The steroid scandal has brought shame on the game of baseball. Jamie Moyer, now the oldest player in the Majors has some strong opinions on the subject which are worthy of note. I’ve included the link at the end of this post.
From my point of view as someone who loves the game (God speaks to me through it) I find the compromises that the players who took the steroids and other banned substances to be disheartening. Players should have known better, even if they took them before the official MLB ban, the drugs were still illegal without a prescription. That is a fact. Even worse from my point of view is the responsibility of the MLB owners and front office staff who remained silent and refused to take action even when the scope of the scandal became evident. Likewise the actions of the players union to “protect” players set the players up to not only continue using, but ensured that when the scandal became public that all players, even those innocent would come under suspicion.
Where do we go from here? Obviously strict adherence to and enforcement of standards by all involved is a start. Unfortunately an era has been tainted. There will be a few players prosecuted for either what they did or for lying about what they did. But what do we do with the other 50% who may have done steroids but for whatever reason have remained undetected? What about records and overal statistics of players, not just MLB records? Can every record be scrutinized? How do you tell what was the result of a players use of steroids, positive and negative? Unfortunately the answer is one can never know. I don’t think that erasing records is the answer. At the same time the players who set records who either have admitted, been identified or even strongly suspected of using steroids will have their reward. Their records will not be respected and most if not all will never see the Hall of Fame. They will forever have that against them. Even players who would have been legitimate Hall of Fame contenders before their association with the steroid scandal will not be spared. Likewise will singling out a few players for prosecution be truly just? Is singling out a few players when many more go unpunished truly just? Or is it simply our corporate way of sacrificing a few to salve our consciences as fans when we cheered these same players on as they set records? If we punish players what about owners and the union?
I can’t offer a lot more than to ask questions. For every action that baseball, courts, the media and fans take, there will always be answered questions as well as the question of is justice truly being served. The article about Moyer is good because it shows how even the innocent have been tainted by the actions of players and inaction of management, union and media during the steroid era. Here is the link to the article:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ge-moyer021509&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
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