Even for those out there who don’t follow baseball with any kind of regularity, it’s quite hard to avoid seeing its seedy underbelly right now. For years steroid use was talked about in hushed tones. Everyone knew it was an issue, but there was no proof. Meanwhile, the owners and players continuously avoided the issue in the hopes that it would go away.
Well, 2004 will have to go down as the year that cat came out of the bag. Ken Caminiti’s 2002 confession to SI about his steroid use was the first warning flag. His death in October was illustrative of the tolls that juicing puts on your body. Then this week the game was hit with the left-right combo of Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds being outed during grand jury testimony in the BALCO case. Giambi completely owned up to using while Bonds took the route more travled — dishing the blame elsewhere and feigning ignorance as to what he was using on his body.
Sad days, my friends. Sad days indeed.
I thought I had already lived to see the darkest of moment in baseball when the 1994 season was called on account of greed, but I was mistaken. In the following years the assaults on the single season and career home run records have propelled the sport from the depths to what some call a renaissance era. The McGwire / Sosa home run race in 1998 was credited with saving the very soul of the sport. Now it’s all very suspect, and the sport is looking at another scandal the size and scope of the 1919 Black Sox affair.
Every play, every stat, every record over the past 10 years must now be re-examined my a microscope. MVP seasons were made with the help of steriods. Baseball needs to out the cheaters to save the sport, and the record books must be altered liberally with asterisks. Yes, Bonds might have hit 73 home runs in a season, but was he juiced? Is the “clean” record McGwire’s 70? Sosa’s 66? Or is the record still Mr. Marris’ 61?
Let the debate begin.
Tags: Sports