Like many sports fans, you probably turned your radio on this morning, just to hear your favorite talk show host discussing—once again—baseball and performance enhancing drugs. As the conversation progresses each day, we’ll probably see less people talking about Ryan Braun and more people wondering what’s going to happen to Alex Rodriguez. Many expect to receive him a much harsher punishment than the Brewers outfielder.
Regardless of who becomes the focus of scrutiny, the cloud of P.E.D.s won’t be leaving baseball for the foreseeable future. But why is that? Why is it that the sports world analyzes and criticizes the presence of P.E.D.s in baseball, but doesn’t really care about any other sport? The answer can be summed up in two words—the homerun.
The homerun is probably the most sacred play in all of sports. It’s more admired and appreciated than both the dunk and tackle. There are most likely much more people who can tell you the all-time home leader in home runs than the all-time tackles leader or dunks leader.
Since we hold the homerun in such high esteem, it is highly disappointing when a person cheats their way to achieving one of the greatest plays in sports.
The homerun is also associated with greatness. If a player hits a bunch of them during a season, they’re instantly inserted into the conversation for Best Hitter in Baseball for that year. If you are able to dunk all time or dunk really well, people don’t necessarily put you in a class with LeBron James and Chris Paul.
So many amazing hitters have used P.E.D.’s. Fans watched the performances by Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, and Barry Bonds (allegedly), awing—and more importantly—trusting their amazing displays of power. We watched them hit homerun after homerun, all the while thinking we were seeing genuine greatness.
So when people say it isn’t fair for baseball to be scrutinized more than other sports, I don’t agree. When the best players in the game, are cheating the best stat in the game, to be included with the all-time greats, your league deserves all the scrutiny it gets.
I do admire that the MLB is working to clean up the game. However, the same hitters they are working to vilify are the same hitters that provided some of the grandest moments for our nation’s pastime.
Due to the cheating of these great hitters there is now one stat we look at with skepticism. There is now play that, should a player complete many times throughout the season, we cannot trust. There is one feat—the feat that separates the MLB from every other league— that will forever link P.E.D’s to baseball.
The homerun.
