Thursday, December 13, 2007

Say it aint so Joe...

It's a dark day for Major League Baseball. The ugly truth about widespread (really rampant) cheating is now out. Names are being named and fingers pointed. This is certainly the most serious scandal since the widespread fixing of games by gamblers was exposed via the 1919 World Series debacle. Former Sen George Mitchell has done a great service against considerable odds and with (of course) the players union telling its members not to cooperate.

In his report he urges that Baseball not impose sanctions on most the players named in the report. I concur with this view for a variety of reasons including fairness, the lack of codified sanctions in place when the offenses took place and the time that has passed since most of these players could be proven to have used drugs. However, in the name of the integrity of the sport I think that any records held by the players in question should be marked in some way to indicate that they are suspect. And I would oppose the admission of most of these players to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown New York.

Read the entire report here.

1 comment:

Colin Clout said...

I think I agree with the keep them out of Cooperstown part, kinda like Pete Rose.

I think the real scandal with the whole thing is it ruined the most beautiful part of Baseball, forever. Baseball is fun to watch, but is really beautiful beacuse of Roger Marris and Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron, and 60, 61 714 and 755. None of which have quite the air they did before. The peasants have risen and cast down the aristocracy.