is their job to be sports stars or is it to “play the game?”

Those of you that seem to think the “game is tainted by CHEATERS!” or that other crap, either you’re nuts, or you’ve just been listening to MSM’s rant’s too long and need to just take a break and think about the issues for yourself.

Yes, Barry broke a law by consuming steroids. But what was the law’s punishment for this crime? For first time offenders it was a fine and manditory rehap. First time was a misdomenor no different then a traffic ticket it was not a feloney.

No, Barry didn’t cheat. Baseball did not have rules, punishment, or enforcement in place when Barry used. Baseball treated a player that was busted by the law for it no different then being busted for pot. The player wasn’t suspended for a first time offense but was just required to attend rehap which the law already required anyway.

I tell my kids it was acceptable in the culture of baseball and no different then Mays, Mantle, Aaron, etc use of illegal without a perscription stimulents in the 50′s, 60′s, and 70′s. I tell my kids that no athlete should be viewed as a hero or role model. They should be appriciated for the athletic accomplishments only. Barry Bonds was the greatest hitter I ever saw. If Barry Bonds isn’t in the Hall of Fame for Baseball then baseball really doesn’t have a real Hall of Fame but rather just a politically correct popularity hall not worth bothering to attend or pay any attention to.

I like to look at the baseball glass being half full and not half empty. I sorry that some fans are crushed by players cheating but I am ready to move on.

Forget about taking away records and MVPs, creating seperate wings of the HOF, and trying to punish players who took PEDs when it wasn’t against the rules yet. You can’t go back and change what happened, you can’t fully sort out which players did it and which didn’t, you can’t say for sure what would have happened if a player did or didn’t take PEDs. You can’t say how many homeruns Babe Ruth would have hit if he had to play against Latin and African American players. You can’t say how many HRs Hank Aaron would have hit if he had the same conditioning and weight training programs and a giant plastic elbow guard like Bonds had.

Sure, I think baseball should learn from what happened. Get a stronger testing program. Preach to the kids and teenagers that PEDs are wrong and harmful to your body. Punish the players who continue to use and get caught. Learn from your mistakes and stop pointing fingers about who is to blame (really Bud Selig, you put out a memo about steroids in the 90’s. Good job your hands are clean, NOT!).

I’m done with steriods, bring on spring training baby!

How does one explain to their kid 5-10 years from now if or when Bonds gets into the HOF that yes, he cheated, yes he broke the law…but everyone else was doing it so that makes it ok!

Why does being against the law of the US matter? What about players from the Domician Republic where steroids can be purchased legally still today at any drug store without a perscription? What matters in baseball is not the laws of any one country. All the players could train in the DR in the offseason and take a quick flight to the DR in season when they need a boster shot and not violate any US laws. Something is not cheating in baseball until baseball has rules, penalties, and enforcement in place. Baseball did not have all of these in place until the 2005 season. 2005 was the first year a baseball player cheated by using steroids.

All this effort to apply these new rules to old behavior is just flat ass wrong. Baseball screwed up and didn’t do the right thing soon enough. You have every right to be pissed off at management and the union. But your anger is misdirected in this effort of yours to label those that took advantage of the the rules of baseball that were inplace at the time as cheaters.

If you start erasing the Bonds and ARod performances, you need to give refunds for the literally 80 million tickets sold to watch them. Plus, it cost a bunch of money for me and my family to make those trips. They owe me at least $10,000.

Mickey Mantle was an alcoholic.

Pitchers back in the day used spit, scuffs, and all sorts of unfair advantages on the balls to fool hitters.

Players were renowned for their cocaine use in the early-mid 1900s.

But the best of the eras always got into the Hall of Fame.

We are now in the steroid era. Yeah, steroids are bad, and now are quite against the rules in baseball. But in the 80s and 90s they weren’t, and were even more or less encouraged! Adam Piatt took steroids, so did Barry Bonds. Alex Sanchez used steroids, so did Alex Rodriguez. The point is that a lot of baseball players took steroids, but some were still clearly much much better than others. And those players deserve to be in the Hall of Fame as the best players of this era.