BIG TUNE from Future Joyner, Dope visuals too! If you don’t already have it pick up “Listen To Me”. Its a Free Download.

Super Producer; The Arcitype sits down with Dante Luna.

Shout out to The Whole AR CLASSIC TEAM!

Show Love! New Video From: STRICK – “High On The Inches” The next video Strick will be releasing is “smoking that Fruity” Ft. KILLER MIKE.
Be on the look out for that early February.

Admittedly, I’m not from Tuscaloosa or Lincoln or Ann Arbor or South Bend or Knoxville. I live in Los Angeles. I was raised in the Northeast. My alma mater has no football program (to speak of) and I grew up without the passion and pageantry of college football. Still, for the past twenty-five years, I have at least casually, and sometimes intently, followed the rankings, the Heisman races, the conference rivalries and even, gulp, the Bowl Championship Series. But after Monday’s developments, I think it might be time to reassess my fanhood and affix an astrix to my affirmative answer.

Last month, Atlantic Magazine featured an opus of an article written by Taylor Branch entitled, “The Shame of College Sports.” It’s a meticulously crafted, devastatingly poignant, historical summation about the rise of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The evil genius behind the NCAA, is that it is perceived (by your average sports enthusiast) to be some anonymous, nonpartisan, non-profit, governing body of college athletics, when in fact its operational functionality much more closely resembles the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. A major difference between the oil cartel and the collegiate athletic association is that OPEC suppresses laborer wages, fixes prices and manipulates markets, whereas the NCAA doesn’t need to pay for its labor at all. While I’m not comparing the commodity of fossil fuel to college sports, we might think about our oil consumption differently if every gas station had a shiny OPEC sticker slapped on its sign post. But best believe that every jersey, hat, t-shirt, sweatshirt, snuggie, video game, ticket stub, television broadcast etc. is officially licensed by the NCAA, meaning: the lion’s share of revenue (in the billions) from our discretionary spending goes directly to that for-profit governing body and the “student-athlete” who is the true engine of their entire economy is compensated only with a scholarship from the University. I’ll refrain from making this yet another dissertation of why college athletes should be paid. That much is obvious. And my focus here is not about the NCAA but much more specifically the abject cesspool that is college football.

Just when you thought the scandal season was dying down, this endless circus of sordid plots and seedy characters offers up yet another log for the fire. Early Monday morning, Pennsylvania state prosecutors arrested former-Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky for raping at least 8 underage boys over a period of 15 years. While this is not inherently a football story (Sandusky retired in 1999), legitimate scrutiny has shifted to Nittany Lion’s head coach, Joe Paterno, who has been a demi-God in college football for nearly half a century. While scandal after bloody scandal rocked the landscape — from illegal pay-for-play deals; to bribing and gifting in the form of tattoos and strippers; to the insipid booster and donor influence on recruitment; to money-hungry agents hovering on campuses like vultures; to coaches, athletic directors and school presidents that look the other way — we have celebrated JoePa for running a “clean program” since 1966. Let’s no longer be naive. There’s no such thing as a “clean program” in college football. The system itself is inherently corrupt and immoral, so let’s curb our shock when corrupt and immoral news continues to break. Sure, as far as football goes, there have been almost no allegations of “misconduct” at Penn State in Paterno’s long reign and by those standards he has run a clean program, except for one minor detail: His close friend and consigliere, the defensive coordinator at “Line Backer U” was quietly known as a pederast. Joe knew, for years, and chose to keep it within the hallowed halls of  “Camelot,” because when you live in the bubble and your very existence is defined by it, nothing is more sacred than football and protecting the pedagogues that preach it. The broader question remains: Why, as a Nation, do we cherish this sport? Why is it so sacrosanct in our culture? Why do we support it, so unwaveringly and in such astronomical numbers, with our attention, our fanaticism, our wallets?

