Am I the only one who thinks that this steroid controversey is about 20 years too late? I find it funny that people are thinking that steroids are only a problem now, and that we need to be suspicious of all of today’s ball players. And if the Balco testimony didn’t leak which basically told us that Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, and Jason Giambi did steroids, would anyone even care? Baseball has been so hush hush on steroids for so long, that only now because three key players testified to a grand jury that they did in fact take steroids, that they are going to do anything about it. And it took many players who are probably not on steroids to come out and say to their player’s association that there needs to be testing, for even a more stringent policy to come out. Baseball is so reactive it’s funny.

I think most of the baseball public really wants these guys to be proven guilty of steroid use. And the reason is because it provides clear cut closure. If it was proven that Bonds was not guilty of steroid use (which he could still well be outside of Balco, but that’s a stretch), people would still have their suspicions. The fact that Jose Canseco came out and said certain folks like Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmiero were on steroids has actually provided closure to folks who are probably saying, “I knew it!” The problem with that is the source obviously. You have Tony LaRussa who is saying that Big Mac absolutely did not do roids. And you have Canseco who is saying that he absolutely did them. If you were grading on a believability scale, you’d say LaRussa is probably right. But the fact that Big Mac was an andro user, probably casts a black shadow on his innocence. Andro is a steroid precursor and people who use that probably know what they’re doing. It’s not like Big Mac could go to a GNC and go, “Hmm, that andro seems interesting, give me some of that.” He probably did his research and knew exactly what he was getting into. And he got caught. The fact that it wasn’t yet a banned substance doesn’t really mean anything to me, because not just any Joe was using andro at the time. It’s banned now in baseball and for a reason.

When people bring up baseball records and how the game has been tainted, I find it entertaining because cheating is a part of baseball lore. However, now that you bring performance enhancing drugs to the table, cheating is wrong. That’s fine thinking, but I just find it odd that you can spit on the ball, cork your bat, take speed, use gloves that are bigger than regulation, drink coffee, and do other things that would be cheating (technically), but only when you put something in your body that makes your workouts more beneficial, does anyone care. And it’s not like they care because steroids harm your body. No, it’s because of these hallowed records. It’s an interesting world. I say if you want to put an asterisk next to modern day records, you might as well do it to everyone’s record because you don’t know what has happened in the past 20 years because baseball is just coming around now to this steroid stuff. Everyone is now going to be cast in the same shadow. And this could’ve been taken care of years ago, if baseball didn’t look the other way.

Derek Jeter looks like a skinny guy right? But do you really know what he puts into his body? What if he puts something in his body that’s not technically an anabolic steroid, but is something that hasn’t yet been tested, but will be, and will be banned eventually when baseball gets to it? Is that cheating? I’m not implicating him at all, but that’s where the mystery is to me. Unless they test these guys like scientists would test monkeys, we really aren’t going to know. And you can blame that on baseball. You want everyone to get bigger and stronger in the fastest time possible, pay them more money when they do, even write things out of their contract to make them easier to sign (Jason Giambi anyone?), and then when a grand jury finds that some of these guys weren’t exactly clean, you’re not ready to take any responsibility. It’s sick to me. The players will take responsibility because their name is now dirty, but baseball will say, “We didn’t know, we know now, and we’ll try to fix it.” What a load of crap that is.

Off of the steroid talk for now. But if you’re not watching The Ultimate Fighter, you’re missing out. Think of this show as Big Brother except instead of regular folks, you have mixed martial arts fighters all in one house. And rather than being voted out of the house, you have to fight your way to survive in the octagon. Give them booze, put them on teams creating a competitive atmosphere, and you have a great show. The Apprentice is lame, Amazing Race is over, Survivor hasn’t started back up yet, and American Idol hasn’t yet started it’s competition, so check out Ultimate Fighter. You can’t write what happens on this show any better than it comes out from real, though sometimes inebriated, action.

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