Dear John - Letter One

December 5, 2008

Dear John,

This letter is in response to your request of an asterisk on the Major League Baseball all-time and single-season home run records. Barry Lamar Bonds is widely believed to have been on performance enhancing drugs during the latter seasons of his record-breaking career and during the season he broke the single season record. While your request was well noted by my colleagues and the media alike, it has been declined.

An asterisk is to be reserved for a side note of noteworthy substance, not to vent your self-righteousness. Performance enhancers have been used throughout the history of baseball and the game of life. Do we put an asterisk on players with records attained on cocaine highs? Or better yet, what about players who take cortisone shots to weather an injury and play in a game. Are you aware cortisone is a steroid? You praise Curt Schilling, but loathe Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and the like? Maybe we should also put an asterisk next to Greg Maddux, who was a known user of eye contacts during his dominating seasons in the 1990's.

Perhaps your argument is not that he used a performance enhancer, but that the nature of his conditioning provided him with an advantage past players did not have. Do we also put an asterisk next to Cy Young's name because he pitched against guys who had the skill level of a JV high school utility infielder? Should we put an asterisk next to pitchers who win a game under the blind umpiring of CB Buckner?

Maybe your argument is that he violated some set of moral standards, and then lied about his actions. As if there is some sort of objective moral code in this country. If so, who follows it? Would cheating on your wife be a violation of morals? If so, many beloved presidents and political figures, including John F. Kennedy and Senator John McCain, cheated on their spouse. Are we to hold our athletes at a higher standard of morality than the men leading our country?

An asterisk is to be used for extreme scenarios of variance that should be noted. For example, a strike shortened the 1994 baseball season, therefore an asterisk should be used for 1994 to note such a fact. You would have a better argument giving an asterisk to those players who served in World War II, since they lost key seasons in their careers. Cecil Travis for example, batting .359 with 210 hits at age 27 in 1941. He did not return until age 31, and out of the game by age 33 due to constant complications from war injuries. Do those players who played during the War not deserve an asterisk?

Also, my colleagues and I would like to ask you a personal question. Have you ever cheated on a test? Kept change when a cashier gave you an extra bill? Called in sick when you really were not? Would you not object to taking a lie detector test? Maybe your degree or high school diploma should be denoted with an asterisk on your job resume, where a key would read "cheated." Maybe for your next date, an asterisk should be placed upon on your left testicle for its infidelity history.

While the economy was crumbling before their eyes, American presence in international relations worsening, and other nations' economies growing at the rate of bacteria, what did our Congress spend its priceless time on? Baseball. Are you aware that in 2005 Congress spent more days in session investigating steroid use than the Iraq war? Our own president, who ironically enough was an owner of a team with a slew of steroid users, mentioned in his State of the Union address that steroids must be stopped and ridden from the game! Like a magician with a fancy card trick, he pushed a war under his podium while dangling a syringe in our face and pointing at baseball and screaming "that's the bad guys!"

So John, your request has been adamantly denied. In the world of sport, may the ambitious competitors thrive and bask in glory, and the genetically weak or unmotivated parish. This is America, land of the cheater and home of the backstabber. And we like it that way. So get off your pedestal, look in the mirror, and get fucked.

We will all laugh at gilded butterflies,

Jack