Say it aint so Roger.....

If the Mitchell report is right and Roger Clemens used performance enhancing drugs and if Barry Bonds is convicted in the current perjury case before the courts, then both the greatest pitcher and the greatest slugger of the last 20 years will not get into the Hall of Fame.

Sen. Mitchell talks about the hundreds of thousands of children who look up to these players as role models. Therefore I feel that the damage has already been done. These kids have grown up with the super muscled MacGwires and Bonds and have seen what steroids can do to a players ability on the field. It can raise a good player to great and this will be a huge incentive for these kids to play follow the leader. No other baseball scandal whether it be Pete Rose or the Black Sox were an existential type threat to the game. We have seen the glory of steroids with 70 homerun seasons and 3.0 lifetime ERAs....now we need to see the punishment.

Sen. Mitchell does not think that they should be criminally punished (and I agree). However Major League Baseball and the sports writers need to impose some kind of punishment. I think keeping them out of Cooperstown will serve as a start. The other punishment should be to asterisk their records (The Baseball equivalent of a Scarlet letter) and possibly even have their career records stricken from the books. That would be a powerful statement to young players that steroid use has serious consequences.

And finally almost all of this has happened under Bud Selig's reign and it would be highly unjust if he doesnt bear some of the resposnsibility for allowing Americans pastime to be so permanently tarnished.