Another day, another name revealed. David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, the potent 1-2 punch from the 2003-2008 Boston Red Sox, are the latest drips from MLB’s leaky faucet: the infamous 2003 anonymous drug test. Excuse me, while I yawn.
Only Brett Favre comeback stories are more repetitive and less interesting than baseball’s steroids saga. Haven't we been down this road enough times already?
The script certainly hasn’t changed: Star player gets exposed. Star player issues awkward PR-manufactured denial. Media feigns shock and outrage. Fans get upset. Fans and media jointly anoint new “clean savior of sport”. Time passes and “clean savior of sport” is exposed. Repeat from start. Enough already, who cares?
Amazingly, four and a half years have passed since 2005’s infamous Congressional hearing on steroids in baseball. Countless stars have been revealed yet somehow steroid use is still making headlines. So what have we learned, if anything, since the day Mark McGwire refused to talk about the past?
A) Lots of great baseball players used steroids.
From 1995 to 2005, 14 of the 22 MVP awards were won by players once linked to steroids. Roger Clemens monopolized the Cy Young Award. You’d be hard-pressed to find a star player who has avoided any whispers. Name your favorite team’s three best players from this era. Each has likely used performance enhancers at one point.
B) Lots of terrible baseball players used steroids.
The most forgotten aspect of the steroid era is the large number of losers who have been divulged as steroid users. Jeremy Giambi, Larry Bigbie, Jason Christensen, Matt Franco, Cody McKay…the list continues for days. Take one look at the list of players named in the Mitchell Report and it is obvious that steroid use was not exclusive to the game’s greats.
Now given the fact that steroids are portrayed as miracle drugs that chemically created the careers of our generation’s superstars, it is interesting to note that these less-talented players did not ream the same benefits. Were their drugs bad? Or could the effects of steroids possibly be overstated? If the stars were still stars and the scrubs were still scrubs, maybe the playing field was more level than we were led to believe after all.
C) We have no way of knowing who used, who didn’t use, and what effect it had.
Power hitters juiced. Contact hitters juiced. Speedy Outfielders juiced. Slap hitting middle-infielders juiced. Strikeout pitchers juiced. Control pitchers juiced. Starting pitchers juiced. Middle relievers juiced. Closers juiced. Stars juiced. Scrubs juiced.
Minor leaguers juiced. College players juiced. High school players juiced. Big guys juiced. Small guys juiced. Players who got bigger juiced. Players with no apparent change in physical-appearance juiced. White players juiced. Black players juiced. Hispanic Players juiced. Fan-favorites juiced. Hated rivals juiced. Winners juiced. Losers juiced. Good guys juiced. Bad guys juiced.
One of the biggest misconceptions of the era is that we can intuitively distinguish a steroid user. We cannot. Steroid users are impossible to typecast. The drugs were used by players of all shapes and sizes for all different purposes: speed, power, recovery, health, etc.
For every obvious Mark McGwire, there are twice as many less obvious Andy Pettittes. We will never fully know who used and who didn’t. Worrying about it is senseless.
But if there is any good that comes of each exposal, it is that fans are beginning to realize how commonplace performance enhancing drug use was.
When steroid discussions first came in vogue, most fans were outraged. I was among a minority who did not care. Today, my indifference is shared by many baseball fans. If anything, we’re making progress.
No matter whom the next superstar revealed is, my reaction will remain unchanged. I haven’t cared about steroid use in baseball from the start and I will not begin now. But for those that do? Be prepared, because the faucet isn’t getting fixed anytime soon.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
And a quick addendum-
1) Baseball writers need to quit trying to make up for their own negligence with their over-the-top stands against the great players of this generation.
Each time that a new star is exposed, guys like Bill Plaschke, Mike Lupica, and Jay Marriotti jump on their moral high horse in some ridiculous outrage. Enough already. You guys did not care enough about steroids to report on it while it was happening; stop pretending to care now.
There is no excuse to keep extraordinary players like McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, and Clemens out of the Hall of Fame. Please stop trying to rewrite history.
2) If you are a Red Sox fan who believed that no prominent Red Sox had ever used steroids, shame on you. Hopefully, you got your A-Roid jokes in while you had the chance. For those of you, 2004 and 2007 will become tainted.
For me, Big Papi is the same man today that he was yesterday; a remarkable entertainer who provided me with some of my greatest memories as a baseball fan. Nothing will ever change that or retroactively diminish his personal accomplishments or his teams’ accomplishments. Nothing.
Here’s one more salute to the greatest clutch hitter in Red Sox history. There was never a more fitting home run than Ortiz’s game winning bomb this afternoon.
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