It’s obvious Bud Selig wants to clean up the steroid mess.
And, you can tell the players are serious because there is less and less talk about protecting the guilty ones. “If they are guilty, they should be punished to the max,’’ said David Wright, the Mets’ young third baseman, who wants no part of being connected to the steroid generation. There wasn’t a Met today who spoke against the purpose of MLB’s investigation, but the timing puzzled more than a few. They believe the revamped steroid policy has teeth, but also think the investigation is damage control from a book detailing Barry Bonds’ alleged usage and to thwart Congress from getting involved. However, despite the tough talk, it must be remembered the investigation doesn’t have subpoena power and there’s no grand jury. Selig, this afternoon, also didn’t reveal what any possible punishment might be. So, what Selig is banking on is somebody admitting they used, and just who will do that? After seeing what happened with Rafael Palmeiro and the attention given Bonds, no player will put himself up to that embarrassement and stress. Baseball’s policy dictates punishment should a player test positive, but there’s no basis for penalty if it is determined a player was juicing five years ago. Unless Selig dictates now that any player found to have used steroids would have his records stripped, or at least accompanied with an asterisk, there’s nothing he can do. I believe Selig can do this, but doing so might have repercussions one can only imagine. Personally, I thought Bonds should go into the Hall of Fame because it would be hard to quantify the numbers to supposed usage. There is also the matter that regardless of the benefits derived from steroids, a player still had to hit the ball. Perhaps most sticky, steroids weren’t a banned substance by baseball until recently. This is Bonds’ biggest defense and I thought it had credibility. However, and this is what I overlooked, is even though MLB didn’t ban steroids, using them without a prescription was, and still is, illegal. Bottom line: Bonds, or anybody else using, broke the law and cheated. Given that, Selig should break out the asterisk now rather than wait until Bonds is rounding the bases.