I love baseball. It's the most perfect, beautiful, and poetic game ever, of all time. Ever
I grew to adulthood through the steroid era. Of course we didn't call it that. That's the name it's come to have. Steroids were, until 2006, within the rules of the game. We saw salaries skyrocket beyond what they were in the 1970s. Of course these guys juiced. Wouldn't you to stay in the big leagues where a back up second baseman makes $4,000,000 plus?
That does not mean I am excusing it. Clearly it's outside the spirit of fair competition for an athlete to make their body do what it would otherwise not do. So why to these 2 guys belong (along with anyone else who's accumulated statistics comparable to Cooperstown immortals? Precisely because there were no rules, and usage was commonplace according to most players of the era. If everyone did them, then they put up these numbers, and broke these records against juiced competitors.
Barry Bonds hit 762 home runs over his career, and 73 in a season. He did it when many supplements now banned were legal, and commonplace. Certainly he hit a generous portion of those home runs off of pitchers on the juice. If the steroids make the hitter better, don't they make the pitcher better too? Isn't the affect of steroids on the record book then a wash? Mark McGwire broke the record most said would never be broken - Maris' 61 HR in a season. And he did it against pitchers on the juice. Roger Clemens won 350 games. We already know he did all this against players using performance enhancing substances. Rafael Palmeiro hit over 500 HR.
Why are we disallowed the admittance of our eras' greatest players enshrinement into Cooperstown? Sure - Bonds was, and probably is still, what is commonly called "a dickhead." McGwire admitted using steroids all of his career, after years of denial, and avoiding the questions. So. Canseco used steroids. He didn't hit 500 HR. It's still a magical number.
The beauty of baseball is the permanence of numbers because while eras come and go the game does not change in any great form. 90 feet home to 1st. 60 ft 6 in pitchers rubber to home plate. Parks are symmetrical, or asymmetrical - just as they were in the 20s, 30s, and 50s. Ruth dominated his competition. So did Aaron, and Musial, and Cobb, and Williams. The numbers only go so far. Jim Rice dominated his era, and yet did not achieve the 500 HR milestone. He is in Cooperstown - deservedly so.
Every era has it's giants on the diamond. We have ours, and we deserve to see them in Cooperstown. They dominated all the other juice-heads.
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