To begin with, I feel like it needs to be said that the opinion expressed here may not be very popular with other baseball fans. I sincerely hope it is, but this is a tough issue, especially for people who love the game as much as I do. Unfortunately, I’m talking about steroids.
Last Tuesday, August 6th, seven individuals, including Biogenesis founder Tony Bosch, were charged with, and plead guilty to, distributing performance enhancing drugs. It is likely that the investigation leading up this revealed a list of previously unnamed players who took PEDs, and that this list of names will be released to the public in the near future. Here’s the thing: I really wish the league would just get it over with. Let us get back to baseball already.
Let’s face it, in all likelihood, most of the big stars of the 1990s and 2000s were probably using one substance or another. Its a stain on the history of baseball, but nevertheless, it is a part of it. Instead of continually trying to find individuals to blame, I think its well past time the league just accepted the fact that the steroid era happened. The game will never truly heal until it does. And you know what? I think I’m not alone in this opinion. I think most baseball fans are perfectly happy to let it go and leave the steroid issue alone once and for all. If the league released the list and the punishments today and then asked the fans to move on, I think fans as a whole would be more than willing to do so. By dragging the process out, the league just makes it into a big deal again.
I realize that by asking baseball and the fans to not make a big deal of the new list of names, if there is one, I am asking for some players to be allowed to escape the public scrutiny that others who committed the same crimes against the game were subjected to. Is this fair? No. But is it in the best interest of the game? I steadfastly believe that it is. It accomplishes nothing to tear down players that we as fans love to watch when we already know, even if we don’t like to admit it, that they probably used PEDs.
Throughout most of the 2000s, there was a cloud surrounding baseball, the aftermath of the Balco scandal. Over the last decade, however, the fans have increasingly shown that they are ready to move on. Dragging a new list of names through the mud over an extended period of time will only serve to open old wounds and bring back that negativity. Picking at the scab only makes it take longer to heal.
I’m not saying that new instances of PED use should not be punished; they should. But it serves little purpose to drag out the process. We have entered a new era of baseball. Home runs may be down, but attendance, on average, is up league-wide. In 2013, the league saw its sixth-best attendance total ever, averaging 30,514 fans per game. All of the ten best-attended individual seasons in MLB history have come within the last decade. People don’t care about seeing huge home run totals anymore, and they don’t want to be reminded of Balco. The fans just want to see good baseball.
I want to be clear: these players should not be allowed to avoid punishment. What I’m saying is that Major League Baseball, and we as fans, can no longer pretend to be shocked every time a new name is brought to light. We can no longer feign ignorance. We must accept that PEDs were, and to a lesser extent still are, are part of the game. Reveal the names, reveal the punishments, and let that be the end of it, quick and dirty. There is no need to spend any more time dwelling on it. We spent the better part of the 2000s doing that. It’s time for the league to show the fans and the world that it has finally come to terms with the darker parts of its past.
Sooner or later, we will find out which of our former heroes we will have to turn against, and it will hurt the game for a while. The thing is, it doesn’t have to hurt for a long time, like it did in the past. The fans have spoken through their attendance: the steroid era is over, and we like it that way. It’s time to play ball.
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