Afternoon Baseball

I have mixed feelings on this. Obviously, what's done is done, and the perception that people place on an era (or the players of an era) is much more important than any impact that throwing astericks on records will bring.
However, I don't think the hearings are a waste of time. Baseball is more important than other sports with regards to steroids because statistics are so important to the game, even across eras. In the NFL, NBA, and NHL, it's accepted that earlier eras were completely different landscapes that do not compare.
Foolishly or not, in baseball that is not the case. So a record being broken, or the changed value (or devaluation) of a statistic is much more important because of the reprecussions it has on all eras and players of baseball's considerable history.

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The ESPN.com guys have some interesting thoughts, although Jayson Stark comes across with a little too much weeping. Onlybaseballmatters.com takes a rather libertarian approach to the issue, saying the whole matter is overblown and invades the privacy concerns of entertainers -- that being the key word.

One very good point made on the latter site, however, is that the call has been for players to publicly say, one way or the other, what they've done. Yet, in the case of Bonds, his word is not trusted. Now, that's true. But that also gives too much credit to the vocal minority who will never be convinced that almost everyone is juicing and doing all sorts of horrid things -- these people also probably believe that Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle would get away with their off-the-field antics today or that old-time pitchers would still survive throwing 300 innings every year.
Rafael Palmeiro was very, very vocal in denouncing any allegations. You know what, he's probably telling the truth. Sammy Sosa, although he somehow forgot English when he reached Washington, D.C., also seems rather truthful, although his credibility is shaky after his corked bat incident.
Mark McGwire really had no reason not to deny the allegations -- even if he would be lying, he's never going to be prosecuted on the unlikely chance he was found out. His stonewalling is significant, especially because he's long-retired, but not yet in the Hall of Fame.

If baseball tightens up the loopholes, if any, in the testing, and the players union continues to allow its members to be outspoken against steroid use, then some good will have come out of the hearings. But let's not condemn these hearings for their grandstanding and lack of substance. After all, baseball itself has been playing that very game for a long, long time.