Get out, cheaters!

Today is the 1st day of MLB's Spring Training. Underscoring the League's growing irrelevance is this guy, and the League's treatment of him.

This past week, we heard his confession that he took steroids for a brief portion of his career, the implication being that that was way back when. He claimed, in an interview with Peter Gammons, that it was mostly "the culture" then (the time when he was a Texas Ranger) and that he felt like he was under a lot of pressure to perform having been given a huge contract.

Uh, bullshit. A-roid, you lied about cheating until you were exposed.

You felt huge pressure to cheat. Not because of your pretend committment to satisfy your fans, but to satisfy your greed for dollars and fame.

Major League Baseball is complicit in your guilt, because they willingly looked the other way regarding testing and accountability for drugs. They had a product that folks didn't want so much any more. Why? Striking ball-players who already made more money each season than most fans would see in their lifetimes. What'll bring 'em back? Home runs, that's what. Big offensive production equals excitement. And the fans will forget their distaste if we repackage the product as a sportier, new & improved model.

Yes, MLB is partly to blame. But that doesn't exonerate you, asshole. The only way professional baseball will ever truly win me back as a fan is the day they begin cutting cheaters out of the picture. That means banishment. And I mean every last one of you, even if I liked you once. Certainly that includes the Barry Bonds, Mark McGuires, Sammy Sosas, and Jason Giambis of the world, but it also includes any of the perceived good guys. For instance, if Junior Griffey ( a personal favorite) cheated, I'd say kick him out for good. I'll go on the record as saying that I don't think that's the case, but the point I'm making is that I say nobody is excused for cheating.

Pete Rose was my baseball hero. And I cared deeply that he was banned by Giamatti. I defended him to anyone who would listen. I believed him when he said he didn't break the rules. But he did. And he made it worse by lying to me about it. No amount of contrition now, makes up for betraying my trust then. If I was a Hall of Fame voter, and held the swing vote (if somehow he became eligible) he'd get the thumbs-down from me. If I were Commissioner, every single last living-loving one of the players who have ever-even-once taken steroids (read: any performance enhancing drugs...banned/not-banned/frowned upon, etc.) would be purged in every regard from professional baseball. Ditto for every manager, coach, trainer, executive, or owner who actively or passively condoned the behavior.

MLB is not a game anymore. And until there's some recognizable purity to the competition and record books, they can just count me out.

To you, Major League Baseball, I say fuck you. To A-rod, you get today's Flush-O-Gram.