The Self-Destruction of a Game

Baseball is "America's favorite past-time" and has been for over 100 years. It all starts when parents around the country register millions of kids each year for Little League. I still remember going to sign up each year as well as many moments from individual games that I played in over the years. Like any other kid, I had big time pro players that I looked up to and aspired to be like. My personal favorite was Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves. This is mainly because Chipper has always stayed with the Braves.  I feel fortunate that I picked a guy like Chipper to want to follow after many of my friends rooted for guys like Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa since back then they were dueling it out for the home run record set by Roger Maris in 1961. I feel lucky because now McGuire is having to defend his alleged use of steroids at congressional hearings and Sosa was caught using a corked bat several years ago which made many wonder if he was using regulation bats or corked bats when he was dueling McGuire for the home run title.

Over the past few years, steroid use in baseball has become a hot topic among sports fans and even in congress. The home run duel of 1998, marked the beginning of an era labeled by Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig as the "Renaissance of Baseball" as it attracted attention from all of the media and with that attention came new fans and a renewed national passion for the game. Back then McGuire and Sosa were seen as the saviors of the game but nowadays you never hear of Sosa and everything to do with McGuire is about his testimony at congressional hearings and wondering if he's telling the truth.

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were the next two stars to make big headlines only to later disappoint. Bonds is the power hitter who broke McGuire's record of 70 homers in a season with 73 in 2001 and then went on to break Hank Aaron's career HR record of 755 with 762 by the end of the 2007 season. roger "The Rocket" Clemens is one of 21 pro pitchers to reach the 300-win mark and one of only 4 to record at least 4,000 strikouts. Both have come under fire for using steroids and lying about the issue.

Now, with Alex Rodriguez having been uncovered for testing positive in 2003, the "golden boy" of the game has also fallen. A-Rod was supposed to be the clean guy who would eventually break Bond's career HR record and restore dignity to the record and the game. With the Sports Illustrated report from last weekend though, that hope now seems to have come crashing down as A-Rod confirmed that he was doping not just in '03 but also in '01 and '02. A-Rod was not alone in testing positive in 2003 either: in all there were 100+ other players who did and all were supposed to remain anonymous but with A-rod's name coming out, the others can only hope that they aren't uncovered.

Worst of all, the pros are sending the message to kids that in order to make it, you have to do more than just work hard and be great player. It is going to take a lot for baseball to regain the trust of the country and it starts with players coming clean with the absolute truth and MLB Commissioner Bud Selig putting his foot down to ensure that the players stay clean. he will have to do this by imposing strict punishments like season long suspensions for first time offenders and life long suspensions for repeat offenders. I still love the game and want to believe that ultimately this fiasco will be fixed. There are still players I admire like Derek Jeter and Chipper Jones who are real ambassadors for the game. We can only hope for more like them.

"My office is at Yankee stadium. Yes, dreams do come true." -Derek Jeter, SS, NY Yankees

About me

So my name is Jason and I am currently a sophomore in college. Eventually, I want to be a jet pilot when I graduate, but that's still a couple years away. So I am starting this whole blog thing to put in my two cents(or Dime's worth) about stuff that I find interesting enough to comment about.