News was made last week in the sleepy village of Cooperstown,
N.Y., at the annual induction ceremonies at the Baseball Hall of
Fame. As the former stars of the game made the interview rounds
afterwards, Hammerin’ Hank Aaron — who was introduced as
“everyone’s home run champion” —
said that he would welcome players who used
performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) into the Hall, only if their
plaques had asterisks reading “they did it, but here’s why.”
Other Hall of Famers were not so gracious, like Goose Gossage who
issued this threat to dopers who hope to breach Cooperstown’s
hallowed threshold: “I think if you cheated, you shouldn’t be
allowed in. I wouldn’t come.” No doubt about it; the issue of
what to do with the accomplishments of steroid-era players has
been a red hot topic in baseball.
With the revelation that Boston slugger David Ortiz may have
tested positive for PEDs, sports-radio hotlines have been abuzz
with various and sundry cries of cheating, especially from Yankee
fans. Little right have they to accuse though, since some of the
brightest stars in the Bronx have also come under the shadow of
drugging doubt. As a result, many are clamoring for the total
release of the infamous list of players who tested positive for
PEDs in 2003.
It seems to me that this whole business has gotten out of hand.
Since the first ball was pitched, players have been trying to get
an edge; that physical or sometimes psychological advantage that
would enable them to raise their game to the next level. And
while anabolic steroids are currently banned from
over-the-counter sale, this was not always so. I’m not saying
that taking PEDs is right or wrong; but the fact is, that most of
them were not illegal when they were used by some of the players
whose records are in dispute.
And, if you were to assume that MLB bans these drugs for the same
reason as the FDA — because they are potentially hazardous to
one’s health — then it really has less to do with “cheating”
than it does with the nanny state’s overreaching desire to
protect us from ourselves. One wonders what effect modern
puritanical views on alcohol and tobacco consumption would have
had on the careers of baseball’s hard-drinking, hard-living stars
of the past.
Yet, what bothers most fans is that steroids have given their
users unfair advantages over those in the past. But even if we
could somehow retro-test some of those suspects who are now out
of the game, what can we say about the many other scientific and
medical advances that have contributed to the conditioning of the
modern ballplayers?
Is it unfair that today’s pitchers can return from serious arm
injury fairly quickly with “Tommy John” surgery? What about
cortisone shots? Are they not also steroids which are dangerous
when improperly used? You can go on and on wondering how vitamin
supplements, health regimens, laser surgery and other modern
medical procedures might have improved the length and quality of
the careers of old-timers.
Add to these the asterisk controversy about the 154-game schedule
versus the 162-game slate, and mix in the age-old baseball
arguments about changing strike zones, league expansion, pitching
inside and the rest, and we are left with that which makes the
game great; its enduring arguability. As we have seen above, even
the game’s giants can’t agree on how to treat the records of
alleged modern miscreants.
But one rule has been sacrosanct in baseball for nearly a
century, ever since Judge Kenesaw “Mountain” Landis brought the
gavel down on some of the greatest players of their time:
gambling in baseball will not be tolerated. Since that day, all
sorts of crimes and criminals have been visited on the game, but
gamblers have been especially punished because their iniquities
are not only of a personal nature; they are an attack on the game
itself.
And so it is interesting that some self-avowed baseball purists
who think that steroids have polluted the integrity of baseball
records, have no trouble trumpeting the case for Pete Rose —
confirmed baseball gambler and ultimate compiler — making it
into the Hall. The same Mr. Rose who, as player-manager for the
Reds, hung around far past his prime to “break” Ty Cobb’s
all-time hit record; just for the sake of breaking it.
Who knows: maybe Rose may one day get his wish to get into
Cooperstown. But his plaque may have a little asterisk along the
lines of Mr. Aaron’s wishes; “he did it, but here’s why.”
