Baseball’s Steroids Debate Isn’t About Bonds or A-Rod, It’s About Right and Wrong
Fashion designer and entertainment entrepreneur Marc Ecko is the founder of Marc Ecko Enterprises. He blogs on fashion and pop culture at www.beingmarcecko.com.
When asked to comment on the steroids debate, I immediately thought, "What can I possibly say that hasn't already been said?" I've heard the debate chopped up from every angle imaginable. Baseball, for better or worse, has always been a mirror to American culture at large. The unapologetic metaphor for our glory days, as well as our pockmarks. Greater than the most celebrated works of Andy Warhol, baseball is 100 percent American Pop Culture. This is why, on Sept. 15, 2007, I bought Barry Bonds's 756th home run ball. I found the hoopla surrounding Bonds's record-shattering career and the debate over its validity to be a curious one, loaded with hypocrisy and rich with emotion. I then did something a bit nutty; I put the fate of the ball up to a vote at vote756.com.
Voters had three options. They could:
A.) Send it to the Baseball Hall of Fame as is.
B.) Send it to the Baseball Hall of Fame with an asterisk on it—or ...
C.) Put it on a rocket and launch it into orbit.
10,000,000-plus votes later, at the behest of 47 percent of the voters, the ball was stamped with an asterisk and sent to Cooperstown, where it is still on public display.
We live in economically trying times. When Lehman's crashed in September 2008, the last 25 years of back-patting false achievements came to a deafening stop. Funny how the mirror of baseball was right in front of us reflecting the signs of impending trouble. Just as Major League Baseball's credibility took a hit, our financial institutions have taken one as well. But, we are seeing far more than the failure of our heralded economic systems—we are actually witnessing the end of an era of sanctioned cultural cheating. We are a society hooked on performance-enhancing substances of all sorts, and the wear and tear have started to show. National debt. Funky derivatives that no one understands, but everyone buys. Credit cards. Leverage. Creative tax returns. Diets. Hedge funds. Rogaine. Text messaging. RSS feeds. Viagra. Caffeine. Booze. Adderall. DVRs. Illegal MP3s. That little extra "oomph" is just about everywhere for the taking. And we take it. We seek it out. And if "we" have not personally taken "it," we have certainly "looked the other way" when others have. I'm guilty of it. We are all guilty of it.
Once and for all, our culture, and the numerical stats that qualify our achievements—be it the Dow at 14,164.53 or Barry's final 762nd—have been put on notice. I tell my kids this all the time: "I write the rules in this house, and I control the consequences of your actions. But outside of this house, your actions are measured against the rules of others. I have no say over those rules. So don't come crying to me when you get in trouble in the real world."
Two years ago, when I first got mixed up in this debate, I felt then what I still feel now. It is not about Barry or the record. It's not about Manny, Roger, or Jose. Not A-Rod or the championship rings. It's about a system that rewards bad behavior and is complicit in its deception of the fans. It reminds me of that great courtroom scene in A F ew Good Men , when Colonel Jessup, played by Jack Nicholson, is having it out with Lieutenant Kaffee, played by Tom Cruise.
Jessup: You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I'm entitled.
Jessup: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessup: You can't handle the truth!
Baseball had become an overly "lawyered" system of unions, rules, owners, and a commissioner who looks the other way. The steroids debate is an easy one. It has nothing to do with cynicism. Nothing to do with records or stats. Nothing to do with race. And nothing to do with the celebrity of the sport or the "fair" or "foul" treatment of players. It is a simple debate over what is right, and what is wrong. My 5-year-old boy, despite his competitive tendencies to want to outdo his peers or siblings, knows the difference. You don't cheat. It's a bad vibe. And that's why there is now an asterisk on that ball.
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Reader Comments
let it stand
the hall of fame is simply that- a hall of fame... the hall represents all that baseball is. ALL that baseball is... Mr. Ecko had a great idea in his ball vote and obviously 10,000,000 other people thought so too. and he did what should be done with all eligible players- let em vote. if they get in then someone in the voting group was willing to decide for themselves what stats were valid and what stats were obviously 'juiced'.
i really agree with slide-step in the concept of telling all the truths... i am a tigers fan until i die and bleed out blue and orange, and regardless of how much i wish there was a way to watch the old timers, i KNOW that Ty Cobb was as big an ahole as you could be. the pictures that do exist are worth all the words baseball has and that should be remembered also.
i remember being awed at how hard barry and mark and sammy could hit the ball but even more impressive were Nolan Ryan, Alan Trammell to Sweet Lou Whitaker and Kirk Gibson's Home Run to Win...
the vote should still go on and the eligible players can take there chances. you never know who might not actually get in based solely on the voters...
Do Not Let Them In!
I am not even a fan of baseball, but I do understand right from wrong. These fools also know right from wrong but choose to use performance enhancing drugs anyways.
If these fools didn't think there was a problem using the drugs then why did they all lie when it was brought up? Why not just say "yea I used, so what?" I'll tell you why because they knew it was wrong and they didn't want anyone to know that the only way they could be as good as some of baseballs greats were to juice. They wanted everyone to think they were natural stars not enhance stars. Do not work to be great, do not except the greatness you have (regardless if it gets you to the hall), just cheat and lie your way into the hall of fame.
The argument that Bath Ruth and others were drunks so this is ok is a crock of @#$%. Go drink yourself silly them try to hit a baseball...think you'd get into the hall of fame? Alcohol doesn't enhance players’ skills; these players were only hurting themselves, not baseball. Once you decide to cheat your way into something, you've ruined it.
The Diversion vs. True concern
I actually believe "W" used that as a diversion to a failing economy, and fighting 2 wars... 1 unjustifiably at best. Why not ask your group of former friends to create a diversion to hide your failures? Politics is everywhere.
The true concern is this... if you start breaking down Cooperstown into era's it's going to
lose it's meaning. There would be many era's, not just the steroid....
1.The go to work, then go play ball era
2.The so drunk we fall running to our position era
3.The negro hall of fame could just be thrown in and there could be the
"before and after Jackie Robinson era.
....anyhow, ya get my point. Most of the guys that line the walls of that wonderland
for baseball fans were not very good people.
Out of all the old timers, there are only a few who were known to be squeaky clean.
Ty Cobb was a ruthless cheating mean s.o.b. from the books I have read, Mickey Mantle as we all know was a drunk, and it killed him eventually, Babe Ruth was a womanizing drunk.
Any player from the 80's at least saw a handful of pills or a vile of coke in the dugout bathroom....another era. I was born and raised in St.Louis and there is a story about Babe Ruth doing every woman in a cat house in one night while they were in town...sounds like he may need a different hall of fame. :)
Barry would have done close to what he did anyway... along with McGuire and a few others.
McGuire hit 49 homers his rookie season and he looks 15...common.It's hand eye coordination and mechanics, which steroids does not, and never will help improve. So?? "shrug" PLEASE LET THE HALL BE !!!!
If you tell one story you have to tell them all, let our dreams live.
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