It’s no secret, I am a sport’s junkie. But in my world where football, hockey, World Cup, and basketball are all the rage… baseball is king. I have been a baseball fan for as long as I can remember.
So here’s what I’ve learned through the stain that was the Steroid Era in baseball: Records are, indeed, meant to be broken. But they are not meant to be shattered.
It took 34 years for Babe Ruth’s homerun record to be broken in 1961. So, when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa had at it 37 years after that, it felt right. It made sense. It was time for that record to be broken. However, when it was broken six times by three different players over the same five year period, something was amiss. I couldn’t be right. It didn’t make sense.
Well… it was wrong. They cheated. The record wasn’t broken, it was shattered… with steroids.
So here’s what the stain of the steroid era has done to me: On Thursday, June 24, 2010, John Isner beat Nicolas Mahut in the fifth set of a Wimbledon match, 70-68. The previous record of any major tennis match was set in 1969 when the score in the fifth set was 25-23. This three day, 11-hour match was 70-68 nearly tripling the previous scoring record, while doubling the time record of 6 ½ hours set in 2004.
Records are meant to be broken, not shattered…
Everybody is celebrating this Isner/Mahut tennis match with the verve and vigor that is eerily reminiscent of the panache of Sosa/ McGwire. So, to that end, I am cynically thinking (and apparently the first to suggest) that Isner and Mahut cheated. Not with performance enhancing drugs… just with a performance.
Yes, I am popping the international bubble and suggesting that Isner and Mahut were in cahoots.
How else can you explain it?
Yes, the Steroid Era has tainted me. Turned me into a cynical sap.
If you don’t like it… don’t blame me… blame Barry Bonds.
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