Good Fences and Bad Neighbors?

I'm on the fence about steroids in baseball. The current crop of players to reach eligibility for the Hall Of Fame just came and went without a single man getting the requisite 75% of the vote. This year's class included the big names- Bonds...Sosa...Clemens...

That's a lot of home runs and strikeouts- from both sides of the mound. Bonds is the all-time homer run career (762) and single season leader (73). Sammy Sosa, a Chicago Cub, topped out at 609 homers. Clemens, earned the Cy Young award seven times while striking out guys 4,672 times. All of these stats are HOF credentials, and then some.

There shouldn't be any question about their eligibility for the Hall except for the question of steroids and how much those and other Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED's) factored into their success. These guys, all of which are suspected of drug use, probably did but certainly weren't the only ones of their peers. They were just among the best at it. I think it's safe to say they were really good players who maybe became great with the drugs. How many marginal players used PED's and only became less marginal? It's hard to say. It's pretty much accepted that hundreds/thousands of players during the Steroid Era were juiced. Some drugs weren't illegal until much later in players careers. How can you penalize people for doing something that, at the time, wasn't illegal? Who in any sport wouldn't want to be stronger?

If you gave a 30 year old me steroids, you wouldn't make me a better ballplayer. I played up into my teenage years and I can testify that hitting a baseball is hard to do. Steroids would not have helped me. But, take a home run hitter like a Bonds or Sosa already was and add some muscle and deep fly balls that used to be hauled in at the warning track are sailing ten, forty feet further and going into the record books as home runs instead of fly outs. You still have to have the hand-eye coordination to hit the damn ball.

I don't know when these guys started using whatever they were using but, human nature dictates that, as long as it's working, don't stop. Even if things aren't working, some of us won't stop. Look at meth addicts. The alleged downside to steroids may or may not be shrunken genitalia. Maybe a guy doesn't care so much about his dick and balls when he's making millions with a stick and ball. People draw their own lines in life and cross at their own risk.

I know Babe Ruth- forever the greatest home run hitter of all time- never used PED's. There weren't any in his day. In fact, drinking and eating as he did, he actually did performance degrading things and was better than anyone else in his time. Mickey Mantle was a drunk. He once hit home runs batting left and right-handed in a game, while drunk. Not because of- despite being drunk. What might either of these men accomplished in baseball with modern medicine available to them?

Some say the players of the steroid era should go into the hall with asterisks by their names. Well, none have been convicted of using. Whatever Bonds used, he will only say was done "accidentally". That may be. Others have stonewalled investigations into their use. Sure we know they are guilty but it's like we know OJ was guilty. It just hasn't been proven.

I read last night that many of the members of the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) don't necessarily regularly cover baseball. I don't know how that happens. I know that many of these assholes ignored Ron Santo for years, waiting until he was six feet underground to enshrine him in the Hall. Their expertise comes into question. It could be they drink a lot.

If they're making a statement, I don't know if that's a bad thing. It's always a question of what the statement is and why. Do they want to give these guys a five year spanking for being bad? Like- you'll get in when WE say so like some might have done with Santo? Maybe it will just be a year? What is the point?

Yep, these guys cheated. But, yes, Baseball dragged their feet doing anything about this cheating when they weren't busy ignoring the whole issue. Lots of blame to go around. It was a helluva lot of fun watching McGwire and Sosa chase each other around the National League that year as both chased Ruth's old single-season record. But, we knew something was up.... MLB had to know too. 

Everything these men have done is in the Hall Of Fame. Pete Rose may be banned from Cooperstown but everyone of his records is in the hall. Just no plaque. Maybe that's enough. Maybe that is punishment. I don't know. There's nothing so far to put me over that fence.