Please say it ain’t so

Rafael Palmeiro, the Baltimore Orioles’ first baseman and occasional designated hitter, has been suspended 10 days for his first offense of the league’s substance abuse policy.

Everyone has probably heard about this already and every sports writer in America has voiced their opinion whether it’s been in their newspaper, on the radio, or on some sports show. Well, I’m going to add my two cents in there since the Orioles are my favorite MLB team.I go to Iowa State University and am quite involved as a sports journalist, In addition to writing for the school newspaper I also appear on a TV show called Cyclone Sports Live.

On one of our last shows before the end of the semester, we talked about the new steroids policy, just after Alex Sanchez, Tampa Bay outfielder, was the first Major Leaguer suspended. I said on the show that baseball needed to have a high-profile player be suspended, even if it meant fans were disgusted with it. That is for the good of the game and it needed to happen, and finally it did… I just didn’t expect the big name to be Rafael Palmeiro.

A friend of mine called me yesterday afternoon while I was driving home and asked me if I had heard the news, and I hadn’t. He told me about Palmeiro and it was like someone kicked me in the stomach. Talk about adding insult to injury. My Orioles already have it bad enough these days after losing their last 13 of 14 games, falling below .500, and more or less out of playoff contention, and then they have this happen.

To me, Palmeiro has always played under the radar. He has never been in contention for a batting title, never involved in the home run race, and has always been a quiet player. But meanwhile in his past 20 seasons, he’s racked up more than 500 home runs and 3,000 hits, one of only four players to do so. And now he’s been suspended for taking steroids. It just isn’t right. This calls into question his credentials as he was a sure bet to make the Hall of Fame. Does this also give Jose Canseco and his book more validity? Some.

I always hoped Barry Bonds would be the big name to test positive and then my hating him would be validated, but it wasn’t. Probably Sammy Sosa too even though he is also an Oriole. Jason Giambi would have been another good one to have test positive. Doesn’t this make you want to take a closer look at him since he is all of sudden started crushing the ball? But Palmeiro?

I don’t want to take sides on the issue, especially since I am a huge O’s fan and am more partial to them when it comes to stuff like this, so I can’t have my feelings clouding the issue. Palmeiro said he didn’t “intententionally” take steroids. Doesn’t this sound familiar? He also asked reporters why would he take something like this at this point of his career? He brings up a good point I think. He was almost guaranteed a spot in the HoF so it would make no sense for him to be taking steroids all of sudden. He’s hit at least 35 home runs for the past several seasons so it’s hard to believe he’s been taking steroids. His size has never been that big even if he does have some power, unlike Bonds, who just all of a sudden exploded in size. So while his excuse sounds vague and questionable, and as much as I don’t want to believe it, I will, just because of the type of player he has been and still is. But I would like to know what he took and have him come up with a better explanation, but I doubt we’ll hear anything like that.

So is his suspension good for baseball? I think so. I knew a big name needed to be a victim for people to start taking this new policy seriously. Until this point, the only people being suspended were minor leaguers and smaller profile players like Sanchez. I believe people were thinking that baseball was afraid of going after a big name for fear what the fans might do — quit coming, negative reactions, etc. — but clearly they aren’t. With this suspension, hopefully the other big namers will quit taking their banned substances and just play the game. I can dream can’t I?