Baseball must live up to high standards
It is gratifying to note that Major League Baseball is preparing to seek suspensions for as many as 100 games against the cheaters of the game, those who used banned substances in order to enhance performance, and that the disciplinary action will reach to the top echelon of talent, including Milwaukee Brewer Ryan Braun and New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez.
If the charges brought against these athletes are true, they have brought shame and disgrace to themselves and to the teams that made them fabulously wealthy, wealth that we now believe to have been ill-gotten gain.
At the very least, the reputations of these athletes will be diminished, as shall be their prospects of gaining entry into the exalted Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Baseball is known as America’s pastime, a “family game.” It must live up to those high standards. The message must be delivered loud and clear: Cheating will not be tolerated and those who seek underhanded, prohibited means to become better than others in the game will find that they have negatively impacted their livelihoods and wrecked their futures.
Oren Spiegler
Upper St. Clair