Not necessarily the news
I realize that we intended to spend this week debating whether or not the earth was flat, but instead we have some nice, topical steroids in baseball talk on our hands.
Look, the only revelation in Mark McGwire’s admission that he used steroids should be if it were Paul Maguire who came out and announced to the world that his mustache was solely a byproduct of years of rubbing HGH cream over his face. Anyone who still doubted that McGwire used steroids is probably still in the camp that believes more doctors smoke Camels.
But thanks to McGwire, we’ve kick-started the flux capacitor and have been treated to days of compelling 2003 steroid debate. Baseball has a steroid problem? You show me a sport that doesn’t have some sort of performance-enhancing issue and I’ll show you a photo of me and the Yeti slinging back shots in the Yukon backcountry, for it will be based in just about as much reality.
Depending on whom you listen to or read, we’re either supposed to forgive McGwire or get all worked up on a horse so high you’re able to see beyond the horizon. Option 3 seems to be the route most baseball fans want to take: Shrug and move on. There’s only so long we can debate what should happen to the guy.
Yet McGwire’s statement on Monday had to be the most covered non-story since a football coach got caught with a camcorder in the Meadowlands. Now everyone is in question? Now baseball is dirty? Folks, where you been?
Arguing whether the records of the “Steroid Era” (personally, I like to attach culpability, so I’m calling it “The Blind Eyes of the Sportswriters and Bud Selig Era”) should stand is like maintaining that the Nielsen ratings for “Manimal” should disappear. Hey, it’s nothing to be proud of, but it happened.
It’s been some month for the BBWAA. First the members flat out embarrass themselves with their failure to elect Roberto Alomar to the Hall of Fame, and now they’re running like hyenas to a carcass to explain why McGwire should – or shouldn’t – be eligible for Cooperstown. Well, there’s a new debate that needed to be resurrected.
It always astounds me how much effort we all put into who gets into baseball’s Hall of Fame, as if some player’s admission is going to affect our lives one way or another. I don’t know about you, but the fact that McGwire’s not in the Hall of Fame is only going to have a minor effect on me paying for my kid’s college tuition. Yet we argue about it until our faces resemble the Smurfs. Really, who cares? Let them all in. Let none of them in. Shut the place down and open an Arby’s. Whatever.
Anyone who argues with Jose Canseco’s insistence that there is already a steroid user in the Hall of Fame has to be kidding themselves. So, if one is in unknowingly, then who are the writers to play a higher power and keep out the ones they suspect or know about? Really, the bigger argument against McGwire is that he isn’t a worthy candidate to begin with. Call me when Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens come up for the discussion.
I’ve actually heard the suggestion that they should open a “Steroid Wing” at the place, which is probably just about as good an idea as adding a “Water Doodle Art Wing” to the Museum of Fine Arts. Do they have a special wing at the National Distance Running Hall of Fame that decries the advent of the sneaker too? News flash: No sport is what it was 50, 60 years ago. They even let people of all colors and races play these days too. Imagine that.
Bob Costas grilled McGwire Monday night about his steroid use, and you could almost feel the haughty “How could you do this to OUR game?” come through the TV. Yet the man shares screen time with Rodney Harrison every Sunday night. The reason baseball faces that double standard is thanks to journalists who still believe the purity of the game was better when The Mick and The Babe played hopped up on booze. Back then, it was about “Americana.” Today, it’s “Tainted.”
So, we await spring training with the head-in-the-sand confidence that Selig’s drug testing has helped rid the game of any performance-enhancing issues. In the meantime, one or more NHL, NBA, or NFL player will probably get suspended for using some sort of substance.
The only difference is that you’ll have to look deep into the daily news briefs for those items. McGwire will be a front-page story when the Cardinals hitting coach arrives at spring training. He finally admitted he used steroids. Shocker.
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