I’m sure you’ve all heard the phrase “Cheaters Never Win.” Apparently that’s not always the case.
Major League Baseball has announced that Melky Cabrera, who is currently serving a 50-game suspension for using a banned substance, will in fact be eligible to win the NL batting title. One player of local interest, Andrew McCutchen, currently trails Cabrera by seven points (.346 to .339) and doesn’t have much longer to make up the ground.
If Cabrera wins, he will have done it despite missing almost a third of the season due to cheating. It’s a lot easier to hit at a high pace for 112 games instead of 162. We’ve seen that firsthand with McCutchen, whose average was as high as .374 on July 17th but has slowly eroded away.
Let’s play the “what if” game shall we? When Cabrera was suspended, he was trailing McCutchen by 12 points (.358 to .346), but of course that also meant he no longer had to make any at bats. Would he have hit at his pace the rest of the way if he was playing in these 50 games? How will we ever know?
If Commissioner Bud Selig had any guts at all, he’d do what is best for the game and ban Cabrera from winning the honor. What kind of message does this send to players that they can cheat and still get rewarded with prizes at the end of the year? Oh wait, this is Bud Selig we’re talking about, the man who stood idly by while steroids ran rampant throughout his sport.
Look back at the great homerun duel between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire. Both players were juiced up at the time.
Look at the situation with last year’s NL MVP Ryan Braun. He failed a drug test and faced a 50-game suspension to start the year but won his appeal because of a technicality. He wasn’t stripped of his award either. See the lesson we’re learning here?
I’m not proposing this because I am biased towards Andrew McCutchen, I’m doing this because it’s for the good of the game. I wouldn’t be upset if Buster Posey won the title either. Anyone but Cabrera!
I am sick and tired of the blatant cheating in our sports, and it’s time someone took a step forward and made a stand against these cheaters. Pete Rose was banned from baseball for gambling on the sport. He never cheated. If you’re going to let players cheat with performance enhancing drugs (PED’s) then why not let Pete Rose back into the game?
Do what’s right for the game Bud, for once in your life. Punish the cheaters, clean up the game, and do what it takes to make sure this situation never happens again.
Photo Credits: Rant Sports
