WriteUps #3

"Shutout in Cooperstown." Editorial. New York Times 11 Jan. 2013: A22. New York Times Company, 10 Jan. 2013. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

This editorial from the New York Times explains the effect of steroids on the Bseball Hall of Fame where the greatest basbeall players of all time are enshrined for all of eternitiy. There are many alcoholics and bad personalities already entered into the Hall of Fame who just have the stats required to get in. But steroids affects a lot more than statistics. It affected both people using and the clean ones. The users set the highest standards so the clean/ already solid players didn't look as good statistically against them and the journeymen who had to use steroids just to stay in the league and risk their health. It also affected people who may not have done steroids but have the shadow lingering over their heads. In conclusion, to lessen the incentive of steroids and further baseball from the steroid culture, do not allow these cheaters in the Hall of Fame.

This editorial doesn't focus on the cheaters themselves but on the people they affect. Steroids affects from clean players to those who are barely staying in the league. The Hall of Fame should be a representative of statistics that a baseball player accrued over his playing years. But a steroid user's negative externalities should be taken into account as well.

VETTING THE SOURCE: The New York Times Editorial Board is composed of 19 journalists with wide-ranging areas of expertise. Their primary responsibility is to write The Times’s editorials, which represent the voice of the board, its editor and the publisher. The board is part of the Times’s editorial department, which is operated separately from the Times newsroom, and includes the Letters to the Editor and Op-Ed sections.