Pay for Play

I don’t know a whole lot of people who are feeling particularly betrayed by the recent outing of A-Rod’s steroid history. First and foremost, he’s a Yankee, and that’s always a problem. But secondly, steroids in baseball strikes us as kind of boring these days–like complaining about the lack of healthy hot dog choices at the ballpark. It isn’t that we condone or even approve of steroid use–the health risks to the players just don’t seem worth it, not to mention it contaminates the purest American sport there is. Those issues notwithstanding, it just doesn’t seem worthwhile to give that much attention to something that doesn’t have to be the tragedy everyone is making it out to be.

This is not to say that nothing should be done about the problem, however. But how should baseball react, given that for the past fifteen years at least, everything they’ve done hasn’t actually accomplished anything except to foster an atmosphere of distrust in players, management, and–most disastrously–the sport itself? The answer, I will suggest, really comes from the big man himself; although it varies a bit in its application and tenor.

Taking a hint from President Obama’s proposed salary cap for CEO’s who use government bailout money, we suggest that baseball “legalize” steroid use–no condemnations, no disappointment, no asterisks. The poetry in our plan is this: all players will be tested regularly, just to see. If a player wants to use steroids, hoping they will enhance his performance, then fine; but any player who chooses to do so will limit his income to 500,000 dollars a year–still a nice chunk of change, but nowhere near the dough they would make if they chose to play clean.

This salary cap would incentivize clean performance and would also be a boon to managers and owners alike, who would be freed from the fallout of the discovery that their star players are, in fact, on the juice. Plus, imagine the savings! On A-Rod alone, the Yankees could score what basically amounts to a 27.5 million dollar coupon. Of course, there would be a stipulation that a season clean would entitle the player to a salary renegotiation–but that shouldn’t be a problem for either the player or the owners.

As it stands now, the punitive mindset only hurts baseball and pushes all of the dirty little secrets under the rug. Legalization of steroids is not legitimization, and a salary cap reflects baseball’s most poignant of truths: that none of us are perfect all of the time; we are inclined to make errors. But those errors are counted and are as much a part of the game as they are a part of ourselves. A salary cap for steroid use makes room for the humanity inherent in baseball, and also draws the line between those who play to win, and those who play because they cannot help but do so.