Steroids are an interesting subject and I'm really unsure how to evaluate or judge all of its controversy. It's fairly obvious that we all readily accept that we expect athletes to train, to practice, to hopefully maximize their abilities and talents and then play well with what they can do. We don't disparage athletes who use glasses to correct their vision or get lasik surgery, we don't disparage those who use weight training to get stronger, who run and do calisthenics for cardiovascular fitness. But for reasons that I'm not always sure are legitimate, a line has been drawn against steroids. And steroids may have a somewhat undeserved reputation. Much like anything, they can be abused to ultimately deleterious effect, on the other hand, they also can be legitimately prescribed to people and aid them in recovery or treatment.
And steroids were fairly inevitable. Long before steroids, there was the amphetamines that many players used to keep themselves going during the long seasons. Baseball looked the other regarding those. There had long been a culture using what was available, there had long been a culture and situation that pushed athletes to using, especially once the first began using and began getting an advantage over his peers. And when you're in a situation that rewards performance as extravagantly as baseball does with salaries, in a situation that the rewards last only about 20 years at most, that's a lot of incentive to use and maximize what you can get out of the situation.
So I'm not all that willing to say these were terrible men for doing what they did. They did what many would do if presented with similar opportunities and incentives. It's far too easy for those of us outside the situation to look down on them and say they should have never done that, they should have had more integrity. Way too easy to do that. So I won't.
But I don't like the effect the steroids had on offensive production and the record books. I don't like what they did to the game that way. But that may only be my personal preference and taste, I grew up on the game of the late 70s and 80s, I liked that game of baseball because that's the one I grew up watching and listening to on the radio.
So I don't know. There's no doubt that Manny Ramirez would have a been great hitter without steroids. What they did to his numbers, who really knows? He was still one of the best hitters above a bunch of guys who were using.
We could have had a respectable 5-3 start, but instead we're sitting in a hole at 2-6.
we have other choice words for their ilk in the delaware valley.
