fred you can say the dominicans have the highest stats of steroid use in baseball an i wont refute stats because i have no knowledge of the stats. please though... you are obviously not dominican otherwise you wouldnt be making such such a huge issue about dominicans being at fault in these cases. what about mcguire or clemons and canseco all who are not dominican and others. im not here to fight im just making a point.

Mirabel this is not an us versus them issue Clemens Bonds and Mcguire and all the rest are going to be in the same boat when it comes time to decide how to distinguish between these people and the Jeters and the Pujols......this is a failure of organized baseball coupled with an over competitive wish to succeed for economic reasons in a country that is always willing to corrupt people for economic gain and make young people think that it is justified to do so

Yum Perrys book was greased to sell copies the spit ball was used in front of the umpires and was a cat and mouse game slightly more odious than a big lead off....increasing your physical size a la Bonds Sosa MacGuire is very different then lying in Congress please yum this is not about a corked bat or an emery board in your pocket Clemens has a particularly hard descent into hell for what he did

Op-Ed Contributor
Let Steroids Into the Hall of Fame
By ZEV CHAFETS
Published: June 19, 2009

WHEN the Baseball Hall of Fame commemorates its 70th anniversary with an exhibition game in Cooperstown, N.Y., on Sunday, five of its members will play on the national field of dreams. At least two of them — Paul Molitor and Ferguson Jenkins — were busted in the 1980s for using cocaine. Molitor later said he was sure he wasn’t the only player on the team using drugs.

Given what we now know about baseball’s drug habit, the remark sounds quaint. This week’s report that Sammy Sosa tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003 is only the latest in a long string of revelations. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Mark McGwire — what great players haven’t been linked to drug use?

Since the dawn of baseball, players have used whatever substances they believed would help them perform better, heal faster or relax during a long and stressful season. As far back as 1889, the pitcher Pud Galvin ingested monkey testosterone. During Prohibition, Grover Cleveland Alexander, also a pitcher, calmed his nerves with federally banned alcohol, and no less an expert than Bill Veeck, who owned several major-league teams, said that Alexander was a better pitcher drunk than sober.

In 1961, during his home run race with Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle developed a sudden abscess that kept him on the bench. It came from an infected needle used by Max Jacobson, a quack who injected Mantle with a home-brew containing steroids and speed. In his autobiography, Hank Aaron admitted once taking an amphetamine tablet during a game. The Pirates’ John Milner testified at a drug dealer’s trial that his teammate, Willie Mays, kept “red juice,” a liquid form of speed, in his locker. (Mays denied it.) After he retired, Sandy Koufax admitted the he was often “half high” on the mound from the drugs he took for his ailing left arm.

For decades, baseball beat writers — the Hall of Fame’s designated electoral college — shielded the players from scrutiny. When the Internet (and exposés by two former ballplayers, Jim Bouton and Jose Canseco) allowed fans to see what was really happening, the baseball writers were revealed as dupes or stooges. In a rage, they formed a posse to drive the drug users out of the game.

But today’s superstars have lawyers and a union. They know how to use the news media. And they have plenty of money. The only way to punish them is to deny them a place in Cooperstown. The punishment has already been visited on Mark McGwire, and many more are on deck.

This makes no sense. On any given day, the stands are packed with youngsters on Adderall and Ritalin (stimulants used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and college students who use Provigil (an anti-narcolepsy drug) as a study aid. The guy who sings the national anthem has probably taken a beta blocker to calm his stage fright. Like it or not, chemical enhancement is here to stay. And it is as much a part of the national game as $5.50 hot dogs, free agency and Tommy John elbow surgery.

Purists say that steroids alter the game. But since the Hall opened its doors, baseball has never stopped changing. Batters now wear body padding and helmets. The pitcher’s mound has risen and fallen. Bats have more pop. Night games affect visibility. Players stay in shape in the off-season. Expansion has altered the game’s geography. And its demography has changed beyond recognition. Babe Ruth never faced a black pitcher. As Chris Rock put it, Ruth’s record consisted of “714 affirmative-action home runs.” This doesn’t diminish Ruth’s accomplishment, but it puts it into context.

Statistics change, too. In 1908, Ed Walsh pitched 464 innings; in 2008, C. C. Sabathia led the majors with 253. So what? They were both first under the prevailing conditions of the time.

Despite these changes, or because of them, Americans continue to love baseball. Fans will accept anything except the sense that they are being lied to. Chemical enhancement won’t kill the game; it is the cover-up that could be fatal.

Baseball, led by the Hall of Fame, needs to accept this and replace mythology and spin with realism and honesty. If everyone has access to the same drugs and training methods, and the fans are told what these are, then the field is level and fans will be able to interpret what they are seeing on the diamond and in the box scores.

The purists’ last argument is that players’ use of performance-enhancing drugs sets a bad example for young athletes. But baseball players aren’t children; they are adults in a very stressful and competitive profession. If they want to use anabolic steroids, or human growth hormone or bull’s testosterone, it should be up to them. As for children, the government can regulate their use of these substances as they do with tobacco, alcohol and prescription medicine.

The Baseball Hall of Fame, which started as a local tourist attraction and a major-league publicity stunt, has since become a national field of dreams — and now, a battlefield. If it surrenders to the moralists who want to turn back the clock to some imagined golden era, and excommunicates the greatest stars anyone has ever seen, it will suffer the fate of all battlefields located on the wrong side of history. Obscurity.

Zev Chafets is the author of the forthcoming “Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes, Rogues and the Inside Story of the Baseball Hall of Fame.”

I am thinking more and more of say a 15 year moratorium on voting on Steroid tainted players They must pay some price and suffer some shame

and to think that the Babe just needed a six pack !

When will everybody realize that major league baseball wanted players to juice up after the strike of 94 they needed the fans back in the ballparks.They suckered the fans back in and raised prices through the roof as far as I'm concerned EVERYBODY JUICED FROM 95 THUR 04.

Does anybody remember Shane Spencer's ridiculous sept and Oct then disappearing Lets move on Already and stopped being shocked when we hear someone juiced. And why don't they release all 104 names because a lot of those players are still playing now we wouldn't want to send 20 percent of the league to jail.

I have to agree with Konerko..... bring out the names....

Wed, Jun 17

1B Paul Konerko dismissed the Sammy Sosa steroid story as a non-story in his eyes and gave an explanation why. "Some guy writes an article, the sources aren't public," he said. "One of two things needs to happen: Either whoever is going to report, these sources, put your name behind it and put your face out there and tell people who you are. Or someone admits to it and that's what happened in the Alex Rodriguez thing. That's the only two ways that this becomes a story. Obviously, you guys are standing here so it's a story. But I just think that it's just sad it has come to the fact that news now is on reports, unnamed sources and that kind of stuff. It gives it a bad name for you guys (the media)."

(Yahoo! Sports)

As if the most important newspaper in the country does not already have a bad name the NY Times is not the Podunk Register also they had better release all the names I think it is inevitable and only fair this way is like the Chinese Water torture .....If big mouth Corky had not started talking about waiting for his phone call from the hall of fame we still would not know what we always knew

Goulet:

Thats what you think triggered the secret source releasing Sosa's name?

The source is the one that should be sent to jail!!! why the hell is he 'suero ' releasing the names !?