Hank Aaron says that an Asteric * should be put on all stats and records of individuals who are known, or suspected to have been in the steroid era of baseball. I don't like the fact that baseball has been tainted by such a terrible thing, but how can someone say something like that? I think often times people forget that Baseball, had nothing against doping on steroids until a few years ago. This made nothing that any of the athletes were doing illegal. The only thing any athlete, like Mark McGwire, or Barry Bonds has done illegal is possibly lie to a grand jury.
For anyone who has never done steroids, let me be the first to tell you that they're great. Just like any other drug they can be amazing if you use them moderately and under supervision, or at least with the know how. I did steroids back in college. During the course of that time, I went from a geek to a brawny geek. I wasn't playing any sports, except for an intra murial ultimate frisbee team. The results however were staggering. An opposing team had a good friend of mine, who was also an arch enemy. He was a good friend in the fact, that he was my lifting buddy. He was an arch rival in the fact that he played for this other team, because his girlfriend was on it. Hoes before Bros. Him and I were in much better shape than the rest of anyone on either of our teams, or anyone in our league for that matter. We both lifted and did steroids together. There was no advantage to using them when we matched up against each other, because we were both on the leg-up side of the equation.
That little story bring me to my next point, if in baseball, at the time steroids were not illegal to do under the rules of the Major League Baseball Association, and everyone was doing them, where is the advantage in that? These players are paid millions, hundreds of millions even, to play this sport and to do so at the highest level that they can. If you can't hit, you get a hitting coach, put time and effort in and get better at hitting. If you can't pitch, it's the same thing. So if you can't get strong or faster, why not hire a coach for that too? If you're not juicing then you aren't earning your paycheck. You aren't trying your hardest to be the best that you can, because steroids are not illegal in Baseball circa five years ago. If everyone else is doing it to get a leg up, why wouldn't you? It would be a disservice to yourself as a professional to gain that assitance, as well as your team, and your fans.
It's not like you can just take steroids and you're automatically bigger, stronger and faster. The fact of the matter is, you have to put in more hard work than you ever have before. While I was on the 'juice' which can even strangely enough be in pill or powder form, I gained 35 pounds in the 6 months I was on it. But I was eating a very protein rich diet (which is hard for a college student) and I was getting to the gym 6 days a week, and sometimes even twice a day. It was hard work, really hard work requiring tons of sacrifice. I didn't eat one jelly donut during that six months, or even drink a beer.
I understand that Hammerin' Hank didn't ever do any of this, and still was able to achieve such greatness. But the technology in the game has changed, along with the surfaces in which it's played on, along with length of the season, along with everything else. Is an asteric mark going to be put on passballs by catchers because they have gloves and equipment that allow the game to be easier than an 1860's catcher? Are you going to say that Barry Larkin would've had more chances if he didn't play on astro-turfs slick friction instead of playing at the Polo Grounds? If Baseball allows this, along with the many other mistakes they have made in the past, how long is going to be till, they put an asteric by every stat? Well if he had hit that ball at Dodger Stadium instead of Coors Field, it would've been a homerun, instead of an out, so we'll just asteric that a homerun and an out. Are you going to say that in the last stretch of the season, which is more endurance for a player now than a player before, that perhaps those stats should be increased due to the fact that at the beginning of the season perhaps they would have done better?
The hypotheticals are too ridiculous to even consider.
I don't like Barry Bonds for many reasons, but to think that you can just asteric his numbers because he did something that wasn't illegal, seems absolutely absurd to me. Steroids are not even that 'bad' for you, or at least not as bad as Baseball has made them out to be. I've seen no ill effects since taking them five years ago. I'm in great health, since after seeing my physical results were well and good before I left for Asia. I only had the effects, which were minimal like raised libido and slightly more on edge, while I was on cycle.
If you want to stop steroids in the sport now, be my guest, I would love to see a game free of such things. But don't point your fingers at anyone 'then' Bud. You were not so surprised to find out that players were doing it, but stopping it back then would've been bad for business. Maybe we should put an asteric on Selig instead, to seperate when he knew that steroids were being used widely in his sport, and when he finally decided to do something about it.
-Mr. Blue
No comments:
Post a Comment