Recently, I had the privilege of going to the Rose Bowl for a UCLA v. Cal game. Sometimes you need to insert yourself into the fray in order to fully understand the appeal of the fray. Oh, I get it. While neither team was ranked in the Top 25, and the game had no ultimate consequences beyond the painted grass stage and cheering crowds, the atmosphere was no less incredible. The expansive tailgating ranged from sophisticated to simple. There were horseshoe courts and impromptu long-tosses; beer kegs draped in Bruins blankets and an aromatic potpourri of grilled meat and hot kettle corn. For a few moments, on that sun-soaked Saturday, I exhaled, appreciating the simplicity of college football’s grand tradition. I was brought back to reality shortly after I settled in my seat. Ten miles southwest of Pasadena, just off the 110 freeway, USC v. Standford was set to kickoff at the Coliseum. It was a gorgeous late afternoon, perfect Pac-10 (or is it Pac-12, or Pac-16?) football weather. Someone in the crowd made the mistake of asserting how USC doesn’t deserve to win because they “broke the rules.” (USC was stripped of their 2005 National Championship and forfeited 20 scholarships and two years of Bowl eligibility due to “improper benefits” given to all-American runningback, Reggie Bush.) So, I took it upon myself to insert my opinion into the fray. I prefaced my argument by stating how I despised USC football almost as much as its fans. (This went over well in the UCLA student section.) Then I posed a simple question: What does, say, a current USC defensive back, who presumably committed to the program before sanctions were imposed, have to do with Reggie Bush or Pete Carroll? Nothing. He was likely in junior high when the “recruiting violations” took place. And, I’m speculating here, in his recruitment process, the University of Southern California turned on its massive, well-funded charm offensive, draping itself in pomp ‘n’ circumstance and past achievements in the hopes of luring the NFL-caliber defensive back into the Crimson ‘n Gold. Months later, said DB learns that he will not get to showcase his talents in a Bowl game nor will he get the opportunity to play for a National Championship because of the “transgressions” of former Trojans, who were ironically part of the sales pitch and perhaps one of the reasons he chose the school in the first place. Furthermore, if he wanted to transfer to a program that offers him these inalienable rights as a superlative college athlete, he’ll need to sit out a year and compromise his eligibility. (Yet if USC found a better TV deal with the Big East, they would hop conferences instantly, and with impunity, geography and academics be damned.) Meanwhile, he can take comfort knowing that Reggie Bush voluntarily returned his Heisman trophy to the Downtown Athletic Club and is now well on his way to earning nine-figures in pro contracts and endorsement deals. Pete Carroll, the man who oversaw the program during the scandal, jumped ship just as storm clouds were brewing in early 2010, using his impressive resume at USC as leverage. Despite failing twice as a professional head coach with the Patriots and Jets, Carroll was rewarded with a five-year, $33,000,000 contract from the Seattle Seahawks. Certainly speculation of Carroll’s timing entered into the discussion, but the general theme was that it was “time for a new challenge” and that he “maintained an open and honest relationship with the NCAA.” Cough, cough… Just as I put the exclamation on the point, practice squad wide-out Jerry Rice Jr. caught his first pass as a collegiate athlete and the crowd went wild. I added an anecdote about how the only reason Rice Jr. got to put on a Bruins jersey that Saturday was because of the multitude of player suspensions due to undisclosed violations of team policy. By then, no one seemed to care.

What baffles me about NCAA football is how it is NOT, by any measurement, a regional sport. It has broad-based appeal across all key demographics. College football enjoys immense popularity despite having almost an entirely irrelevant regular season, no playoff system whatsoever and completely inconsequential Bowl games, with the exception of the BCS Championship game, which is a match-up determined by a computer equation, and where the outcome may or may not crown a champion or co-champion, which may or may not be disputed by hundreds of factors that are, at that point, inconsequential and irrelevant. The whole system is a chaotic, cash-flushed catastrophe but as long as sponsors, advertisers and consumers keep flocking to it year after year, not a damn thing will change. It’s bullet proof. Not a single scandal nor a systemwide scar will soil its reputation or cause national audiences to turn away. And my guess is that this Saturday’s Penn State v. Nebraska game will get a bigger rating than usual, particularly if 84 year-old JoePa is still coaching from the press box.

