Step Up!

The truth will set you free. How many times have we heard this cliche? Enough is enough already. Getting caught cheating, lying, stealing or any other form of ill repute is not “admitting” to the crime itself. YOU GOT CAUGHT! HOLA? Jason Giambi, Andy Pettitte, A-Rod and any other drug user on the ever growing list of athletes who got caught should not be credited with “admitting” to anything. That is not an admission it is more like a confession of guilt after the fact. So I ask you Sportsroiders will anyone out there really “step up” and come forward under their own volition and speak the truth without ratting out their friends or cousins and just plain admitting to having broken the law and cheated by taking steroids or HGH without having formerly been caught or charged with allegations?

Come on Derek Jeter. Just Do It!

Furthermore for the Curt Schilling Jamie Moyer crowd of athletes who are suddenly outraged by all the cheating I ask you this: Where were you guys for the last 26 years? How come you did not step up and demand testing for illegal substances, specifically steroids, if you are so horrified by all this. Do not tell me you did not see it going on. Do not even think of trying to tell me that the union would not allow it. Squeaky wheel gets the oil my friends and absolutely no one in baseball that is allegedly “clean” has ever come forward before now and been outspoken about this issue. As far as I am concerned you are all guilty. GUILTY! You helped make the bed you now lie in.

Someone please STEP UP!

The Truth In Earnest

In 1986 weather you wanted to believe it or not, the baseball world was introduced to steroids. Then, an 11 year old kid, I was at the height of collecting baseball cards. I still have them and what fun it was to spend most or all of what little money I had buying up as many as I could. By the ripe old age of 12 thanks to Jose Canseco I could identify a “muscle head” or “juice head” from a mile away. By the 7th grade I was already wondering if I would ever even make it as a high school athlete because I thought that everyone who played football was on steroids. In the 8th grade I learned everyone was not on steroids, steroids were bad for you, and if you wanted some I could get them for you. That was 1989. Baseballs were “juiced” not players. The Cold War was ending and the Steroid Era in baseball was well underway. A year later The Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990 became law on November 29, 1990, when President Bush signed the Omnibus Crime Control Bill.

Why then since that day does MLB or any other professional sports organization continue to be held at bay by a players union that somehow does not think that the law applys to its members? How can any player who belongs to the union that plays under the same collective bargaining agreement expect anyone to believe they they are “clean” when their own union affords them the right to be “dirty”? Why would any fan, including reporters/beat writers/media etc. of MLB be upset or shocked to find out that Alex Rodriguez or any player for that matter used steroids? Why then would these same people call for everything short of a beheading of said players when they knew all along these “sacred” and “holy” records were already compromised?

As much as I detest Barry Bonds. As much as I hate the Yankees for having signed Jose Canseco, Jason Giambi and Kevin Brown and for resigning Andy Pettitte the lying, cheating, rat. And as much as I hate A-Rod for further disgracing the pinstripes I have to say according to the rules of baseball at that time, they crossed no lines nor broke any rules. (other than the law) But since that does not count in baseball, never has, never will – let the records stand. Everyone including Ownership, MLB Executives, MLBPA and its members, the media and us the fans should all accept our responsibility and just put it to bed and move on.

If MLB, MLBPA, U.S. Congress, or parents/teachers/coaches of children in the United States think that only now steroids is a problem at the high school level, they are sadly mistaken and grossly ignorant.