Baseball is sport, and it’s entertainment.  Baseball may be sacred on a personal level, it certainly brings me back to my childhood.  But in and of itself, it is not.  That’s where the problem starts.  When we start consecrating entertainment, we’ve lost touch with reality.  The media in general pushes the idea on us that performance enhancing drug use and steroids in baseball is somehow tainting the purity of the game, or some other stupid fucking nonsense like that.

That’s nuts – just plain insane thinking.  I simply don’t care.  I’m not sitting there watching a game and pounding my fist on the armrest, wailing about how Craig Counsell and David Eckstein cannot keep up with these juiced monsters.  Don’t get me wrong, I love every aspect of baseball.  Pitching duels, one run games, small ball, sac flys.  But who doesn’t like a bomb fest?  I’d love to see what would happen if Giancarlo Cruz Michael Stanton was roided up.  Hell, he may hit a ball 600 feet in that scenario.  The fact of the matter is, PED’s cannot give a player skill he doesn’t already have.

Reasons You Shouldn’t Care about Steroids in Baseball

Why do they have to cheat?

Players “cheat” for a number of reasons.  Money is obviously the biggest factor.  If you could make enough money to live comfortably the rest of your life and retire at 40, I’d have to reckon most of you would do what it took.  Success on the field leads to more fame, which leads to more money.  Players want to win championships, and being able to contribute on the field as much as possible can lead to championships.  There are a number of other things that can be accomplished by using PED’s – including quicker recovery from injury to get back performing for your favorite team or on your fantasy team. (Editor’s Note: I would so take HGH if it were available to me, and I had the proper information. I guarantee celebrities like Halle Berry and Brad Pitt are on the stuff)

But what about the Mitchell Report?

The Mitchell Report is invalid.  George Mitchell was on the board of directors for the Boston Red Sox at the time the investigation was begun.  Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz were not cited in the report despite failing drug tests.  We know Manny failed another test and was suspended in 2009.  Barry Bonds is intensely vilified without proof, yet everyone loves David Ortiz.  That is the media’s fault.  One is convinced by the media to hate Barry Bonds, because he didn’t kiss their collective asses.  Whereas David Ortiz schmoozes every reporter who comes within 10 yards of him.  Would you want to kiss the asses of people like Jay Mariotti and Skip Bayless just to be considered a likeable guy by the general public?  I applaud Barry Bonds for not being a media whore.

They’re ruining their chances of getting into the Hall of Fame.

They don’t care.  A player may not admit it, but the Baseball Hall of Fame is irrelevant to them.  Fame, fortune and championships are what’s important to them.  Besides, the Baseball Hall of Fame is the worst.  It seems that only one player is elected each year, most of the time.  Plus the elect assholes like Ryne Sandberg, Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan.  Tim fucking McCarver!  Who wants to be part of that group?  Besides, Ryne Sandberg hates children.  Michael Young is the type of guy who gets elected into the hall of fame, and that guy is a douche.

There should be an asterisk next to their statistics.

That’s bullshit.  Until Mythbusters or someone like that proves that PED’s have a significant, measured effect on the abilities of a player, then their respective numbers should be considered legit.

Any player who puts up big numbers should be under suspicion.

That’s absolutely galling.  I understand why one would feel that way about a player who increases their output dramatically from one season to the next.  What I don’t like is blind speculation by journalists.  In 2006, ESPN had the nerve to put a story on their website questioning if Ryan Howard was on PED’s due to his 58 homer season.  That’s irresponsible.  It’s one thing for the media to talk about a player who has failed a test, it’s unprofessional to label someone who has not. See Skip Bayless just yesterday talking about Derek Jeter. What an asshat.

Ryan Braun should have his 2011 NL MVP taken away.

Fuck that.  Even if his failed test was considered valid, is he suddenly going to lose the abilities he has without PED’s?  I can hit a baseball 200, maybe 210 feet with an aluminum bat.  If I started taking steroids, I’m not going to be able to somehow hit that same ball with a wood bat 380 feet.  I have a hard time considering “elevated testosterone levels” to be a concern.  Braun should be more embarrassed that his Valtrex use was relevealed.

Melky Cabrera should be ashamed of himself.

No he shouldn’t.  I hope he wins the batting title.  I was thoroughly enjoying his career season.  Melky was trying to secure his future, for himself and his family.  I cannot fault him for that.  I hope the Giants make the playoffs and he plays and he’s a hero.  He did what he did to get an edge.  Baseball contracts are guaranteed, so players will risk a positive drug test to get a multi-year deal that gives them financial security.  And that’s what Melky did.  There’s no shame in that.

Were stem cells not enough for Bartolo Colon?

LOL.  You have to applaud Colon’s determination.  He’ll stop at nothing to remain on a major league team’s payroll.  In 2010, he received a transplant of stem cells to repair damaged tissues in his shoulder.  Now he’s been busted for the new popular stimulant, testosterone.  Just another example of a guy trying to hold on at age 39, trying to make another couple more million.  How can we get mad at that?  We all strive everyday to get by, to get raises, to make more money.  Maybe the real drug is an addiction to playing baseball at the highest level?

Who can we blame?

If you’re looking for a villain, Bud Selig is the perfect choice.  He looked the other way in the 90′s and allowed the usage of PED’s to run rampant to get butts back in the seats following the 1994-95 Major League Baseball Strike.  It’s pointless to demonize the individual players when there were no rules by which to follow or abide.  It doesn’t tarnish their accomplishments one bit in my mind.  I fondly remember watching Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Jose Canseco, among others, crush homeruns.  They elevated the entertainment level.  It’s not fair to punish them retroactively.  I wish we could go back to the days of marginal players racking up huge numbers.  Steve Finley, Brady Anderson, Bret Boone!  Those were the days.  I think the fact that people know McGwire and Canseco were going into bathroom stalls and injecting each other in the ass with steroids is punishment enough.

In conclusion, I just don’t care what the players put in their bodies and neither should you.  I love baseball and always will.  I could watch it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.  I’m not going to postulate that the game is sullied by PED use.  That is just a fallacy in my mind, because it’s just a game.  It’s just entertainment.  I am thankful everyday that we now have the MLB Network.  ESPN is largely at fault for pushing this incessant jabbering about the atrocity of PED’s in baseball.  When the Melky Cabrera story broke, MLB Network reported it in a professional manner that should be expected, and moved on to the actual games.  I stopped watching ESPN during baseball season years ago, but I can guess that their coverage included Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless screaming at each other for an hour about it.  John Kruk, who makes Kevin Millar sound like George Will, expressing righteous indignance while eating on the air.  And, Mark Farinu-Wada taking a break from the Barry Bonds witch hunt beat to connect Cabrera to BALCO.  If I can’t convince you to not care, at least heed my advice and switch the channel from ESPN to MLB Network for your baseball fix.  Save yourself from being bombarded by bullshit.

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