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Expose the Users to Clear the Clean

'Real victims' of performance drugs are those left behind

By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff

Posted Feb 10, 2009 10:20 AM CST

(Newser) – The steroids-in-baseball "shame game" shouldn’t be limited to A-Rod and Barry Bonds, writes Mike Wise in the Washington Post. To keep mum on the others who cheated the game is to ignore the "real victims": The regular players who "chose correctly between right and wrong" and never made it beyond the minors. Officials should release the names of all known users so that we can celebrate those who aren’t on that list.

“This is what the celebrity-obsessed among us don't get: The offense perpetrated by the anonymous major leaguer is actually more damaging than that of Clemens, Bonds, or A-Rod,” Wise writes. That major leaguer got a leg up and thus “robbed genuine workers” of their goal to play in the big leagues. "Why not go after the players so insecure about their own legacies or ability to stay in the game they had to seize the dream from others?"

This Feb. 20, 2008 file photo shows New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez watching batting practice during spring training.
This Feb. 20, 2008 file photo shows New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez watching batting practice during spring training.   (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
Barry Bonds arrives to enter a plea at the Federal building in San Francisco, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009.
Barry Bonds arrives to enter a plea at the Federal building in San Francisco, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009.   (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
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It was beyond surprising to read my colleague Tom Boswell's plea for continued secrecy in yesterday's paper: 'Now that the witches with the longest broomsticks have been burned, can we please call off the rest of the hunt?' No, Boz, we can't. -

The drugs are not merely wrong because they helped Bonds and Clemens taint the game's annals; they're criminal because of how they hurt the career minor leaguer, the guy who chose correctly between right and wrong. - Mike Wise

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