Halfway To A Good Idea
Rick Reilly has an interesting idea this week, give the awards won by PED users to the people that finished second in the voting. I like the sentiment, now that we know A-Rod used steroids in 2003, why should he keep the MVP? But the solution is flawed.
It's easy to sit here and say this player should have won or that player should have won instead, but that assumes that the runners-up were clean too. Does anyone want to make a substantial bet on that fact? Sorry Mike Greenwell, but you don't deserve the 1988 MVP because Jose Canseco used steroids unless you can prove that you didn't too. Sorry Albert Pujols, you seem clean but we just can't be sure.
Unfair you say? Absolutely, but the players created this mess and they need to live with it. Instead of giving the award to the runner-up in any given year, strip the award away entirely. Let the records show through history that the 2003 MVP award was taken away from Alex Rodriguez because of PED use. If it is ultimately proved that Clemens and Bonds used too, strip their awards away as well.
One of my biggest worries about the steroid era is how will history put it into context? Baseball has done nothing to address that and apart from most of these guys never making the Hall of Fame without buying a ticket, it doesn't look like they will. Taking away the awards is a small step to fixing that.
Comments
Maybe A-Rod should keep the award becuause the pitchers he was facing were also amped up - and so were the opposing postion players that he got his hits through. If roids were as prevalent as some people suspect, then EVERYTHING is suspect, which leaves you with the feeling that maybe this is just something that can't be "fixed", it's just something we all have to move past.
When you come up with an idea to "fix" this, you should patent it - you'll make a fortune Peter.
Posted by: Mitchell![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://yankeesredsox.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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February 19, 2009 10:16 AM
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Solution:
1st day of every month you submit samples for testing.
when test results come back, if you tested positive (assumes it takes time to do testing), you
lose all stats until subsequent 1st of month testing shows you are "clean". Player gets suspended without pay until next 1st of month clean result as well.
Team gets fined some big number for every Player/test failure. Something like $500k should do the trick to get the team involved in policing their own franchises.
Also - commish gets fined $100k for every failed player test.
failure to provide test on the 1st results in immediate suspention until sample provided.
I figure the cost of administering the tests should come from the general pool available to players and management/commish and not influence a single ticket price.
Also - the fines levied should be "paid" out to fans somehow, perhaps have a claim policy at the end of season, send in your saved ticket stubs (proof of purchase) and depending on how dirty your home team was you get a % off your tickets refunded back.
Posted by: blmeanie | February 19, 2009 10:38 AM |