Bud Selig seems like a nice guy. When he talks, I can see why people like him. I don't. So of course I think Selig is way off base when he says he is thinking about amending Alex Rodriguez's statistics now that he's (been) an admitted PED user.
I mean, Selig spent much of the 1990s and 2000s looking the other way while freaks of nature ... or a science lab ... where spanking home runs at record numbers. No one questioned how Barry Bonds could hit his mid-30s and start hitting 70+ home runs. No one questioned how a skinny Mark McGwire's career had hit the skids ... then a bulky Big Mac started chasing Roger Maris.
He's sat in Congressional hearings and poo-pooed the amount of steroid and PED activity in his sport. He said he knew it was there but it was just a small amount of people. Now we have had Bonds looking at a perjury case, Miguel Tejada got whacked, McGwire can't sniff the Hall of Fame, Roger Clemens is suing everyone and A-Rod saying he's a doper.
This has been a major topic for three years and now it seems Selig wants it to go away.
Nope. Sorry. This is your bed, Bud. You lie in it.
You can't start screwing with the records, Bud. There is virtually no possible way to know who was using what and when. And how can you take home runs away from A-Rod when you won't give home runs to players who were facing a roided up Clemens? Will you forfeit games that A-Rod played in while on PEDs?
Face it: baseball sold its soul in order to build its fan base back. After Selig's crew cancelled the 1994 World Series, they were desperate to have people look at the sport in a positive light. So when a bulky McGwire and Sammy Sosa start smacking home runs at an alarming rate, no one questioned it. No one has ever hit more than 61 HRs since 1961 ... yet two guys did it in 1998. Just a couple of years later, Bonds topped McGwire's 70. Fans loved it and baseball was back on top.
Now their chickens are coming home to roost. The bar is calling for you to pay the tab. That doesn't mean reconstructing numbers.
Records are found in the history books. When people look back on the numbers that occurred between 1997-2004, they will already think "well, that's the Steroid Era". Just like I can look back on those ungodly numbers that guys like Cy Young put up because that was when pitchers just pitched every game. Just like I can look at any number before 1947 and know that it wasn't against black or Latin players. Or the 1960s pitching stats when the mound was higher.
Those are mental asterisks. I don't need a little symbol to remind me of what I know. I don't need an asterisk to know that Bonds' home run record was aided by steroids just like I don't need an asterisk to tell me that Babe Ruth hit all his HRs in a whites-only league. Part of baseball is the passing of the history from generation to generation and the Steroid Era will be the legacy that we will bring to our children.
The numbers alone will be their own asterisks. So we don't need you changing the numbers, Bud, and telling us that you are peeved about what was happening while your head was in the sand.
I mean, Selig spent much of the 1990s and 2000s looking the other way while freaks of nature ... or a science lab ... where spanking home runs at record numbers. No one questioned how Barry Bonds could hit his mid-30s and start hitting 70+ home runs. No one questioned how a skinny Mark McGwire's career had hit the skids ... then a bulky Big Mac started chasing Roger Maris.
He's sat in Congressional hearings and poo-pooed the amount of steroid and PED activity in his sport. He said he knew it was there but it was just a small amount of people. Now we have had Bonds looking at a perjury case, Miguel Tejada got whacked, McGwire can't sniff the Hall of Fame, Roger Clemens is suing everyone and A-Rod saying he's a doper.
This has been a major topic for three years and now it seems Selig wants it to go away.
Nope. Sorry. This is your bed, Bud. You lie in it.
You can't start screwing with the records, Bud. There is virtually no possible way to know who was using what and when. And how can you take home runs away from A-Rod when you won't give home runs to players who were facing a roided up Clemens? Will you forfeit games that A-Rod played in while on PEDs?
Face it: baseball sold its soul in order to build its fan base back. After Selig's crew cancelled the 1994 World Series, they were desperate to have people look at the sport in a positive light. So when a bulky McGwire and Sammy Sosa start smacking home runs at an alarming rate, no one questioned it. No one has ever hit more than 61 HRs since 1961 ... yet two guys did it in 1998. Just a couple of years later, Bonds topped McGwire's 70. Fans loved it and baseball was back on top.
Now their chickens are coming home to roost. The bar is calling for you to pay the tab. That doesn't mean reconstructing numbers.
Records are found in the history books. When people look back on the numbers that occurred between 1997-2004, they will already think "well, that's the Steroid Era". Just like I can look back on those ungodly numbers that guys like Cy Young put up because that was when pitchers just pitched every game. Just like I can look at any number before 1947 and know that it wasn't against black or Latin players. Or the 1960s pitching stats when the mound was higher.
Those are mental asterisks. I don't need a little symbol to remind me of what I know. I don't need an asterisk to know that Bonds' home run record was aided by steroids just like I don't need an asterisk to tell me that Babe Ruth hit all his HRs in a whites-only league. Part of baseball is the passing of the history from generation to generation and the Steroid Era will be the legacy that we will bring to our children.
The numbers alone will be their own asterisks. So we don't need you changing the numbers, Bud, and telling us that you are peeved about what was happening while your head was in the sand.
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