The Five Greatest Basketball Player of All-Time

The major difference between that Babe Ruth thing and players who used steroids is that Babe Ruth had no control over who he played against. I am not a fan of asterisks, but I hate strained equivalencies. If you were going to penalize players with asterisks, in my opinion it shouldn't be over things they had no control over.

 

I didn't say anything about whether the steroid era was a level playing field. I said that players who use banned drugs make a choice for themselves. Babe Ruth had no choice about who he played against.

You said that Babe Ruth equivalency makes you laugh when "writers get on their high horse about steroids." If someone thinks that players who used steroids cheated, maybe you disagree. But I don't understand why that strained equivalency makes you laugh. Babe Ruth wasn't the one who kept blacks out of baseball. A player who used steroids did choose to do the thing those writers are on their "high horse" about.

 

But the guy in the middle was.

 

When you put an asterisk next to a name in a sports record book, you are telling the person that his achievement is somehow marred or tainted or not worthy of standing alone. Call it whatever you want. I actually didn't call it punishment -- why the quotation marks?

I suspect anyone who gets an asterisk next to their name in a record book views it as punishment. They are certainly being penalized.