Presumed Guilty: The "Sad" Stories of Baseball Players Today

Alex Rodriguez has been convicted by a jury of his public. It doesn't matter if he's innocent or guilty, because, well, he's guilty. This Dr. Galea gave him human growth hormone and that's that. Jose Reyes, too--and hey, doesn't this freak injury prove he was on something? Did you see how big Nomar Garciaparra was at one point and all those injuries he had at the end of his career? Guilty! Proof? You actually want proof? Why would you need that? Hang them all in the public square next to the court of public opinion.

Too healthy? He's on steroids! Too hurt? Steroids! Consistently high production? Steroids! A jump in production? Steroids! A decline in production? Withdrawal form steroids! If you're a baseball player in 2010, you're guilty before you've even given a comment, and if you dare answer "no comment", you're definitely guilty.

The truth is, though, I don't feel bad for the players at all. Let's say that Derek Jeter is cleaner than clean and he never even thought about doing steroids or HGH or any other PED--he's had plenty of chances to step up and say "hey, I'm clean, let's make sure things get changed" and has passed up on those opportunities. I know he's part of a union and a team and has benefited by playing alongside juicers (can we call them Juiceheads or is that only reserved for the Jersey Shore?), but the dude has more clout in baseball than Bud Selig, Joe Torre and Ted Williams frozen head combined. If there is currently an "Ambassador of Baseball" playing in the Major Leagues, I think that Jeter has to be it. And yet he stayed quiet too.

I'm not blaming Jeter or any of the quiet players, though, for everyone else's mistakes (though Mariano Rivera could step forward and say something, too). They don't deserve that much scorn for other people's misdeeds. A-Rod has lied and lied again. So when something doesn't pass the "sniff test", you can understand that writers get suspicious.

That doesn't mean that the writers can have open season to shout accusations from the rooftop, or even from their newspapers like they're Émile Zola or Woodward and Bernstein. The writers (yes, some of us are bloggers, but many of those people we expect more from reside in the "Mainstream Media") decided that they were wrong to not tell the public about steroids in baseball in 1998, so in 2010 they decided that they'll tell the public about everyone they expect of doing something wrong. Journalistic integrity? Craig Calcaterra of HardballTalk thinks not:

I have to say that I don't know if a player ever took PEDs, but I know the writer making the accusation doesn't know either, yet does it anyway. And though I'm certain the answer will be "never," I ask again: when will anyone in the mainstream media call out guys like Steve Henson (or Rick Telander or Jon Heyman) for hurling such accusations the way they called out blogger Jerrod Morris for doing something far, far less irresponsible?

And no, "because we think Nomar did it and Ibanez didn't" is not an acceptable answer. At least not for people who like to lecture others about "journalistic integrity" all the time.

And here's the "sad" part for those "poor" baseball players: football, basketball, and hockey players get a free pass. There's a double standard, especially with football and baseball. I'll agree that baseball is a more individual sport than any of the other Major 4 and that baseball record books are held in a much higher standard than any others, but let's be serious: people are using in every sport. We're just getting an HGH test and trust me, if there's something that can pass a piss test, players who make hundreds of millions of dollars will find it. Trust me these players have more money than any anti-doping agency--they have more money than God.

So what's my solution? I just don't care. If someone gets caught, punish them. If they don't, make a better test that flushes out the cheaters. Here's what I said in May of last year:

We all hate Carl Pavano now for not trying. If had taken steroids and HGH to recover from injuries and had been great for the Yankees, would there be any question we would have embraced him? If Alex Rodriguez leads the Yankees to the World Series this year, I won't give two shits about whether he stuck a needle in his butt a few years ago.

And the truth is that I don't. As a baseball fan, I want the players to do it naturally, but I rather they do it dirty than not do it clean. I'm not rushing to give back all the World Series trophies the Yankees won with Roger Clemens and I'm sure the Red Sox feel the same with Big Papi and Manny Ramirez. Some may feel that the problem then lies in the fan who wanted more home runs and more strikeouts...but I say that's just a case of someone who is trying to sell more newspapers. The truth is that a lot worse things are done in the world. Hell, even worse things are done in sports. But let's all take a step back and stop pointing fingers without any proof--and also stop defending those who don't deserve to be defended.