In case anyone has been living under a rock for the past week, it was announced that David Ortiz, A.K.A. Big Papi, was elected into the first ballot Major League Baseball Hall of Fame while Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens had been rejected yet again. This piece isn’t going to be on whether or not the MLB is wrong for continuing to give the latter two the Pete Rose treatment but more about how this goes a long away to show the dirty, hypocritical side of baseball that has occurred for the last 28 years.
Baseball is certainly a sport that has been known for trying to hide some truly dark secrets. Whether it’s a scandal for cheating, hacking, or abuse, there has been no other sport more famous for rearing it’s ugly head quite like the game of baseball. What makes it even more baffling is the way even when someone gets caught with their pants down with it, the league will still cover it up as if it’s not plain obvious that they have been exposed, practically butt ass naked.
However, there has not been one era of baseball that the sports always seemed to be in denial of not just what good it actually did for the sport but of it’s own mere existence. The era, of course was the steroid era of baseball.
After the player strike in 1994, the state of baseball was in a state arguably worse than the one it is right now. No one seem to give a crap about the sport anymore as there was little reason to get excited or amused by it. That was until two little gentlemen by the name of Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire decided to have a nice little friendly competition of who can hit the long ball more than the other. For the longest of time, the single season home run record was held by Roger Maris when he hit a total of 61 home runs in 1961 as a part of the New York Yankees. The two superstars felt that this home run record push would help generate public interest in the sports and why wouldn’t it. Home runs are fun, exciting, and arguably the biggest “goosebumps” moments one can hope to achieve in every ball game that they play. It was throughout the course of the 1998 season that two best buddies made it their quest to top the home record that Maris had held for many years and they did exactly that. McGwire won the race by hitting a total of 70 home runs while Sosa finished a respectful 2nd with 66. It made some of the most fun watching baseball that folks have had for a very long time. Granted, both of their records would eventually later be surpassed by the profoundly polarizing Barry Bonds, when he hit a total of 73 in the 2001 season but this is all honestly besides the point.
Although one could make the argument by specifically thriving on the long ball could risk losing the core appeal of it (a big flaw that has occurred with modern baseball) but it was the right thing to do at the time. The sport was on life support and need some life breathe into it. And how exactly can you bring more life to it than with insane amounts of spectacles, trouts around bases, and breaking high scores . TV ratings went up, tickets sales skyrocketed, it all felt just too good to be true that baseball was alive and well.
And as we sit here during the sport’s first lockout since the infamous mid 1990s era that it indeed was too good to be true. Once the dust settle, it came out that all three of those sluggers along with many others have been juiced and buffed up thanks to the amazing power of steroids. Steroids are the kind of things that athletes can take that can help increase their strength, adrenaline, and be much more “locked in” with what they are doing. Despite steroids being banned from MLB since 1991, there wasn’t any actual leaguewide PED testing until 2003. It’s then that MANY of the so-called superstars in baseball have been exposed of taking steroids allowing them to hit, field, and/or pitch much better than they ever before. Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Rogers Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, Andy Pettitte, Rafael Palmeiro, and the list goes on.
While it’s a massive shame that many ballplayers had to use the amount of performance enhancing drugs to play better to get everybody’s attention, it felt like a necessary evil. The kind of evil that makes it feel more good than bad. After all, it was the amount of long ball and milestone sprints that got baseball back in the media once again. Even if it came at a price, it should be at least worth acknowledging the importance of the steroids era as the kick in the pants that the sport needed to get back in the spotlight.
Unfortunately, just like how in Star Wars where the warriors in Rogue One never was able to receive the credit they truly deserved for the heroic sacrifices they made to gain the Death Star plans, MLB feels it’s best to sweep that time period under the rug and thrown anyone under the bus that was a big part of it as a scapegoat.
Here’s the thing: Major League Baseball could have stopped the steroid era if they wanted to. Even without testing of PEDs, there was still testing with the eyes and scoresheets. It was quite easy to see the significant amount of difference between all the star players and how ridiculously good they were with playing baseball. As much as the league likes to claim they had as little control with that as they do with this current lockout, they could have put a stop into it if they wanted to. So, why didn’t they? Because it was working!
Instead of putting a stop to steroids, Bud Selig and MLB decided to just coast on the cocktails on it instead until they were all gone and everyone was back on the bandwagons. It was only then that they actually turned around and approached this era in a preachy “STEROIDS BAD” way! For a sport that that claims to be so committed to integrity, it’s definition of that specific word always seems to constantly change.
I remember one time that my brother claimed he heard someone say that baseball is better and more interesting when people are cheating. While that claim comes across as extremely arrogant, I think that speaks more volume about the sport rather than the person themselves. Perhaps baseball is just a sport that has been blinded by it’s own stances, beliefs, commitments and “integrity” that it’s holding itself back because of all that. Perhaps it’s lack of progression and evolution over the years has to go back to questioning the rules and traditions that have define the sports for many generations. Perhaps baseball has to be more than just simply baseball to be what is is in the year 2022.
And that all ties back to the steroid era, what once felt like a necessary evil can now been seen as just pure evil. An era which, despite the title of this post, didn’t really “save” baseball but it just delayed its inevitable fate. The fate that we are currently waiting on as we approach of what is suppose to be spring training in the coming weeks.
That it all very reminisce to what sports youtuber, UrinatingTree, claim when talking about the 2017 Houston Astros and their sign stealing (a link to that video will be added at the end of the post). Just like with the Astros when making that title run five years ago, the game of baseball made a deal with the she-devil herself, Succubus. She help conjured steroids as a means to bring relevancy into an old sport and are willing to sacrifice the very well meaning of the sport if it means it can still thrive. But now, the time has come for the league to pay up and who knows how long until that payment is finished or even when it actually starts.
“Oh, how little you truly you knew about the deal you made!“
By rejecting Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, along with many others in the baseball hall of fame, this is the league once again rewriting it’s own history and meaning of integrity by acting as if that steroid era had no significance whatsoever. Trying to write off the importance of the steroid era of baseball is one thing but trying to actively deny that era’s very existence is even worse. And that could be a strong case as to why baseball is the way it is now. By denying the fact that steroids “saved” baseball, it has made the last near three decades of baseball feel like a lie. A great, beautiful little white lie. As long as baseball continues to try to cover up it’s own sins of the past, the more muddled it’s present and future will continue to be.
To paraphrase a quote from Magnolia, “Baseball might be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with baseball.”
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