A Little Help From My Friends?

As John Lennon and Paul McCartney once cooked up in a swirl of psychedelic delusion, “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

As many of you know, I am a student at St. Cloud State University, currently studying criminal justice, journalism and broadcasting. Weird combo, I know.

Anyhow, I’m in a rather enjoyable rhetorical and analytical writing class this semester and I need some help on a paper I’ve been assigned. It’s a persuasive essay on a semi-controversial topic, with my assigned persuasion being from the minority end.

Naturally, as a rabid baseball fan, I’ve chosen to write about the Steroid Era and its relation to the Hall of Fame. It seems the majority of fans (and the voting members of the BBWAA) feel steroids have no place in the Hall. That will be apparent when Mark McGwire’s 23.7 percent of the votes he received in 2009 drops even farther next year thanks to his recent admission of performance-enhancing drug use. Unless he gets brownie points for honesty? Probably not.

This is where you guys come in. I’ve never been that great of a fibber. I get this weird tick, start to sweat, and the guilt overwhelms me. I suck at lying… even in written format. So I need some more ideas, excuses, and reasons as to why guys like Big Mac and Sammy Sosa, maybe even Jose Canseco, and (of course) the controversial, black-balled Home Run King himself, Barry Lamar Bonds, belong in the Hall of Fame.

It’s an underbelly topic, and while many of you may be of the opinion that these guys are better suited for the Hall of Shame, a few of you may very well believe they do deserve a bronze bust. I’m afraid to admit that after getting halfway into this paper, I could be fooling myself into thinking they do as well. Let’s just say I’m on the fence for now.

So let’s hear it. Be a buddy and help me write this sucker from the comments section…

Update: In the unfortunate circumstance that you don’t plan to check out our highly-entertaining comments section, one of our pals Jerod from Midwest Sports Fan left this link for us down there

Joe Posnanski: Cheating and CHEATING

which got me to thinking, Joe Posnanski is like a wise old owl. Except not really that old and not actually a nocturnal bird of prey… but any time you’re searching for an answer, there he is, just waiting for you to come along and check out his awesome perspective on life and baseball.