The idea is too novel to expect most people to accept it, but I will make the attempt anyhow. Major League Baseball players have made mistakes, stupid mistakes as Alex Rodriguez has said, and Major League Baseball has made mistakes.
Can we all agree on those two statements? I think so. But steroids have caused enough problems and done enough damage. We can dwell on steroids past and wallow in each new revelation until we are so consumed by steroids that they smother us, if they haven’t already.
In the aftermath of the outing of Alex Rodriguez as a steroids user, a union official, Gene Orza, has become the No. 2 villain to A-Rod’s No. 1.
Sports Illustrated’s Web site, SI.com, especially singled out Orza, the union’s chief operating officer, accusing him of committing dastardly acts by notifying players, in violation of the union’s labor agreement with the commissioner’s office, when they were going to be tested for performance-enhancing drugs.
Too often my colleagues in this business befuddle me. Here is the latest instance.
Ever since the steroids stuff started stirring up a firestorm of outrage, many reporters and columnists have demanded that steroids cheats be dealt with severely. Some fans were right there with them. Suspension would not be good enough. Throw their statistics into a shredder and grind them up into mulch. Use gallons of white-out to eradicate their records from the record books.
Call Seymour Siwoff and tell him to forget the asterisks; better that he expunge from The Elias Book of Baseball Records any records set by steroids cheats. Bring them before Commissioner Bud Selig and have him brand their foreheads with a scarlet S. And while he’s at it, he should etch one onto his own forehead.
