Hitting a major league pitch can arguably be the hardest task to accomplish in all of sports. Just imagine standing under those monstrous stadium lights, trying to perfectly connect that narrow 34inch wooden bat with a blazing 95 mph fastball.
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Sounds tough right, but even this mind boggling task was conquered by some of the great few who set major league baseball hitting records that would seem to last for the ages.

Well, as we all know, records were made to be broken, but should records broken by cheaters have their place in the books of greatness? Performance enhancing drugs or steroids left a deep scar in the game of baseball, therefore it’s only right that record holding players who have been associated with steroids, have their name forever scarred by an asterisk.

Think about the many other hundreds of major leaguers out there playing ball everyday trying to reach that next level, shedding their blood, sweat, and tears. Then to hear that the game they love so much and been playing their whole life has been disgraced and abused by steroids is a straight slap to the face.

Steroid users proclaim that their sudden success throughout the league had nothing to do with steroids. That the only reason they ever got involved with steroids was to get back in the game as a result from a serious injury or to rid the effects of getting older.

That’s pure nonsense. Of course steroids contributed to their success. Since steroids grants players that extra power that is so desired by hitters, how many home runs would have just been deep fly balls to the warning track?

From the years 1998 through 2001, talented hitters Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa erupted and now hold the top six slots for the most home runs hit in a single season.

In 2001, Bonds belted out 73 home runs to set the now standing single season record, breaking that of McGwire’s who hit 70 home runs in 1998.

But wait, didn’t Bonds test positive for three types of steroids in 2000 and didn’t McGwire just recently confess to using steroids, and lets not forget about Sammy who tested positive for steroids and was also caught using a corked bat in 2003.

So, I ask again, is it really fair for these groundbreaking records to stand although the players were taking steroids?

Truthfully, they should stand and be in the record books because after all they did actually clear the fence as many times as they did, but the infamous asterisk should be placed by their name stating that they have been involved with steroid use.

Roger Maris, the Yankees right fielder in 1961, set the single season record with 61 home runs and stood for 37 years until it reached its demise when the steroid era hit.

How would he have felt if he heard that someone who cheated broke his astonishing record that he worked so hard to gain by hard work and talent?

When its all said and done, they may say their sorry for ever touching the stuff and shed a couple of tears on camera, but their records and all of baseball will forever be tainted by steroids and an asterisk would be a perfect way to exemplify it.