What's Your Verb? - 2/11

It just won't die.

The steroids in baseball issue will go on and on and on. Two weeks ago it was Clemens. Last week it was Bonds and now its A-Rod. I have said since last year that I wish everyone in the media and all the fans should just realize that steroids were everywhere in baseball for an entire decade or so, and we should just deal with it, understand that it was what it was and move on.

Now I hear sports reporters on the TV saying, "I wish this story would just end and we can move on."

It's guys like them that are keeping it going. Its very obvious to me that at least 75% of players were taking them at the time. If that's the case, then here is my opinion: 75% of players were taking steroids and thus in everyone's opinion had an unfair advantage. If that many players were doing it, did anyone really have an unfair advantage? No.

Now, if all of these clowns that are voting for the hall of fame want to keep everyone that has ever been suspected of using steroids out of the hall, be my guess. Get on your soap box and make your usually unimportant opinion important for 5 minutes and make your point. I promise you however, that there will be a several year period where either no one will get into your precious hall or several guys who probably don't deserve or shouldn't get into your precious hall. At that point you have tainted the hall of fame by putting guys who don't deserve it in anyway. You pick your poison.

I personally would take the guys with the stats who used the juice. If everyone else was doing it then there was really no unfair advantage going either way. Yea, McGwire and Sosa and A-Rod have all put up huge numbers but didn't Clemens do the same thing? I think all the stats and records are inflated, even the pitching numbers!

As for A-Rod doing the unthinkable and actually admitting to taking them. Good for you Alex! Owning up to it is very admirable. You should call your boys Clemens, Bonds and Tejada and just tell them to do the same thing. McGwire you can leave out, only because I think he could care less if he gets into the hall or not.

I have a couple of problems though about how A-Rod was exposed. First of all, the test was in 2003 when steroids had not been deemed illegal yet. If there is no rule against, why is it so wrong? The other thing is that back then those tests were confidential and were to never been released to the public. So why now is it ok for them to let them out? Just because there is a lot of controversy surrounding the whole idea. That's bologna. If A-Rod has tested positive since then, its ok with me.

The other thing that really has me fired up is who are the other 103 guys on the list. I know its nice and easy to throw A-Rod under the bus because he is the best player in the game and maybe the best player ever but I want to know who all the other guys are. That's ridiculous and incredibly unfair to the guy. He has handled it well but I would like to see how the other guys do if their names are given out.

The more and more we give these names out, the more and more guys are going to include themselves so its no surprise. I am willing to bet at least 75% of guys were doing and the more names we give out now, the more we will realize it was everywhere and we can stop punishing just the big name guys and we can move on. I know all of the us fans would love to move on and let baseball and more importantly, congress move on so we can all focus on more important things.

A-Rod, I'm impressed with the way you handled it, but can we just move on already?