Come To Think Of It...All Baseball Players Are Guilty Until Proven Innocent

It was Voltaire who once said, "Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."  

It's sad but true. All of the lying, the cheating, the scandals and the hypocrisy have led me to believe that it's a safe bet that at least half of the players from, say, about 1998 to 2004 used some sort of performance enhancing drug. 

And since the players put themselves into this mess, and then most of them lied about it, I have little sympathy for them. You know, some people say it's not fair to judge players like that. But oh yes it is. In fact, it's our duty. 

To continue to turn a blind eye to this is what got us into this mess in the first place. We were all fooled by the juice.  

We noticed the jump in home runs, and at first were told that it was due to the watered down pitching blamed on having too many teams. Then, the excuse became the newer, smaller ballparks. Finally, it was that the baseball itself was juiced. 

Well, something was certainly juiced, but it wasn't the baseball as it turns out. 

And it's sickening to hear the excuses. Even players like A-Rod, who admit they did steroids, are probably lying through their teeth. Who honestly believes that he only used them from 2001 - 2003 as he claims?

For all we know he, and many others are still using some form of performance enhancers. Labs are creating designer steroids all the time that are undetectable.  

Look, these frauds don't deserve the benefit of the doubt any more. 

Another hilarious story is that they didn't know what they were ingesting. Listen, these guys are millionaire athletes who have agents, personal trainers, and nutritionists that help them gain every competitive advantage that they can have.  They know exactly what they're putting into their bodies. 

A-Rod wasn't naive, as he claims. We were the ones who were naive. 

Think about the poor kids who didn't get drafted because they refused to do the stuff. They couldn't compete with the cheaters and subsequently lost a potential major league career because of it. 

And think about the players who finished second or third in Cy Young and MVP voting, only to find out they were beaten by a guy injecting himself with more chemicals than a laboratory experiment. 

Furthermore, what about the kids who emulate and look up to these star ballplayers? What kind of example are they setting for our youth? 

And what temptations lie waiting for kids who realize that in order to keep up, they have to make friends with Mr. Needle? 

Dammit, this has such far reaching consequences that I don't even know where to begin. The record books will have the stains of cheaters all over its pages. That's something written in indelible ink with no asterisk that will tarnish the sacred baseball statistics for ever more. 

And how can one make a logical and fair determination of who deserves a hall of fame nomination and who doesn't? Even if a player wasnt' caught, can you really be sure he was totally clean? Of course not. 

Guys like Bonds, Palmeiro, Clemens and now A-Rod are easy decisions since they were caught. But how about the players we suspect yet don't have the goods on? 

For example, we all have good reason to believe that Mark McGwire was using. But technically, he never admitted to it, copping out by saying he didn't want to talk about the past. And we have no evidence of a failed drug test because they weren't doing them when he played. 

Yet he is being denied the HOF by writers because of suspicion, while others will likely sail through. That's just plain wrong. Either you admit all who qualify or you admit none of them, it's that simple. You can't pick and choose without the facts. 

Recognizing that, I say all players are guilty until proven innocent. Oh, I can hear some of you saying that everyone is entitled to due process and a presumption of innocence. But I say no. These spoiled, rich ballplayers do not deserve one ounce of that from us. They've created this problem, they're the ones to blame. 

As usual, it comes down to greed. 

Greed on the part of Major League Baseball, who was desperate to restore the game to its previous levels after the strike.  So MLB officials provided advanced warning of impending drug tests to some of its star players.

Greed on the part of agents who knew that an uptick in performance meant a larger commission.

And yes, greed on the part of the players who lined their pockets with fool's gold. 

Well, we're the fools. 

As they say, fool us once, shame on you.  Fool us twice and shame on us. The Who sang We Won't Get Fooled Again and I don't know about you, but I intend to live by that creed. 

You reap what you sow, come to think of it. Well, cheaters: Reap This!