On Monday, Mark McGwire admitted to taking steroids. During most of his career. Most notably, that 1998 season that captured everyone's hearts and minds and made baseball relevant again. And it turns out to be not necessarily legitimate. Was any of baseball legitimate in the 90s?
I've always said that I think that steroids were unfortunately 'part of the game' in the 90s. There's alot of people to blame. Players, Managers, Owners, Fans, Bud Selig, but blame won't get anything done. It happened. Who knew who took what. I'm sure there's plenty of big-leaguers who took steroids and we have no idea. This is the bed that we all created. And we have to accept it.
Fans wanted something they could follow (like the breaking of a historic Home Run Record) and embrace the sport again. Players wanted to be signed to bigger contracts. Owners wanted to bring in more money. Bud Selig wanted higher TV contracts. They all got what they want, and now they act in shock and disgust for what happened. As if they didn't know that this day would one day come.
They're disgusted because it blew out of control. They really didn't know what they were getting themselves into. McGwire AND Sammy Sosa broke Roger Maris' 61 more than once. Barry Bonds was just a few years away from breaking that record, and then becoming the All-Time Home Run Leader. Is there ANY doubt that he took steroids?
As a fan I find it extremely frustrating how MLB has handled this. There's no accountability for the enablers (the clubhouse guys, owners, GMs, Jose Canseco, etc) outside of Victor Conte. Instead all blame goes to the players. While they are the ones who accepted the steroid injection, they had help in acquiring the drugs. It turned into a witch hunt, and a comical one at that. Congressional hearings. The Mitchell Report. Sosa forgot English. Rafael Palmeiro flat out lied. Curt Schilling ran his trap about how clean the game needed to be. The list can go on and on.
I just think it happened. It's hopefully over. There's still no HGH test. Steroids are clearly still in baseball if superstars like Manny Ramirez can get suspended. You can't asterisk the records, because it was on somewhat of a level playing field. Whether that particular pitcher was juicing vs that particular batter is unknown. Sports requires a competitive edge; doing 'whatever' it takes to get an advantage. How can anyone blame players for trying to get an edge? Sports has become so big and there's so much money at stake that it would seem stupid not to take steroids.
The thing that I think everyone doesn't really know (outside of users) is how effective steroids REALLY are. They do not enhances anyone's hand-eye coordination. Maybe it makes for a faster swing. Does it may the difference from a ball landing on the warning track versus out of the park? We only really look at home-runs, but how else can it help a hitter? Pitching, I would believe it can help recover after a 7+ inning game. There needs to be studies to test the differences these drugs can have on an athlete.
If anything, the only issue now is how MLB claims to be clean. But with every story of Alex Rodriguez, (previously determined to be the "clean" player who will take over the home run record that Bonds claimed.) that comes out causes doubts in the minds of every fan. I personally love Ryan Howard, but I just can't be sure. We know about Josh Hamilton overcoming drug addiction, but what about steroids? He's massive. Even players who aren't huge home run hitters. Bronson Aroyyo admitted to taking performance enhancers. David Ortiz. Jason Giambi. Andy Pettite. Miguel Tejada. Frank Thomas. The list goes on. Who knows who else was on the 2003 report. And Roger Clemens is just as much of a slam dunk as Bonds.
There's no answers, there's no solution. The entire baseball community just must accept the mistakes that have happened that lead to this point and understand that baseball isn't as 'clean' as it used to be. These players shouldn't be kept out of the Hall of Fame. It shouldn't be on their plaque that they were on steroids. They played the game in a different time frame and did great things. Mark McGwire saved baseball. He should be honored for that. It's still a beautiful game, and I hope that it can actually maintain it's legitimacy for years to come.
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