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My e-mail to Timmy Kurkjian

Just fired off an e-mail to a Timmy Kurkjian of ESPN. Don't know if he'll read it, but thought I'd post it here. You can comment on it as well.

Dear Mr. Kurkjian,

    I don't know if you still check this e-mail account, and you probably get 100 per day, but my hope is that in your busy schedule you'll find time to read mine.  I saw you on ESPN.com on the ESPN Motion talking about Barry Bonds and the new excerpts from the upcoming book "Game of Shadows". You said that you were very close to not voting him into the Hall of Fame. I sincerely hope that you do. I would like to give you a link that I found quite insightful. It is a year old, after the grand jury testimony was (illegally) leaked. It says a lot that I want to say. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6642822

    There is a groundswell building against Barry going into the HoF. People lump together Barry, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, among others. To me, they are not wrong in doing so. They are, by and large, the poster boys for the steroid era. Throw in Jose Canseco, and you have the Mt. Rushmore of steroids.

    To me, the biggest debate on whether these players and others of this era deserve to be in the HoF is whether they "cheated" or not. In order to appropriately decide yes or no on the HoF,  I think we have to define how and what is "cheating" in baseball.

    The intuitive answer to the question, "Is steroids cheating?", is yes. But what do you mean by cheating? Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent in an article in the Washington Post, says:
 "Why should we care whether players use steroids? If the drug users continue to hit well, what does it matter how they mistreat their bodies? The response is, of course, that these drugs are illegal and probably performance-enhancing. In baseball, the rules define the game. Without them, there can be no game, and so we who love the sport care a great deal that all who play it stand on equal footing. Steroid use is like giving some fielders bigger gloves. Until 2002, however, baseball had no rules against the muscle-building drug."

    So, if there are no rules against something, can it be cheating? Cheating, in the context of a game or sport, is "violating accepted standards or rules". So until 2002, there were no rules against steroids. That is just the cold, hard truth. It maybe disgusting, disturbing, unethical, immoral, even illegal. But then again, speeding and marijuana are illegal, but that sure doesn't stop millions of people from doing it. But that is a whole different discussion.

    Am I glad that steroids are now banned in baseball? Absolutely. Am I happy that Barry Bonds took steroids? No. But I do not think he should be punished for doing something that, A) Was being done at that same time by his many peers, and B) Wasn't against the rules. Barry hit 73 home runs in 2001, and (so far) has hit 708 home runs following the rules that Major League Baseball has set down.

    It is my hope that you and your fellow HoF voters can judge players of the "Steroid Era" in this light. If a player fails the new steroid tests, then by all means, keep them out. But I feel applying a new set of rules to something that had happened under different rules is wrong and unfair. It would be like in football stripping the 1980's 49ers and 1970's Steelers of their championships because they didn't have a salary cap. Well, Bonds, McGwire and Sosa played at a time when steroids weren't banned. To punish them after the fact isn't fair.

    In conclusion, Mr. Kurkjian, I hope that I have in some small way persuaded you to not keep these ballplayers out of the HoF.  

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