MLB Milestones in the wake of the Steroids Era

Here I sit, watching Derek Jeter on national television as he is only 4 hits shy of the elite 3,000 hit club, and with Roger Clemens perjury trial fresh in my mind, I start to wonder what accomplishments by players lately have been real, and which ones tainted?

Now I'm definately not accusing Jeter. If there is one thing I am sure of when it comes to Jeter, it is that he is clean as a whistle. However, you do not need to go far to find a steroid user, only right down the bench to A-Rod. Alex Rodriguez came, to his credit, clean about his steroid use to the public last year, and for the most part, it blew over without scathing his reputation too much. Joining him as the three most recent exposures is former Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez and the current home run record holder Barry Bonds. Having been at a Boston series a few years back where Ramirez hit two homers in the games, (probably the only excitement in the series) I, like many fans, am left to wonder what impact steroids had on those hits. Or those two games. Or the series. In this current sports world where steroid use has been the elephant in the room, when and how do we go about exploring the gray area surrounding users and non users? So far, MLB's approach has been to test players regularly, suspend those who fail, or prosecute those have way after their careers have peaked, when the damage has already been done. Current MLB testing has turned up a surprising amount of failures, many of which players have attempted to explain as an "accidental intake" of a substance they thought was safe. How do we as fans know whether those accounts are true or not?

As far as Barry Bonds' image in the public eye goes, there is some debate as to whether or not he used steroids. The ball he hit out of the park for his 765th career home run, the record breaking shot, was eventually bought by fashion designer Mark Ecko, who let fans vote on its fate. The fan vote declared the ball was to be sent to the Baseball Hall of Fame with an asterisk on it, to show the record was tainted.

With the environment in baseball being what it is, its tough to thoroughly enjoy an accomplishment like the one Jeter will soon reach without wondering what extra edge the player may or may not have used to get there. For the sake of the fans and the game itself, I hope all players, current and future, clean up their act and play the game cleanly.