SportsFullCircle

It’s called the steroid era, even though it probably should be called the PED (performance-enhancing drug) era. During this era of widespread PED use, there has been suspicion of many stars, and now that the A-Rod positive test has come to light, it brings me to one question:

How do we know (insert name) wasn’t on steroids?

It is the PED era and from this point forward, it is quite possible we will never know who is clean and who isn’t. There’s no good test for HGH, and the Player’s Union is very reluctant to go to blood testing. They are trying to protect the interests of the players, but if the players have nothing to hide, they should have no problem taking any kind of fair test that is accurate. PED makers always create new drugs, and these drugs can be in use before the development of a good test. We will probably just end up in a never ending cycle of people creating new untestable drugs, then baseball creating a test, then the process starting over again and again and again. I doubt baseball will be clean ever again.

With that said, currently we live in a world where the court of public opinion finds you guilty without a fair trial. I am choosing to believe that a vast majority of the players who played during the steroid era were dirty. How do I make the distinction between the dirty players and the clean players? The answer is I don’t. Many of these players were smart enough to stop using, or use untestable substances once steroid testing began. If baseball had cracked down on steroids immediately, maybe we would have a better idea of who used and who did not. But that is sadly not the case, and it leaves us all in a world of doubt. You can never be sure if someone was really clean, so I doubt I will ever dub a player ‘clean’ ever again. Just because his name has not appeared in any reports doesn’t mean he hasn’t cheated, it just means he hasn’t been caught, or possibly used steroids before testing occurred. What I think people fail to realize is that taking steroids at any time is beneficial. You don’t lose the muscles you gain from them just because you stop using, and assuming baseball players work out on a regular basis, they won’t lose the muscle mass in their playing career. We will NEVER know if players are clean ever again, which brings me to this thought:

Who gets into the hall of fame?

I used to say that Barry Bonds didn’t deserve to get into the hall. That Sosa and Palmeiro were the same, but now I’ve changed my stance. It’s obvious these players cheated, but just because Greg Maddux hasn’t tested positive doesn’t mean he hasn’t cheated. So if I had a vote, I think I’d vote everyone in from the steroid era that had good enough numbers to be in. I would completely ignore the fact that the player had been on steroids, simply because of the era. If Barry Bonds was on the cusp of the hall of fame (based on stats he’s a no-brainer but this is just an example) and so was another player (let’s say A-Rod before the S.I. report) who had no linkage to steroids in his career. I would not lean towards voting in A-Rod because he hadn’t been linked to steroids, I would instead treat them the same way because of the fact that it is still very likely that A-Rod did use steroids. If these players were both on the cusp and had similar stats, basically I’d either both them both in or both out, without factoring in any positive steroid tests.

There is one problem with this, what about all the clean players with modest stats who A, would have had hall of fame stats if they used or B, if no one had used steroids, may have had HOF stats by comparison? I honestly have no answer for this, as my first thought will be to assume these people used steroids even if they did not. I have not met one player who I know had the righteousness to not use even when they were not being tested, and when the monetary stakes were so high. I know some are out there somewhere, but unfortunately, in the steroid era, the only people who may end up getting screwed are the clean players.