First, HGH has no effect on performance that could make one a better pitcher. Indeed, it doesn’t even speed healing in otherwise healthy individiuals.

Second, there is no more evidence that Pettite has cheated in the last several years than for any other major or minor leaguer. Anything he did 5+ years ago will not affect his ability to out compete anyone else.

HGH may be called a performance enhancer by the media, but those that study it can find no such effect (especially in sports made up of highly derived skills, like baseball). In contrast, the performance enhancing benefits of cortisone are well documented and understood.

You appear to be hung up on whether something was legally obtained or used (with legality being determined arbitrarily rather than based on merit) instead of whether or not something actually has an effect.

A players legacy is NOT what the media chooses it to be…it is ultimately what the FANS remember about his playing days, nothing more, nothing less.

Had he retired after the NFC championship game with the Vikings in 2009-2010, he could have gone off into the sunset a hero. All of the “will he or won’t he” talk got so tiresome for everyone.

Again, I’m just using this as an example of how someone can, in fact, tarnish a stellar legacy by not knowing how to quit or bow out gracefully. I’m almost positive that this won’t end up applying to Andy.

Andy upped the curve, and by cheating to up the curve, he cheated the clean players out of higher paychecks.

Unless, of course, the player holds on through a string of mediocre to bad seasons to set a big record or reach a major statistical milestone, in which case they may help his legacy even though he wasn’t helping his team much during those years.

2 – Show me two players who were exactly the same, but one became better because of “cheating”. Or is it possible that Player A was already better than Player B, and the “cheating” further enhanced it?

3 – Baseball isn’t a zero sum game, so he didn’t steal money from those players. How you can make this leap in logic is beyond me.

2) A player is judged against his peers. If his peers are better than him because they are cheating, the clean player is judged to be not as good. Inferior players receive inferior paychecks, no matter what team they are on.

3) Players are rewarded financially for postseason berths. If you are trying to make the post season as a clean player, and someone on another team is cheating, you are being cheated.

“As for you yourself, you’ve never taken a 35 minute lunch instead of 30, never shown up ten minutes late to work, called out sick when you weren’t, etc?”

I have never stolen money from my coworkers, or competitors. Pettitte did.

But when it comes to legacy, without pinstripes it would be sort of a silly discussion. If Pettitte had spent his career with virtually any other organization he’d be Chuck Finley. Again, a damn fine pitcher, but someone that nobody would tossing around in fringe Hall of Fame conversation, or worrying about how making a late comeback would affect his *legacy*.

All of which makes me take exception with Craig’s opening sentence… is a guy who racked up a lone top-3 Cy Young finish in 16 full seasons, a great player? Only by way of the pinstripes.

That said, there’s undeniably a huge emotional component to fandom, and I don’t think that can be dismissed entirely, even if these sorts of concerns about “legacy” are entirely selfish on the part of the fan.

Basically what I’m saying is that the idea of Michael Jordan in a Wizards jersey straight kills me, even today.

As for you yourself, you’ve never taken a 35 minute lunch instead of 30, never shown up ten minutes late to work, called out sick when you weren’t, etc?

…on the other hand, look at someone like Bret Favre. Maybe we’re all still too close to the end of his career, but I have to think that, even in 5 or 10 years, the fact that he stuck around WAY too long is going to be part of his legacy, and it does feel like it’s going to diminish what he accomplished in GB.

Obviously this doesn’t apply to Pettitte, but I think it’s a fairly decent example of a legacy being tarnished by sticking around too long, and being fairly graceless in doing so.

And all this crap about cheating, HGH, whatever…are we going to sit here and say the same about all the guys that did greenies, amphetamines, pine tar and spit? I understand the moral argument about MLB is never going away but throwing curveballs around the rules themselves has always been a part of the game whether we choose to notice it or not, so putting our noses up and calling him a cheater is saying the same about thousands of other former players for the past several generations.