Pariahs

My mother always told me it was better to fail honestly than to succeed dishonestly. I always figured that, if I cheated, something or someone would come along and highlight my ignorance in this area and my cheating would be found out. People always say, “How closely does a company check resumes?” and “Well, everyone pads their resume, right?” But I never have. I figure I will be the one person they DO check, and my lie will be found out.

This is why I am upset that Barry Bonds is close to reaching Babe Ruth’s home run milestone. I get miffed thinking back on McGwire and Sosa’s home run battle from a few seasons ago. These people cheated their way into record books. They cheated their way into baseball immortality.

I take solace in the fact that these records will always have a personal asterisk attached to them even if baseball does not asterisk them officially. Most people have heard of BALCO and the various other steroid stories. Even the most diehard fan accepts these records were accomplished using performance enhancing substances, even if they may argue that the substances weren’t banned at the time of use.

To see Bonds sitting after a game saying, “Is that a baseball question?” to every reporter questioning his steroids use is asinine. Why can’t just one reporter look Bonds in the eye and say, “You’re damn right it is! YOU made it a baseball question by cheating!” Barry, you are the one who made your drug abuse a baseball issue, so take responsibility for it.

And that is the problem: these players are not taking responsibility for their actions. I would respect Bonds so much more if he would take responsibility for what he has done. He wanted records, he wanted “glory,” he wanted to pass these milestones (to “obliterate” Ruth, in his own words), so he needs to take the blame for his inappropriate way of reaching these goals. He chose to cheat, he got caught, and he should pay the penalty.

It is not easy to hit a baseball; steroids do not significantly improve that ability. There is a great deal of skill and hand-eye coordination required to make contact with a 95 mph fastball or to hit a ‘drop off the table’ curveball. Because of this fact, I would normally not have an issue if baseball wants only to asterisk these records and notes that performance enhancing substances might have been used. But steroids do make it easier to make a hit to go out of the park when you make contact. What should be a fly ball out turns into a home run, instead. So I sway back to harsher penalties. Because of these conflicting thoughts, I turn to questions of character and responsibility.

Because these players refuse to take responsibility for their actions, I say baseball should wipe their records clean. Take them off the record lists altogether or, at least, discount all home runs hit after January 1, 2000. These home runs cannot count toward records, toward Hall of Fame consideration, or any current or post MLB consideration. They are banned from providing color commentary during baseball games. Since these people refuse to admit what they did, instead of an asterisk and a place in history, they should be shamed outcasts in pro sports.

What these men did is as bad as anything Pete Rose did. He has been a pariah for betting on sports and he had to beg and take some responsibility for his action to be allowed to participate in even the most common of baseball-related activity (and he is still under the lifetime ban); these men should be treated similarly. Make an example of them to show all levels of the sport, from pee-wee to MLB, that this is not acceptable behavior.