I'd like to clarify and extrapolate a bit on the point I was making last week when Big Papi's positive test came up in the news. To put it as succinctly as I can, I believe that the steroid era in baseball is just another flawed chapter in a league that has been flawed off and on since it was created. The only reason that we are outraged in hindsight is because the players who used these PEDs took down some of our most treasured golden calfs: 61 and 755. Many more reached plateaus that historically have meant automatic induction into the Hall of Fame, and because these numbers have been rendered hollow, many of us are pissed. Or at least that's how I see what's going on. However I don't think its fair to simply indict MLB and every player who played in the last 15 years. I think we need to appreciate this era for what it is and understand it is not the numbers we worship but the gods and heroes that put them up.
Hank Aaron is the greatest home run hitters of all time whether he owns the record or not. No one can ever change what it was like for baseball fans from all over the country to watch him chase and surpass the Babe. Watching the current record-holder chase Aaron, in contrast, was painful and disappointing and almost shameful, and no one outside San Francisco will ever remember Bonds as anything but a cheater. Who comes out on top of this? Bonds for holding a record no one believes in, or Hammerin' Hank? Bonds will pay the price for his cheating in the annals of baseball history. Slap and asterisk on him and let's move on.
However the steroids era gave us its own share of amazing memories. Back in the 90s, when we all had our heads in the sand (that's right, blame yourself as much as MLB, the union, the media, or the players, if you are looking to point fingers), everyone thrilled and McGwire and Sosa chased Maris and each other for the single season record. We now know the numbers they put up that year are moot, as is Bonds' other BS home run record, but does that mean it was less of a great season? I know I had fun.
Babe Ruth was supposedly the greatest player in history, but he never faced a single Negro athlete. How many of those pitchers could have taken some home runs away, how many of those outfielders could have run down gappers the slow white boys weren't getting to and skimmed some RBI off his impressive totals? Do we slap an asterisk on the Babe and the rest of Murderer's Row? Of course not. We don't think of the Babe's career as tainted by the era in which he played. Bob Gibson put up a 1.12 ERA on a mound that was apparently too high. Should we add a few points to that or just slide an asterisk next to that stat too? Hell, Maris only beat the Babe for single-season dingers because he played more games, should we put an asterisk on him? Oh, wait... Baseball is full of inequities created by the era in which players play. It's the same in every sport, but in baseball the old boys worship their sacred numbers so much that anything that dares threaten them is the greatest of evil. Are these numbers really so important? Does Jim Rice get in the Hall of numbers are all that count? No. He does get in because for years he was the most dominant and feared hitter in the game. If we can evaluate seemingly-too-low numbers for players like Rice, why can we not evaluate numbers that are too high in the same way, when evaluating the steroids-era candidates? Sure, Sammy Sosa hit 609 home runs, but was he as big a force in a game as the Hall-of Famers of old? That's for the writers to decide I guess, when the time comes, but just saying "he did 'roids, he's not in" is silly. Lots of players have found a lot of dubious ways to gain an edge in baseball over the years, and when they got caught they were punished and everyone moved on. Baseball has finally gotten its head out of its ass and punishes players for PEDs now, so can we all move on?
A salient point to all the above is a less savory one but nonetheless it exists: Sammy's 609 home runs might pale in comparison to say, Mickey Mantle's 536, but that is because of the respective eras those two played in, right? And what era did Sosa play in? The Steroids Era! That's right, it's the "everybody was doing it" angle. Obviously not everyone was doing it. Obviously its still cheating and whoever does it should be punished and whoever did it in the past probably should have been, but they weren't. The fact remains that a significant portion of MLB players were on the juice, pitchers and hitters, and so to a certain degree, the competition was as level as could be expected. Yeah it sucks to be an honest guy who was on on the juice during this day and age, but it sucked to play in the Negro Leagues too. It's too late to fix it so must we crucify everyone whose name surfaces in connection the the grimy underside of baseball in the 90's?
Which brings me to Manny and Papi. Manny is proof of two things: That great players are great with or without the juice, and that the system (finally) works. Manny is one of the best hitters of all time. Even if he roided up over the past 6 years straight and got a few warning track flies to clear the fence, he still has the best eye and swing around, and he should go to the Hall of Fame. Plus, when he was caught attempting to do it this year, he paid the price and sat 50 games. Tada! Done and done! Shawn Merriman did the same thing in football and only sat a quarter of one season, and no one ever mentioned it again. Hell, he almost won defensive player of the year. Why do we have to villify baseball players for life for something football players are instantly forgiven for (once they serve their time)?
Ortiz is a little worse. His career was on the skids until 2003, when he took off for the Sox, became Big Papi and combined with his PED partner in crime vanquished the great nemesis and brought home a title. Then they did it again. I can easily find a million ways to reconcile this fact, just as I am sure Frisco fans can believe that Bonds is the Home Run King. For me, these were the greatest sports moments of my life, taking place in a time when you either accepted everyone was on the juice or you pretended none of it existed. It happened in a flawed moment in MLB history that allowed players to cheat, yes, and players did, yes, but beyond that small smudge the joy of those moments is untarnished. How bad would the Yankees (chalk full of roiders themselves) feel if A-Rod was allowed to slap the ball out of Arroyo's glove on the way to first. He's safe, the umps late fail to properly call Bellhorn's home run as such, and game 6 and the 2004 ALCS go to the Yanks, thanks to a cheat. Somehow, I think they could sleep at night. So while Manny and Papi and whoever else comes out as PED users are a shame, I think I am in my rights as a fan to say "oh well."
I think we all need a moment where we realize we need to say "oh well." It happened, yes we all know, but we all had a good time along the way, and though this era has its share (and more) of travesties and sacrileges, these cannot truly dull the glory of time gone by and records set in more honest days. If Hank and Maris are still your home run kings, then so be it, they are mine too. But you tuned in to see where McGwire and Sosa were going in '98, didn't you? Take the good with the bad from this time, and look forward to a better future. This is nothing new to baseball.
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