If you are a student or happen to live in Tuscaloosa or Lincoln or Ann Arbor or South Bend or Knoxville, or you are an alum scattered elsewhere, I applaud you as a fan of your school. I imagine you clad yourself in officially licensed NCAA merchandise and you enjoy watching your team play. Each game has meaning to you even if the consequences have been skewed, stripped or systematically gutted. I mentioned at the outset that I am not vested in breaking your spirit. That is not entirely true. It is high time for every college football fan to mix in a little perspective with your passion. Although the NCAA is an insidious cartel, consider this: Between the two “revenue sports,” college basketball has many of the same inherent problems and scandals, but there is no comparison between each product. College basketball has a sensible ranking system, a reasonable regular season, conference tournaments that lead directly into “March Madness,” which is a month-long, nationwide, 66-team, single elimination extravaganza that is arguably the greatest spectacle in American sports. Whereas, college football begins each season with 126 schools competing and no less than 120 of them are instantly and unequivocally eliminated from that elusive BSC title game in January simply because of their conference, their schedule, their national appeal or some NCAA imposed sanction. Bowl games are a joke. More than half of every Division 1-A school can be “bowl eligible.” A 6-win season is good enough! And why not? A Bowl game, on average, becomes an eight-figure windfall, split amongst the Universities, their conferences and the NCAA. Who cares if 99% of all bowl games are meaningless? They are corporate sponsored exhibition matches at neutral sites in front of packed houses. The traditional BCS games (Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, Cotton &  Championship) are strategically rolled out in TV time slots, as to maximize the ad revenue and Nielsen ratings. This means, the ten elite teams selected for these games (by computers and NCAA committees, I might add) will have anywhere from 4-6 weeks off. For example, if LSU runs the table this season, wins the SEC outright and plays for a National championship, its last game is on November 25th. The next time we will see LSU play football is January 9, 2012.

I know it is sacrilege to speak ill of American football, but let’s put tradition aside for a moment and acknowledge the whole sport is a deeply contaminated mess and will continue to be as long as its popularity goes unchecked.

As an infrequent commentator, I will try to avoid plunging cannonball-style on the Lebron detractor pig pile. I give credit to his supporters, especially those with rational basketball arguments as opposed to contrarian proclivities. It certainly took more guts to defend him this season and root for him as simply the best player in the game who was unfairly and relentlessly maligned for his choices last July. Throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs, he gave you a bouquet of moments that vindicated your loyalty. And if you are still in his corner this morning, more credit to you. I imagine it will be a lonely place this summer. Those of us who have rooted against Lebron and the Miami Thrice are still celebrating. Ultimately, Dallas may not have been the better team but there seems to be this sense, almost a liberating relief, that the right team won the series. And the right superstar, Dirk Nowitzki not Lebron James, finally has his first ring. Generally, Jungian psychosis and sports are best kept like church and state but I keep coming back to this question: Does it take a certain quality of character to win an NBA championship?

Let’s take a moment and celebrate the Playoffs. Arguably, no other prime-time event presents such a jambalaya of high drama, superlative performance, compelling narrative, vigorous discussion, glaring spotlights and grand stages. The game on the hardwood, in proximity to the fans in the stands, is the most intimate and visceral of all team sports. With only five actors per side, performing in a contained environment, without helmets or hats, pads or bulky uniforms to shield them from the scrutiny of failure, everyone on the court is visible and vulnerable at all times. While basketball is a game best played with five-man synchronicity, the fourth quarter is the great equalizer for the individual. It is in these twelve-minutes of gametime where heroes rise and fall, and our lasting memory of a player and his performance is forever formed, fairly or unfairly. He has become synonymous to a closer in baseball, alone on that dirt bump, all eyes on him. When a great pitcher is on, hitters are powerless. Great pitching always beats great hitting. When a great scorer has the ball late in the fourth quarter, similarly isolated on that island, the defender is powerless. Great offense always beats great defense. Sometimes, the great scorer is double and triple-teamed and must quickly revert back to five-man synchronicity, where the open teammate, not necessarily the next best player, has the opportunity to knock down a clutch shot and become a brief hero or avoid becoming a goat. We have seen this scene play out countless times, in virtually every close game, particularly in the playoffs, where the outcome hangs in the balance, where the fate of the team, the crowd, the city is uncertain. We hold our collective breath as one man, controlling that orange orb, works his way towards the looming basket, suffocated by a defender, as precious seconds evaporate. Figuratively, this is where the luminaries make their money. It is not merely that they always want the ball in these moments, they need the ball; they demand the ball with fiery selfishness and an utter disregard for everything, literally everything, except for winning. And they do it over and over again. A truly clutch performer is someone who not only thrives in that moment, but can continuously elevate his level of play. As fans, we are captivated by the theater, enthralled by that extraordinarily rare human being who is blessed with both superhuman ability and unmatched mental tenacity, and some might argue, a certain quality of character. No doubt, it takes great teams and great seasons to put great players repeatedly in this position, but once we cultivate a cognitive recognition, we are conditioned to expect greatness, time after time, year after year. Only a handful of players in NBA history have been vaulted into this immortal class but our memories grow short, and most of us have a soft spot for nostalgia. Whether consciously or subconsciously, we all want to watch that next basketball deity, even if we root hard for his failure, and we all want to debate his anointment as the second coming…

