Steroids… LYNCH THEM WITH AN ASTERISK!
I have no love for Barry Bonds. I don’t like cheaters, but let’s not pretend he’s the first, last, or only person to cheat in professional sports. The Mitchell report shows that to be true in baseball. The Mitchell report ALSO shows that taking steroids doesn’t automatically give you the homerun title. Some of these guys are very mediocre MLB players. There is a demand from much of the public to put an asterisk next to EVERY single record any of the players on the Mitchell report. Keep in mind steroids became illegal in the MLB in 2002, but not really until 2005; what you tolerate you encourage. Critics of this argument say, the MLB didn’t outlaw murder either, so the federal law against it should have been enough. I would tend to agree with that as well. Im not supporting steroid users, Im simply analyzing it from the outside.
You can look at in a much simpler way. People CONSTANTLY foul each other in basketball; offensive linemen hold. Do we go back and look at Superbowl video and determine how many penalties weren’t called on the winning team to determine if they should remain the winner? The winner of these games were “cheating” weren’t they? Their win is “tainted” just like Bonds homerun record.
As I said, I have no love for Barry Bonds. All I question is the objective consistency of the asterisk wielders. His homeruns went up surprisingly in 2000; this is also in conjunction with the Giants new ballpark… which has a very short porch in right field, perfect for a lefty like Bonds.
An interesting analysis of Barry Bonds post-1999 career concludes that 85 homeruns should be taken away based on subtracting 9-18 feet from each home run, causing those 85 to hit the warning track instead of going over.
** Image from dailywaste.com
