By Harrison Leone
Sports Assignment Editor
While baseball is often decried as too boring for our stimulus-crazed public, America’s pastime has nevertheless been a constant source of intrigue all summer long. Fans have been treated to historic individual performances from the sport’s top athletes.
In the American League, Detroit third baseman Miguel Cabrera is fresh off the league’s first Triple Crown in over four decades and, incredibly enough, is within striking distance of becoming the first man ever to achieve this feat in consecutive seasons. Cabrera and Baltimore slugger Chris Davis have been locked in a two-man race all summer for the AL Home Run and RBI crowns, – a race that, having gained steam all season, appears to be headed down to the wire.
While Davis and Cabrera have been lighting up the batter’s box, the premier arms of the game have been equally exciting as they take the mound. Max Scherzer, also of Detroit, began the season with 13 victories before taking his first loss and has added six more wins since to become only the third pitcher in the past century to post a record of 19-1.
Look across to the National League and you will see yet another season for the ages, perhaps the most impressive yet, in the hands of Mr. Clayton Kershaw. The Dodgers ace spent his summer spearheading the Dodger’s surge into the pennant race, baffling hitters to the tune of a Bob Gibson-esque 1.72 ERA while also leading the league in a host of advanced metrics.
Anyone lucky enough to see Kershaw pitch can tell they are in the presence of once-in-a-generation greatness. As the playoff picture comes more into focus with every game, these men and their pursuits of baseball immortality will be sure to entertain weeks after the standings have finally stabilized.
Things have not all been positive on the diamond, however. The bulk of the Steroid Era may have passed, but the game is still plagued by lingering dopers, even among the most elite players.
Former MVP Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers was suspended for the remainder of the season in late July by Major League Commissioner Bud Selig after it was revealed he had connections to Biogenesis of America, a Miami anti-aging clinic alleged to have provided performance enhancing drugs to major leaguers. Braun was just one of several players suspended because of their ties to Biogenesis, but his case is particularly nauseating, not because of his skill level but rather because last season, after failing a drug test, Braun vehemently denied the claims and attacked the MLB official who handled his test.
Even worse than Braun is Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez, who admitted to using PEDs in the early 2000s, was accused of attempting to obstruct MLB investigations into the Biogenesis scandal. For his role in the whole ugly affair, Selig dropped an unprecedented hammer against Rodriguez, suspending him for the entire 2014 season in addition to the remainder of the 2013 campaign. Faced with such severe penalties, Rodriguez opted to appeal his suspension, which, while permitting him to play the rest of 2013, may result in a lifetime ban from the game.
Braun, Rodriquez and the 11 other players suspended for their failed attempt to circumvent baseball’s PED policy have only lengthened the shadow that doping has cast over the game.
It would be a shame if their transgressions came to be what defined this year. Instead, the halcyon days of the summer of 2013 should be remembered as one of the most exciting baseball seasons of the new century.
leonehj11@bonaventure.edu
