Steroids. Needles. Beer cans. Mitchell reports. Court hearings. McNamees. Clemenses.
Where is the giant broom and rug when Major League Baseball needs it?
The steroid era is coming full circle right before our eyes, and all of the injections are swelling up to something awful.
MLB commissioner Bud Selig must be constantly nauseous. Bud, I’ve got your Pepto-Bismol.
Play God for a moment, and forgive it all. That’s right. Let all the bulging, veiny muscleheads off the hook. Are all of these congress shenanigans really going to be fruitful? It is more likely they are the seeds of chaotic dysfunction.
We will never know for sure which baseball players have used steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs in the last couple of decades. Seriously, the main evidence against Roger Clemens is a x-number-of-year-old beer can and Andy Pettitte’s hearsay. That’s worse than a glove shrunken by dried blood.
Is Congress going to pin steroid use on Barry Bonds using a PowerBar wrapper from 1999 and a text message the slugger sent his trainer as evidence?
This whole debacle is a joke, and everyone but MLB is laughing.
At some point, the league needs to cut ties with its pride and concede to the fact that fairness is an impossible ending to these proceedings. Too many innocent people will have their names smeared across the performance-enhancing landscape. Likewise, most who are guilty will not be proven so. They will only be “vindicated” by lousy evidence.
Please, just officially claim the past two decades as the “Mercy Era.” Anyone who used steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs is acquitted of all guilt. It is not forgotten, just forgiven. MLB could stop digging and start preventing.
Impose stricter tests and test more often. Let it be known that every statistic accumulated in the Mercy Era should be taken with a grain of salt. Allow baseball critics and fans to gaze at the stars and create whatever constellations they like.
Baseball should apologize for being ignorant and passive in years past. It should then start anew, using what it has learned to actively prevent use of performance-enhancing drugs and clean up the game.
What happened cannot be changed. It is a scar on the face of Major League Baseball. But scars are part of what makes the league what it is.
Consider the Dead Ball Era. From about 1900 to 1920, scoring drastically declined in baseball. Part of the problem is said to be because of soft baseballs used far too long before being discarded. Another theory is that a new rule counting foul balls as strikes limited batters’ chances to get a hit.
No one knows the exact cause of the low-scoring period. No one has his boxer briefs in a bunch trying to figure it out. It is better to just acknowledge what happened, learn from it and move on.
Another example of this is the NBA’s efforts to clean up its image. One day, NBA Commissioner David Stern realized that his league was a perpetuation of the ghetto lifestyle in which many of his players grew up. He didn’t throw blame, reprimand those responsible or anything of the sort. He simply got wise and made changes. The NBA owns a much better image today. It is about charity, class and clean-cut superstars.
Take the hint, Selig. Move America past the Mercy Era. Let the steroids slide just this once, then get serious about keeping them out of baseball. Own the scar. Battle scars help remind us of our mistakes.
