Steroids in Baseball and The Hall of Fame
Should steroid use keep past players out of the Hall of Fame?
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With Steroids making it’s seemingly weekly appearance in baseball news, the subject of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, and others, and their hall of fame legitimacy has again become a hot topic. And, I might add, a ridiculous one. It’s a touchy subject; we as the hypocritical society we are have recently begun vilifying those we discover to have used virtually any form of enhancing substance. A very self righteous bunch, are we not? always happy to pass judgement on everyone but ourselves. To settle this argument, it’s important to examine both sides of the discussion.
To begin with, you need to look at just what these two contributed to the game of baseball. In 1998, Major League baseball was sinking. A strike several years before that saw the World Series cancelled, and the league hadn’t recovered. Fans had been alienated. And it wasn’t getting any better. Baseball had become a sport without stars. Sure, there were stars, but no one who genuinely transcended the sport. Basketball had Michael Jordan. Football had Brett Favre and John Elway. But baseball… no one really cared any more. I myself have always been a huge sports fan, but hadn’t watched a baseball game since I was in little league. I couldn’t have named a single player on the Milwaukee Brewers, and I lived in Milwaukee!
But McGwire ans Sosa changed all of that. For one magic summer, we all suddenly cared again. Baseball became, in just a few months, America’s game again. We all suddenly knew what 61 meant; it was a number that was a part of America’s folklore. McGwire, the clean cut all American guy, kid in the dugout as a batboy, there to greet Dad after each homer. And so many of them were monsters… towering shots that were simply fun to watch over and over on Sportscenter. And Sosa, the almost obnoxiously nice guy, the underdog who was so easy to love. The two of them always talking each other up, smiling for the cameras… we LOVED them. They were everywhere… television, magazines, newspapers. They became stars of pop culture, the faces baseball so desperately needed. And when the record finally fell, at home, against Sosa and the Cubbies, with Mantle’s family in attendance, on the first pitch (they don’t even write stuff like that in the movies, I know.) We were all watching. They actually cut into network television to show it live. In short, they these two men nearly revitalized baseball by themselves. When you look at the history of baseball, the home run chase of 1998 is assuredly one of the most significant events in the long storied past of our pasttime.
Ah, but therein lies the asterisk. They were both (gasp) on steroids. The irony being, of course, that we already knew. McGwire wasn’t a twerp when he came up in Oakland, but he bore little resemblance to the hulk of a man we fell for in ‘98. And Sosa was even more obvious… a skinny Dominican kid who was good for 20 home runs just a few years back, suddenly ripping through his shirt and spitting out 60 home run seasons like nothing. We all knew, yet were so caught up in the moment that we chose to simply ignore the obvious. Now the obvious comes to the forefront, and we’re indignant. Where was the moral outrage then? Why did we not cry out? Because we accepted it. We like our strybook endings, and this had all of them.
And while Barry Bonds, Roger Clements, and others may not have had the same monumental impact on our culture, the bottom line is that on some level, we all knew, on some level, that they were using steroids. It wasn’t against the rules, and so they did it and we not only ignored it, but enjoyed it. To ban these players from Cooperstown, especially when you factor in that a number of them would have ended up there without enhancements…lest we forget that McGwire hit 50 home runs his rookie season, Bonds made 30-30 a household term, and Clements was dominant from the time he hit the big leagues. We cannot condemn these men for actions we all but condoned, if not participated in. A judgement of them is a judgement of ourselves. We need to put them in the hall where they belong.
10 Comments
nice article
Informative and well-written.
Cheating is cheating. If your caught in school cheating on a test in order to pass a class, should your test score count. Even though the McGwire and Sosa homerun season brought a lot of attention to baseball, and rekindled the sport to new heights, it was done out of cheating that neither player had to resort to because both of them were tremendous baseball players. Barry Bonds was always a great baseball player who averaged around 25 to 30 homeruns a year for most of his career. Then all of a sudden he goes from a skinny athlete to swelling up like the hulk over night, and averages 60 to 70 homeruns over the last three or four years of his career to pass legends like Ruth, Aaron, and Mays. So you tell me, is steroids good or bad for any sport. Well written article friend. They should have a steroid hall of fame of fame seperate from the real one. The sad thing about this whole scenerio is what you mentioned in this article, these were all great players who just let greed and more fame ruined what was otherwise already hall of fame careers. Well done.
Nice write!!!
In a few more years there will not be many players worthy of the HOF who were clean. That’s when the writers will really be forced to choose what they want to do.
Baseball is more interesting with steroids, its wrong but interesting. Albert Pujols has the most homeruns in the big league as of now with 39. That is like a bad weekend for Sosa, and McGwire.
Substances such as steroids or growth hormone help build speed, strength and endurance, thereby giving athletes a competitive advantage. These substances may be harmful and are contrary to the spirit of fair competition. I’m sorry, but I disagree with you. By engaging in the consumption of performance enhanced drugs, players are cheating themselves, their opponents who work extremely hard to earn a place in the Hall Of Fame, and their supporters.
I think that steroid takers, In all their glory. Because they have a big advantage on the speed, strength and endurance side.
Would be causing more fame to go onto them,
And are taking away the glory from the clean players,
Me myself have never watched baseball, I am from England.
But there just my views,
I don’t give a hoot if they used steroids, almost every one was from the late 70’s till testing started. In every pro sport, NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA. competition is so fierce everyone did anything they could to get an edge. It doesn’t matter though the innate talent must still be there. I could take steroids tomorrow, would I be able to hit a ball better? ( Maybe farther, but not any more frequently.) In my opinion none of them, from any sport should be kept out if they put up the appropriate numbers. Look at Babe Ruth… Next they’ll be saying WHISKEY & BEER are performance enhancers!! Nice piece, Tom
I think that this is a difficult subject because steriods created the want for more and more people to come to games because there was a lot of excitement. On the other hand it is cheating and you should be punished for cheating. Overall I hope that all of the steriod users in baseball get caught.