There is one thing I don't understand about the logic in ranking players with the steroids asterisk. If I try to compare a player like Cap Anson against a player like Mike Trout, there are all sorts of responses of how you can't compare eras, because the fields were different, competition was different, training was different, etc. So, it could be argued that a player that was the best of his generation is the GOAT because you can only really compare him in the context of the era in which he played.
But, in the steroids era, any player connected to steroids is automatically disqualified in the eyes of most folks that debate whether a player is in the running for GOAT at a position. But, it ignores the fact that the overwhelming majority of players the steroid guy was competing against were on a level playing field, because they were all also taking steroids. In the case of Roger Clemens, he has no positive test or physical evidence that he took steroids, but let's take it as gospel he was a regular steroids user. When he was on the mound and throwing to the greats of his day, Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, Canseco etc., he was playing against competition the likes of which never existed in every other era of baseball - do, in large part, to the fact these players and most of their teammates were also on steroids.
When we talk about home run records today and the Judge v Maris (or Ruth in 154 games) comparison, we gloss over the guys above them on the list (there are 6 seasons better than Maris' 61 - all of them during the stretch in which Clemens was a dominant pitcher), because the steroid era HR's don't count. But, to every pitcher during that era, those earned runs had the same impact on their stats as they did before and after the steroid era. Are steroids really an unfair advantage when all of the best hitters you are facing have the exact same advantage? If it was determined that every race Usain Bolt ran in the Olympics was on a 45 degree decline, would he be any less dominant relative to his competition during his reign?
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