This is the first of a few articles I am taking from my vault. The article below is one I wrote last year for BigThreeSports. It is about the steroid era and is a great warm up piece to my latest piece about ethics and steroids coming later this week.
So please enjoy a blast from the past for the first time and if not read it again in preparation for my piece coming later this week.
Not Guilty: Defining the Steroid Era in Cooperstown?
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| image from bleacher report |
Minuets after Roger Clemens not guilty verdict came in the sports world erupted with a single question:
What are Clemens chances at Cooperstown? People immediately re-ignited the debates concerning how
the sports writers are going to view Clemens career and more importantly the steroid era as a whole?
During a Baseball Tonight interview Tim Kurkjian gave his two cents saying he would vote for
Clemens, the same way he has for Palmeiro, Mcgwire, and Sosa. At the same time he admitted that he
is in the minority when it comes to voting in this way. Many sports writers have not forgiven these
players and want to hold Cooperstown's immortality out of reach. As a sport baseball has done its best
to put this era in the past, they have revamped testing practices, they went in front of congress, and
dealt with the aftermath of Canseco's tell all book. With the passing of time many great players from
this era have either retired or are playing out the twilight years of their amazing careers and it is time
for Cooperstown to step up to the plate and deal with these players and the era.
So how do we deal with the steroid era? How does Cooperstown deal with immortalizing these great
players? Do we do what the majority of sportswriters have done so far and hold a personal vendetta
against the steroid users and keep them out of the hall? I would hope not. Rose's non-election from the
hall should severe as an example of what not to do. By keeping Pete out we created a controversy and
a story that has lasted the better part of two decades. A controversy that has overshadowed Pete's great
accomplishments and does not let his transgression rest. If Pete Rose situation is any indicator, we can
see that ignoring these players will not close the book on the steroid era. Until we find a way to deal
with the players from this era our attention will always be drawn back to the problems of the steroid era
every January and June.
The players who used performance enhancers and steroids should be forced to wait to get into the hall
until the "clean" players from this era are in the hall. In the coming years many great names are coming
up on the ballot that have no connection to steroid use: Maddux, Johnson, Glavin, Smoltz, Rivera,
Jeter, Chipper, Griffy, Cox, and Larussa. These players and coaches deserve peace and respect when
they become immortalized in Cooperstown. They played during the steroid era, did not use steroids (as
far as we know), and came out on top as some of the greatest players of all time. They deserve a
Cooperstown day devoted to them, one not focused on the "dirty" players from the era.
Once the "clean" players have had their day without any distraction, we can begin to vote in the players
who are connected with steroids. Sammy, Mark, Palmeiro, and Clemens, are just a few of the players
that deserve a place in the hall. By separating these players out we have a way to acknowledge the era
without doing a disservice to the clean players of the era. The "dirty" players are punished by being
lumped together with other "dirty" players, while also having their day in Cooperstown delayed. In the
end they still get credit for the great things they did during their marvelous careers.
The most important thing that we have to avoid is allowing the steroid era to change the way we view
baseball and its great history. Baseball and more importantly Cooperstown have never been places
where we embrace "what if's"..Baseball is all about the numbers that we have and we should not let the
steroid era change that. If we start trying to determine how many home runs, Big Mac or Sosa would
have had without steroids we are allowing ourselves to embrace something that is not a part of baseball.
If we begin diving into the "what if'" questions we start to travel down a slippery slope where we can
begin to question everyone’s career numbers. Would the Crime Dog have had 500 home runs if the
pitchers had not been juicing? Should Bonds be stripped of his MVP awards? Would Palmeiro have
500 home runs without steroids? We can not let the steroid era change Cooperstown, we can not waterown the requirements or begin guesstimating what peoples numbers could have been. We can not let
the steroid era to allow us to dive into the realms of "what if's" and instead need to apply the same
standards that we always have. Baseball is all about the numbers and we can not allow the steroid era to
change that.
In the end we will never know what could have been, but instead have what is. From the steroid era we
have a pitcher who won six cy young’s, we have two sluggers who's home run chase re-ignited peoples
passion for baseball. We have some "clean" players and some ""dirty", but more importantly we have
players who have owned up for what they did. Most of the players connected to steroid use have either
apologized and owned up to it or done all that they could to do prove the accusations wrong. If we truly
want to close the chapter on the steroid era we have to embrace it as we have every other era in
baseball. We have to acknowledge the great events and great players of the era the same way we would
any other. If we do not we immortalize these players and moments in Cooperstown then we are
allowing the steroid era to change how we understand baseball, Cooperstown, and the Nations past
time
