It's time for us to move on. For the good of the game, the lives of the players and my sanity, it's time to let go!
Baseball went through a period when there was rampant use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. Many of the game's brightest stars have had their reputations damaged or, according to many people, ruined. The integrity of the game has taken a gut shot. This has been, without a doubt, a full-blown disaster.
I get all this. I understand how bad it was and how bad it still is. But what bothers me is that we're on the brink of the 2009 season, and yet the saga continues. And it continues not because of the players, but because of us. It continues because of the media, fans and a few spotlight-craving politicians who won't let the game move forward. It continues because of people who used the issue of performance-enhancing drugs as an opportunity to claim some sort of ridiculous moral high ground, feeding some selfish motive.
It's these people who have turned the steroid era into a good old-fashioned witch hunt, and everybody loves a witch hunt (well, except the "witches"). They are the ones keeping the steroid era alive -- not because they care about the good of the game or justice, but for themselves. It's getting old, and it's getting sad.
These people claim to be standing up for fairness in a game that's sacred to the American people. They harp on this idea of making sure baseball is played on an "equal playing field." But this is just a child's dream. The concept of the "equal playing field" itself is ridiculous. Weightlifting is a performance enhancer. So are dietary supplements, laser eye surgery and high-tech cleats. Some athletes spend their nights sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber! Any sort of preparation or training shifts the delicate balance of competition!
I guess the difference between these forms of preparation and illegal performance enhancers is the negative side effects. But there are other far more dangerous means of performance enhancement that don't seem to bother anyone. Offensive linemen clog their arteries when they eat tens of thousands of calories a day to keep their weight over 300 pounds. Athletes push themselves in extreme heat -- a fact that has caused the deaths of several players in NFL training camps.
The dangers of steroids aren't what have caused them to be deemed a Schedule III drug (up to a year in prison for possession alone) by the government. It's the connotations of the word "drug" and the stigma of the needle that have caused this. That's what has provided the gossip columnists and the politicians on their pedestals with material to keep this fire burning.
And let's admit that it was the baseball community -- the league, the media and the fans who allowed a precedent to be set that performance-enhancing drugs were an acceptable part of this game. We all saw players grow into men who looked more like the guy from "300" (2006) than Roy Hobbs. We were the ones who made it clear that "chicks dig the long ball." We shelled out the big bucks for the big dingers.
For a long time, performance-enhancing drugs were both unregulated in baseball and socially acceptable in locker rooms. To pretend that if we were in the shoes of these men that we wouldn't have been tempted to try them -- while knowing that some of baseball's most respected players did -- is bulls--t. It's the nature of a game decided by inches. You are always looking for an edge, and if other people, especially people you respect, are doing it, then you take it.
I think it's our job as fans of this incredible sport to push baseball forward. We're bigger than this, and we're better than this. A new season full of great stories and competitive young clubs is about to get underway. Let's let go, forgiving but not forgetting, and just play ball. This is for the good of the game.
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