The Shots Heard 'Round The World

In the final round of a heavyweight fight featuring steroids in one corner and Major League Baseball in the other, it’s become apparent who just took the final knockout blow.

With Alex Rodriguez admitting to steroids, the stack of cards just emphatically fell to the ground—with baseball frantically scurrying to pick them up. I took a step back the other night, and wondered why these guys take steroids when they face jeopardizing their career. But are the repercussions really that severe? The problem in the first place is that MLB Players make an inordinately excessive amount of money—money I couldn’t spend if I wanted to in the duration of my lifetime. The game of baseball is no longer a game.

Do you think Babe Ruth, in the middle of shoveling down hot dogs and smoking cigars, was bitching about the lack of money? Even if he did, it didn’t compare to the money players are making today. Looking back at old footage of the Babe and guys like Mays, Aaron, and Mantle—it looked like a different game. A game that always looked like they  had fun playing.

Ken Griffey Jr. played in that same loose and entertaining manner, there was no other player like him, and he was always smiling. The fun game these guys grew up loving, has now turned into a financial circus, with guys strictly worrying about what they make per year. So, as the game has turned to a different generation of players, it helps you understand why these teetering major-leaguers would take steroids. It informs us and helps us sift out who plays for the dough and who plays because it makes them happy.

The more I think about this situation, the more I can’t help to side with the players. I couldn’t imagine working my ass off all off-season knowing that some guy on steroids was going to take my position on the depth chart because of his artificially enhanced strength. If you categorize the pros and cons of taking illegal supplements from a financial standpoint (baseball is their jobs, you know), the pros heavily outweigh the cons. By taking performance enhancing drugs (PEDS), an average player in the minor leagues (who make about as much as a high school teacher) could dramatically increase his stock. The next thing you know, this guy is in the majors looking at a 500 percent increase in his pay. The cons? A 50-game suspension. Or in Alex Rodriguez’s situation—sheepishly reading from a prewritten crumpled up letter, briefly looking up at the reporters to make sure he’s completely selling his bogus act of sorrow.

Since 1920, the 50 homerun plateau has either been matched or surpassed on 41 different occasions. There have been 23 occurrences since the strike ended in 1995. It seems to be unusually coincidental that this surge in power came immediately following the strike year. It’s almost as though Selig placed a filled syringe in every training staff’s office with a memo that read: "Don’t use this: it may enhance players’ strengths…P.S If you do use this, make sure to inject in the meaty part of the buttocks."—Commissioner Selig

The baseballs soared over the fence, as did the attendance numbers. Fans were infatuated with one-hit wonders like Brady Anderson and Greg Vaughn—players who were about as credible of launching 50 home runs in a season as the bands Eiffel 65 and LFO were of winning a Grammy.

At the end of the day, when all pieces have fallen into place, it’s not a stretch to blame the fans for steroids. We watched the games. We saw Barry Bonds’ head progressively transform into a 16-pound bowling ball. We knew it wasn’t human for a player pushing 40 to crank out 73 homeruns—yet we watched because we found him entertaining. Fans love to see the unimaginable become tangible; we want to see the impossible at all costs. After the strike in 1994, it looked as though baseball had met its demise—ticket sales plummeted, the NFL took over as America’s great pastime, and fans started to question why they loved baseball in the first place. People looked at baseball and didn’t see an identity. How could you make an average fan happy? More stolen bases? No. More strikeouts? No. To the average viewer, a strikeout is about as cool as admitting you used to collect Pokémon cards. Well, players started hitting homeruns, and not just 350 ft. homeruns—homeruns that looked like they touched the moon. Fans started noticing the surge in power and the distances they traveled, and the next thing you know players are hitting 50 homeruns on a consistent basis. The power numbers increased, as did the fans and baseball became the sport to watch.

The homerun record was broken and it seemed as though baseball was firmly entrenched as being saved. In the back of the minds of fans, they knew something was up. They knew it wasn’t because athletes have become bigger, faster, and stronger freaks of nature—they knew it was a farce. All of the homeruns that has made baseball relevant again is like a wrestler from the WWE choke-slamming a guy through a table—just as entertaining, but just as fake. It’s like dating an attractive girl that was completely out of your league and you start to hear rumors that this girl has been around sleeping around on you, but you neglect to truly listen to these rumors until you walk in on her with some guy that was in your mathematics class. It wasn’t until it was completely confirmed by proof and evidence that I started to realize it was my fault in the first place to think some gorgeous girl would be head over heels for me, and I realized that it was impossible for our mutual attraction to occur. Barry Bonds was that hot girl and I represented the fans.

As the 2009 season looms, what will become of baseball? Will the inevitably lower homerun totals crumple baseball? Do chicks only dig the long ball? Can baseball piggy-back on the seemingly few clean players and save baseball once again? Nobody knows for sure what will happen as the dawn of a new season approaches. But I do know one thing:

Steroids once saved baseball.