*Heroes

I'm going to make this one short and sweet. Just felt like I should say something on the topic since it wants to take half of my favorite show to be discussed each day. The fact is I DON'T CARE ABOUT STEROIDS IN BASEBALL!!

The players that use performance enhancing drugs are only hurting their own bodies, not mine. And truthfully, if it wasn't for the all the records that started being broken after the baseball strike in 1994, I probably would have never started watching baseball again anyway. The fans expected reasons to come flock to the ballparks after that strike, so the players delivered. The Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run chase "saved" baseball. Do you think I wasn't one of many fans who noticed Barry Bonds went from being a stick figure to the same size of an NFL offensive lineman, seemingly in one off-season? Come on MLB, I knew players were using something...I'm not that naive.

The biggest argument I'm hearing about steroids in baseball is that if one player is using and another isn't, then the player that is using is cheating. Critics also say that all of baseballs records that were broken during the "Steroid Era" should either not count or come equipped with some sort of asterisk to explain that the record in question may or may not have been achieved with the use of a performance enhancing drug. Okay...fine...but wanna know why that still doesn't bother me?

The history of MLB is littered with cheaters and con artists. Just because I'm only 27 years old I know my history of sports. Just ask anyone that dare plays me in a sports related trivia game. So, you don't think I know about Ty Cobb probably fixing games in 1919; Or Mickey Mantle, Pete Rose and many of the ’50’s/’60’s generation who were high on amphetamines; Or Gaylord Perry admitting that he doctored baseballs; Or about Whitey Ford admitting his conspiracy to gouge or wet the baseball; Or my personal favorite story I read about, Tim Raines who would slide headfirst so as to not break the crack vials in his back pocket in the ’80’s. The list goes on and on and on and on. Nobody has a problem with some of those players being in the Hall of Fame, except obviously for Pete Rose since he gambled on baseball, but that's for another discussion. This ‘Golden Age’ in many people’s memories quite simply did not exist.

My point is that Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds should not be harshly penalized for cheating at a game littered with dishonesty and fear of losing one’s job. I quite honestly don’t care that they used steroids, because there is not one single study which has proven that it increases hand/eye coordination, which is much more important than arm strength when you’re talking about homers.

I don’t idolize players like I used to as a kid, but that doesn’t mean I cannot enjoy the games. This preoccupation we have as a society of tearing down celebrities has to stop. So, a player cheats? So? That means he’s just like all of us. I’ve lied. I’ve cheated. I’ve disappointed people. Does this mean I should be banned from work or fined, too? The standard we hold these people to is absolutely unrealistic.

To paraphrase John Kruk: "These ain’t heroes, lady, they’re ballplayers."