Over the Winter Break, I ordered a copy of 'Baseball,' a documentary series produced in the mid-'90s by Ken Burns. The 10-DVD set details the entire history of baseball in America back to 1840. While I was watching the first DVD, I somehow got distracted and started thinking about the recent news in baseball.
For those of you who don't tune in to ESPN, former Oakland and St. Louis slugger Mark McGwire recently admitted that he had used performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to increase his performance on the field. This included 1998, when he broke Roger Maris' long-standing home run record by hitting 70 in a captivating race with Sammy Sosa.
McGwire, as many of you may remember, is also remembered for clamming up at the absurd hearings the House Government Reform Committee held regarding steroid use by professional baseball players. While most of the players emphatically denied using PEDs, McGwire simply stated 'I'm not here to talk about the past.'
This season, McGwire will become the St. Louis Cardinals' hitting coach and, according to him, wanted to set the record straight so the team wouldn't be distracted by the media focus that would surround the clubhouse.
Naturally, questions will arise, and already have, about whether or not he admitted it as a way to earn favor with the baseball writers or living Hall of Famers who determine who is selected for the Hall of Fame. Regardless of his intent, McGwire's prospects don't look good. In the four years he has been eligibile for selection, he has yet to attain even 25 percent of the writers' vote when 75 percent is needed.
In contrast to most people I know with an opinion on this issue, if I had a vote, I'd vote in McGwire's favor, as I would for Sosa, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and other well-known PED users. Despite how they did it, I'd argue that the players who achieved the most success in their careers should be awarded a spot in the Hall of Fame.
Going through the history of baseball, we start with the dead ball era, a time where pitchers dominated, home runs were very rare and games were decided on strategy and speed instead of power. Baseballs would only be replaced when they unraveled, often resulting in a ball that was discolored, warped and very soft, making offensive power statistics very hard to achieve.
Babe Ruth ushered in the live ball era, hitting 29 home runs in 1919, a total that was unheard of at the time. After Ray Chapman was killed by a pitch to the head in 1920, a baseball was substituted every time the ball became dirty. The yarn on the ball was spun tighter, making the ball harder, and power statistics jumped as a result.
Other eras in baseball history have come and gone, but what's important to keep in mind is that the steroid era is just one generation of the sport along with many others. While some modern players such as Greg Maddux and Ken Griffey Jr. are sure-fire Hall of Famers without juicing, PEDs have come to define the last two decades of baseball.
Very simply, how is it possible to preserve the sport's history by whitewashing an entire generation of the game and pretending like it never existed? One could say that we shouldn't honor cheaters, but the fact is that the Hall of Fame already does just that.
Pud Galvin was baseball's first pitcher to win 300 games. He openly admitted to using PEDs during his career by injecting the Brown-S'eacute;quard elixir - monkey testosterone. He's been in the Hall of Fame for decades.
It's a good idea to clean up baseball, but that will only happen when incompetent Bud Selig is no longer commissioner. However, I think it's a big mistake to try to purge the record books of players who used performance-enhancing drugs. Like it or not, it's a part of the game's history and it should be represented as such.
Write to Michael at mgkarafin@bsu.edu.
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