Through his seven years in Cleveland, we saw flashes of immortality from Lebron James. Most notably, Game 6 against the Pistons in 2007 and Game 3 against the Magic in 2009. But he never had enough help. He was always a great player on a not-so-great team and that 5-man synchronicity was never quite enough to repeatedly put him in those mortality-defying situations. So he took his talents to South Beach… Let’s move beyond “The Decision.” Let’s ignore that ridiculous, pyrotechnic-infused victory celebration/welcome party. Let’s overlook Miami as Wade-County. Let’s forget Dwyane Wade has already won a Championship in 2006 as the alpha dog. Let’s pretend the city is not dispassionate about basketball and its fans are not front-running by nature. Lebron made a business decision. Overnight, he went from universally lauded hometown hero to despicable deserter but, as evidenced in jersey sales, his bright star did not lose any of its luster. And neither did the League. Revenue was up. Ratings were up. Attendance was up. Interest was through the roof. (Not a good time for a lockout Commissioner Stern!) More so than ever, the NBA is a vehicle driven by stars and brands. It thrives from dynasty not parity. (Since 1980, 5 franchises (Celtics, Lakers, Bulls, Spurs, Pistons) have won 27 out of the 32 championships.) It’s fueled by compelling narratives, and love it or hate it, Lebron in Miami is just that.

If you’ve followed the bouncing ball, these NBA playoffs were chock-full of storylines. We saw unlikely stars and small market cities thriving deep into the May. We reignited the classic “all-time great” debate, enjoyed a bittersweet a Shaq retirement press-conference (congrats to you Big AARP!) and witnessed a blogosphere a-buzz with peppery commentary (for and against) the increasingly polarizing superstar/media speedbag, Lebron James (including premature “blasphemy” from Scottie Pippen and a historical perspective from Kareem Abdul Jabbar.) Now that Dirk has reached the top of the mountain, it can be argued the formula for winning has been adjusted. Certainly, no great player ever wins a championship alone; and sometimes that great player is not the “closer” but more often than not, particularly in dynastic runs, that great player needs the combination of a decent supporting cast and at least one all-star caliber consigliere, who is comfortable deferring in crunch time. Dirk won without a reliable consigliare. Throughout this fantastic 2010-11 NBA season, the most compelling narrative was, who would be consigliere on the Miami Heat in crunch time, James or Wade? Or, could two alpha dogs co-exist, playing essentially the same position, share the 4th quarter, alternate deferments, and, in that special moment, elevate their game? After three rounds, the answer was unequivocally yes. But, the playoffs are a four-round affair.

What intrigued me the most about Mavs v. Heat was not the physical matchups. It was not ball-movement or defensive rotations, home court advantage in the 2-3-2, supporting casts, coaching, superstar showdowns, the ‘06 rematch or even the alpha dog/consigliere dynamic. It was the psychological matchups. I was most fascinated by what we can learn about the Miami Heat beyond what we already know about their ability to play at a high level in May and June. Clearly, this team is poised for a dynastic run. Physically, they have more than enough primary components. I will argue, they should have won the series based on the tangibles on the court. Lebron James is the best player in world. Put him on any team, literally any team in the NBA, and he is worth at least 57 regular season wins. He’s also the best defensive player in the world. At 6′8″ 270lbs, he can guard all five positions. When he is determined, he can get to the basket at will, and when he is in a shooting rhythm, whether beyond the perimeter or in the mid-range, he is flat-out unguardable. Dwyane Wade is perhaps the second best player in the world, and an elite backcourt defender. Bosh is limited, but efficient, and when adequately confident and motivated, he is an formidable third option. Still, what we learned about the Heat is that they can be cooled down. They throw punches in flurries. They are young, athletic and talented and when running downhill, they are virtually impossible to stop. But, they don’t like to get hit. When the Mavericks dug in, and refused to be steamrolled by momentum, the Heat had no answer. They collapsed in the 4th quarter. In three of their four losses, they had leads of at least 4 points with less than five minutes to play. They couldn’t close. Neither Wade (who has a ring and plays with zero pressure) nor James was the alpha dog or consigliere. It was a disorganized free-for-all and James looked like he would have rather been poolside at his impenetrable South Florida mansion.

