Juice

Do you care? Do you REALLY care if players are or were juiced? If you do, why do you?

Well, I care, and a I CARED when McGwire, Bonds et al were cheating and people were cheering like there was this great "natural" event sweeping through the land! My friends will tell you I despised the home run era and recognized it for what it was, chemical-induced insanity, as it was unfolding.

As a 10 year-old I noticed from the back of my baseball cards, that almost across the board major leaguers had the best year, or close to it, at the age of 27, obviously defining that age as peak for a professional baseball player. So how on earth in the '90s did we see players having breakout and career years at 35, even 37, 38? It was as obvious as the tail that should have been pinned on the Commissioner ten years ago, but guess what, cha-ching, it rang the cash register and revitalized a sport that needed a jumpstart after years of infighting and union/management dustups.

For me, a purist, the '90s were a travesty. Oh yea, sure, it can be said that the competitive balance wasn't altered as many more players than originally suspected were apparently using, so as each pumped up, so did the opposition. And I guess in the end the stats are what they are, but what bothers me is the mountain a players like Ryan Howard or Albert Pujols have to climb to wage an attack on numbers from people like Barry Bonds and A-Fraud.

Thankfully, it's mostly over with, but the integrity of the game won't be fully restored until there is a meaningful Commissioner in place who will act for the good of the game and not just the sound of dollars flying into the tills of the ballclubs.