The inception of the whole brutal scandal is firmly entrenched in unfairness. He took an anonymous test, was contractually guaranteed confidentiality. He felt safe in this arrangement, especially since steroids at the time weren’t a punishable offense in Major League Baseball.
Then his, and only his, name was leaked allegedly by four sources that have not been made public. Does it bother anyone else that the results of an anonymous test from six years ago can be illegally obtained and fed to the media like Mason Verger was fed to the hogs, but yet the names of those who got the proverbial ball rolling are more mysteriously obscured than Deep Throat? Not to mention the 103 other ‘guilty’ players on the list who I have to assume are sweating like dyslexics who’d like to solve the puzzle, Pat.
So for the world to get up in arms upon hearing it called ‘unfair’ is–quite frankly–inane.
What’s worse, it’s flagrantly hypocritical and insidiously unnerving.
The same public that’s gasping in horror and indignant with disappointment, the same public that’s weeping with no tears over the apparent demise of the game…is the same society that celebrated baseball’s resurrection in the late '90s.
It’s the same fan base that indulged in the excitement and basked in the glare when the sport rose up like a phoenix at the hands of McGwire and Sosa. The same moralists who ignored what we all knew in our heart of hearts what was behind the great HR race in 1998.
Steroids, for all intents and purposes, didn’t just fortify the juicers’ stats. It fortified our emotional investment in the sport. Does that make its criminal implications justifiable? No. But it makes it unassailably pharisaical for us to sharply condemn the same behavior now. It’s like that scene in Encino Man, when Sean Astin tries to get rid of the caveman and Pauly Shore launches into the high point of his career. By keeping it real:
“You’re the one who weazed off his gig the whole time…cuz you thought maybe he’d get you somewhere. Now the guy gets a little crusty and you’re gonna bag him.”
So, you know. There’s that. Think about it.
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