JMart's Baseball Thoughts - Cincinnati Sports Forums

osu99jp · #1 (**permalink**) 03-21-2006, 11:37 AM

To preface: I agree that Bonds is an asshole and a cheater. However..

When people (such as JMart) take the position that MLB should "erase" Barry Bonds' statistics from the year 1998-2003 or that MLB should launch a full investigation into Barry Bonds' alleged steroid use or that Barry Bonds should be banned from the Hall of Fame...

...do you mean you would be fine if MLB did this to Barry Bonds and Barry Bonds only? Or should players like Palmeiro, Sosa, Canseco, etc. have full investigations launched into their careers as well?

I know Barry Bonds is the biggest name accused of cheating, and that is why people tend to only use his name when discussing MLB juicers. But after hearing his name and only his name so many times for so long, one begins to wonder, "They do realize that hundreds (if not thousands) of other major leaguers have likely used steroids, right?". You never hear people calling for a full investigation of Bret Boone's career or to erase Benito Santiago's career statistics, when most people fully believe that they benefitted from the use of performance-enhancing drugs as well.

I guess what I'm saying is, yes, I am as sure as you are that Barry Bonds used steroids on a regular basis for several years, and it sucks that MLB didn't give a shit. But now that we know what we know, you can't just pick out one player out of several thousand to be the sacrificial lamb of the steroids era, not to mention a player that has never failed a drug test in his life. The only fair thing to do would be to launch full investigations of every player ever mentioned as a possible juicer, and after that's complete, launch investigations into every player that is rumored to have cheated in some other way, be it doctoring the ball, corking the bat, whatever. And of course, MLB will not do that. Too much money, too much time, too much dirty laundry.

Let them keep their tainted statistics, let them keep their Hall of Fame plaques (if the voters grant them admission..this is one thing the regular public actually has control over - and I have absolutely no problem with people refusing to vote Bonds in over this), then let them die in their early 50's. We know what we know, and that's good enough for me. To me, "erasing statistics" or applying asterisks to HR totals is akin to the NCAA saying Ohio State's 1999 Final Four run "never happened", nor did their entire regular season. Uh..yeah it did.

shantyman · #2 (**permalink**) 03-21-2006, 11:59 AM

The big difference is Bonds is an active player.

Franny · #3 (**permalink**) 03-21-2006, 12:14 PM

Quote:

The only fair thing to do would be to launch full investigations of every player ever mentioned as a possible juicer, and after that's complete, launch investigations into every player that is rumored to have cheated in some other way, be it doctoring the ball, corking the bat, whatever. And of course, MLB will not do that. Too much money, too much time, too much dirty laundry.

I think they actually will do a full investigation into all DRUG use from that era. They have to or Barry Bonds will start playing the race card, again. But I do see your point about the other items that are considered "cheating"

I am not Peter Gammons, I am not J.Mart so I am not a baseball purist. I personally have no real problems with "juiced" players outside of the fact that Steroids are illegal in normal society. I don't see a problem with using science to ENHANCE performance of atheletes. Just like when a sumo wrestler eats tons and tons of Sushi to fatten up, this is about the same thing. Steroids should be legalized, bring back back the long ball! Bring back THE FUN!

It has been proven that players hit up to 20% better when playing in Coors' Field. Should we erase all the hits and home runs that took place there? Those players cheated! No, it was a variable that was thrown in to make the stats different. Steroids are about the same thing, a variable.

osu99jp · #4 (**permalink**) 03-21-2006, 12:30 PM

I would love to see it.

By the way, this could be a dumb question, but maybe someone can explain to me how the MLBPA was able to get away with "steroids are not on the list of banned substances, therefore they are allowed" excuse for so long?

JMart · #5 (**permalink**) 03-21-2006, 05:52 PM

No no, I'm singling out Bonds because there is an overwhelming amount of documented evidence against him. If indisputable evidence can be found against guys like Sosa, McGwire, Palmeiro, Brady Anderson, Bret Boone, etc., then fine, erase their stats for the times it can be proven they were on it. I think that anyone that manipulates the game that drastically should be severely punished and their stats should not be held up against guys that played the game fairly.