Joe Morgan Watch

Bonds' assault on these cherished home-run records has been tarnished somewhat by all the accusations and innuendoes he's faced regarding steroid use.

So far, all the fingers are pointing at the sluggers, but we don't know how many pitchers or non-sluggers have used steroids. MLB needs to identify and discipline every player who uses steroids, not just the sluggers who are having their names dragged through the mud.

Well, MLB wasn't disciplining anybody in April 2004, but the leaks indicated Bonds' association with Victor Conte and BALCO. From 1900 through 1997, only two people managed to hit more than 60 home runs in a season, and those two players did it one time each, and each time benefited from having a career year at the same time the guy who hit behind him had a career year (Gehrig's 1927 was about as good as it was going to get for him as was Mantle's 1961).

Then came 1998, when Mark McGwire hit 70 while being protected by the immortal Ray Lankford and Brian Jordan and Sammy Sosa hit 66 while being protected by Mark Grace, Henry Rodriguez or Glenallen Hill! McGwire hit more than 60 one more season, and Sosa did it twice more: in 1999 (for a 95-loss team) and in 2001 (with Matt Stairs, Ron Coomer or a decaying Fred McGriff protecting him. Pardon us for raising our eyebrows, especially when we noted that McGwire and Sosa had acne you wouldn't wish on a high school sophomore, that their foreheads and forearms had grown so much you wouldn't recognize a picture of either of them from 1993.

And then came Barry Bonds, who destroyed McGwire's record and quickly picked up ground on the all-time home run list. Bonds never hit more than 46 home runs before 2000 (and he had only three seasons of 40 homers or more), yet here he was hitting home runs at a rate no one has before at an age when most people's skills deteoriate badly. (I could compare Joe Morgan at ages 35-40 to Bonds, but that's not fair.) So, Joe, we're just trying to do your bidding, protecting the game from those that want to tarnish the achievements of all your buddies.

He goes on to ramble about there needing to be a tougher policy (what he proposes is more lenient than what is now in place), but it can't be perfect overnight. Yawn. He concludes with a real head-scratcher:

Some argue that players who use illegal drugs should be banned, too. I understand such thinking, except that drug addiction has been demonstrated to be an illness, while steroids are used strictly to enhance performance. And illegal drugs usually harm on-field performance -- just look at the careers of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry -- while steroids are taken specifically to better one's achievement. Of course, steroids can do serious harm to the body, but a player takes them with the idea of gaining an unfair and illegal advantage.

Why is drug use considered an illness while steroid use isn't? I'm not exactly sure, but it might be because society considers drug use an addiction. Drug use can destroy the user, while steroid use can do that and potentially destroy the game of baseball and its cherished records.

Without getting into any of the medical studies about addiction (which I would be just as unqualified to do as Morgan), you can ask how many times Ken Caminiti relapsed with cocaine, when it was clearly ruining his life. I don't think classifying addiction as disease excuses the behavior (especially the original drug use), but is that what Joe Morgan is trying to do for 'roids users?