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Originally Posted by packs
They brought in money and eyes but made baseball exponentially worse. The whole reason we're even discussing the topic is because of what these two chose to do. They do not belong in the Hall of Fame.
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But how is that really any different than changing the way the balls were made, or building stadiums/fields with shorter outfield dimensions, to end the dead-ball era and create more money for owners from the game's switch to the dramatic home run emphasis? Or in later years when teams would literally have pots of coffee, laced with uppers, sitting just outside the dugouts, for players to partake in during games to keep that "edge" they needed? Or what about the advent of advanced medical procedures and medicine to allow for reconstructive and other forms of surgery, and/or to allow for faster/better recovery from injuries? Better equipment, better medicine, better training and development techniques, including improved dietary, vitamin, and supplement regimens for players are all the norm for every sport I can think of today. The questions come down to simply one of where (and why) do people end up drawing the line of what they will or will not accept.
I am also not a fan of such chemically induced enhancements. But if the idea is to somehow keep the fantasy that professional sports/baseball is an everyman's game, that maybe doesn't require someone to be way over 6' tall, weigh at least 200+ pounds, have a vertical leap of over 36", or be able to run the 100 yard dash in 10 seconds or less, so that fans can still have some semblance of the dream of one day playing a major professional sport, they are kidding themselves. Those days of the possibility of a somewhat average person ever being able to succeed and become a professional athlete simply by hard work and dedication are likely long gone. Unless you have an absolute gift of natural talent, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. It is exactly why movies like "Rudy" were/are so hugely popular, average people still like to dream. So, since these already elite, talented athletes are functioning way above the athletic level of the average, everyday human, exactly what does drawing the line at some medicinal/supplemental elements being allowed or banned actually saying or proving? I can affirmatively agree that if a certain steroid/substance is illegal and banned from everyday use of everyone, that it clearly should also be banned from sports. But then you get into the constantly growing gray area of things that aren't banned or illegal, except now maybe for athletes. Why? If at least part of the idea of banning certain things for athletes may have to do with the concept of those athletes being just like you and me, that ship has sailed way in the past and isn't at all relevant anymore.
You then state how McGwire and Sosa have exponentially made baseball worse. Worse how so? At least in McGwire's case, when he supposedly started out with using PEDs, there were no MLB banned substances, and he was using an over-the-counter supplement, that he admitted to using. And I don't believe he ever failed any subsequent drug test or was ever suspended by MLB for doing so. If I'm wrong, please correct me. Now if the use of PEDs by the likes of McGwire and Sosa led to the outing of such rampant PED use by players to the extent that fans and MLB finally took notice and action, and ended up having MLB implement the bans and drug testing to ensure that such PED use wasn't continuing, isn't that in some way actually a good thing then? Or are you somehow saying that baseball is still worse in some way because of the PEDs, even after that was corrected by the formal banning and testing for them? Don't forget, baseball is no longer considered America's pastime like it once was, and many long-time and casual fans were turned off from MLB following the player's strike in '94. I can't count how many times I've seen Leon comment about how he really doesn't watch baseball anymore because of that strike. So, without those home run histrionics in the late '90s, bringing back many old fans, and likely attracting many new ones, who knows where baseball would be today otherwise?
And as for where the line needs to be drawn on such things as PEDs as unnatural advantages for some, how is that any different than say LeBron James supposedly using and sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber to improve recovery from injury and to fight the ravages of Father Time? The use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy is most certainly a non-traditional and unnatural way to enhance one's elite athletic performance over time. So how is unnaturally enhancing or healing one's body for some athletic advantage supposedly okay for some methods/treatments like this, but not for others?
And also, why not in the case of say someone like McGwire, would they be retroactively condemned and forever after vilified for something that was once legal. Why not allow them to be grandfathered in to such an activity maybe? And before you go saying that is absurd and no one would ever allow or agree to such a thing, you need to check back into the banning of the spitball, and other substance-abuse type pitches that was put into effect by MLB back on 2/9/1920. For along with that ban, it also included a list of current MLB pitches who used such substance-enhanced pitches to play in the majors, and allowed them to continue throwing spitballs and such till their careers ended. So as preposterous as my idea may have originally sounded to you, it is clearly not unprecedented.
And speaking of spit ballers, are you also vehemently calling for the expulsion of Whitey Ford, Don Drysdale, Don Sutton, Gaylord Perry, and Bullet Rogan from Cooperstown then? If not, please explain how their obvious cheating through the use of foreign substances on their pitches is any less outright cheating than using a PED then? And by the way, of the 17 named pitchers who were grandfathered in and allowed to continue throwing spitballs and other substance-enhanced pitches after the 1920 ban was put into effect, three of them are also in the HOF. Should we now be demanding they be taken out as well, to go along with your sentiments towards McGwire and maybe some of these other PED users?