If you listen to sports talk radio or read the sports pages, it seems you cannot get through the day without reading or hearing about steriods and baseball. So I thought I would wade in on the subject as well.
It seems to me that the use of steroids is indeed cheating and a very anti-team philosophy. Players who went for the steroids did not do it for the team, they did for their own personal gain. What bugs me is that most sports commentators and those responsible for hall of fame votes all feel that these players still earned the right to be in the hall of fame because of what they accomplished; even while on steroids. I don’t get this! One could argue that they did not accomplish those records on their own, they accomplished those records with the help of steroids. At the very least they need to have an astrick by their name indicating that they were found guilty, admitted or were under suspicion for the use of steroids.
Still, if baseball is going to lay down the red carpet for a bunch of steroid cheating ball players, then the least they could do is lift the ban on Pete Rose. Let Pete Rose go into the hall of fame and let him back into baseball. After all, Pete Rose was a fierce competator who hated to lose both as a ball player and as a coach. No one (that I know of) has ever been able to find any evidance that he threw any base ball game for financial gain (or for any reason). Pete Rose bet on baseball games, he didn’t cheat but all these ball players who took steroids CHEATED! They did not try to win games for the team, they did not actually earn those records and stats, it might even be argued that without the steriods they would have been unalbe to accomplish any of the stats they acquired.
So, either let Pete Rose back in baseball, or ban every single one of these steriod cheating ball players from the hall of fame AND from baseball entirely!
I completely and totally 100% AGREE!
They should have lifted Rose’s ban long ago, he was a great player who had a problem. Of course, they might have had Rose not been his own worse enemy lately with his book and mouth.