badsymbiote
AMERICA EATS ITS YOUNG
The thing I have to take issue with is the general response from the Bush-Admin-White House finally acknowledging steroid use in the game, and then pressing to enforce random (though anonynous? I think it was anonymous) tests on players before the season began and then once again during the season, before the the All-Star break. If I remember right, the initial results projected that overall steroid use among players was 12-to17%. Recently, I read that the percentage of players testing positive at random dropped sharply, to between--what was it, 5-10% overall (in one calendar year). Yet the White House doesn't view it as real progress, indicating that MLB needs to enact better policies and enforce repeat violators with uncompensated suspensions, and progressively harsher penalties.
Of course it should be a concern. Everybody has known for years that steroid use was more prevalent in the game than anyone cared to admit. But why the need for so much progress so quickly? Pete Rose finally admitted to betting on baseball just a year or two ago--it took 20 damned years to get the truth out of him. I predicted Mark McGuire's retirement--I knew that if that Ando-whatever steroid he was using was banned, he would retire the next year. I told evereyone who would listen--and then, even after it happened, I was blown away by how non-chalant everyone was about using substances to enhance performance was fine--after all, it was legal the year before and...blah, blah...
As far as I'm concerned, today's atheletes have better equipment, better shoes and clothing, better physical conditioning, and they need no more advantages. Previously legal but synthetic performance enhancers of any kind certainly fall under the category of any substances (including vitamins and herbal supplements) that should be regulated to maintain a standard for MLB.
I was a Mariner fan when McGuire played for Oakland. I watched him for years, before he hit the big-time in St. Louis. Though I regarded him as a pain in the butt at the plate, he wasn't the bulging, hyped-up, home-run-sluggin' guy who broke the long-standing hr record.
How you you calculate the damage done to the game by the use of steroids in record-breaking situations? The solution to this goes far beyond an asterisk and a minor footnote.