Steroid-Obsessed Baseball Fans: Know Your Role and Shut Your Mouth

Every time another news story breaks of a top-notch baseball player being linked to performance-enhancing drugs, one main thought runs through my mind: Here comes the self-righteous baseball contingent again.

Sure, these substances have obviously stained the game and pose a serious threat to the records of players who played in the pre-steroids era before the late 1980’s.

Players like the Dodgers’ Manny Ramirez deserved the punishment and shame that came with testing positive for banned substances at a time when they had officially been declared illegal in baseball, and players who have admitted to using steroids or have overwhelming evidence linking them to the substances like Barry Bonds should not be able to hold records if their predecessor did it in a clean era (if there is such a thing).

And these same players should only be allowed a plaque at Cooperstown if their numbers are considerably strong, not the rather weak ones that Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco possess, despite using steroids.

But with that said, there is nothing more annoying and counterproductive than the baseball fans, writers, and talk radio hosts who will stop at nothing to continually pontificate about how bad using steroids is, how those who use them do not belong in the Hall-of-Fame, and how everyone in this era is a steroid/PED user.

I’m a man, I’m 21! Makes me want to puke!

These enemy combatants of baseball came out in full force yesterday after the New York Times reported that David Ortiz and Ramirez were two of the 104 players who either tested positive for steroids or had something funny in their test that could have been the result of using steroids in 2003. 

The test was supposed to be a random, classified survey created by Major League Baseball to see if the league needed to set up mandatory testing for the syrup or not.

First of all, I have already heard their arguments over, and over, and over again times 10.

And second of all, they continue to attend games, despite their hatred of the very same players who play it.

That is a little hypocritical if you ask me.

And they also fail to cause much of a stir over past cheating in baseball or other sports, which is even more hypocritical in my mind.

You’ll rarely hear anybody bring up how the Brooklyn Dodgers should be awarded the 1951 NL Pennant because the New York Giants used a telescope to help them hit, or make much of a fuss over San Diego Chargers' linebacker Shawne Merriman testing positive for steroids in 2006.  

And just like you won’t hear Red Sox fans (who ripped the Yankees when Alex Rodriguez admitted to using steroids this-past February and when the Mitchell Report contained several high-profile Yankees players in 2007) offer to hand their World Series titles from 2004 and 2007 over to the St. Louis Cardinals and Colorado Rockies because the two players who helped them win it all are now considered steroids users. You didn’t hear Patriots fans offer to give up their 2004 and 2005 Super Bowl trophies, despite winning them with a steroid cheat (and cheap-shot artist) in Rodney Harrison either.

Would you rather your team win a championship with a steroids user and watch guys like Ortiz and Ramirez hit, or would you prefer to spend your days watching a hapless, very clean team like today’s Washington Nationals or Pittsburgh Pirates play?

Judging from how many fans came out to AT&T Park to watch Bonds play for the Giants, after his ties to steroids surfaced in 2003, or how Dodgers fans greeted ManRam after his 50-game suspension earlier this month, I think we know the answer to that.

The main reason is because baseball fans (and sports fans in general) demand entertainment.

Why do you think that today’s substantial list of players, known to have used steroids, did them?

Because McGwire and Sammy Sosa were hitting home run after home run in the late-90’s in front of packed stadiums, while probably being on the juice, and thus team owners and general managers were willing to offer the most money to the power hitters who could formidably attempt to emulate them.

It's no different today, as fans demand a slugger on their team with muscles that are scarier than the shrimp at the Outback Steakhouse, while continually undervaluing guys like Juan Pierre, Orlando Hudson, and Jose Reyes, whose games consist of hitting line drives and running the bases and who most likely never used steroids.

We will have plenty of time to figure out how to both honor players that succeeded in today’s game, while not forgetting about the era that they played in compared to the Babe Ruth’s and Hank Aaron’s of baseball in the future.

In the meantime, let's be content to assume that a good amount of players in the 90’s and post-millennium used steroids, while knowing that they will be punished if they get trigger happy with a syringe today. Instead, let's try to spend the rest of the year enjoying the MLB's uber-competitive pennant races.

And for those of you that can’t stop whining about steroid use in baseball, I bet David Stern would love to have you as a fan of one of the purest and most innocent games on earth...WNBA basketball.