Baseballs "All Clean Team" from SI.com

[Why Not?]

The idea that all baseball players not named in media reports as steroid users are "clean" and therefore morally superior to those unlucky enough to get busted is patently false and everyone knows it.

Obviously I can't quantify the amount of money sports and mainstream publications have made off of sensationalizing the steroid story, but if it wasn't profitable for them, they wouldn't be so desperate to keep drumming up non-stories.

The bulk of the column states almost exactly what you're saying. He even prefaces his list with "Here's the rest of my Top 10 Clean Superstars (until proven otherwise)"

I'm guessing you didn't read it?

Do you really think steroid use in baseball is a non-story? Should steroid use in sports be ignored? If so, why do you feel that way? I hope it's not because players you root for are involved.

What you consider sensationalizing, most people consider good reporting. The greatest hitter and greatest pitcher of my lifetime used illegal drugs to reach their greatness. The record books have been rewritten, then we find out those records are a fraud. That's not a story?

[blueberryale77]

The bulk of the column states almost exactly what you're saying. He even prefaces his list with "Here's the rest of my Top 10 Clean Superstars (until proven otherwise)"

I'm guessing you didn't read it?

Do you really think steroid use in baseball is a non-story? Should steroid use in sports be ignored? If so, why do you feel that way? I hope it's not because players you root for are involved.

What you consider sensationalizing, most people consider good reporting. The greatest hitter and greatest pitcher of my lifetime used illegal drugs to reach their greatness. The record books have been rewritten, then we find out those records are a fraud. That's not a story?

The disclaimer means very little. Just writing the story pushes the idea that there's some way to tell who's clean. It's a story that shouldn't have been written. I dispute your point that most people consider this drivel good reporting. Just look at the majority of the opinions expressed in this very thread. Investigations into how steroids may have impacted overall statistics, how the steroid culture took hold, how management encouraged it over the years, etc. can be considered solid, in depth journalism. Top 10 lists of supposedly clean players can not. It is pandering to the masses and their lust for more and more stories that paint the steroid issue in black and white, plain and simple. Is the steroid culture a story that should be covered seriously by the baseball media? Yes, of course. However, the amount and quality of the coverage provided by major sports and mainstream media outlets is pathetic.

It bothers me a little bit that an entire generation of the game of baseball has been impacted by this issue. I feel sympathy for the young men who compromised their physical health and those who may have been passed over for a job in favor of someone who was using. The statistics to me are only a minor concern. There are so many factors that vary from one generation to the next that comparing the records of one generation to another is tenuous with or without chemical enhancement. I find it impossible to generate the amount of moral outrage over numbers on a page that some fans do. There are so many much, much more important social issues in our country, there is just no outrage left. I don't like Barry Bonds, but I think he's getting a raw deal when it comes to steroids. I really think fans should be more bothered by the way he treats people than by whether his statistics later in his career were enhanced by a drug that most of his peers were also taking and his bosses openly looked the other way about.

[Why Not?]

The disclaimer means very little. Just writing the story pushes the idea that there's some way to tell who's clean. It's a story that shouldn't have been written. I dispute your point that most people consider this drivel good reporting. Just look at the majority of the opinions expressed in this very thread. Investigations into how steroids may have impacted overall statistics, how the steroid culture took hold, how management encouraged it over the years, etc. can be considered solid, in depth journalism. Top 10 lists of supposedly clean players can not. It is pandering to the masses and their lust for more and more stories that paint the steroid issue in black and white, plain and simple. Is the steroid culture a story that should be covered seriously by the baseball media? Yes, of course. However, the amount and quality of the coverage provided by major sports and mainstream media outlets is pathetic.

It bothers me a little bit that an entire generation of the game of baseball has been impacted by this issue. I feel sympathy for the young men who compromised their physical health and those who may have been passed over for a job in favor of someone who was using. The statistics to me are only a minor concern. There are so many factors that vary from one generation to the next that comparing the records of one generation to another is tenuous with or without chemical enhancement. I find it impossible to generate the amount of moral outrage over numbers on a page that some fans do. There are so many much, much more important social issues in our country, there is just no outrage left. I don't like Barry Bonds, but I think he's getting a raw deal when it comes to steroids. I really think fans should be more bothered by the way he treats people than by whether his statistics later in his career were enhanced by a drug that most of his peers were also taking and his bosses openly looked the other way about.

