Ok let me get this off my chest. I just walked downstairs to have myself a tuna sandwich and the sports networks are all a flutter with this Alex Rodriguez interview where he admits to taking performance enhancing blah blah blah... and the only thing that bothers me a little is the complete lack of outrage displayed by these commentators. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not upset (or surprised) about this "breaking news", I could care less, I'm just comparing it with the attitudes taken towards Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire & all the other idiots that got caught. What is it now, as long as you admit to it you're okay to do it? I heard the question asked "Will this mar his(Alex) legacy when it comes time for the homerun record to be broken?" and every single person said NOPE, as if the 156 homeruns he hit in Texas, the years he's admitted to using, won't be counted among them. C'mon people. A slight double standard.
I get that most people don't like Bonds but it's not a congeniality contest. The man stood there and hit the ball out 762 times, and it was not steroids that did it for him. If I took steroids could I hit major league homeruns? No. Could I take anabolic-androgenic hormones and a year later throw a 98 mile an hour fastball? No. So these men obviously came previously equipped. So is it the edge people are complaining about? What about the pitchers who took them? Half the players named on the Mitchell report were pitchers. Steroids don't go to bat for you and give you a perfect swing. Actually it's not proven that they do anything. What about the 50 some odd guys on the Mitchell Report who are nobodies and didn't make a dent in the history books? Obviously steroids didn't work for them. No one's coming knocking at their door or looking to take away their accomplishments in the game. No grand jury indictments there.
So now is it the maintainance of our nations pasttime? We don't want these no good drug using cheaters to break the records of our heroes? Let's look at the bowdlerized Babe Ruth for a second. He held the record for years and he did it right! Yes, if you consider using illegal and some would say immoral means to enhance his performance. Babe Ruth was a drinker, of alcohol, during prohibition. Illegal, and anyone who says that doing so would not enhance his performance, well you're not drinking the right stuff. And we look at that, the drinking, now as not such a big deal, but in 40 years or more, when these anabolic steroids will most likely be completely legal, will we think so poorly of Bonds and his cohorts? And let's not forget about sheep testes. Ruth got ill one season and tho he never confessed to it, numerous people who knew him well admitted to knowing that he injected himself with extract from sheep testes, an early form of HGH. I smell an asterisk.
One of the big arguments against allowing Bonds the record asteriskless is that he was still swatting them outta the park so late in his career so he must've used performance enhancers. Well okay then let's look at Hank Aaron. When Barry Bonds was 38 years old, on his way out, looking downhill, he hit 45 homeruns. Aaron hit 47. Aaron hit 40 when was 40 as well. Bonds hit 31 the two seasons that spanned his 40th & 41st birthdays. So by that logic Hank Aaron was juicing even more than Barry was. And that logic may not be that far off. Three players from the Braves the years Aaron played have confessed to using amphetamines & steroids and admitting that the drugs were "rampant" in the 60's & 70's. Enough for me. Asterisk.
So now people (journalists) wanna keep these players out of the Hall of Fame. Players like Mark McGuire & Barry Bonds & Sammy Sosa, and for what? Do they think we'll forget about them? Do they think they're fooling a whole upcoming generation of wide-eyed baseball angels who just wanna play? Idiots. The Hall is to celebrate the game as it is, the good and the bad, not as we'd like it to be. The real heros & the goats. The 1969 Mets & the 1919 Black Sox. Let poor Shoeless Joe in the Hall already. You cannot change or deny the statistics. That's a slippery slope. Before you know it you'd find yourself having to strip teams of championships and that's just insane. So for now Barry Bonds is the homerun king, and someday soon Alex Rodriguez will be. But the second we think that every record and notable achievement in all of sports was gained by players eating their Wheaties and smiling for the camera is the second... I dunno, Michael Phelps gets caught smoking out of a bong.
By the way my tuna sandwich was delicious.
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