The Baseball Cheaters

   In the past 20 years there has only been one thing that I can honestly say I hated about baseball. It wasn't anything to do with the umpires, nothing about whether there wasn't enough home runs or to many, Inter-League play doesn't bother me, I don't care if the Yankees have a surreal payroll. The worst thing I can think of, are players who break the rules. Willingly and often. And then get compared to REAL baseball players. These cheaters show complete disrespect to fellow players, their coaches, their teams, their fans and most importantly, the game of baseball.Whether your Sammy Sosa using corked bats to swing the bat fast or your Barry Bonds using steroids to break the biggest record in baseball, it's disgusting and appalling that we even consider them in the same sentence as Hank Aaron, Ted Williams or Sandy Koufax.

   For instance, Alex Rodriguez is now chasing some of Hank Aaron's records. Aaron is the only player to amass 700 Home Runs, 3000 Hits, 2000 RBI's and 2000 Runs Scored. A-Rod is very close to getting to these milestones. To date he has 626 homers, 2,746 hits, 1,875 RBIs and 1,804 runs scored. But how can we treat these stats as legitimate? He admitted to taking Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) during the 2001-2003 seasons with the Texas Rangers and that right away should tip us off that this may not be the whole truth. It's not like he came forward on his own, reports were leaked and the ONLY reason he admitted to taking PED was for damage control. He knew that all that could be proven was that he took them during that time span, because there was no drug testing in the 90's. For all we know Rodriguez has been "juicing" since he came into the league. And now he thinks that just because he manned up that we should be OK with it.

   And by no means was he the only one. Quite a few of the "superstars" of the late 90's and early 2000's were taking PED's. Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Jose Conseco, Manny Ramirez, Jason Giambi, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Rafael Palmeiro, Gary Sheffield, Éric Gagné, David Justice, Chuck Knoblauch, Brian Roberts, Miguel Tejada, Mo Vaughn and Kevin Brown, to name a few have been proven to test positive. Truly there was and is, a massive stain on the game as a result of the huge mistakes these men have made. I think it's despicable to even consider these players as great.

   The argument that steroids didn't improve the skills of players is ridiculous and besides the point. No, the PED's may not have improved their skills, but it certainly improved their stats and that's what I'm talking about. I'll admit that Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez were very good athletes. They have a ton of skill that I only dream of. Let's face it, they are good. They made it into the Major Leagues, which right off the bat, puts them in a small minority of the population that can do that. They have my respect for managing to make it there and staying there.

   However, the steroids dramatically increase the strength of a player. If you compare two players; one taking steroids, the other not. They both hit the same amount of ground balls and fly balls and in the same places to the same fielders. I would put a lot of money down that the guy taking steroids would have more hits because his balls would be hit harder, thus making it more difficult for a fielder to catch the ball and make an out. he would have more home runs for obvious reasons. Suddenly said steroid filled player has his average go up a .100 points and doubles the amount of doubles and homers he hits. This is the difference between a Hall of Fame career and a great career. And that's why these guys did it in the first place. They would not and could not be the players who would become Hall of Famers and post the stats they did WITHOUT the steroids.

   And I sincerely hope that if Pete Rose is held out of the HOF for gambling on baseball. (which I completely agree with) Those same people had better keep any player that has taken and/or been proven to take PED's. I don't care if he's sorry, I don't care if he "didn't mean to" I don't care if he brought it up himself. PED's cause artificial stats and the HOF is not the place for artificial players, and everyone associated with the MLB or MLBPA should take 0 tolerance on PED's.