How many people are surprised that Alex Rodriguez took steroids? Anyone? In a scientific study conducted by me, 100% of participants responded that they had just assumed that A-Rod probably took steroids* (*participants consisted of me and the two friends I first talked to about this. study was not actually scientific). But now that the game's highest-paid and perhaps best player has admitted to taking steroids for three years, everyone is talking about steroids in baseball again. I'm just repeating what I've been saying all along: Let's move on.
The steroids era is in the past. Major League Baseball has instituted more testing and stricter consequences for using steroids. Less players are using now. How widespread was it? We will never really know for sure, but what turned into a witch hunt ended as a fulfillment of Jose Canseco's prophecies (apparently steroids enhance prophetic ability too). Some would say that it took a lot of balls for Canseco to come forward. I would say it took a lot of greed and backstabbing, and after all those steroids, his balls are pretty tiny. I am not defending those players who took steroids. It was wrong. It was very wrong. But it happened. Chewing tobacco was wrong. Not having a World Series in 1994 was wrong (especially for the Montreal Expos and for Don Mattingly) Not allowing black players in Major League Baseball was BEYOND wrong. But all these things happened. We're not putting asterisks next to stats of players who played less games in a season, faced pitchers on a mound of different heights, never had to play against black players, pitched no-hitters on LSD, or any number of other things. The stats need to stand. Baseball is a game of stats, and we can't speculate about what the stats would have been or should have been. Besides, DO WE REALLY KNOW WHO USED PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING DRUGS AND WHO DIDN'T?
Many names have been named, and there's a good chance that most, if not all, of these players are guilty. But which other players used PEDs and got away with it? My bet is that Canseco is right, and only a small percentage of players using PEDs have been caught. And, perhaps more importantly, which players (especially star players) truly never used PEDs? Two players of the era come to mind that I would be extremely surprised and disappointed to find out that they did steroids: Cal Ripken, Jr. and Derek Jeter (Also, I doubt that few, if any, Asian players used PEDs). But did Manny Ramirez use? David Ortiz? Jim Thome? Vlad Guerrero? Frank Thomas? Albert Pujols? Ken Griffey, Jr.? I don't know. I hope not. But I don't know.
We're all pretty sure that Roger Clemens used PEDs. And Barry Bonds, whose head now literally has it's own zip code, as well as figuratively. And Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa (see ya, 1998! sad.). And Rafael Palmeiro. And others. I WOULD VOTE FOR ALL FIVE OF THESE GUYS FOR THE HALL OF FAME. What they did was wrong (and so was Pete Rose, but he should be in the Hall too), but they had Hall-of-Fame numbers even without PEDs. Clemens was still one of the best ever. Bonds would have still been 500/500 (maybe even 600/600 if the steroids didn't slow him down?). McGwire and Sosa have clear HOF numbers. Palmeiro's the only one that's even arguable. So maybe 500 isn't the magic number anymore, but statistics should be the most important thing in determining whether or not a player is eligible for the hall (certainly, championships and character are also part of the formula).
My point is that we don't really know who did what. It was a dark and shameful era for Major League Baseball, but it's time to move on. The players who never used are commendable, and the players who got away with using PEDs without ending up on any lists should still be ashamed, but with all the lies, no one will ever really know who did or didn't for certain. This whole situation has gotten out of hand. Let's put it in the past where it belongs. And move on. A new season is about to begin.
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