Pyrrhic Victories and 'Roids

The Cowboys and Steelers won the battles this week, but with the losses of "T.O." and "Fast" Willie Parker, they may have lost the war. I think the loss of Parker is the more serious, not only because he has no chance of coming back whereas T.O. could be back for the NFC Championship or the Super Bowl but also because in the Junior Varsity Conference, the Cowboys probably won't need him until they run into Green Bay.

In other news, to all those who have stated that Barry Bonds was being singled out in the steroid investigation because of his race, I present to you: Roger Clemens. Has anyone even heard Bonds' name uttered this week? No, because its not about white or black or red or blue when it comes to how much we care about whether an athlete cheated or not. What matters is that player's level of stardom. Palmiero, Pettite, Gagne, Roberts, and even Sosa and McGwire are big names, but Clemens and Bonds are in their own stratosphere. Were upset when very good players, even borderline Hall of Famers cheated, but when the greatest pitcher and greatest hitter of this generation were found to have cheated, it called into question many of our favorite memories and some of the biggest records in all of sports. When guys like Palmiero, Pettite, Sosa and McGwire cheat, it allows mediocre players to be star players, or enables an aging player to collect a few extra game checks. When someone of Bonds or Clemens talent cheats, it allows them to break records, forever altering the way our heroes of the past are remembered. In 5 or 10 years when I'm teaching my son about baseball, I can't tell him that Barry Bonds is the greatest slugger of all time. I can't tell him that Roger Clemens is the greatest pitcher I've ever seen take the mound. I have to tell him those things and then I have to explain the steroids era. In essence, Steroids have complicated something that should be simple. We like our sports simple. Our team is the good guys, your team is the bad guys. Simple. This guy hit more home runs than anyone else ever. Simple. But when you have to explain asterisks because of cheating, it stops being simple. I don't know that MLB can salvage the situation other than by adopting a zero tolerance policy towards Performance Enhancing Drugs. First offense: Lifetime Ban. Strike all records set by anyone on PED from the books. I don't think this will happen of course, so we can only hope that over the next few years someone from the C.C. Sabathia, Josh Beckett, Johan Santana class emerges to become a CLEAN, dominant, 300 game winning pitcher that we thought Clemens was; and that...gulp... A-Rod CLEANLY breaks the home run record. I just threw up in my mouth typing that. Sadly though, both of these things need to happen for baseball to become simple again. I miss simple sports.