I have visited quite a few sports website, still haven't seen an article about this topic. I sure hope that I'm the first person to touch on this. Baseball enjoyed its glorious days since the McGuire-Sosa home run race. It had surpassed the NBA to be the second sport again in America after football. The success was sure not to the credit of Bud Selig. But luckily baseball recovered its popularity and its title as "American Passtime". Now amid the clouds of steroids and performance enhancing drugs, this era of baseball is tinted someway or the other. This golden period of baseball was actually given birth by two players (McGuire and Sosa) who were accused of heavily abusing steroids. So should we worship it or condemn it?

I really don't think baseball will lose the fans and the interest it draws. It sure won't attract more fans because of it. Steroids will always be a tinted mark in the baseball history. On the other hand, we should be glad that steroids will be kicked out of baseball (hopefully) forever. Every athlete will compete with their real skills and natural bodies. Players like Bonds, Giambi, and McGuire will forever have their records accompanied by an asterisk. It up for a debate whether Bonds got his home run record with help of steroids, or he would have achieved it without it. Either way, he admitted that he injected "clear liquid", and Giambi apologized for no reason, and the book of Jose Canseco, fans of baseball will forever wonder, unless these players come out of the closet. Before they do so, let's mark this era with an asterisk, and move on.
2.14.05 photo: AFP/Susan Farley