This kind of garbage is getting a little old. I'm sick and tired of hearing about how steroids have tainted the game of baseball or how there needs to be asterices (? I have no idea what the plural of asterisk is) after records and what not. And don't hand me this shit about the noble history of the game. For God's sake, Ruth was an alcoholic womanizer and Ty Cobb might have just been the most gigantic penis to ever play a professional sport. Where are their asterices? How are steroids worse than being a drunk or, say, sharpening your cleats and sliding cleats up specifically to hurt opponents (which Cobb did). And I have nothing against either. Entertain me. But all this flack about steroids ruining the game is god damn ridiculous.
The game's played, by and large, by a bunch of highly paid primadonas. Hold outs, tempertanturms and general misconduct have all become a integral part of the every day life of professional sports. Hell, drugs, rape and guns are there, too. Does Kobe get an asterisk next to his name for his performance being enhanced by sexual assault? How about Pacman Jones throwing trash bags of money at strippers as part of his offseason training?
Or how about this: why is there no uproar about Ripken? He's arguably one of the most cherished names in baseball history. Why does it not infringe upon the spirit of the game that he received pain killers and steroid injections to reach his record of consecutive starts (in the process he frequently played only a couple innings just to get the technical "start"). It's easy to be an iron man under those conditions.
Or what about the fact that the early players didn't have offseason training or weights or trainers or any of the other ridiculous advantages that players today have. They had to spend their non-baseball time working at the mills. So why do we not asterisk all players of the modern era since they make enough money to dedicate their whole life to the sport. That certainly enhances their abilities and chances at the record books, steroids or no. A different ball's used now than it was in Ruth's day. Does that mean all the records get asterisked? Parks, on average, are smaller. Asterisk it.
Singling out steroid use and making those who get caught (incidentally, Bonds has never actually been caught positive for steroid use - say what you want about how big he is, but if you're gonna mark him down for all time as a steroid user, you need to have the positive results) using them in the pursuit of records is just ridiculous with all the other changes the game has undergone over the years. Does it give a competitive advantage? Probably. But it's a competitive sport. The only thing currently unfair about it is that because there's such a fuss over their use (government has no business sticking its nose in professional sports - if this is one of the hot topics on Congress's to-do list with everything else that's going on I label them a bunch of cowardly pansies to turn their attention away from their real job to make themselves look good by infringing upon an issue outside of their domain), many players are afraid to use them. If they were made available to all athletes, there would be even playing field. You don't have to use them, just like you don't have to train all winter, but it's an option if you think it will help keep you at the competitive pinnacle of your game.
So enough with the asterisk and game tainting talk. If you really want to talk about ruining baseball, your time would be more productively spent talking about Bud Selig. You don't need an asterisk to be in the record books as the worst commissioner ever.
