As you’ve undoubtedly already heard, MLB announced yesterday that it will take steps to try and suspend a long list of players who they believe are guilty of using performance-enhancing drugs. Most notably on that list are: Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, Melky Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, Bartolo Colon, Yasmani Grandal, Francisco Cervelli, Jesus Montero, Jhonny Peralta, Cesar Puello, Fernando Martinez, Everth Cabrera, Fautino de los Santos and Jordan Norberto.
When will it end? And I’m not talking about MLB cracking down on these players for what they’ve allegedly done. If they did the drugs, they should suffer the consequences. What I’m talking about is — when will these professional athletes come down from their mountaintops and realize that enough is enough? You can play baseball and make a lot of money; you don’t have to risk long term side effects, public ridicule and your own integrity just to make more money. Aren’t you making enough already? Perhaps you’d like to spend a day selling peanuts in section 123 to put your life into perspective. You hit .249, with limited pop and mediocre bat speed. Live with it.
You’re not invincible. Just because you make millions of dollars, and eat ground Kobe hamuburgers while the rest of us eat ground chuck, you’re not immune to the consequences of using steroids, and getting caught.
The high level of hubris among professional athletes is not limited to the NBA and NFL, where players routinely make idiots of themselves on and off the field. These recent allegations show that baseball players are indeed no different. And, they haven’t learned a single thing from previous suspensions.
The Biogenesis creep who’s reached an agreement with MLB to expose the alleged dopers, Tony Bosch, is most definitely not lying, and he must have more than texts and receipts to back the claims up, otherwise he’d face defamation lawsuits from every one of the players on the list. He’s in a lose-lose situation. He’s going to jail. Suspended from life. The players will be suspended from playing their game. Seems like it wasn’t worth it, right?
Here’s another thing that wasn’t worth it: taking the steroids. These players, again, with their delusions of invincibility should be suspended if they cheated, and they likely will. While we don’t know anything about the details yet, what we do know is that Major League Baseball absolutely must have significant evidence, beyond the circumstantial, that ties these players to the crimes. Otherwise this is a colossal (and illegal) waste of time. It most definitely is not.
For now, all we can do is sit back, crack open an adult beverage, and watch our favorite steroid-users play out the remainder of their games until they’re suspended, because this time the rumors are true, and Bud Selig is carving himself a huge, wooden gavel as we speak.
Watch as many games as you can, because there’s probably one or two of these cheaters on your team. Suspend them all, I say. Make it hurt this time.
