Chris Leone

In case you’ve never tried it, it ain’t easy being a Mets fan. At least during their collapse last year, I was in Japan and could easily remove myself from the goings on in American baseball. On top of that, the Nagoya team went on to win the Japanese and Asia championship. But here I am now, writing this post with an increased blood pressure as the Mets let another one slip through their fingers. Man on third with no outs in the bottom of the 9th - and they couldn’t pull through.

Why do we have sports? Doesn’t it seem silly to pay adults an exorbitant amount of money to play a game and then turn around and charge an exorbitant amount of money to watch it live? Despite another heart breaking loss as a lifelong Mets fan, I think I finally understand why we watch and why we cheer (and why we hang our heads so low when a bunch of old guys wearing uniforms fail to win a game).

In the normal course of our everyday lives, we lead toned down, unexciting, and quiet lives. We go to work, we come home, we spend time with our family - if we have one - and then we go to sleep, only to wake up the next day and do the same thing. But tonight, while watching the game (and I had just forgotten about it) the camera showed a fan - probably in his mid 40’s - jumping and yelling in exuberance for his team making a great play. I thought to myself, “how often do we, as humans, in our everyday quiet lives, get to display such raw emotion and passion for something?” The answer is: we really don’t. 

Sports are for the emotion junkies in all of us. Women claim men have a hard time displaying their emotion, but try going to watch their favorite team play with them and you will see a man unable to hold back any emotion. He’ll scream and yell and jump when his team scores, and he’ll throw a fit and hang his head if they lose.

Sports are a gamble. If we can display and exhort so much positive emotion when our team does something right, our emotions can only be equally negative when the outcome is the opposite. On top of it, we have nothing to really gain if they are successful and nothing really to lose when they don’t make the playoffs, but we still go along with it and we take the gamble. We do it for the excitement and adrenaline of watching OUR team play. That’s why there are still Mets fans, and Cubs fans, and every other kind of fan.

That’s my attempt at getting over yet another heart breaking loss that hopefully doesn’t spell the end of another “could-have-been” season for the Amazin’s. No matter what, I’ll still be following the next game, cheering and screaming, or hanging my head if the circumstances call for it - because that’s who true fans are and that’s what we do.

The issue of baseball and steroids is not new news. It has tainted the game in a similar way the player strike did in the 90’s. MLB’s answer is a very strict testing and punishment protocol for any players that test positive for performance enhancing drugs. Truth is cheating has been going on in baseball for a long time. Longer than most of us know, or want to know. The wave of the steroid topic first hit the news a couple years ago, and every now and then it gets another shot in the arm.

Yankees first basemen/DH Jason Giambi was quoted as saying, “I was wrong for doing that stuff. What we should have done a long time ago was stand up — players, ownership, everybody — and said, ‘We made a mistake.’”

So, in short, Giambi is essentially admitting that he took steroids. Not only that, but he was implying people besides the players knew what was going on. Since this story hit, MLB has been investigating the issue very seriously, as it promised it would with every individual performance enhancing drug case. There are talks about the Yankees terminating his contract and MLB implementing further punishments for Giambi.

Something about this rubs me the wrong way.

I have no objection to random drug testing and punishments for any players who are tested positive. But to punish one of the only players who is stepping forward and being honest about what he did in the past just seems wrong.

Look, we know a lot of players took steroids. We also know that very few have come forward to admit it. Most are lying or avoiding the issue all together. Now what we have is MLB punishing the few honest enough to admit it.

What makes the steroid issue so serious is the message it is sending. Baseball is supposed to be a “pure” sport; our national pastime. Now, the sport has been tainted by cheating. MLB is trying to send the message, especially to children, that cheating is wrong and those who do it will not come out on top, but MLB is missing the opportunity to send a another message; a better message.

This is what I propose. 1) Continue random drug testing. MLB has been clear on its rules for a while now and if you are caught with your hand in the cookie jar, punishment should ensue. But, here’s the kicker: 2) grant amnesty to all players who admit using drugs in the past. MLB has made it clear they are serious, but the cost of coming forward is so high that the majority of players are keeping quiet.

This will not leave players free and clear, by any means. Baseball, after all, is about the fans. Let the fans decide if they still want to stand behind their baseball heroes once they have stepped forward and said, “I made a mistake.”

The important message here is honesty. By granting amnesty to players, it will let those who are worthy of our respect step forward and admit their mistake. Let those who want to sit in the shadows stay there - that’s how they should be remembered anyway.