Is "it doesn't matter."
Regardless of what the publishers of any given record book choose to print (or not to print) it will always be the case that Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001, that Michigan outscored Cincinnati 76-72 in the 1992 NCAA men's basketball tournament semifinal, and that in 1988 Ben Johnson ran 100 meters in 9.79 seconds.
No matter what legitimacy you ascribe to these outcomes, all are events that really took place for however much or little they're worth. The bestowing or witholding of official sanction will make writing trivia questions about them a pain in the butt, but there are worse things.
(On the other hand, taking this argument to its absurd conclusion might require claiming that Mark McGwire hit 71 home runs in 1998 (not 70) because of the ball that reached the bleachers in Milwaukee, on which an umpire erroneously believed a fan had reached across the invisible plane and incorrectly ruled fan interference (with McGwire awarded a double).)
Posted by Matt Bruce at March 13, 2006 03:37 PMI don't think that's completely accurate, simply because in the end, only history remains. (Try asking someone who won the battle of Kadesh, for instance.) So eventually whatever the history books have will become truth.
Personally, my willingness to expunge records falls off exponentially with the time since the offense. If someone tests positive at the same Olympics where they just won a gold medal, that's fine. But the NCAA's willingness to rewrite history four or five years in the past has always struck me as a little weird and creepy.
Posted by: Paul at March 14, 2006 12:22 AM