Where Do We Go From Here?

I had a conversation with a friend of mine about the steroid issue in baseball and his comment to me was that anyone that did not fail a test has the right to be in the Hall of Fame based on the stats they put up and no proof of cheating. My first thought was that Barry Bonds’s head size growing 1 ¼ inches while he was in his 30’s was proof enough for me or that Roger Clemens winning 3 Cy Young’s and throwing as hard in his 40’s as he did in his 20’s is also proof enough for me.

So what to do with the issue of today’s cheaters? My feeling is this, I was a very big Pete Rose fan growing up and followed Rose and the Reds each day and looked forward to seeing him one day inducted into the Hall of Fame. The sad truth is he broke the cardinal rule you don’t bet on the game. So over the years the conversation has come up that if all these steroid users get in the Hall of Fame then Rose should be put in also. So I have to ask how do two wrongs make a right?

As most of you know I grew up rooting against the Yankees and everything they stood for (buying championships) and I especially disliked one of their biggest free agent signings Reggie Jackson.

Reggie hit over 500 homeruns in his career and even though he swung from his heals and could not hit for average he accomplished something not many people before him had done, he hit 500 homeruns in a big league uniform. Can you imagine how he has felt the last few years as people are flying by him on the all time list?

Sammy Sosa without steroids may hit 300 before he is out of baseball for striking out too much, he ends up with 600, Barry Bonds was on pace to hit 400 before 1998 and he ends up the all time leader with 700. Mark McGuire could not stay healthy enough to play 120 games a year and he hits 583 in sixteen seasons and in 1993 and 1994 he hit nine in each season. And last if Manny gets back on the field he only needs nine homeruns to pass Reggie! I would be pretty mad if I were Reggie!

So this brings me to the latest scandal, A-rod, Ryan Braun and the rest of the 20-25 people linked to the Biogenesis Clinic. My honest feeling is throw them all out of the game. These 50 & 100 game suspensions are just not stopping these players when they can cash in on $100 million dollar contracts. So what is Ryan Braun going to lose 3.5 million, so what! That is chump change when you are talking 100 million.

Major League Baseball needs to clean up this mess once and for all, if you are caught in any way linked or suspected you are out needs to be the rule, sorry but no more three strikes and you’re out. Rose broke the rules and he has been paying for it since 1989 and this was said to preserve the integrity of the game. Some feel (including his teammates) that Reggie did not have much integrity in his day, it’s kind of ironic that his 563 is falling lower and lower on the all time list because of players of his ilk. At least he did it clean.