Worst. Timing. Ever.

Another case of apathetic heartbreak.
(static.open.salon.com)

Well, isn't this a pleasure to hear. Right when the Sox are becoming destined for third place, news comes out that the most-feared 1-2 punch in the American League in the past decade were on the infamous 2003 positive tests list. Ladies and gents, the dark steroid cloud is now over Boston (don't let the sun fool ya'). Meanwhile it is like Mardi Gras in Yankee Universe. It was one of those things I saw coming but didn't. I mean, there was lots of chitchat directed to the subject that whether the two used. After all, they were the key cog to the Red Sox machine for almost 6 seasons. There has also been a lot of skepticism as to why there weren't many big Red Sox names leaked, even on the Mitchell Report. I saw it coming eventually, but with these two names in particular still come with so much shock and confusion as if I were hungover and was somehow stranded in the Mojave. Both Manny and Papi were moved away from steroid suspicion in the end due to the fact that they didn't look the part. None of them had a "Bonds-esque*" head or "McGwire-esque*" arms. They were simply too portly and merry to be shoving needles in unsuspecting places. But as the Clemens* debacle teaches us (also in the portly club), steroids don't discriminate based on body type. If it were anybody for me on the Sox, the 1st guy down would have been Nomar, especially because he was a well-known workout freakoholic. The 2001 Sports Illustrated cover, along with the constant injuries that followed, heighten my suspicions to this day. For Manny, it seemed like the whole cat was out of the bag when "hCG-Gate" hit last May. However, this doesn't help in my recovery from Mannyholic-ism in the least bit. There was much speculation about Ortiz, considering his mighty drop-off in power as well as the many injuries (the wrist, the knees) that have plagued him the past few seasons. However, he has been a spokesman for stricter punishments for abusers of performance enhancers. Naturally as a fan, I just shrugged off his weak performance this year as a classic birth certificate dilemma, hoping he was probably older than listed on the game programs. Now, I have to forcefully accept the fact that Manny and Papi are as guilty as the Bonds's*, the Clemens's*, and the A-Rod's* (as you can see still holding on to my sentiments here). I will now hear constant scrutiny in the next few days of the legitimacy of the 2 championships, despite the fact that the positive tests happened a year before the official glory years. With everything that is going on with the team, this couldn't have been a worse time for me to digest all this "juicy" news. But since the return of Manny to the Dodger lineup (still fighting whether to put an asterisk on him), I have wanted to write an entry not just on the steroid era, but cheating in general in our national pastime. In the end, recent news like this is hard to filter through because baseball has a two-faced legacy: One of a provider of pure, wholesome competition and another of downright trickery. As wrong as it is, cheating in baseball has been an integral part of the sport as the hallowed records. And as the steroid era has displayed to us, we're still dealing with the complications. Needless to say, I need to vent about a few things.

Saliva: My Anti-Steroid
(blogs.sfweekly.com)

Currently, we believe as baseball fans that we're just emerging from the dirtiest era in the history of the sport. But looking through the history of the game, the early days were one giant cesspool. Ever wonder why the ball was so "dead" in the Dead-ball era? Pitchers did everything short of urinating on the ball to make it softer and easier to produce movement, thus making pitches more difficult to hit. Hall of Fame pitchers such as Ed Walsh and Burleigh Grimes were notorious for having the spitter in their repertoires. Even when the pitch was banned in 1920, 17 pitchers were granted allowance to throw spitters until the end of their careers. Imagine if Barry Bonds*, Sammy Sosa*, and Mark McGwire* were allowed to keep taking 'roids because they were making a living out of it while the rest of the league was left with Wheaties and Snickers. One of the most single iconic moments of the sport, the Bobby Thompson homer in 1951, doesn't escape the realm of shenaniganism in baseball. Apparently while the Giants were 13.5 games back of the Dodgers for the National League crown, there was a Giants coach in the centerfield clubhouse who used a telescope to identify pitches, and would then relay the info to the Giants with a bell system. One can't help that one of the most intriguing pennant races in baseball history was aided by a "mini-Hubble" past centerfield. And let's not pass over the forgotten plight of the game, gambling. People seem to easily forget that a whole World Series (1919) was determined by players, who decided to boot away a championship opportunity in order to receive compensation from gamblers that their owner wouldn't give them. The World Series in the two years prior also aroused suspicions of players throwing games. The legendary 1908 NL race between the Cubs and Giants had an attempted bribe thrown in the mix, which was allegedly brought on by Hall of Fame manager John McGraw. The field dimensions also play a role in this story as well. In 1968, the average AL runs per game was 3.7 to go with a .237 league average. That year was known as the "Year of the Pitcher" in which some parks installed higher pitcher's mounds to slim their team ERAs. Even as a little leaguer, I learned the fundamentals of sandpaper, Vaseline and baseballs. Even though I never applied any of these methods, it is just pure evidence how cheating is part of the lore of the game, just like a suicide squeeze. The variations of play in the past make clear that each era in baseball simply can't be compared at face value.

