For Major League Baseball players the incentives to cheat outweigh the risks

You wanna know what’s screwed up about Major League Baseball?  Look a little deeper than the obviously shameful headline from today that Major League Baseball  is about to slap 20 players with suspensions for doping.

On the surface the length of the proposed suspensions for most of the players appear stiff (Yankees cheat Alex Rodriguez may possibly be hit with as many as 100 games).  The problem is these suspensions are about as “stiff” as a slap in the hand when you consider the temporary, partial season loss of salary for cheating vs. the multi-million benefit of cheat (again see admitted cheat A-Rod).

In my book,  baseball players who cheat with PERFORMANCE ENHANCING drugs do not belong in the game, PERIOD!, especially when all their achievements – and the game’s reputation itself – are forever tainted by each successive scandal.  What I find utterly astounding is the fact that these cheaters – Rodriguez and Barry Bonds being the icons of this massive problem – have garnered contracts and endorsements worth well over $300 million combined.  These dopes have been  CHEATING and STEALING all their way up to the bank.

Suspensions, media suspicions about your true talent and being barred from ever joining the Baseball Hall of Fame are hardly real deterrents for cheats like these.  And think about this: If these rascals were in any other profession and their cheating ways got them the kind of rich contracts that they get in baseball, they would not only be barred from practicing those careers for life but they might be also face jail time or worse would potentially be liable for paying back their rich contracts and fraud-tainted endorsements.

Slapping players with mere suspensions for cheating that directly impacts the outcomes of games, contracts, endorsements and credibility is the epitome of why I went from being a huge baseball fan of three decades to not caring at all about America’s “past time.”  I know the player’s union will be ticked to hear me says this but MLB should ban these criminals for life if they are going to send the message that they care about restoring integrity to the one sport in America that more than teeters on irrelevance.