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Editor’s note: This opinion is part of a point/counterpoint opinion feature about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports. Read the counterpoint, “A ‘marked’ career” by CU Independent Staff Writer Nathan Bellis.
I want a Big Mac – in the Baseball Hall of Fame, that is.
While I’m throwing my support for Mark McGwire, a 12-time Major League Baseball All-Star who once broke the single-season home run record and owns 583 home runs (eighth all-time), why don’t I include Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Rafael Palmeiro and Roger Clemens too?
In case you haven’t noticed, they all have admitted to or have been accused of taking performance-enhancing drugs, most notably steroids.
To me, they have done nothing wrong because of these two simple words:
Everyone cheats!
Before I go any further, I would like to say that I don’t condone what McGwire or any of his performance-enhancing buddies did. But at the end of the day, they cheated because they felt compelled to.
I don’t blame them for cheating because you, me, the person to your left, the person to your right, McGwire, the list of cheaters is endless. We do it every day.
From middle school until the day I received my high school diploma, I remembered whenever I took a test I was unsure of but I had the answers to, I would place the notes in my backpack and leave my backpack open; whenever the teacher wasn’t looking, I leaned over, slipped my hands into the backpack, pulled out the answers and either quickly glanced at them or stuck it under my exam. I don’t think I ever got caught.
That was just one form of cheating. If my high school ever wanted to confiscate my diploma, then they are going to have to take away everyone’s diploma because my classmates didn’t just cheat, they probably cheated a lot more than I did.
And I’m sure you’ve cheated at least once in your life.
Did you tell a big fat rumor in high school just so you could get elected prom king or queen? Did you carry a fake ID just so you could enter clubs? Did you ever cheat on a significant other?
Those are just three examples of how people cheat in life. There are probably more ways to cheat in life than the $74,688,354 million McGwire has earned in his career.
But if you still think you don’t cheat, then do you drink Gatorade? How about energy drinks such as 5-Hour Energy or Red Bull? Soft drinks such as Coca-Cola or Pepsi? Or what about coffee?
“Gatorade is a performance-enhancing substance,” Bob Knight, the coach with the most wins in college basketball with 902 wins, said in defense of McGwire on Jan. 11. “It replaces electrolytes in the human body that are used up through extreme exercise.”
Energy drinks, soft drinks and coffee are no different. Consciously or subconsciously, people consume those items to stay awake. You can’t perform in the classrooms or at your job if you’re sleeping, now can you?
It’s no different in baseball. Players use amphetamines, otherwise known as “greenie” pills, as a stimulant when they feel too fatigued to perform. The substance wasn’t banned by MLB until the 2006 season, so imagine how many current Hall of Famers have ingested amphetamines.
Furthermore, the Baseball Hall of Fame is filled with suspicious characters.
Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker were suspected of fixing and gambling on a game played between Cobb’s Detroit Tigers and Speaker’s Cleveland Indians in 1919.
Gaylord Perry admitted to cheating by loading up baseballs with foreign substances, a pitch he called the spitball. Another way to interpret Perry’s actions is to watch the character Eddie Harris in “Major League.”
The point is, nobody is perfect and we shouldn’t punish McGwire or any of his cronies when cheating in society is common. The funny thing is, we as a society disparage cheaters but we can’t admit to ourselves that we cheat all the time. With that said, I have one parting message.
To the 411 Hall of Fame voters who didn’t cast a vote for McGwire this year, to the millions who criticize McGwire and other baseball players for cheating, and to my counterpart Nathan Bellis, please find it in your heart to forgive, but not forget. If not, then maybe you should be the one who is vilified.
Contact CU Independent Sports Editor Cheng Sio at Cheng.sio@colorado.edu.
2 comments
I’m curious Cheng, what are your thoughts on Pete Rose? Or the Black Sox? They cheated, should they be allowed in the hole. If you allow Mark McGwire, Shoeless Joe should get his rightfully-earned spot in the Hall of Fame as well.
That is all.
Rob,
Pete Rose is not a cheater. He admitted to betting “every day” on the Reds on an ESPN radio show in March 2007, not against them as evidenced in the Dowd report. That means the worst thing Rose did was make decisions with him winning the bet in mind, not the team he managed.
Shoeless Joe Jackson was just an unfortunate circumstance and he should be in the Hall of Fame.
First, Jackson played for Charles Comiskey, possibly the cheapest owner in baseball history. One could make a case that Jackson was cheated because of a second unfortunate circumstance. Jackson was illiterate, which meant he could taken advantaged of.
So here’s what happened:
The day the White Sox won the 1919 American League Pennant, the players were greeted in the clubhouse with flat champagne as their bonus, instead of cash.
The gamblers approached first baseman Chick Gandhil about fixing the World Series. Since he played for Comiskey, he figured he could make more money losing the World Series than winning it. Of the eight involved in the fix, all were uneducated. Shoeless Joe and Buck Weaver didn’t want to be a part of the fix.
During the middle of the World Series, Lefty Williams, a member of the fix and Jackson’s roommate, threw $5,000 in an envelope at Jackson’s feet. Jackson didn’t want the money, but when Williams left, Jackson reluctantly took the money. If you’re illiterate and played for the cheapest owner in baseball, wouldn’t $5,000 look like a shiny new toy?
Years later, the implicated players said Jackson was never present at any of the meetings they had with the gamblers. Williams said they only brought up Jackson’s name in hopes of giving them more credibility with the gamblers.
Then, there were the power figures: Comiskey and baseball’s first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
Jackson claimed he went to see Comiskey to tell him about the fix, but Comiskey refused to see him after Jackson waited for several hours. Then, during the offseason, Comiskey sent a White Sox executive, Harry Grabiner, to Jackson’s offseason home to negotiate a new contract. When Jackson brought up the fix, he was told to keep the $5,000.
Near the end of the 1920 season, Shoeless Joe and Eddie Cicotte confessed to the fix. But as Jackson’s biographer, Donald Gropman, said in 1989, “It was incumbent on [Alfred] Austrian, [counsel for the White Sox], to destroy Jackson’s credibility. Comiskey was covering his behind.” Jackson’s credibility needed to be damaged because Comiskey couldn’t let the public know Jackson went to see him and tried to return the money.
Later, Jackson and Cicotte recanted, but the grand jury documents were stolen. Years later, the missing confessions reappeared in the possession of Comiskey’s lawyer.
When the eight were indicted, they were acquitted in a court of law. In 1924, Jackson sued Comiskey for back wages and this jury cleared Jackson of his alleged role in the fix.
Here’s where Landis comes in.
When Jackson died in 1951, his obituary in the United Press said, “Landis said if the courts declared me not guilty, he’d stand by me. He didn’t keep his word.”