Sports I
posted in General |SPORTS I
The world of baseball has discovered that some of its big name heroes have been using steroids. Will wonders never cease! Many of baseball's hallowed records are going by the boards, broken by players who have been transformed from 2X4s into fireplugs in just a matter of 2-3 years. And these remarkable physical changes, of course, are due to diet and exercise — right? Now everyone right up to the US Senate is clamoring for steroid (chemical) testing of Major League baseball players, most of whom have multi-million dollar contracts.
Of all sports, baseball is the one that has a fan base strongly attuned to statistics and records – batting average, home runs, base hits, runs batted in, earned run average, strikeouts, etc., etc.,etc. For 60 years or so these records were complied over a season of 154 games. Then the season was stretched by 8 games to be 162 regular season games. When Roger Maris (162 games) broke Babe Ruth's home run record (154) games there was a huge debate over whether Maris's record should bear an asterisk to account for the longer season. I personally think the asterisk was merited, but baseball leadership felt otherwise. So the baseball records and statistics do not differentiate between the shorter and longer seasons.
Now we will have another hassle over the “asterisk”. Barry Bonds is almost assured to break the all time home run record set by Hank Aaron. But Bonds is an admitted steroids user. Should his eventual total be accompanied by an asterisk to show that he used performance enhancing drugs? Again,I think the use of an asterisk is merited. To me, comparative records should be apples to apples to apples. Without proper differentiation, they become useless. Bonds cheated and broke the rules. Should we just look the other way and “move on”?. I think not.
And when it comes to drug testing of players, don't hold your breath waiting for Union President Donald Fehr to go to great lengths to uphold the sanctity of the game. While giving lip service to the evils of drugs, he will try to minimize the testing program and reduce any penalties to the lowest possible level. Unless baseball management and Congress are adamant, the whole testing issue will be come a sideshow without great impact. It will result in a slap on the wrist, “don't do it again”, and ” rehabilitate.
And no asterisks.