The entire article is about whether or not you can believe anyone is clean. Seriously, you should read it, because you are misrepresenting the nature of the column.

I think the first sentence of your second graph is the key here. You just want the whole thing to go away. It's not going to. It happened. It IS happening. The media can't look the other way, nor should it.

[blueberryale77]

The entire article is about whether or not you can believe anyone is clean. Seriously, you should read it, because you are misrepresenting the nature of the column.

I think the first sentence of your second graph is the key here. You just want the whole thing to go away. It's not going to. It happened. It IS happening. The media can't look the other way, nor should it.

Please stop trying to tell me what I've read and what I want. You don't know and you have no reason to think you do. My interpretation of the article differs significantly from yours. The guy is basically putting Chipper Jones on a pedestal for not being linked to PEDs while glossing over the problems he's had in his personal life that many might consider significantly worse than messing with steroids. I really am curious to know why it is you say that most of the article is about how you can't tell who's clean. He clearly promotes the concept of guessing about who's clean and who isn't, which is completely counterproductive in my mind. The names don't matter. At least half of the sport was actively involved in the scandal and the rest were passively involved. Wanting an end to the finger-pointing and the painting of halos on players who are presumed not to have used because they weren't listed in a very incomplete report is not the same thing as wanting the issue to just "go away." I want it to be dealt with for the future, but I want people to put it in perspective. It was a negative trend that caught on and took the whole baseball world by storm. It's at least as prevalent in other sports but nobody cares about it there. I want baseball and other sports to do what they can within reason to protect their athletes from harming themselves in order to increase the sport's, and their, bottom line, but I also want the US Congress to get back to the business of actually running the country and trying to deal with the two ongoing wars and the impending recession, among other things, and I really would prefer not to hear a bunch of self-righteous people keep hemming and hawing about steroids as if a) it's the worst sin in the world or at least worse than any they've ever committed and b) they can absolutely guarantee that if they were living the life of any of the individuals who have been involved they wouldn't have even dreamed of touching the stuff. Headlines (and let's face it we know a lot of Americans only read the headlines) like "The All-Clean Team: Chipper, A-Rod head list of players worth believing in" certainly promote the "good vs. evil" storyline instead of encouraging in depth analysis of how the problem took hold and what types of painful decisions players faced about whether or not to use.

[Migrant Redbird]

The entire article is about whether or not you can believe anyone is clean. Seriously, you should read it, because you are misrepresenting the nature of the column.

The article is just column filler. There's nothing in it worth reading.

Jones, the longtime third baseman of the Braves, is someone that you can believe in without reservation or apology.

I'm supposed to believe that "Larry Boy" is clean? Why on earth would I? He's demonstrated little in the way of character over the years that would incline me to believe he's any less likely to have used PEDs than any of the other 600 or so current major leaguers who haven't tested positive or had their name linked to any of the reports. I have no way at all of knowing whether Chipper is "clean" or not. I'm not going to insinuate that he must have been using steroids or HGH just because he's been a premier player most of his career or just because he's been hampered by injuries (steroids make you fragile, don't you know?), but I see no reason to single Chipper out as any more likely to be a saint than any player.

Or, at least, you can believe in what he's doing as much as you can believe in anyone in baseball these days.

Uh, well yes, Donovan my boy, but if you'd led with that statement and applied it to the other players, you wouldn't have had anything to write an article about, now would you?

All Donovan did was to pick a dozen or so top players who haven't been linked [yet] to PEDs abuse and write a vapid paragraph extolling each of them, then passed it off to his editor under the highly misleading headline of The All-Clean Team. "All-Clean" implies that they've all been given a clean bill of health (or should be) which is clearly bogus. Donovan presents absolutely nothing in the way of rationale to support that position. He met a column deadline and that's it. It's an utterly worthless article which contributes absolutely nothing to informing baseball fans about what's going on in the sport with respect to PEDs.

[66-70-83-??]

MigrantRedbird,

You have defended McGwire several times here suggesting that he never used steroids. You earlier wrote Pujols was the "least likely" player in MLB to use steroids. You even threw all these players under the bus- Ralph Kiner, Roger Maris, Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, Ken Griffey Jr., Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Hack Wilson, Mickie Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Harmon Killebrew, Ted Kluszewski, Frank Robinson, or Ernie Banks.

I think that is ridiculous to assume that any of those guys even knew what these substances were, let alone tried them. The science behind these wasn't widely studied. There is no evidence at all.

