The Dark Cloud Over Baseball

For baseball fans, yesterday's Outside the Lines report brings to light a complex issue, especially for fans around my age who grew up in an era now tainted by performance enhancing drugs. I didn't really follow baseball that much until 1998 when I made my first trip to Wrigley amidst the Cubs gunning for the playoffs and Sammy Sosa launching baseballs all over the place. As a 9-year-old, I didn't know anything about PED's, nor did I really care. It wasn't until later when the league started to mandate testing (despite steroids being banned in 1991) and Sosa's name really started to become linked to drug use that I started to care.

With all the allegations that have been thrown around in the past few years, not to mention the degree of accuracy seen with these allegations, I tend to take these rumors pretty seriously. So when I read the news about Tony Bosch of Biogenesis of America finally agreeing to cooperate with Major League Baseball and the hammer that is about to fall, I find myself fascinated by what's to come: who all will be caught in the firestorm? How hard is the hammer going to fall? Will this serve as a warning to players present and future to stay clean? Hard to say on all accounts.

Of the guys mentioned, I'm especially not surprised about either Alex Rodriguez or Ryan Braun showing up. A-Rod has already admitted to past use, so to hear about use since then isn't too surprising, and Braun already failed a test but blamed a middleman for his mistake got off on a technicality. If the allegations are true and Bosch has documentation to prove that these guys did in fact acquire illegal substances from him, they should face those steep 100 game suspensions. As for these other names that haven't been released, they also should face their 50 game punishments, again, assuming the allegations have documentation to prove it.

While watching the KTLA Morning News at work this morning, at least one fan said he thought the steroid allegations were all over and done with. I wish it were the case. I think we're going to see steroid and other PED use for a long time going forward, even if the hammer comes down incredibly hard on these guys, which it should. But hopefully these guys will serve as an example.

In 2011 I argued that Braun deserved his MVP award, something I wrote before the positive test news broke. Especially now, I think his award is nullified, and a lot of these MVP's from the last 20 years are no longer legitimate (A-Rod's 2003 MVP is one that deserves a lot of scrutiny, not to mention the odds that all of Barry Bonds' MVP's are tainted too). If guys test positive for performance enhancers in this day and age and would make the Hall of Fame if their numbers were legitimate, they should not be allowed in. The people before are another story. They don't deserve a place alongside guys like Ruth and Aaron, but they should have a wing for guys who "disgraced the sport", since they're still an important part of baseball history. While we're at it, let's let Pete Rose into that wing as well. We can't just ignore 20 years of baseball history here.

All in all, this is a sad story that puts a lot of baseball's biggest names in a dark light, but at least here the league wants to do something to clean up the game. Hopefully it's a step in the right direction.