Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and The Steroid Era

Barry Bonds is back in the news. Attempting to regain his spot as the top story in the sporting world yesterday, Bonds asked a federal judge to dismiss perjury charges against him.

In the motion filed by Bonds attorney in San Francisco federal court, the former San Francisco Giant neither admits nor denies taking performance enhancing drugs, but argues the questions asked by the prosecution during a December 2003 grand jury appearance were vague and ambiguous. For those of you who have been under a rock lately, Bonds was charged back in November with lying to a grand jury about his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Chuck Knoblauch, Jose Canseco. The names are in the news everyday, and not for good reasons. The steroid allegations have been center stage dating back to December when Bill Mitchell's report was revealed.

Concerning Barry Bonds, I have looked at the photos, I have listened to the reports and the allegations and with regards to everyone else, I have seen the Congressional hearings. At this point, I still don't know what to think. I have my own beliefs but am still waiting to hear the words come out of the player's mouths.
Barry Bonds obviously did something, whether it was HGH or steroids. We may never know for sure. Roger Clemens, well how often does a player over 40, like Bonds, come out and have a few of the best seasons of his career. Through strength conditioning alone? Chuck Knoblauch, WTF??? Where did that name come from???

The problem that I am seeing is that most of the players do not seem to act as though this is/was a problem. Well it is! The media sees it, past players see it and most importantly, the fans see it.

Players took performance enhancing drugs, it is obvious to most everyone by looking at statistics over the past 10-15 years and the physical growth of the athletes. You can not sit here today and tell me that no one was using.

Here is what needs to be done about it . Donald Fehr needs to stop protecting "his athletes". Yes, as the head of the union that is his job, but he wants to give everyone a free pass with teh "3 strikes and you're out" policy. This just isn't going to cut it. Bud Selig, who I have never respected, is trying to do something but its too little too late.

There needs to be a "one and done" policy instituted by Major League Baseball. This has to be done to save the integrity of the players and the game. We are almost at the point of no return where no one is going to trust anyone anymore and this is not right for the game. Players should not be allowed to cheat and receive a slap on the wrist. If they understand that they will be kicked out of baseball the first time, I assume that most would not be tempted to cheat. Some will, and they will be caught.

There must also be mandatory testing throughout the year. These tests need to be given without warning so that a player can be caught off guard and it will ensure that the testing is accurate. I have heard numerous stories of players being tipped off of an upcoming test and this only hinders the process. We need the tests to be useful and accurate, and this is the only way which it can be done.

Bill Mitchell and the federal government should not have had to get involved. This problem should have been investigated years ago by MLB. I still believe that MLB was still stinging from the players strike in 1994 and needed a way to bring back fans. This is when "the great home run chase" happened with Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire, the event which supposedly saved baseball. But did it really?

This is where many believe the steroid era began. This appears to be the case, but we will never know where for sure. Hopefully now that the problem has been brought to the attention of the international media, we will be able to solve this problem once and for all. It's just too bad that it had to be this way.

To quote a sign I saw this past baseball season "Babe Ruth did it with hot dogs and beer, Hank did it with class, Barry, how did you do it?" I think that can be said for all the players over the past decade who were involved in this "era" which is once again hindering the credibility of the game.

Don't you wish that it was just a player betting on a game? Where's Pete Rose when you need him! :)

Thanks for listening!