Hypocrisy In Sports

Steroids in baseball recently popped up again. I first saw a couple of pundits wondering why baseball is ripped by the sporting press for steroids, but NFL players like Shawne Merriman can be voted into the Pro Bowl the same year he was suspended for testing positive for 'roids. The easy answer for one is that the NFL has pretty much legitimized antisocial behavior just as part of the play. A grain of truth to that since doing off the field what they do on it will lead to criminal charges. Plus, why worry about the long term effects of steroids when the long term effects of constant football collisions are probably more damaging. Actually, I've always felt the main reason is baseball writers are a bunch of sanctimonious, pompous asses. They've bought into the Field of Dreams myth that baseball is somehow pure goodness which is surprisingly stupid because Field of Dreams dealt with the real life issue of baseball players taking bribes to throw the World Series. Baseball writers simply did not want to admit that their sport was being sullied by steroids during the home run fueled resurgence in the 90s, and when it became very apparent it was, they felt duped and now there is a backlash from them.

Think of it this way. We knew in the 80s that steroids had run rampant in the NFL during the 70s, and that's why the NFL instituted a ban on them. Baseball was convinced they didn't need one even though suddenly cartoonishly-large baseball players were destroying home run records. Baseball writers just wanted their sport to be relevant again, so it was ignored until Barry Bonds came along and looked like he had eaten another person. Then it was impossible to ignore, and guys like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa went from the heroes who saved baseball to scumbags who dirtied the sport. It most recently manifested itself when McGwire failed miserably in Hall of Fame voting when the common perception during his career was that he was a lock.

So, is it fair to McGwire? Of course not. I've said before that I think steroids should be banned in sports even if players are willing to accept the health risks associated with them. Technically, Tommy John surgery is science enhancing someone's performance, but I don't think players who don't want to take steroid risks should be disadvantaged by making them legal. As for Hall of Fame voting, a couple of baseball voters have said they aren't going to vote for anyone from the "Steroid Era", but that's pretty stupid. To begin with, we can suspect that McGwire was using, but we don't know, and he retired before steroids were banned by baseball in 2002. Besides, it was the "Steroid Era". That means a lot of guys (including pitchers) were probably juiced, so how do you randomly decide who was helped by it? As I said, the NFL was awash in steroids in the 70s, but no one is saying their Hall of Famers from that era should be drummed out.

However, the sheer hypocrisy is the treatment of Dale Murphy. As Jayson Stark made abundantly clear, baseball voters are stupid. I can see how someone can convince you that a player you didn't vote for before may now deserve your vote, but why do so many players begin losing votes each year? If you think they were deserving once, why not anymore? Murphy's vote percentage has dropped each year until he's getting less than 10% which is mind-boggling to me. This guy won two MVP awards and was one of, if not the best player of the 1980s. How can he possibly be getting so little support for the Hall of Fame? In another column, Stark attributes it to the fact that his numbers looked great in the 80s, but no so good compared to more recent players. Excuse me, so McGwire can't get in because his numbers are believed to be inflated by steroids. Yet, Murphy can't get in because his non-steroid enhanced numbers aren't as good as what juiced players were putting up. Does that make sense to anyone?