Baseball and Steroids

I remember the day Mark McGuire broke Roger Maris' single-season home run record. I remember when Barry Bonds one-uped Hank Aaron for career home runs. I remember these things. These were not just about baseball. Everybody seemed to wait on the edge of their seats for the next homerun. And what did these feats have in common with each other besides being some of my childhood memories? Steroids/HGH and other performance enhancers. Sosa, Bonds, McGuire and now...A-Rod.

It doesn't surprise me that A-Rod used steroids. In fact back then, in 2003, it was kind of difficult to imagine he wasn't using them. He went from a skinny rookie with the Mariners to a bulked up home run hitting Ranger, and only after he left Texas he started to slim down to a more "natural" bulk with the Yanks. The difference is visual in both person and looking at the stats. He was always a good hitter hitting a fair amount of homeruns, but, like Barry Bonds, he went from a normal amount to a huge amount in a little time.

Again, I'm not surprised to hear A-Rod tested positive for steroids in 2003. There were no penalties for testing positive at the time. They tested him, and many other ball players, to see if testing for steroids was something they should make manditory. Of course players are going to do everything they "legally" can to give themselves an edge. And as long as steroids were "legal", certain players would be, and did, using them to get the edge it took to hit those homeruns and become that power-hitting bat in the lineup.

So, I say it's no surprise that A-Rod used steroids, but it's still a disappointment. That year, he won the AL MVP award and hit the most homeruns. The question is, without the steroids, would he still have done so well at that time in his career, which would ultimately land him on the Yankees with the biggest pay-day at the time. But this raises up the steroid case again. Should players who have used steroids, or other performance enhancing drugs, be allowed to continue playing? Should they be allowed in the Hall of Fame? Should they're accomplishments still be recognized even if they were "on something" at the time? If so, should there be an asterisk next to their names and accomplishments? More than anything the biggest question is what has this done to baseball?

Now people are looking at some of the feats accomplished by men like Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa and Roger Clemens and just don't see the same ball players we watched in awe just a few years back. Ten years ago, if someone told me McGuire, Sosa or Clemens wasn't going to be in the Hall of Fame I would have laughed at them and pointed out the amazing things they had done over their career. But now? Now I would agree and say that, even though they did such remarkable things, they did not do them to the best of their natural ability, but to their enhanced unnatural abilities. It's a sad day for baseball to see a player, even one I no longer like, who could possibly become the greatest homerun hitter in the entire world, never mind the MLB, not make it into the Hall of Fame because of steroids. And even though I still like some of those players who admitted to steroid use, baseball has been violated by the men who "loved" the game.