Steroids in Baseball

Bud Selig should officially pardon all past steroids offenders. What else can he do? I believe it may be his only viable course of action.

After Roger Clemens' testimony in front of Congress last week, it is obvious that the truth will be harder to find that Iraq's WMDs. Selig cannot spend five more years mired in a campaign attempting to uncover the use of steroids in baseball's recent past. Rather, he should aim at eliminating their use in the future. My plan is as follows:

First, the commissioner should officially pardon all previous offenders. That means that everyday players who have confessed to using banned substances would go right back to playing baseball. Those players will have to deal with the court of public opinion.

Second, Selig should impose a system of rigorous testing. Every player on every team, even down through the minor leagues, should be tested every other week, including the off-season.

This may be hard to get past the players' union, but can you imagine the backlash by the public if the players union refused to allow increased testing? The people of the world want a clean game and the players should agree to provide it.

The consequences after a failed test should be extreme. First-time offenders should be allowed a re-take. If this subsequent test is also positive, the player should be suspended without pay for a full season. In the case of a second offense, that player would be banished from baseball. (think Pete Rose!)

Now, I know I just went from soft to harsh so bear with me. The point of all this is to clean up the game. Digging into the past will not get us to that point, at least not in the next decade. What the game needs are instant results. If the players are tested ceaselessly, they would never be able to get away with it.

Plus, a lot of the players nowadays are coming from Central and South America, and baseball is all they have. If the consequences are steep, the number of players willing to risk it will decrease dramatically.

Watching Clemens' and former trainer Brian McNamee testify before Congress and after reading the Mitchell Report on steroids use in baseball, I must sadly say that Major League Baseball is facing a low point never before seen in sports. This unprecedented situation requires unprecedented action.

But all is not lost. Baseball, remember, is notorious for its dirty heritage, a characteristic that the public glorifies. Baseball's history is ripe with scandal (the "Black Sox") and dirty play (the spitball) and we fans love it! With its bench-clearing brawls and managerial tirades, the dark side of baseball is part of what makes it so great!

Remember when you were a kid and your grandfather told you about players from his youth like Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth? Those guys are notoriously immoral men. Years later, they are masked in mysticism. When our generation grows old, we will have the responsibility to tell our kids about what we experienced. By then, the steroids era will be legendary as well, so distant that those who tell the story will embellish and exaggerate.

But the assumption that our current situation will just assimilate into baseball's storied culture is not assured; before that can happen, the crisis must be solved.