Damage Control

It looks like HGH is the easy way out for the players who have been exposed by the Mitchell Report. Andy Pettit copped to using HGH a couple of times to speed the recovery process after sustaining an injury. Now Fernando Vina is making the same excuse. How many more will follow? Of course, let's give credit where credit is due, Paul Byrd spun this web of lies during the ALCS when his name was connected to a massive shipment of HGH.

Bullshit.

The truth of the matter is that the guys on this list represent a small percentage of cheaters. Just because Jose Canseco is the only guy willing to admit that he regularly used steroids to enhance his performance doesn't mean the other players are just dabblers.

Even if Andy Pettit is being honest and he really limited his excursion into the realm of performance enhancement to a recovery process skepticism is the price he has to pay. It's not like Pettit came forward before the report was released. He was just the first guy to use an admission as damage control. That doesn't make him a good guy, just a smart one. He's still a liar and a cheater. If he was honest he would have assisted in the investigation.

Look, playing baseball is a privilege. Players are expected to do things a certain way. There's no question that the temptation to take steroids is tremendous and in some cases the use of performance enhancing substances might even be required but there are consequences for every action.

And let's get real...

It would be fitting if every player from the mid 1980's through the 2007 season was denied induction into the Hall of Fame. Even though a lot of players didn't cheat, most knew about it and didn't say anything. Everybody involved in baseball over the last 25 years has a hand in this mess. Tony Gwinn and Cal Ripkin Jr. are just as guilty of dishonoring the game as the guys on the Mitchell Report. Aiding and abetting.

By the way, Pete Rose fans...Pete's still a scumbag of the highest order. Right or wrong, prior to 2002 gambling was the worst crime a baseball player could think of committing. One of the greatest players of all time, Shoeless Joe Jackson, is still banned from baseball even though most baseball historians feel he was an innocent victim in a massive scandal. Pete Rose was no innocent victim. He was a egomaniac who willfully and wantonly broke baseball's cardinal rule. Then, after he signed his own ban, he embarked on a campaign to ruin baseball for everybody else. Steroids might be the worst form of cheating but nothing is more disgraceful than Pete Rose.