Hearing today’s news that Mark McGwire “came clean” about using steroids made me think.
Baseball players who either voluntarily admit to or are outed as using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) ought to be immediately and unconditionally banned from baseball. Users of PEDs cease to be athletes in their own right. They’re cheaters, swindlers, frauds and should be treated as such.
Average people who get caught cheating at their jobs to advance themselves would likely be fired and fight to relieve themselves of the deserved stigma spawned from their transgressions. Baseball players? Not even close. Instead of being scorned, admitted and suspected users of PEDs are given a pass as they often tearfully make apologies and requisite declarations of “I wouldn’t do it again” as media outlets simply attribute the wrongdoings to “that era in baseball.” Rubbish.
Allowing active admitted users to remain in baseball and retired users to retain their tainted records amounts to being accessories to the crime. Furthermore, ostracizing Pete Rose for gambling seems almost trivial in comparison. I’m not encouraging gambling, but at least he didn’t cheat his way into record books.
So, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds? Stripped of your titles and banned from baseball. Alex Rodriguez? Banned. Manny Ramirez? Banned.
Cheaters deserve a cheater’s end.