Even though baseball’s steroids era is reportedly behind us, we can’t escape hearing about it. Alex Rodriguez’ use of PEDs as a Texas Ranger dominated the news coverage this past off season and in addition to a toxic turn to the Manny Being Manny saga, we’ve been treated to stories about Sammy Sosa’s reputed failure of a drug test, the potential for Roger Clemens to face perjury charges for lying to a Senate subcommittee and Rafael Palmeiro continued protestations of innocence about knowingly taking performance enhancers. If you just pay attention to the headlines on the news and ESPN, the conventional wisdom seems to be that we all detest steroid users, fear that they will ruin the purity of the game and that must diligently root them out lest our untainted sport be tarnished forever.Except that doesn’t seem to be true does it? When the All Star voting results were first released, Manny Ramirez – who at the time was serving a 50 game suspension for violating MLB’s substance abuse policy – sat in 4th place, just a few thousand tallies away from being in the starting lineup; Yankee fans, who claim to be the standard bearers of baseball tradition, haven’t turned on their team despite the fact that between Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Jose Canseco, Kevin Brown and now A-Rod, they have employed a great number of this decade’s most notorious steroid users; Giants fans still talk fondly about Barry Bonds and his mammoth moon shot home runs and for most, the great memories of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa’s momentous home run chase of 1998 haven’t diminished one iota in light of recent revelations.
Quite simply, the giant majority of baseball fans, the ones that fill the bleacher seats of every ball park in the county, couldn’t care less about who took what and when they took it. They just want to see baseball played by those who play it best. It’s an extremely vocal minority, consisting mainly of sportswriters and congressmen looking for headlines, that puts up this grand façade of moral outrage over steroid use in baseball. Whether it’s recognition that MLB implicitly condoned PED use through its knowing inattention to what was going on in its locker rooms or an admission that HGH won’t make your timing any better regardless of how long it keeps you on the field, your average fan couldn’t give a rat’s ass over steroid use and, the enjoyment over a new way to A-Rod notwithstanding, has moved on.
The biggest whiners over steroids point out that baseball’s sacred record book has become tainted, usually pointing to Barry Bonds’ home run records when they complain about the need to have an asterisk next to them. This subsection of fans persist in this belief despite the fact that there’s been no credible evidence linking Bonds to HGH use; in America’s Pastime, the National Credo of innocent until proven guilty apparently has no utility. Babe Ruth’s records came in an era when the Negro leagues existed and African-American ballplayers, among the best baseball players of that time period, were banned from baseball. Yet no one wants to put an asterisk next to the Babe’s records. It also never stopped the debate over whether he or Hank Aaron was the greater power hitter. The steroid era won’t stop the debate either.
The fans who squawk about asterisks are like Trekkies moaning about the continuity errors between Star Trek (2009) and the TV series from the sixties. They are geeks without perspective and don’t represent the rest of us. MLB knew very well what substances were being ingested by and injected into their ball players. Until recently, they turned the other cheek. (Pun partially intended). Ethics being a different discussion, none of baseball’s rules could have been violated as there were no rules to violate. Asterisk-geeks will have to live with the fact that the statistics accumulated by Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Roger Clemens were all amassed according to baseball’s lax rules. You can always have your opinion about their legitimacy but asterisks are just stupid.
Baseball debates have always been fueled on the comparison between the differences in the game at various points in time. Bob Gibson’s 1968 season necessitated the lowering of the mound, the introduction of the designated hitter took away an easy out from American League pitchers and the advent of the closer completely revised the role of the starting pitcher. While the steroids era and its effect on individual statistics can never be ignored, it’s a talking point not a plague and it’s time for the majority of clear headed folks to start treating these asterisk proponents like the pointy-eared, Vulcan speaking oddities that they are. - David Schultz
For more years than he can remember, Schultz’ musings on rotisserie baseball have graced rotoworld.com. Depending on your viewpoint, he either anchors or weighs down 'The Week That Was' column that he is told appears on USA Today and NBC Web Sites. His ramblings can also be found on Earvolution.com and jambands.com.
