Sean Salisbury said this morning in defense of Roger Clemens (if ever there was an opening to abhor, that'd be at the top of the list) that "Steroids don't make your cutter move."
It's the same old defense of Barry Bonds and all the rest: Steroids don't make you swing the bat better. Steroids don't make you run faster. Steroids don't make the Heart of a Champion!
No, I guess not. But they do make you stronger. And in instances of injury, they help you heal faster. And at times of lingering fatigue, steroids give you that extra August boost to help you in the stretch run of a pennant chase.
Professional sports players aren't supposed to get better with age. Yeah, in their twenties they get better because they get smarter, more in tune with their game of choice, more comfortable with the speed acceleration between the pros and college. But eventually - as Shaun Alexander can attest - the body breaks down. Injuries you once played with are now costing you reps, costing you games. Injuries that might've healed in 3 weeks eventually take 6. You just don't have that same bounce in the second game of a back-to-back; the 11th game of a 12-game road trip doesn't see you at your same elite level.
But thanks to steroids, you can feel like a kid again when you're 38, overweight, and at what would normally be your declining seasons! At any ripe old age, you can get shot in the ass with a needle full of cheater, start game four of the ALCS, and strike out 15 batters en route to a World Series appearance.
Of course, knowing NOW that Roger Clemens did steroids when they weren't illegal doesn't put an inferior starting pitcher in that critical game four. It doesn't give David Justice a sore shoulder on that home run he hit off of Arthur Rhodes in 2001. It doesn't alter the course of history in any way. The Seattle Mariners still don't have a World Series banner hanging from the Safeco rafters.
All it does is open old wounds I've since let heal. My brain is bouncing around with What Ifs concerning the two best opportunities for a baseball championship in Seattle. It's like knowing that in 1996 Michael Jordan ate a bunch of aborted fetuses before every game, with the ingested stem cells giving him Super Basketball Powers. Or, you know, like knowing Jerramy Stevens washed his hands in pure butter before every offensive huddle in Super Bowl XL.
What can you do? Nothing. You just have to hope that there isn't any further cheating going forward that will destroy the team you root for (or, if there is, that YOUR team is taking the proper precautions to take advantage of said permissive cheating).
There's no joy in saying, "Oh, we were the REAL champions of 2000 because none of OUR players were on Steroids!" Because at the end of the day, 'Seattle Mariners' are not listed in the official record books as champions of jack squat.
There is, however, much joy in the image of Roger Clemens taking it up the ass. And that he's probably got marble-sized testicles and he'll die of some degenerative disease in his 50s. Oh how I hope and I pray he dies slow and painfully.