That is all OK, though. You are entitled to believe whatever you want and tell us in your posts here. FWIW, I believe that the steroid era is where all the evidence points too- the last 15-20 years.

But, OTOH, all this SI author does is give us some of his "opinions" in his article, which is his job.

Why do you have such the problem with that ? PS- isn't it his job to write pieces that evoke emotion and opinion from readers.

It is ironic: I remember months ago reading posts from some of the "player apologists" (for lack of a better term, not meant as a slam) that told us it isn't fair to accuse any players of doing steroids without proof.

Now, after months of new info that shows many players have been caught and/or admitted (including some OHer's "pet" player) all of a sudden posters are telling us it isn't fair to accuse any players of being clean ?? (I guess its- if our guy is a "bad boy", surely they ALL must be)

OK.

I agree that it is hard to tell who is/isn't clean in MLB. All we have to go by is which players have actually been caught.

I can understand being suspicious of all MLB players. They, as a group, lost the benefit of the doubt long ago with me. But, the "anger" directed at a writer for suggesting some players are clean is puzzling.

[blueberryale77]

It is ironic: I remember months ago reading posts from some of the "player apologists" (for lack of a better term, not meant as a slam) that told us it isn't fair to accuse any players of doing steroids without proof.

Now, after months of new info that shows many players have been caught and/or admitted (including some OHer's "pet" player) all of a sudden posters are telling us it isn't fair to accuse any players of being clean ?? (I guess its- if our guy is a "bad boy", surely they ALL must be)

OK.

How do you not understand the difference here? Accusing someone of something which can be highly damaging to their reputation without proof is wrong, period. Even if the thing you're accusing them of isn't really all that terrible, you still shouldn't impugn their reputation without proof. For example, if you claimed someone was gay without proof, I don't believe there's anything wrong with being gay, but I would still vehemently tell you that you had no right to "out" them based on an unsubstantiated report.

While painting a halo on someone based on a mere lack of publicly available evidence against them is certainly much less harmful to that person, the principal is the same: when you assume, you make a [donkey] out of "u" and "me." It's creating your own reality instead of making judgments based on evidence where available and accepting that there is much you don't know and probably never will. Instead of dealing with the whole problem, including the role of fans' consumer choices in driving the steroid culture, goofy stories about the "all clean team" of guys fans can "believe in" pushes the idea that steroids were a small to medium size problem perpetrated by a relatively small group of players who were up to no good through no fault of anyone else's. If the whole issue in the culture isn't dealt with honestly, any resolution to the problem will be neither fair nor lasting.

[Why Not?]

Please stop trying to tell me what I've read and what I want. You don't know and you have no reason to think you do.

I'm pretty sure I do know.

My interpretation of the article differs significantly from yours. The guy is basically putting Chipper Jones on a pedestal for not being linked to PEDs while glossing over the problems he's had in his personal life that many might consider significantly worse than messing with steroids.

He mentions Jones' personal issues. That's not what the column is about. If he fully explored each player's non-steroid related history, it would be a book. The infidelity vs. steroid argument is a whole different thing. By the way, I think we share the same view on that.

I really am curious to know why it is you say that most of the article is about how you can't tell who's clean. He clearly promotes the concept of guessing about who's clean and who isn't, which is completely counterproductive in my mind. The names don't matter. At least half of the sport was actively involved in the scandal and the rest were passively involved. Wanting an end to the finger-pointing and the painting of halos on players who are presumed not to have used because they weren't listed in a very incomplete report is not the same thing as wanting the issue to just "go away."

He clearly couches his opinion with the notion that any members of his All-Clean Team could be guilty as well.

"The hardest part of this whole Steroids Period in baseball -- is figuring out who and what to believe.........I'm talking, on any given day, about the difficulty in trying to determine who has been messing around with the stuff and who hasn't. ...........Now, it takes a great leap of faith in baseball these days to truly believe in someone. ..........Or, at least, you can believe in what [Jones is] doing as much as you can believe in anyone in baseball these days. It's a dangerous position to be in, of course, as all the Jose Canseco fans out there can tell you.............

