PED’s is far worse than scuffing a baseball, throwing a spitter, etc. (I do agree that consistently corking a game bat is tipped towards PED’s though). Imagine a pitcher trying to scuff a baseball 50+ times per game (to ensure every pitch thrown was illegal. That would be almost impossible to get away with. With PED’s, every play involves cheating and there is nothing an umpire can do on the diamond to detect it, or even punish a player if he could prove it.
The ballplayers did very little that most of us wouldn’t do in the same circumstance. Couldn’t disagree more here. Most of us certainly would NOT have done the same thing. Most of the players in the game didn’t cheat so why would you think the average “Joe” would cheat?
Roger Maris lost a title he deservedly earned. Interestingly, I can tell you the top three HR totals that do NOT include PED’s players. However, I can’t tell you a single total above 61 but I do know all three players who exceeded that total did so by cheating. The point being, I remember them as cheaters, not for the # of HR’s they hit. May they all be inducted into the “Hall of Shame” and if that is a wing in Cooperstown and that is how these schmucks get into the HOF, outstanding (not with a ridiculous asterisk). Finally, track and field (a sport nearing ruination due to PED’s) disallows “cheaters” from their record books. Why should baseball turn the other way and say “thanks” for “saving” the game?
I think the suggestion that we shouldn’t care about PED’s is way off base.
One small misunderstanding – I think players should cop to using before they get caught. Own who you are. That might be idiotic, but at least there is honor in the honesty. I’m not saying that cheating is the way to achieve – I’m saying the rationale for the rule is ill-founded.
Players decided at what level they would use chemistry to build their bodies, and I see nothing wrong with that. My point is that HGH shouldn’t be against the rules, and that illegal steroid use should be dealt with through law enforcement agencies – and that players should tell the truth.