you miss the point. this is not a court of law. there are no criminal penalties. this is the court of public opinion. they are entertainers who pretend to be pure sportsmen.

for the short time they were tested they were given the test date ahead of time so they and their enablers can cheat the system. as the participants in track and field know when you know when you are going to take a test and you have well paid chemists at your disposal you can game the system. marion jones did, but the difference is that years later they still have the blood samples ( not urine ). they can test those samples years later with better techniques and prove the cheating that went on before.

she and others’ like her ( the east germans in the soviet era ) could game the system for a while and claim they never cheated. just like bonds.

the problem is the players assoc. will not allow real testing and real penalties to be enforced. they are serving their client which is the cheaters they are trying to protect.

don’t take baseball’s inept management of the situation as proof that no one is cheating.

Players have been taking for far longer than 2000. I think the easy solution is to let stand whatever team records as far as win/losses because you cannot untangle the mess and you cannot go back and replay seasons.

You can punish individuals who cheated. That is a personal decision based on pride and greed. You zero out all their personal records. You do not quibble about when they started , how long they cheated, the relative talent of the individuals. White Shoes Johnson had lots of talent and his career ended and was wiped from baseball. He was also cleared I believe.

Clemens, Bonds, McGuire, etc should have all personal records rolled back to zero. No accomplishments no debate on HOF. They were made millionaires by cheating. That is their reward. They do not deserve immortality.

If you really want to get serious you go after the clubs. If you can prove that they knew what was going on you penalize them in some way. You also create penalties like the players have to face if they allow cheating to occur. Managers, trainers, owners, GM’s, scouts should all bear some form of penalty from $$ to suspensions or bans or a forced sale of their interest in the clubs.

Those are real penalties that will force a change in behavior and leave no doubt as to the integrity of the game.

Dave

Clemens, he was great but I never thought he was Steve Carlton, Lou Brock, or, Tom Seaver. I could never figure how he was doing it and couldn’t believe he just kept pulling down the Cy Young Awards. It just makes those that didn’t look so much better for their accomplishments.

As far as 2000? Well, as a Mets fan I can only say—Can you say Armando Benitez? That’s what killed us, not these cheaters.

Personally, I could care less what any voter does on the HOF ballot as long as each one is consistant with the voting. If anyone follows, Mr Bones lead, they should be expelled from the voting process, All these guys will have to vote their own conscience and heart becasue I don’t see MLB giving any guidelines. So good luck to JD and all the other voters stuck with this dilemma.

Lets face it, that whole Yankee team was tarnished badly by the Mitchell report. Take off your pin-striped blinders long enough to be objective.

Unlike Barry who put on tremendous mass (including his head!), Roger has basically stayed the same. He is thicker, but it looks consistent with anyone his age.

Has Roger picked up more velocity on his fast ball? Or has he demonstrating overpowering stuff? NO. Roger is very similar pitcher today than he was when he first arrived. Barry is not even close to the same player he was when he first came up, and amazingly he got better at age 37. Hmmmm?

I bet he won’t dare. Because he knows he’s guilty.