For the love of the game?
I was reading this article on Huffington post in which Joseph Spinelli advocates a zero tolerance policy for steroid use in baseball. I know this always comes down to me not having kids. My own dreams of playing major league baseball were dashed at age seven when I learned that women don't play professional baseball, so I have no need for illusions about the purity of the sport, I have no one to protect, but lets make the argument anyway because we can.
The idea of a zero tolerance policy doesn't really track with, well, humanity. As human beings we have certain weaknesses and are prone to making mistakes and to not allow people a second chance is ludicrous. It's not that I'm necessarily opposed to harsher punishment...in cycling for example the punishment for positive doping tests is a two year suspension, granted they don't do 162 races in a season so they could go with a 50 race suspension and it might amount to the same thing, but that's a whole apples to oranges issue and the point is that two years is a long suspension (a harsher punishment than they have in baseball) that in some cases can mean the end of a career but not all cases. Two year suspensions still allow for second chances (look at Daivd Millar).
My other big issue with the article is that he holds up Manny Ramirez as the poster boy of doping in baseball. His zero tolerance policy is specifically directed at Manny. Granted Ramirez is the latest to fall and so he is the current poster boy of doping in baseball, but the irony is that he got caught, or so it seems, because he stopped taking steroids and started taking something else to heal the damage steroid use caused. So he realized the error of his ways, or I prefer to think the Dodgers are a team that won't put up with doping so he had to stop, and now he's trying to play the game clean and now is when we're going to hold him up as an example of someone who should be banned for life. Now he seems to be trying to do the right thing, whatever his reasons, now is when we should give him a second chance.
If you love something, like baseball, you have to accept that it has flaws and love it anyway.
The idea of a zero tolerance policy doesn't really track with, well, humanity. As human beings we have certain weaknesses and are prone to making mistakes and to not allow people a second chance is ludicrous. It's not that I'm necessarily opposed to harsher punishment...in cycling for example the punishment for positive doping tests is a two year suspension, granted they don't do 162 races in a season so they could go with a 50 race suspension and it might amount to the same thing, but that's a whole apples to oranges issue and the point is that two years is a long suspension (a harsher punishment than they have in baseball) that in some cases can mean the end of a career but not all cases. Two year suspensions still allow for second chances (look at Daivd Millar).
My other big issue with the article is that he holds up Manny Ramirez as the poster boy of doping in baseball. His zero tolerance policy is specifically directed at Manny. Granted Ramirez is the latest to fall and so he is the current poster boy of doping in baseball, but the irony is that he got caught, or so it seems, because he stopped taking steroids and started taking something else to heal the damage steroid use caused. So he realized the error of his ways, or I prefer to think the Dodgers are a team that won't put up with doping so he had to stop, and now he's trying to play the game clean and now is when we're going to hold him up as an example of someone who should be banned for life. Now he seems to be trying to do the right thing, whatever his reasons, now is when we should give him a second chance.
If you love something, like baseball, you have to accept that it has flaws and love it anyway.
posted by Beth at
10:10 AM
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