Let that sink in for a minute.
For many years now, players such as Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling among others have been kept out of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame because at some point in their career they were caught using a performance enhancing drug of some sort.
Last month, Cooperstown approved David Ortiz getting into the Hall of Fame, but several of the above mentioned names were not. Ortiz gaining entry and the others not was argument enough.
But now, Major League Baseball after 20 years is halting testing on steroids for active MLB players. The Associated Press confirmed that the reason there is a halt is due to the league’s drug agreement between management and the players’ association that is expiring.
The previous bargaining agreement, which ran from 2017 to 2021, included drug testing and said that both sides agreed on a provision that states “the termination date and time of the program shall be 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1, 2021.”
While the hope is that players would not try to sneak in a quick cycle of Deca or D-Bol prior to the start of the season, if they’re not being tested, why wouldn’t they? There are over 1000 active members presently in the MLB, and you can’t tell me that at least a handful won’t try and juice up before the start of the season.
More importantly, it seems very hypocritical of the league to stop testing its players when just last month they kept some of the greatest of all time out of Cooperstown for at one point testing positive. Anybody who stood in the way of keeping these legends out of the Hall of Fame shod e removed from their position of power and never have the opportunity to vote again.
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. Even the playing field and allow PED use for all players. Seeing scores like 24-15 and bombs being shot out of the park regularly would make this dying sport a hell of a lot more interesting.
