MLB Steroid Scandal

Although it is another black eye for baseball’s reputation, the report marked a potential public turning point for the sport as it comes to grips with its steroid problem and testing regime.

“Other investigations will no doubt turn up more names and fill in more details, but that is unlikely to significantly alter the description of baseball’s ‘steroids era’ as set forth in this report,” it said.

Steroids and baseball are inseparable. Any depiction of this as an ‘era’ is misleading. What may be more true is that we have witnessed the beginning of a new era in baseball - and all of sports - where the use of steroids is commonplace.

It must be accepted that testing for steroids is a fools errand. No reasonable amount or perfection of testing can really ‘clean’ the game. Any notion to the contrary is a waste of time. Notably the Olympics and bicycling have been using testing for some time now. Surely, they catch a few here and there. By and large however, more users go undetected. This is for a variety of reasons: using when they aren’t or won’t be tested being at the top of the list. The point here is simple: if baseball wants to test, which they have been doing, they can expect to ‘clean’ the game but never really see anything change.

So, how do we, or do we, combat this problem? I can’t answer this question. In my mind, the names on the list have made the game worth watching. I find baseball terribly boring yet hitting further and pitching faster have helped make the game a lot more interesting. Can you imagine baseball today without Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, and Sammy Sosa’s home run series? I cannot. That may be our answer right there.

If your intention is to clean the game, then the only real solution is weekly blood testing, which the players’ union and Donald Fehr would never accept. That’s an easy enough way to solve the problem of HGH and steroids right there, but it would be really difficult to pass.

More pertinent I think, is when will the day come that steroids, but especially HGH, become an accepted part of all professional sports? HGH has side affects much less severe than steroids and as the market grows, designer drugs become more efficient with decreased side affects.

I don’t have a problem with guys like Mark McGwire, Roy Clemens and Barry Bonds being in the Hall of Fame, but too many old timers have a no tolerance policy on the “integrity” of baseball. Times have changed though and I think they will be reflected in the rules and Hall of Fame in the near future.