A bright and clear sunny day and the football games are a plenty, but all of a sudden something comes across the bottom of my television screen. I can read it, Jason Grimsley's non-redacted statement to authorities, naming 6 more players in the steroid scandal: Roger Clemens, Andy Pettite, Miguel Tejada, Gibbons, Brian Roberts, and David Segui. However, all I hear is James Earl Jones' voice, from the baseball movie classic "Field of Dreams" saying, "Baseball Ray, it is the one constant throughout the years........." Earl Jones' going thru a litany of reasons and things why baseball has made it thru the years. Some of the things baseball has survived for over 120+ years are a World Series gambling scandal (in 1919, the Black Sox Scandal), free agency (with Curt Flood), and a strike by the owners and players that altogether denied the fans of a third of a full season, the playoffs and the World Series. However, I do not know if baseball will ever be the same, going thru this steroid, HGH, and speed scandal and/or epidemic.
It is kind of weird, because almost all of the "Baby Boomers" heroes in baseball are either gone, or they are out of the lime light altogether. Now we are in a time where the Generation X players are at the end of their careers, or are already retired. We are basically talking about a class of players that broke thru, or were going to break thru to the major leagues, in the years between 1983 thru 1988. Therefore, the fans are forced to look at two different groups of their heroes growing up, the group of heroes that did not do any of the illegal substances (or did not get caught), and the players that did do them allegedly, got caught, or have not been caught.
Example: Will Clark (my favorite all time player) and Rafael Palmiero (a player who wagged his finger at Congress and swore under oath that he "NEVER, did any steroids, or any illegal drugs, and then tested positive within months of that exact hearing this year). Will Clark and Palmiero both played at Mississippi State University. They both were All-Americans, but Clark was the player that won the Golden Spikes award (featuring the best collegiate baseball player) that year and was drafted, touted, and an overall better player out of college. Both players had great careers. However, Will Clark played out his 13 seasons, had more than respectable statistics and retired. On the other hand, illegal steroids, bolstered Palmiero, not only his statistics, years in the league, and overall value in his career value, his stats. and his fan base (equaling money). Palmiero had a shot at the Hall of Fame until he was busted and lied under oath (and it is just my opinion that he was enough of a bubble player, that he will not be voted in now), but Will Clark will not be in that category (nor should he, because of his lack of stats and length of career, even though he played by the rules).
So we go back to the group of the "class of the steroid era": McGwire, Canseco, Palmiero, Clemens, Bonds, and the list goes on, but they are not tried and convicted of anything, all is 'alleged".
However, I remember when I was done playing college baseball, and I started going to the CWS (college world series) in the years between 1994 thru 1997, and I made a subtle joke to a teammate of mine. We were getting tickets when the whole University of Miami team walked by to get into the stadium. I leaned over to my friend when Pat Burrell walked by, as a freshman (leading the NCAA in hitting going into the game at the CWS), and I said, "I bet he spits 90 MPH (miles per hour) on the Jugz Gun." (When going to any pro tryout, out of high school/college, teams look at pitchers who throw over 90 MPH, infielders are hit three ground balls and they have to throw across the diamond and 90 MPH is a prerequisite (unless they have another huge "tool", like speed, power hitting, or more than one), and outfielders have to throw from the outfield to the plate and are "gunned" for a laser beam arm from their position.) I was lucky enough to see the following players, in those years going to the series, Lance Berkman/Rice, J.D. Drew/ASU, Burrell/Miami, Looper and Benson/Clemson, Todd Walker/LSU, and some other fine players, but these guys did not look like they were 18-23 years old. They were all "Power Jawed," 90 MPH spitting, monsters that looked like they were in their mid-to late 20's? That night, after waiting to get tickets and making the joke about spitting, we got to see the 19 year old freshman masher Pat Burell bat third, against the best pitcher in the country, Kris Benson, from about 20 rows behind the plate. Benson's first pitch a fastball, and Burell's first swing was promptlya smashing "CHINK" of the bat, for a double.
I digress. Now that "Mr. Texas," "Mr. Cy Young," "The 'K' King," and simply put "The Rocket" who has been beloved by all for over 20 years now, has been fingered. What is to come of his legacy? Was his throwing bats at Mike Piazza a "Roid Rage incident"? Will people say that his nasty, pitching inside, take no prisoners attitude a product of modern chemistry? Are his Cy Young awards and strike out titles tainted, ever though he is over for all the while defying all of the problems of age, while still having "Barboro's Quads"? Who really cares, about all those questions about Roger Clemens the player. How about Roger Clemens the man, the hero, or the child role model? Is he setting a good example? Is he tainting children and baseball players for a host of generations to come? Throw those questions out too. How about comparing the steroid guys to the Hall of Fame, is it worse to cheat and take drugs that make you bigger, better, and have a longer career by 5 to 10 years? Or is it worse for Pete Rose to bet on baseball and not be in the Hall of Fame? Well, let's throw that one out too.
All of those questions and statements above aside, and completely forget about everything that I have written in this article, period. There are really only a couple of questions and answers that matter. 1. Can anyone watch a baseball game from now on, without thinking about whether the pitcher, the batter, or the players in the field are all "Juiced and Beaned Up?" 2. What kind of example are these baseball players setting, when they have created the only line in the sand that has put a "gray tint" on the game, an unknown filter on the game? I do not know the answers to these two questions. However, I do know that there was a time when the bases were 90 feet apart, the players were all the same physically by the way they were born, how hard they worked, and what they did for themselves, not TO themselves. Baseball used to be the purest game in the world. "America's Pastime" they call it, but what will we call it, if everything that we have gauged the game by, for 120 years is gone? When the ethics of the world, bleeds into the ethics of the game, then there is something very wrong with the world and the sport that cannot keep the cheating out of it. PERIOD!
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