Steroids: Some Thoughts

Well it wouldn’t be a sports blog without a discussion of the steroid issue in sports, and more notably in baseball. With the upcoming release of Selena Roberts’ book about Alex Rodriguez’s steroid use, and Manny Ramirez, once thought of as the best pure hitter in all of baseball, being suspended for “a drug violation,” this issue has once again come to the forefront.

Over the course of the last decade the best players in baseball from this era have all been found to have used illegal steroids; Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Miguel Tejada, Gregg Zaun and Jose Canseco. There are many opinions on this issue and all have been exhaustively expressed by both the media and fans of baseball alike. Some don’t mind the use of steroids while others are steadfastly against the use of steroids in sports. Everyone has their opinions regarding this matter, and I will not rehash the same old arguments against steroid use that have been discussed over and over again recently. I will say however that I am totally against steroids in sports, anyone caught using should be banned from the game for life, and anyone who has been found to have used steroids should be banned from the hall of fame and kicked out if they are already in. What this article will discuss however is some of the more intriguing and obscure residual issues of steroid use in baseball.

The first issue I would like to discuss is the perverse positive outcome to teams associated with suspensions. Steve Philips on the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball broadcast just raised an interesting point. He said that the L.A. Dodgers could benefit from this suspension because they will not have to pay Manny Ramirez 7.7 million dollars over the course of his suspension which could free up money for them to get another pitcher they may need. To me this seems completely ridiculous. If a person is suspended and their contract is withheld, the suspending team should be barred from using that money to benefit their team. Now I realize losing Manny for 50 games is a somewhat major penalty to pay, but nothing positive should result of this to the team an offending player plays for. If the Dodgers had to pay that $7.7 million to the league it would sure make teams next year think twice about offering up a big contract to Ramirez.

The second issue, which falls into the category of “exhaustively discussed,” is the nature of a suspension or penalty incurred to an offending player or team, but one that is quite interesting and unique. Jim Kelly on the Fan 590’s Prime Time Sports mentioned this interesting idea for a suspension last week. At the time of suspension, the team of the offending player must forfeit every game that was won with said player in the lineup, or at least forfeit every game where the offending player played a role in the victory, whether it be an RBI or a run scored. This is an extremely outrageous idea, one that would never be implemented, but it is something to ponder and to me a very good idea.

Another issue I’ve often wondered about is why none of these players have been legally punished. Steroids are an illegal drug classified as a schedule III substance under the Steroid Control Act of 1990, with possession consisting of a felony offense punishable by a minimum fine of $1000 and up to 1 year in prison with a second offense resulting in a minimum of 15 days in jail and up to 2 years in jail, and a minimum fine of $2,500. If the U.S. Congress truly cared about curbing this problem, as they tried to demonstrate last year by holding a series of “hearings,” they would raid MLB clubhouses and federally prosecute offending players.

As it stands, baseball is content to allow players to continue to use steroids, and feign an interest in caring about this matter by handing out miniscule 50 game suspensions, but until some stiffer penalties are implemented this problem will persist, albeit at a lower rate. This latest incident involving Manny Ramirez demonstrates that players are not concerned about their reputations or being punished. If a player feels like he can potentially get away with it and earn a huge contract they will continue to try to use steroids. I bet if you asked Manny Ramirez if he regrets using, if he were to give a truthful answer, he would say absolutely not. His steroid use has made him one of the best players in the league and has allowed him to earn over $160 million in his career. I don’t think he’s crying about losing $7.7 million of that.

Lets Go Blue Jays - Why Toronto Fans Suck

I don't want to turn this blog into a giant complaint board, and I'll do my best to keep these kinds of blogs to a minumum...HOWEVER...i have some beef with Toronto Blue Jays fans from yesterday's (Saturday, May 3, 2009) game.

I am anative Torontonian and am completely discouraged by what i saw at yesterdays game. My group of 4 showed up late to the game because of the closure on the QEW eastbound. We got to the box office and asked for four tickets in a row in the upper deck. $11 per ticket later and we're on our way up the ramp. Up and around we climbed to our gate. Gate 522, Row 21, Seats 1,2,3 and 4. For those of you who are not farmilliar with the Skydome (Rogers Centre...blegh), there are 22 rows in the upper deck level. We were in the bloodiest of nose bleed seats, but behind the plate so the view was still decent. We arrived at our seats to see 6 guys, probably a couple years younger than me, occupying 2 of our seats. My friend Jeff had gone to the washroom so i was with my girlfriend and her female friend, standing in the steep aisle checking my tickets and looking at the seats and checking my tickets again. I politely told the gentlemen sitting in our seats that he was, in fact, sitting in our seats. One of the younger gentlmen replied "this is the 500's buddy, you just find your own seats." Keeping my cool and composure in front of my lady friends I quickly replied, "I have found my own seats, you are in them, now can you move please." Clearly my wits were too much as they grudgingly got up and left the row.

Now, normally, i would have agreed and found better seats. But at this point, after a 2 and a half hour drive to the stadium (when it usually takes 35 minutes) i just wanted to park my keester, relax, and watch some Blue Jays baseball.

What angers me about this whole situtation is what the seat stealers said..."This is the 500's buddy, you just find your own seat." WHAT IS THIS THE BRONX? Are we in the big bad big apple? These kids were not even alive when the Jays last won anything significant. Toronto is well known for having the worst and most misunderstanding fans in most of pro sports (suits at the leafs games, cut throat Raptors fans etc.) Were in Toronto here, a city (for the most part) with about as much "bad-assness" as my grandmother. I had the oppertunity to attend a game in the upper deck at the old Yankees stadium last year and as long as you were a Yankee fan, you were reespected. Yes. In New York. Now i have some punkk kids telling me to find my own seats? What happened to the old school commaradary? The two parties in this confrontation were Blue Jays fans. Absolutely dispicable.

The second thing that happened which really grinds my gears about Jays fans came from another group of even younger kids. For the most part of the middle innings this group of 15 year olds sitting in the same row as I were leading cheers and doing the classic chirping of the other team; something I have absolutely no problem with. However, as the game went into extra innings, the fans didnt really increase their excitedness to the level that was suitable for a home-field advantage. So when the count was 0-0 with none out and Toronto pitching, a man a couple rows in front of us started a "Go Jays Go" cheer which excited our section a bit and i gladly joined him as one of the two loudest cheerers.

Now, here is the crappy part. One of the 15 year olds started yelling AT me and the guy leading the cheers saying "the count is 0-0 why are you cheering?" Are you fucking kidding me, kid? As far as I'm concerned, as long as you pay for the tickets, you can cheer whenever you bloody well want to cheer...not just when the pitcher is about to get a strike out or about to end the inning. And this didn't happen just once. No this went on for the better part of the 10th and 11th innings. Good thing Aaron Hill heard our cheers as he hit the game tying Home-run and the game winning single...clearly because of our "untimely" cheering.

No wonder Toronto fans get laughed at by the rest of the world. We're the only group of fans that yell at each other during cheers.