This leads me back to the question: Does it take a certain quality of character to win an NBA championship? Let me say this on the record: I do not think Lebron is a “bad guy.” By most accounts, he has handled himself well. And despite a glaring lack of rings, he has, overall, lived up to the incredible hype and expectations. He is however, misguided. His has been mishandled, mismanaged and misled. He is overly coddled and improperly mentored. He has the look and vernacular of someone disconnected to reality. He never accepts blame. He never acknowledges mistakes. His absorption of losses are general and impersonal. He denies being affected by criticism. (His eyes would suggest otherwise.) His startling lack of introspection has done a disservice to his game. He is often petulant, indignant and immature. (Starting today, THIS MESSAGE should be hammered into his head. It should be his ringtone, his alarm-clock wake up music, his soundtrack while at the gym.) He is absolutely blessed with superhuman ability but, at times, exhibits the mental tenacity of a spoiled child. This, more than anything, is why the Heat failed. And this is why his detractors feel vindicated. It is far too soon to write any final proclamations about James and the Miami Heat. He is, after all, 26 years old. Presumably, he will learn enough about failure to overcome it… or their talent will eventually overwhelm and steamroll a less tenacious team and Lebron will get his rings. Still, we have a decent sample (8 seasons) to begin writing his legacy. He will undoubtedly go down as one of the all-time greats. But I have seen enough. He is not the second coming. He is not the Air apparent. He is not the Chosen One. Kobe Bryant has 5 rings and that “killer instinct.” Forget Michael Jordan. Kobe Bryant is still in another class. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen in the 1988 Vice Presidential debate, “I have seen Kobe Bryant, I have watched him win and you Sir are no Kobe Bryant.”

It is difficult to quantify character, but I believe it does take a certain quality to win an NBA championship, and as of now, Lebron James does not have it.

Stay tuned…

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The phrase “Manny Being Manny” was coined in Boston, and quickly became nomenclature for his exasperating goofball antics. He gained a reputation for flagrant lapses in noggin usage. We have seen the highlight reel of him bumbling and tumbling around, slightly overweight, matted dreads bouncing, baggy uniform flopping, tattered helmet or field hat teetering like a loose bottle top. If he wasn’t one of the greatest right hand hitters to ever play the game, he probably wouldn’t have lasted very long in the big leagues. Therein lies the rub.

Now, anyone stupid enough to test positive for PEDs in this climate doesn’t deserve much defense. Manny tested positive twice, less than two years apart. Off-the-charts stupidity. Nevertheless, I’m going to step up to the plate, kick up some lime chalk and dig in, because it is high time to take a few swings at baseball, steroids and the Hall of Fame.

Before Jose Canseco, the original poster boy and lead prosecutor of the “steroid era,” broke out the gas can and blow torch, the only real legitimate Hall of Fame debate surrounded the notoriously disgraced hustler, Pete Rose. It is no secret that baseball writers and Hall of Fame voters are a snooty bunch. Never has there been a first-ballot unanimous selection; not Babe Ruth, not Hank Aaron, not Willie Mays, not Mickey Mantle. By the standards applied, and given the subjective nature of the vote, Pete Rose has zero chance. He committed the cardinal sin. He bet on baseball. He placed wagers on games, sometimes from the dugout, as a player, as a manager and as a player/manager (whatever happened to those?) The punishment was severe. He received a lifetime ban, preventing him from ever participating in anything baseball related, paid or unpaid. Over the years, enthusiasts and purists have argued fervently for and against Rose. Certainly without his unforgivable infraction, “Charlie Hustle” is easily a first ballot Hall of Famer. Everyone admired his fiery passion for the game. He might have even cracked that elusive 90% of the vote, a rare honor reserved only for the purest and most statistically astounding ballplayers.