Looking cleaner by the day.
(afrankangle.files.wordpress.com)

When you browse through the history of this game, it gives me a new perspective not only on how cheating has played a big role in the sport, but our complicated relationship as fans with this notion as well as the constant amnesia towards it. It seems like with the recent findings, the re-examination of Pete Rose, and the historic slugging of Albert Pujols, a whole new batch of different questions and some old ones have risen back to the forefront. First is the question of whether Pete Rose, who was betting on games while being manager of the Cincinnati Reds, should receive the go-ahead for Hall of Fame enshrinement. I'm probably in a shrinking minority of people that says Rose shouldn't be enshrined. Despite all the records that he amassed, people forget that he broke a cardinal rule of the game, a rule that's posted on every clubhouse in the bigs for years, a rule which had to be harshly implemented by first baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis in order to heal the wounds of a fixed World Series. If Charlie Hustle gets in, then you sure have to give consideration to guys like Shoeless Joe Jackson, who has the 3rd best career batting average in the history of the game. I'm also in the minority of letting in guys like McGwire*, Sosa*, and Bonds* in the Hall if, and only if they acknowledge their use of performance enhancers. Listen, like I touched upon in the previous paragraph, the Hall of Fame is filled with players who went through questionable methods to enhance their careers. Along with the grandfathered spitballers (Burleigh Grimes, Red Faber), you have Gaylord Perry, who was a wizard with Vaseline, and Whitey Ford, who had concocted his own solution to add weight to the ball while cutting the ball with his wedding ring. All pulled off their high jinks while their actions were illegal according to baseball's rule book. While I don't agree with steroids and the players that used them, Bud Selig, the owners and the Players' Union didn't impose any harsh punishment for PED use until 2004, long after the days of the Bash Brothers in Oakland. We don't put an asterisk on the 1919 World Series, nor do we have a separate section for spitballers and corked bat villains in the Hall. So why are we saving the angst for these steroid guys? Yes I use asterisks in my writing for added emphasis and hyperbole, but at the same time, these guys shouldn't be over-punished for something the the owners, the union, and the fans (Yes, us!) not only allowed, but celebrated outright. We knew about the andro, we saw skinny second basemen suddenly lose their necks and we saw the 500 homer club get as crammed as a celebrity after-party. But as long as the homeruns were flying, everyone turned a blind eye to it.....well, at least until congressional hearings started popping up.

The juice is on the loose, and I don't mean O.J.
(mouthpiecesports.com)

Many of my friends ask me if we are ever going to escape this steroid issue. Honestly, I feel as if we're doing our best to flee right now. Remember when we thought that the A-Rod* saga was going to be the top story of the 2009 baseball season? That seemed to have blown over as the Yankees have made a strong push in the AL East. With Sosa, the public wasn't quite as shocked (Although I bet some Cub fans still felt the way that I feel today). In the past couple of years, it now seems that we just take each accused name, build the story for a couple of days, then nonchalantly lump them in as another casualty of a tainted generation and forget about it. We have gone from blaming individuals (Canseco*, Bonds*) to creating a whole era based on PEDs where we can place our blame. Each name become less of a shock, as we have become immune to the last five years of high voltage revelations. However, a new cast of characters always seem to emerge in this steroid showcase. If we really want to move from this, why don't we reveal every name on that 2003 list? There will be no punishments doled out anyway, and we can release a whole bunch of demons that having been building up from the past twenty years. Andy Pettitte and Jason Giambi have admitted their wrongdoings, and now it's like they have never even seen the stuff (Sorry, can't keep up posting all these asterisks). The constant leaking of names every couple of months only takes away from the action on the field, while making this Steroid Era feel millenniums longer than it actually is. The hard fact to face is that cheating will always exist in baseball in some way. If someone found out that putting Crisco on a bat will make the ball go farther, at least 25% of the league will be going to Costco to stock up. Finding that extra edge is as much of a part of the baseball legacy as the numbers .406 or 755. The best thing is not only admittance from those involved, but like I have mentioned in the past, we must recognize that we can't answer every question and we just tackle what's in front us. Combined with that, we must also be aware that the history of the sport is not as pure as we make it out to be. In my opinion, steroids, like turpentine and baby oil, are just a another pockmark to an otherwise great game. By being proactive and not reactive in the future, not only will we leave this chapter in baseball, but we will be better in cleaning up the game rather than create the caricature that is being drawn up.