The following is a list of athletes who, if I found out took steroids, it would surprise me:










There it is. And apparently my list is extremely similar to the one that baseball writers would create as well except that, instead of no names, their lists would include every player in history. And if any of those players happened to have worn a Red Sox jersey at some point in their careers, the entire city of Bristol, Connecticut would likely explode.

I don't really understand it. These are the exact same reporters who fawned over Alex Rodriguez's performance in April of 2007 when he hit 12 home runs in his first 16 games and who gleefully opined that they could not wait for him to break Barry Bonds' career home run record because we would once again have a fair and accurate number to reach. Seriously, check out this article. People took steroids. A lot of people. And they hit lots of home runs and stole lots of bases and struck out lots of batters because of it. And are the numbers over the last 15 years tainted? Absolutely. Is it an enormous black eye on the sport of baseball? Sure. Does it ultimately change anything? No.

Baseball has always been a flawed sport. It has had a fixed championship series, was more vehement about keeping African American players out of the league than any other sport, has had the World Series cancelled because of petty strikes and its history is chock full of characters who cheated blatantly. From the spitball to pine tar to corking bats to methamphetamines to steroids there really isn't a period in the last 120 years that hasn't been tarnished by some form of cheating. And that's only the stuff we know about.

The argument for why steroids may be the most egregious offense in baseball history is that it taints the sport's precious numbers. And as much as I love statistics, this is a faulty argument. Just like in every other sport, you can't compare numbers from one era to another. Cy Young won 511 games in his career. Today, if a pitcher hits 300 he is a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

In 1920, Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs. George Sisler came in second that year with 19. This wasn't because Ruth was THAT much better than everyone else. It was because, until Ruth came along the home run was considered a somewhat boarish feat. At that time, a strikeout was a much worse thing than a home run was a good thing. For Ruth, hitting a ball out of the yard was much easier than trying to beat out an infield single and, quite frankly, he didn't care about what anyone else thought. However, had Ty Cobb wanted to hit 50 home runs in a season, he could have done it. He just would have sacrificed about 100 batting points to do it.

The 1980s were played during the dead ball era. It was a monumental occasion when Cecil Fielder hit 51 home runs in 1990. Pitchers were so dominant in the 1960s that the league lowered the mound to quell that advantage after 1968. The designated hitter has skewed American League stats and extended fat and slow players' careers for decades. Coors Field turned Larry Walker into a borderline Hall of Famer.

The point is, you can't compare numbers from one decade to another. Do I think baseball should do everything possible to clean up steroids in its league? Absolutely. Will that finally rid baseball of cheaters and scandals? Certainly not. The past 15 years is skewed and a simple glance through a stat book will tell the story. If baseball deems it necessary to place an asterisk next to an arbitrary time period so be it. It doesn't completely negate what Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens and Luis Gonzalez did in this stretch. (Well, maybe Luis Gonzalez. I mean, come on.) Just don't forget that Marvin Benard also took steroids. The worst steroids ever.

So needless to say, I find this outrage more than a little comical since Major League Baseball and baseball writers are arguably more to blame than anyone else. It's little more than an unfortunate chapter in baseball's history. The baseball I fell in love with as a kid was an era in which 2-1 games were routine. And I will still cheer a sacrifice bunt even harder than a solo home run in a 9-1 blowout. Steroids has done very little to erase what I love about baseball. It's still the most beautiful game in the world, especially now that Willie McGee has retired.



Willie McGee