This segues into my next point: Statistics. Since baseball is (or was) our national pastime, the majesty and history is upheld within its recordbooks and throughout the hallowed halls of Cooperstown, the Vatican of sports shrines. More so than basketball, football and hockey, baseball records are sacred. The average fan probably could not come within 10,000 points of guessing Michael Jordan’s career scoring total (he finished with 32,292 points). Quick, how many career touchdown passes did Joe Montana throw? (273) How many career goals did Wayne Gretzky score? (894) None of these numbers have been immortalized or are even connected to the player that was immortalized by his sport. Contrast that with Hank Aaron’s 755, Cy Young’s 511, Joe DiMaggio’s 56, Roger Maris’ 61, Cal Ripken’s 2,632. Baseball statistics have become more than just a virtuous reflection of the game and its most prolific players; they are a science, a complex mathematical discipline (Sabermetrics), a formula for revenue projections and wins and losses. For well over a century, Hall of Fame voters used bottom-line statistics as the primary means of evaluating the merits of induction. Generally, if a player crossed a magic milestone like 3,000 hits, 500 home runs, 300 wins or 3,000 strike-outs, he would have a path to Cooperstown. Occasionally, on-field accomplishments were balanced by any statistical anomalies of the era and whether a player was dominant on his own team and throughout his career. Sometimes, “compilers” (players who compile statistics over extended careers) would slip through and spark tepid debates amongst aficionados. (Bill Mazeroski, Bert Blyleven.)  But when Pete Rose was denied his induction for “compromising the integrity of the game,” Hall of Fame voters introduced an element of criteria that had not previously existed: morality.

This brings me back to Man-Ram. Much like Rose, Manny has no shot at the Hall of Fame. The illegally obtained, strategically leaked New York Times list of 2003, included positive PED tests for several players like Ramirez, David Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa. That would have been enough to indite him as a “cheater” but throw in two failed drug tests in this highly-sensitive environment and Manny’s name is mud. (And as we all know, there’s no joy in Mudville.) But anybody watching the games over the last 20 years knows that Manny Ramirez is a easily, without question, a first-ballot Hall of Famer. As is Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Mike Piazza and Pudge Rodriguez. Since Manny’s retirement on April 10th, sportswriters and TV pundits have weighed in on the Manny Ramirez/Hall of Fame debate. Unanimously, the opinion from the “professional expert” is that he is not a Hall of Fame player. On two separate occasions, the point has been raised that his chances may have improved had he not “quit on his teams.” This moral grandstanding has gone too far. Even if he did dog it for the Red Sox prior to his trade to the Dodgers, even if he did let down the Dodgers organization and the fans with a 50-game suspension, even if he did leave Evan Longoria unprotected in the middle of the Rays line-up having prematurely retired, Manny’s career speaks for itself. He is a two-time World Series Champion, a World Series MVP and arguably, the most important player in Boston Red Sox history, the player that changed the trajectory of the franchise and was an integral part of “reversing the curse.”

By and large, and throughout his career, he was beloved by teammates and fans alike. His impact on the game was enormously positive. (The Dodgers continued to promote “MANNYWOOD” while he was suspended.) This lackadaisical clown was a meticulous hitter, a ferocious slugger with a surgeons eye and extraordinary plate discipline. He finished his career with 555 home runs, a .312 life-time batting average, over 2,500 hits, over .400 OBP and over 1800 RBIs.

