Steroids and baseball, does it ever end?

Mark McGwire. Adjectives that used to come to mind were “role model,” “legend,” or even perhaps “future Hall of Famer.” Now all I can think of are “juicer” or “cheater.”

There are many arguments when it comes to the fate of McGwire, but I will state my opinion first and clear; I do not care if steroids were legal at the time of his career, performance-enhancing drugs are just that, performance enhancing. If you didn’t set those records with your own strength and no help, you cheated. No exceptions.

The Steroid Era only needed one guy to start it. When one man uses it, others follow, because it’s the only way you can keep up with that level of play. So like I say about other things in life, it was “understandable yet inexcusable.” Sure it may be hard to hit a 100 mile per hour fastball, but wouldn’t you say that you have even more talent if you didn’t have aide? How fair is it to the players that didn’t use juice yet had remarkable seasons of their own and were overshadowed? Sports have rules to be fair, not to be broken.

The other day when McGwire released his statement about having used steroids, it was no surprise to me. It’s a shame to have America’s Past-time go down the tubes because of a drug. But I feel as though that this drug should be treated just like any others, with a huge fine and some jail time. But what’s Roger doing now? Probably sitting on some beach. And with no doubts in my mind McGwire will be joining him shortly.

And is it ironic that McGwire wants the new hitting coach position? Well his idea of apologizing and “starting with a clean slate” is a whole bunch of BS to me. I was reading in Sports Illustrated when I came across a quote from a reader regarding Tiger and his scandal. The quote read, “This is a very forgiving country. If Tiger is truly sorry for what he has done […] the cheers will be there for him again.” But is that true? Are we that forgiving to just let players go with these mistakes? Will we just forget about McGwire and his steroids in a few months, just as though it seems we did with Alex Rodriguez or Roger Clemens? How about big ole Barry? I think we choose to forget, and that’s not the right solution. We shouldn’t keep pushing the issue off to the side. We have the test results for crying out loud! It’s called the Mitchell Report! Steroids were a loophole, and loopholes aren’t allowed anywhere else. So why should it be different in baseball?

--Meg