Barry Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame.  So should Roger Clemens.  And Mark McGwire.  Even Sammy Sosa.  And one day, Alex Rodriguez, right?  Right?

There.

I said it.

Admittedly, my opinion is not a popular one, nor one that I'm particularly proud of.  I do think these players, to a certain extent, cheated the game of baseball.  But so did hundreds of other lower-profile players (who cares if Adam Piatt or Ryan Franklin did PEDs by the boatload, right?).  Sure, they ("allegedly") decided to increase their already-talented bodies' performance with steroids of various grades and human growth hormones.  While I think they made the wrong moral decision, they simply did what baseball owners, scouts, general managers, and field managers "encouraged" them to do.  The entire baseball industry, from the fans and batboys to the sportscasters and journalists who cover the sport, knew that the bulked up bodies of these baseball players were sending balls out of yard at record clips year after year, but nobody, out of all those people, expressed any concern until, what, 2004?  I just don't see why these players should be ostracized for doing what we as fans wanted them to do: hit massive, awe-inspiring home runs.  Now, all of the sudden, we have turned on these players when we were, all along, complicit in their use?  Now we're taking the moral high ground?

The biggest problem for Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, and Sosa is that they have been caught in lies, botched Nixonian coverups, or non-answers regarding their use of PEDs.  Clearly their actions suggest guilt.  We as Americans are taught that people are "innocent until proven guilty," but when dealing with these four athletes, it seems that that maxim has been reversed.  If only they would have told the truth, right?  People said that for years about Pete Rose, whose baseball sin was, to me, much more egregious than these four players.  Unfortunately, he waited way too long to admit guilt for his crime, and made the admission during the weekend of a Hall of Fame admission ceremony, once again leaving Rose to look like an opportunist hawking his third book on the subject rather than a person showing repentance for their past sins.

Today, more revelations came out about Alex Rodriguez's alleged use of PEDs, both before and after the time he admitted to using them (from 2001 to 2003, while he was with the Texas Rangers).

I remember when he first admitted to using steroids in February how elated I was that one of the game's true superstars during the "Steroid Era" actually admitted to using.  After all, we are "forgiving country," or so they say, right?  But then, some good reporting revealed that there were holes in A-Rod's story: lots of them.  So what's worse: Lying about everything, or only telling some of the truth and lying about much more of the story?

This is where we are at with Alex Rodriguez.  Last year, when the achievements of Roger Clemens seemingly disappeared before our very eyes, I thought to myself there's no way anybody can do more damage to their baseball career than this guy.  Well, one year later, I've been proven wrong ... BIG TIME.  A-Rod has been caught using steroids, has admitted to using them, has been caught lying about what he knew or didn't know about the drugs, has been divorced, linked with the buff, old, has-been Kabbala-poser Madonna, and has been photographed basically making out with himself in a mirror in the pages of Details magazine.  Could things get any worse for this guy? Yes.  He could have a subpar season in New York City, where fans jump off the bandwagon after an 0-1 start to a 162 game season.  If A-Rod can overcome all of this and make it to Cooperstown some day, I, seriously, will be a monkey's uncle.

So what's the lesson in all of this?  1) Tell the truth?  2) You can't have your long-ball cake and eat it too?  3) Maple bats, Lasix, smaller ballparks, weight-lifting, and harder baseballs are Performance Enhancers too?  The greatest lesson here is essentially a sad one: the greatest baseball players of my life have ruined their reputations doing what we wanted them to do.  And while it's perfectly understandable, in my opinion, that doesn't make them right for doing so either.