OT: Bonds, Clemens, Sosa to be on HOF ballot

[71buc]

I am a weight lifter and have been or many years. Wherever there is weight lifting there are drugs. I never used steroids only because i could not afford them. I remember sitting in gyms talking about Incaviglia back when he came up pre-Canseco. I am not saying that Incaviglia was juicing. However, his arrival made it fairly obvious to those of us in that culture that serious weight lifting had arrived in baseball. We also knew that drugs were soon to follow just as night follows day. PEDs do not create ability they enhance it. Genetics cannot be improved upon. While on androgenics the journeyman becomes a steady player, the average player becomes a star, the superstar becomes a legend. I remember laughing when androstenedione was discovered in McGwire's locker. It is banned in other sports due to it being used as an masking agent. Athletes who used said indignantly, "I am not on steroids I'm on andro". In 2002 I went to a game with a close friend who was an area scout for a MLB team. I looked at A-Rod and said that he was using. My friend was shocked and a bit indignant at my statement. He defended Rodriguez saying he had an amazing work ethic. I said I am certain he does but he is using as men his age do not have that muscle density without pharmaceutical assistance. My friend refused to believe me. Seven years later the Selena Roberts article came out in SI and I was the first person my friend, then employed by the scouting bureau, called. Unfortunately that whole generation of players is suspect. It doesn't make them less it makes them different. They are a product of their time. Just as Ruth was the product of his. Despite playing pre integration, night baseball, and coast to coast travel, Ruth would have succeeded in any generation. The numbers would not be as gaudy but they still would have been there because of genetics. However, I suspect that if he played in the steroid era he would have joined the PED party. Those of us who care about the HOF know that this generation's stats are inflated by PEDs...so what. Bonds, Sosa, and McGwire's inclusion does not diminish the accomplishments of those already enshrined. What are we going to do deny an entire generation of players? If we do so then you might as well close the doors to the HOF because I will never go back. This issue really puts Hank Aaron's accomplishments in perspective. Those numbers are pre-steroid and post integration. I believe he is the greatest hitter of all time. Maddux's numbers are even more amazing considering his era. Thanks for indulging me while I pontificate.