Steroids, Schmeroids

Why so much time spent with this steroids stuff? Alex Rodriguez comes out and says that he used a banned substance for 3 years (and he obviously tested positive those years) along with 103 other players. Is this a big surprise? I mean during the years they are talking about, baseball was lauded as America's sport. People were hitting home runs and as they used to say 'chicks dig the long ball'. Baseball stadiums were filled at an amazing rate and everyone was getting paid.

The players, under direction from their union, tested these 104 players promising that this would be something that would allow them to test and not be reported. All of this information was supposedly going to be destroyed afterwards. Years later the players find out that the tests (and results) were not destroyed and are now 'out in the open' (an old Mission Impossible quote). A-Rod is caught up now because of this. Miguel Tejada is caught up, and we don't know who else is on that list.

Now you have MLB saying that they are thinking about stripping players of their stats during the times where they tested positive for banned substances. The government is going after Barry Bonds and Roger Clemmons for lying. When will this madness stop? I'm not an advocate for steroid use in the game, but who wasn't using during this time period. I would assume that some of the best players in MLB were using during this time. If you're going to start stripping statistics, aren't you opening up a can of worms? If I lost a World Series because a guy was cheating, do we strip them of their title? If you're Roy Oswalt, can you sue someone, like an A-Rod, for performing better on banned substances and costing you money? Can fans sue because of the 'product' that they paid to see wasn't pure?

Just call the early 2000s the 'lost years' or something, clean up the sport (mandatory 65 games for 1st banned substance failed test 130 games for a 2nd banned substance failed test), and move on. I wasn't a big baseball fan anyway, but this is really starting to turn me and I'm sure other people off. The NFL is doing great, the NBA is doing great, and even the NHL is starting to pick up. The MLB needs to fix this quick.