Baseball Great Jim Bunning: Steroid Users Have No Place in Hall of Fame

Jim Bunning write an article condemning the use of steroids in sports and saying no one who used them ought to be in the Hall of Fame. Here, Here! But, I notice that comments on this blog include equating alcohol to steroid users and offering the point that Babe Ruth used alcohol profusely. "Should he be banned?" says the commenter, attacking Bunning and completing missing the point? Since when does alcohol increase performance, giving an incredibly unfair advantage? The comment is absurd.

A 2nd commenter says, "Whether or not someone cheated is irrelevant to the game". Wow, spoken by someone who obviously is expert at cheating in life and would probably teach his kids how to do it. It's not "don't not do it, it's just don't get caught!"

Last, I'm just as astonished at the comment implying that steroids provides no additional performance-enhancing benefit. Let's take a sport where we can precisely measure its benefits - track and field. Ben Johnson was a 10.3 100 meter man before he took steroids. After steroids, he ran a world-record 9.79 in the Olympic finals, winning the gold medal. This difference is between not even making it past the prelims at the Olympics, and winning a gold medal with a then ridiculously fast time never before seen. Advantage = HUGE!!!

Let's use a little common sense from now on in when making such outlandish statements so as not to be embarrassed publicly, if even these 3 folks can BE embarrassed.

Allan Payne of OH 5:19PM January 21, 2010