Guilty or Innocent? Who decides?

written by Brian Kassay and Jasper Kassay

Currently Major League Baseball is going through one of the biggest changes the sport has ever seen. The steroid scandal has destroyed the careers of the guilty, including Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmerio, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens and most recently, Alex Rodriguez. The question is, should the players that are ‘suspected’ of using be grouped in with the proven users and whether or not these players should be enshrined in Cooperstown.

We cannot deny the fact that Barry Bonds is one of the greatest baseball players who ever lived. He was a five-tool ball player, and mastered almost every aspect of the game, except treating the fans with respect. Bonds is a prime example of a Hall of Famer, but there are questions on whether he will be in the hall of fame, standing next to his god father Willie Mays due to the BALCO Scandal. Bonds, though refuses to admit he used knowingly, has admitted steroid use on multiple accounts. Barry holds the all time home run record as well as the single season home run record. Bonds is yet to officially retire, currently a free agent looking for a job with a major league ball club. His career average is just under the .300 mark; he stands on top of Hank Aaron with 762 home runs, and is the only member of the 500-500 Club. He is also just 65 hits away from 3,000 as well as 38 Home runs away from being the lone member of the 800 Club. Question is, how should history judge Bonds? Popular opinion thinks of Bonds as a Hall of Famer before his introduction to steroids, whenever that may be. However, should a steroid user of any kind be enshrined in the temple of baseball, as a player that has exemplified the way that the game should be played?

As of April 10^th, 2009 Jim Thome was sitting on 542 career Home Runs. At the age of 38, the thought of Thome hitting another 68 home runs before he retires is not an unreasonable thought. However, considering the era that Thome played his career in, the peers that he was surrounded by, many will find it difficult not group him in with the steroid users, though zero evidence has been presented to justify this type of thinking. The popular school of thought seems to be to group any power hitter from the 90’s with a large frame, and a high strikeout rate in with the steroid users whether there has been evidence presented against them or not. However, if no evidence is brought forward to prove Thome as a user, why should his career accomplishments be taken away?

Another aspect of popular opinion seems to be to take a player that had an eye popping career year, like Brady Anderson or Luis Gonzalez. The popular opinion of the American public seems to say ‘Look at the crazy one year line! They had to have been juicing!’ I plea that this is a very unfair statement because there is zero evidence outside of those stat jumps that they used anything but extra practice and luck to accomplish those great years. Many may plea, which this is not enough to have an enormous season like that, but if we claim that every guy that has a monstrous season was on steroids, or was cheating in general, than we have to claim that Roger Maris was cheating as well. Amazing career years happen, and are not always the resulting effect of cheating or juicing.

The court of popular opinion is a highly influential, cruel court, with no regulations on it and no appeals. As Americans, we are proud of our judicial system, which provides fair trial to anyone who may have broken the law. The court of popular opinion often judges quickly after minimal evidence has been presented. Though the resulting consequences of a guilty ruling in this court is not jail time, all respect for the ‘guilty’ party will be lost, and a mental asterisk is placed over the ‘guilty’ parties career accomplishments. I beg you as baseball fans, let evidence decide who is guilty, not your gut.