Syringes half-full

According to Tuesday, MLB has persuaded one of the ringleaders of suspected cheat factory Biogenesis to rat out a large collection of suspected cheaters, which we’re told will likely lead to an unprecedented slew of suspensions.

If the reports are true, the nickname “A-Fraud” will have never been so apt — before PEDs came to the fore, it simply mocked his transparent, plastic personality — and Ryan Braun, the other headliner in the soon-to-boil-over cauldron of controversy, will officially and irretrievably lose any shred of respect he might have maintained in the wake of his MVP/overturned drug bust drama.

Here in the Bay Area, the A’s will have to once again make due without Bartolo Colon, a loss perhaps offset competitively by the fact that Rangers stud Nelson Cruz is said to be among the dopes, and Giants fans get to thank their lucky stars that Melky Cabrera got popped last year — BEFORE the Giants convinced themselves they needed to sign him to a monster multi-year deal.

Across the country, baseball fans will be taking sides.

On one side will be those who skew negative, using this unprecedented-in-scale scandal as support of their theory that big-league ball is as dirty as ever. The testing program isn’t working, they’ll claim. The penalties don’t serve as a severe enough deterrent. The players have no respect for the game, its history or its authority.

We’ll probably get some racial nonsense, too, given the surnames of the players implicated.

Are those on this side of searing condemnation wrong? Not really. Truth is, there is no right or wrong here. Any frustration, disappointment, anger or indignation associated with this story is certainly justified.

It’s another flaming bag of feces on the so-called national pastime’s doorstep, and a great number of fans long ago resigned themselves to the notion that very little that’s seen on the fields before them can be believed as the product of talent plus hard work and sacrifice. The preponderance of evidence to the contrary makes it hard to assume anyone’s 100 percent clean.

Unfair to those who ARE clean? Sure. But a sadly understandable stance.

The other side? That’s where I’m choosing to sit on this one, in a place where what’s sought is progress rather than perfection.

Is baseball ever going to be cheat-free? H-to-the-ell no. You’ve heard the saying, “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying,” right? Well, there’s a lot of truth to that. It’s not the most pious approach, but it’s taken in one way or another by virtually everyone who’s played the game at a relatively high level.

“Cheating,” of course, is difficult to define in sports. Stealing, for instance, is unacceptable in the real world unless it’s in reference to glances or kisses. In basketball and soccer, though, stealing the ball is an art form to some, as is stealing signs in baseball and football.

There are rules against scuffing the pearl in baseball, or loading it up with the nectar of Gaylord Perry’s essence, but it’s in an entirely different class of “cheating” than popping greenies or stabbing needles in your ass. In fact, there’s a wink-wink/nudge-nudge admiration associated with the practice of subtly getting over on umpires.

Hey, I did it too. You ever throw a ball accessorized with a little sweat and some Ivory soap? Pretty damn magical movement, and pretty damn easy to get away with when you’re wearing home whites. Just rub a bar against your thigh before every inning, step off the mound to wipe your brow, introduce fingers to said thigh, and say hello to that strikeout you so desperately need.

Cheating? Some call it gamesmanship.

Drugging it up, though, is something we can all agree is Bad For Ball. It’s absolutely cheating in every sense of the word. There is no gamesmanship in a lab. And unfortunately, it’s likely that no matter what happens when the Biogenesis dust settles, a certain segment of the player population will choose ego and the lure of bloated stats, money and fame over integrity.

They will try to beat the system. They will cheat.

But some of them will get caught. Given the progression we’ve been witnessing, it seems likely that a LOT of them will get caught.

Not all of them, of course. Good and evil will cat-and-mouse it ad infinitum; baseball’s scientists on both sides of the equation are no exception. But we’re seeing more and more players exposed as sullied every year, and that, at least to me and those of like mind, is proof that the game really is serious about cleaning things up.

It wasn’t always that way. We have those “Chicks dig the long ball” commercials as evidence of the blind eyes once turned.

Those same eyes appear wide open now. Who cares if they were shamed open by the pathetic showings of Big Mac, Sammy Sosa and Pointy Palmeiro in front of Congress? Open is open, and open is good.

Bust are up. Home runs, and the pajama-style unis that juicers used to rock to hide their freakishly enhanced Frankenstein physiques, are down.

That’s progress, and as long as there’s progress, we should be encouraged, not discouraged.

Perfection? Not often found in this world. Queen’s Live Aid set, Sophia Loren and Halle Berry in their prime, and Vin Scully’s handling of Kirk Gibson’s homer in ’88 (sorry, A’s fans) are about all we’ve seen.

Are we going to see more imperfection in baseball regarding PEDs? Yup. No doubt. Some people are flat-out dumb and greedy and dishonest.

Keep combating that with honesty and sincerity in the effort to eradicate the issue, though, and the pastime will always survive the occasional angst of the present.

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Thanks for stopping by, folks, and if you download one song today, make it Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight.” Dude was a teenager when he bust that out. Insanely good.

–Urbs