And you thought photos of Michael Phelps hitting the bong were big news. Alex Rodriguez shook the sports’ world Monday when he admitted to using banned substances between 2001 and 2003.
Forget inhaling; now we’re talking about injecting. Again.
The sports’ media did nothing to ease the frenzy either. Instead of showing its usual 6 p.m. SportsCenter, ESPN aired a question and answer with A-Rod. The media doubted Alex’s legacy, his chance at the Hall of Fame, even the future of baseball.
But fans learned nothing novel Monday. We already knew that all sorts of players — from Barry Bonds to Miguel Tejada to Mo Vaughn — have (probably) experimented with steroids at some point during their baseball careers, and I’m not surprised to hear we have yet another superstar to add to that list. I’m also not surprised to hear there are 103 other undisclosed names who join A-Rod in having failed a drug test in the MLB’s 2003 survey.
The atmosphere in the 1990s and early 2000s is now apparent: Banned substances were as common and as casually used as marijuana at a Michael Phelps party.
That’s not groundbreaking news, and the fact that arguably the best player in baseball joined the party is not earth-shattering.
Yes, it’s disappointing. Yes, it’s poor judgment. But it’s not a surprise.
And when we start to ask questions about A-Rod’s legacy and whether he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, the answer should be clear: These recent revelations should not affect anything.
The fact that professional baseball recently has been laced with steroids is unfortunate. We cannot, however, start to play this game of placing asterisks next to every record of every suspected player. We cannot afford to close the gates of the Hall to someone like Rodriguez, who admittedly used steroids for a small fraction of his career.
We are now in an era when it’s unclear who did what and even what effect these substances might have had on a player’s performance. We don’t know which substances were used and we don’t know whether the players taking them even knew they were illegal. Rodriguez even admitted to Peter Gammons that he didn’t know what he was putting into his body.
At this point, there are more questions than answers, and to start recalling the past two decades of baseball would be a mistake. It would deny too many greats a chance to etch their name into baseball’s history. It would present those who have Hall of Fame votes with the impossible task of determining which players may have stayed clean during their careers and which players may have earned their numbers with the help of some anabolic steroid.
And to be perfectly honest, they were all playing against each other anyway. Pitchers that used steroids were throwing to batters that used steroids. Roger Clemens was pitching to Alex Rodriguez. Mo Vaughn had to hit off Andy Pettite. In many cases, it was steroid-user versus steroid-user. The real losers in this situation are those who tried to compete clean, not those of a bygone era whose records were broken.
I understand that my view is relatively unconventional, but I accept the fact that the game of baseball is constantly changing. No matter what year it is, some players will cheat and some players won’t. And different players will find different ways to gain an edge. Maybe Gaylord Perry put some spit on his fastballs, or maybe Nolan Ryan put some pine tar on his fingers. Maybe Barry Bonds took some substance that made his muscles bigger.
The fact is that we don’t know — we don’t know what, whom, when, how and how much.
And now we’re stuck with this paradox where admitting steroid-use casts you in a positive light and denying any use places you in the sporting world’s doghouse. Just ask Bonds. What if those that are denying are really telling the truth?
It’s a mess. Trying to put asterisks on records, however, is only going to confuse us more, and putting an indelible blemish on someone’s legacy is not going to fix anything.
The only solution is to swallow the past and move forward.
Rodriguez should still be given an opportunity at the Hall of Fame, and he should keep whatever awards he won back in 2001, 2002 and 2003. To do anything else would only hurt baseball more. And right now, it can’t afford that kind of damage.
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