Okay, here's my gripe, and I'm puzzled why this isn't high on everyone's mind.

I love baseball (2nd to football only b/c by law it has to be in Texas).

I'm disgusted by athletes cheating, breaking age old records in an ageless game, and then getting ALMOST NO REAL PUNISHMENT.

10 days suspension? I got worse when I was a teenager and was grounded for doing something stupid.

Here's my main point. Almost a century ago, baseball almost vanished because players were gambling. The credibility of the game came into jeopardy. Why should fans watch (and thus pay for) a fixed game? Comm. Landis brought it back from the brink by creating the "death" sentence for gambling. Fans could trust the game again.

Aren't we in the same situation today? Isn't the game "fixed" when players are cheating all over the place and lying about it. Aren't records now becoming meaningless (think how hallowed 61 HR record has been and now any record has a steroid asterisk). Aren't superstar baseball players losing credibility, endorsement potential, etc. by this pall?

IMHO, we need lifetime bans. Hell at least season bans for cheaters. Otherwise, I know that I will become less of a fan, and an entire generation of fans may never look at baseball feeling any record, any accomplishment is fixed. Where is the commissioners office's outrage? Where is the player's union's outrage? Do they not see?

Whew. Always good to get a little bile out.

Tim

Tim....I wholeheartedly agree with everything you just said. Baseball is my number one favorite sport (I am in GA so it is alowed). I think that the first time some one is caught using steriods....automatic ban from baseball. I gurantee you it would cut down the number of people shooting up.

A friend and I were discussing Palmeiro and his little adventures the other day and he asked me if I thought he should still go to the HOF. Well I told him hell no, because as far as I am concerned he's a liar and a cheat. But I told him that if they do let him into the HOF, they damn better let Pete Rose in. Granted betting on Baseball is a bad thing to do....it is not cheating. He in no way enhanced his performance as a baseball player by betting on games. Pete Rose is the best pure hitter that they game has ever seen (besides perhaps Ted Williams) and if the lying cheating two face Raphael Palmiero gets in the Hall, they damn better let Pete in too.

Your right it does feel good to vent.

-twelver

Stealth--no I haven't read Juiced. It sounds like it would depress me.

HOF--what a joke! How about hall of shame

TR

Trod. I back you on basically every agrument you make. Remember that 98 season. Mcgwire and Sosa battling it out every night. What a great season that was; and now the season that supposedly saved baseball is now a fraud.

While I think that Palmiero is a cheater, a liar, and personally hope gets prosecuted for perjury... He's still one of the greatest baseball players of all time... He's only the 4th player in baseball history w/ 3000 hits and 500 hrs... He'll probably become only the 3rd to have 3000 and 600 hr before he's done... Let me preface this by saying that I think Rose should be in also...

Baseball history is full of cheaters who have made it to the HOF... TONS of pitchers have admitted to scuffing the ball, players use corked bats (see Sosa), etc...

This was a pretty good quote I got from another forum... And, while he obviously doesn't write as eloquently as me ( ), he makes a couple good points...

"Just so everyone understands, the HOF is filled with cheaters and performance-enhancing drug users, so tossing them all out is going to leave a pretty empty hall...
Gaylord Perry was a known cheater. He'd admitted to doctoring the baseball throughout his career. Willie Mays, Willie Stargell and Hank Aaron had used amphetimine-type drugs during their playing days. Babe Ruth used an illegal bat (four pieces of wood glued together) until it was banned in 1923 by the commissioner (Ban Johnson). Nevermind the number of players in the 1970s and 1980s who were doped up on cocaine, or players in the 1960s who dabbled with dope..."

For all the endless talk about Steroids, there actually is NO empirical evidence that I know of proving that it makes you any better of a hitter... I agree that it seems suspect (Bonds hitting 100000000 homeruns after he turns 40), but it's not 100% cut and dry, and until it is, I can't see keeping him out...

This is just the nature of sports... The money is SOOOOO absurd that players will do whatever possible to stay in the game and make more money... Giambi's recent "streak" could be just as attributable to him seeing the ball better as taking Human Growth Hormone, which they don't even test for... Also, anyone who doesn't think that 80-90% of FOOTBALL players are on something they're not supposed to be on is joking themselves...

I think I like Nash's idea best... Hell, I've given positive tests for different things that I didn't do, only to be proven otherwise later (at least most of the time )... Even though I don't believe Palmeiro as far as I can throw him, I think everyone should get at least a second chance... If he WAS juicing, he'll limp out like Bonds, McGuire, and Giambi, and we won't have to worry about him again...

Palmero is a second ballet HOF'er. As Skip Bailess says, "he belongs in the hall of very good." Look at his stats, he is as consistant as you could ever want a guy, but longevity really helped him out in a numbers game. He is the hitters version of Bert Blyleven.

This is such a tough issue. I think that most of us agree that 10 games is total BS. Kenny Rogers pushes a cameraman and gets 20 games. Yes Kenny Rogers should be suspended but what Palmero did makes all of baseball look bad, what Kenny Rogers did just makes him look like a spoiled baby.

As for the HOF, that is such a tough question. If Palmero doesnt get into the HOF does that mean we dont let McGwire in?? It seems pretty obvious that he used. Other like Sosa, Pudge, Giambi, Sheffield, etc... all have been accused. What about Bonds??? He can deny it all he wants but anyone that doesnt believe that Bonds used is blind. No hitter in baseball has gotten better and stronger after the age of 38. Its just doesnt happen without help. So far Raffy is the first big name player dumb enough to get caught. Bonds is lucky he is hurt so he doesnt have to go through all the controversey. Plus if he has a mediocre year everyone will be saying its because he isnt on the juice.

After seeing all these players that are suspected of being on steroids and thier inflated numbers it should really prove how good Ken Griffy Jr is now. Being a Reds fan I may be a bit biased but not once has he ever been mentioned in the breath as those cheaters.Granted the past few years he has been injury prone but when you *DON'T* take roids at the age of these guys you do get hurt and takes a bit longer to recover. At the time of the trade for Jr any team in baseball would have given up Mike Cameron and a few prospects for Jr.

I have been following some of the stuff about baseball and steroids for a while now. I have never really been able to get my head around the reasons baseball itself doesn't sort it's own house out. I see drugs as a cancer to any sport. How does a sport expect to grow when every achievement it celebrates becomes a source of rumour and inuendo. Its no different to athletics now which has been serverly devalued as a sport as a result.

Personally I think baseball shoud adopt the WADA code and make is an automatic 2 year ban. In this day and age no one should be naive and it is in the sports interest to have a clean a sport as possible. No one wants to celebrate the wins of juiced up guys and what message does it send to the kids out there now, the next generation of players? That the only way to the top is to get juiced?

The very fact these kind of discussions are taking place everywhere (isn't this a poker forum?) should be the signal for the powers that be to change things. If juiced players don't like it, bollocks to them. I think the vast majority of fans would swap a few less home runs for the guarentee the sport was clean.

Rich