the hypocrisy of the witchhunt for steroids in baseball just kills me.

is there a baseball fan out there, who, seeing the jose canseco’s and mark mcgwire’s of the past 2 decades, has not known, somewhere deep down, that steriods have been prevalent since at least the 80s? it may have gone unsaid, but it certainly did not go unnoticed.

for years, mlb declined to test players, primarily because they were afraid of the results. if you don’t want to know the answer, don’t ask the question, right? and now that someone has dared to put into words, baseball’s dirty little secret, you would think the mlb has been finally forced into dealing with it, and grappling with all the sticky questions which are bound to ensue: what about records which may have been felled, and stats rung up, by players “under the influence”? how does a sport which has marketed itself on the image of being largely “family friendly” deal with the fallout of the mixed messages being sent to children, and spin the sordid stories which will be spun? and most uncomfortable of all: who knew what, when? and did the league deliberately turn a blind eye in the hopes that the homerun heroics of recent years would help shore up the sport’s flagging fan base?

mlb’s attempt to sidestep these and avoid having the magnifying glass turned back on itself, by dealing with steriods as if they were in the same category as alcohol and drugs, is patently laughable, and completely incongruent with the nature of the transgression. “treatment” for the first offense, and graduated suspensions for subsequent offenses. Only after the 5th offense is a player suspended for a year. no mention of a lifetime ban, or disqualification from the hall of fame.

two points need to be made here:

a)a steriod user is not an alcoholic.

b)cocaine or vodka do not help you to belt a homerun.

barry bonds is only the tip of the iceberg, and accusations will start flying fast and furious the minute one idol of any real stature falls. mlb needs to give this matter the attention something of this gravity deserves, and stop pussyfooting around, hoping it will all blow over.

fans may worship at the altar of the home plate, but that doesn’t make baseball a sacrosanct religion.

Like this post

Unlike