New York Daily News - Sports - 'Roid probe is ready

New York Daily News - Sports - 'Roid probe is ready: "But MLB sources have admitted in recent weeks that information gleaned from that effort and the new formal investigation probably would not be enough to suspend Bonds. While steroids were illegal, baseball did not specifically ban the performance-enhancing drugs until 2003. Lawyers have told Selig the union would certainly fight a suspension and would probably win before an arbitrator."

So this just pisses me off. An arbitrator - typically a law professional - will side with the player because the league had no policy against steroids. Somehow it doesn't matter that what the player is doing is ILLEGAL and pretty much all sports contracts have ETHICS clauses which are supposed to protect teams and leagues against players, who often considered team embassadors, from creating negative images of the team or sport. Evidently with Barry Bonds engaging in highly illegal acts which allowed him to cheat in his chosen profession, well, I guess that these ethic clauses mean precisely diddly-squat.

The bottom line - Pete Rose, baseball's all-time hits leader and a man that ran out, not jogged or show-boated, but ran out every homerun he hit - because he knew how to play the game in only one way, full speed - is banned for life from baseball and the Hall-of-Fame for gambling. Sure he gambled and that's baseball's unforgivable sin, but there isn't anyone out there that can look at the way Rose played the game and tell me he ever cheated. He ended a catcher's career in the all-star game in a clean play at the plate, because he knew only one way to play - and that was to never take a play off.
Baseball writers talk about punishing Bonds by not voting him in his first year of elligibility, in spite of the fact that he was only the best player in baseball for a six year period only because he cheated. Sure, there are players that are in the Hall that cheated - pitchers that doctored balls, most notably, but they didn't break state and federal statutes in order to win. Therein lies the difference.
When those other players cheated - scuffing balls, using KY to get more movement on the pitch, even corking a bat - they were doing things, that, were they caught, would have resulted in a suspension because baseball knew it had to create rules to address cheating that wasn't against the laws of the country. Often times it was about getting the winning edge - sure its dispicable, but for many of these guys it was about giving the team the best chance to win.
For Bonds - well, it should be understood - even by an arbitrator - that if its illegal in the rest of the country, then it is a punishable offense in the sport.
If the baseball writers really want to do the right thing, they won't vote Bonds into the Hall...EVER, baseball will refuse to acknowledge his records - rather than having Bonds at the top of the homerun roll with an asterisk in the record books, which has been bandied about, he will be nothing more than a footnote. If he gets in, I will make it my own personal crusade to see that Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose are enshrined as well.