I want it to be dealt with for the future, but I want people to put it in perspective. It was a negative trend that caught on and took the whole baseball world by storm. It's at least as prevalent in other sports but nobody cares about it there. I want baseball and other sports to do what they can within reason to protect their athletes from harming themselves in order to increase the sport's, and their, bottom line,

Since testing is and will stay behind the drugs, the best way to prevent future use of steroids is by making sure the current and past users are exposed. It's a worthwhile deterrent.

but I also want the US Congress to get back to the business of actually running the country and trying to deal with the two ongoing wars and the impending recession, among other things, and I really would prefer not to hear a bunch of self-righteous people keep hemming and hawing about steroids as if a) it's the worst sin in the world or at least worse than any they've ever committed and b) they can absolutely guarantee that if they were living the life of any of the individuals who have been involved they wouldn't have even dreamed of touching the stuff.

Since when does government only take on a few things and ignore everything else. They have time to deal with this. It really isn't an issue. As long as MLB pulls in billions of dollars from citizens while playing in taxpayer-built ballparks, yeah, congress is going to have an interest in that. Whether you object or not, steroid use is against the law, so government has an interest...and they SHOULD.

I still think you are shooting the messenger here. Every steroid-related story isn't going to be an in-depth expose of how steroid use started, its effects and possible ways of fixing the problem. That's just not realistic. Still, those books HAVE been written.

I think it's because it's easier to hate the writers than to see the ballplayers you enjoy watching go down. You've rationalized steroid use over and over. You portray them as victims of the system, attacked their critics, you point to other sports which might have similar or worse problems, compared steroid use favorably with other moral slipups.

It's like being mad at the cop when you get pulled over for speeding. "Everybody else was speeding.....speeding isn't really that bad...police should be focused on more severe crimes.....who is the cop to judge me? He's probably guilty of some other similar crimes" In the end, you were still breaking the law.

I guess we just have to disagree. These guys made the decision to cheat, they should pay for that decision.

[RShack]

Personally, I would like to see a list of the "All-Innocent Owners" ;-)

According to The Commissioner, it includes all of them...

[Why Not?]

Personally, I would like to see a list of the "All-Innocent Owners" ;-)

According to The Commissioner, it includes all of them...

"All of us have to take responsibility, starting with me," said Selig.

Selig went to great lengths to take responsibility for baseball's steroid problem, saying he wishes the sport reacted quicker, and vowed to increase testing year-round. "There is no question that would strengthen the program," he said.

-- Jan. 16, USA TODAY

[byrdz]

"All of us have to take responsibility, starting with me," said Selig.

Selig went to great lengths to take responsibility for baseball's steroid problem, saying he wishes the sport reacted quicker, and vowed to increase testing year-round. "There is no question that would strengthen the program," he said.

-- Jan. 16, USA TODAY

Selig HAS to take responsibility for this; the federal government says so.

[mweb]

MigrantRedbird,

You have defended McGwire several times here suggesting that he never used steroids. You earlier wrote Pujols was the "least likely" player in MLB to use steroids. You even threw all these players under the bus- Ralph Kiner, Roger Maris, Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, Ken Griffey Jr., Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Hack Wilson, Mickie Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Harmon Killebrew, Ted Kluszewski, Frank Robinson, or Ernie Banks.

I think that is ridiculous to assume that any of those guys even knew what these substances were, let alone tried them. The science behind these wasn't widely studied. There is no evidence at all.

There is some reason to think Aaron tried steroids, I've posted it before. It's certainly not Game of Shadows evidence, or even Mitchell Report evidence, but there is something to ponder. Wouldn't dismiss the posibility at all.

[RShack]

"All of us have to take responsibility, starting with me," said Selig.

Selig made a point of listing every party involved *except* the owners. He named the players, the union, FO personnel, the trainers, and himself. The one group he carefully did not mention was the owners. If you can show me one quote where Bud mentioned the guys who he's working for, I will retract my statement.

[blueberryale77]

I'm pretty sure I do know.

I'm pretty sure there's a whole, whole lot you don't know but are thoroughly convinced you do.

[Why Not?]

Selig made a point of listing every party involved *except* the owners. He named the players, the union, FO personnel, the trainers, and himself. The one group he carefully did not mention was the owners. If you can show me one quote where Bud mentioned the guys who he's working for, I will retract my statement.

In my mind, Selig = ownership. Major League Baseball IS the clubs. Selig is their mouthpiece, he represents them.

Perhaps I'm giving the owners a break here, but I consider Selig as admitting everyone has some fault. We'll see if Selig attempts to act against the Giants' ownership for failing to investigate Bonds. I don't know if he can even do that.