Baseball's tainted MVP

By Reuters/ Jeff Haynes

Baseball has always had a steroid problem. You can name countless players who have been busted. Ramirez, Rodriguez, Ortiz, Clemens, are a few that come to mind. These are great players. Players who have won MVPs, Cy Youngs, and Championships. However, none of them ever won an award and got busted in the same season. In fact, no player has won the MVP award and got busted for steroid use that year. Until now. Ryan Braun's 50 game suspension for a positive test taints this MVP award. The question is, should he be stripped of the award?

I know that so many other players have been busted, and admitted to steroid use. Even so, before steroids weren't illegal. Now players get tested. So to fail a test is even worse than before. Ryan Braun is appealing against the positive test of course, but I doubt he will succeed. He is still set to accept his MVP award, but does he deserve it? Is it fair to other players, namely— Matt Kemp. Kemp finished in second in the MVP race and as far as we know, did so playing the season clean. Is it fair to Kemp that he loses the award because someone else was using performance enhancing drugs?

To me, baseball should take drastic measures and strip Braun of the award. There should be a no acceptance policy when it comes to steroids. It is not fair to the integrity of the game that people are still cheating. Knowingly cheating at that. If baseball allows Braun to keep the award, they are supporting his usage of steroids. Braun should be used as a precedent for all players, if you cheat you will not be rewarded. So hopefully baseball does the right thing, and Braun is not allowed to keep his MVP award.