'Roid rage

I am sick to death of hearing about steroids in baseball, but how about this:

Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds both deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. Why? They were the best players of the Steroid Era, just like Ty Cobb was the best player of the Dead Ball Era, and Rickey Henderson was the best player of the Stolen Base Era, and Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson were the best pitchers of the High Pitcher’s Mound Era.

People will know the statistics are skewed by era, and people will know what the 1990s and 2000s mean when looking at stats.

They know that there were very few home runs before Babe Ruth, they know that Rickey ushered in a new era of high stolen base totals, that Gibson pitched in the years before baseball lowered the pitcher’s mound and so on.

Players took steroids. If it was legal and not banned by baseball, leave them alone. If it was illegal, prosecute them. If it was against baseball’s rules, punish them.

It’s too late to apply today’s rules retroactively and to punish players who, technically, may not have been doing anything wrong.