Now, here is the broader debate: Steroids. I have always argued that baseball is the most difficult sport to play. Hitting and pitching on a major league level requires such extraordinary skill and hand-eye coordination. Superlative athleticism is not even a prerequisite and having it only helps so much. Each pitch is a chess match, a psychological battle between the man on the mound and the batter at the dish. The difference between a great pitch and a pitch that gets clobbered exists within the tiniest of margins. The time in which it takes to pick up the spin on a cutter or slider or fastball moving at 92mph+, predict where the ball will be when you swing, connect the barrel of the bat squarely onto that hissing white blur, occurs at virtual light-speed and requires almost super-human vision and timing. Baseball is full of such intricacies. Historians love to wax on about the olden days when ballplayers were so underpaid they needed second jobs in the off-season. (Hank Aaron strengthened his forearms delivering large blocks of ice from an ice truck.) Or how Babe Ruth bulked up with his pregame ritual of hot dogs and beer. This is to say that, until the late 80’s, players did not artificially enhance their ability to play the game. Fair, but it is also common knowledge that many players (new and old) have always taken the occasional illegal amphetamine with their coffee, in order to keep up the with rigors of a long season. Where do we draw the line? Steroids clearly has an affect on a players ability. And from what we have learned and seen, it affects far more than just strength, power, quickness, and the ability to rapidly recover from an injury. Depending on the type of PED, the frequency of usage and the dosage, it can improve everything from timing and vision to psychological confidence. Any player that used any type of performance enhancing drug, was gaining an artificial advantage, and perhaps “compromising the integrity of the sport.” But that’s the problem. We are just now coming out of a two-decade era when steroid usage was rampant throughout the sport. How do we possibly quantify who was doing what? For every Jason Giambi and Jose Canseco, there was a Jeremy Giambi and Ozzie Canseco. For every Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, there was a Marvin Bernard and Ron Villone. Convicted steroid user Manny Ramirez absolutely owned admitted steroid user Andy Pettitte, so who had the artificial advantage in that match-up? How do we measure how many home runs all-time home run leader Barry Bonds hit off pitchers that were “juicing” in a similar fashion. No way to know. The official/unofficial steroids list of Major League Baseball includes 129 players who have either been implicated or have failed at least one drug test. (47 made the 2007 Mitchell Report, 27 have been suspended, 39 have been implicated by trainers or other evidence and 16 have confessed.) Of that list, only a small percentage of the names were superstars or even perennial All-Stars. The vast majority of the names barely kept afloat in the big leagues. This tells me two things: First, that list is probably a fraction of the thousands of players that used PEDs at least once over two-decades. Second, if you were already a gifted, superstar-caliber baseball player, your ability to excel beyond the players of your era is relative to how many players were trying to gain the same artificial advantage. This we will never know. What we do know is that Major League Baseball, its owners, the MLBPA, its sponsors and advertisers and benefactors had no problem with the game as it ballooned in popularity in the late 90’s due to the incredible influx in offense, particularly home runs. And to further the point, I cannot recall a single baseball writer or Hall of Fame voter loudly and forcefully sounding the bugle, blowing the proverbial whistle when players suddenly looked like The Incredible Hulk and their bats were the second coming of Roy Hobbs’ lightening stick. We all buried our head in the sand and enjoyed the show.

But now it is reckoning day. The most prolific players of this important era are retiring. How do we recognize them? How do we appropriately usher them into their proper place, even if they are convicted or suspected of “cheating?” Can anyone legitimately claim that Manny Ramirez was a below-average player without steroids? Consider this: Within six years both Ken Griffey, Jr. and Jim Thome will be eligible for a Hall of Fame ballot. Both players will finish with over 600 career home runs. Neither player is on that “129″ list nor have they been implicated or connected with steroid usage. But how do we know for sure? The method of identifying PED culprits is arbitrary, subjective, regional and wholly unscientific. (Roger Clemens never failed a drug test.) It is reprehensible that the baseball Hall of Fame has become the pearly gates of morality. Tyrus Raymond Cobb was a devoted, unapologetic racist, who sharpened his cleats and speared opposing infielders when he slid. He also was arrested for choking his wife and beating his son. He was arguably the best player of the “dead ball era,” which lasted over 20 years. In 1909, he led all of baseball with 9 home runs and never hit more than 12 in a season. But Ty Cobb was a Hall of Famer and is a Hall of Famer and has his own commemorative section at Cooperstown.

So please, either close the doors to everyone who played the game between 1988 and 2008, acknowledge the hypocrisy of Cobb and Rose, Byleven and Bonds, put an astrix* on the entire 20 year period or just go back to the business of evaluating players, statistics and the anomalies of the era… Because for Godsake, Manny Ramirez is a Hall of Famer.