Enough with the Steroids

Why is it that every few months we have to hear about a new steroids scandal? Does the media think fans actually still care?

We don't.

We're over the whole steroid thing, we really are.

Clemens and Bonds are out of baseball. McGwire is living his life of solitude. And, Jose Canseco is, hopefully, broke and homeless. So let's get over this whole steroid thing. Does it really matter if David Justice and Dwight Gooden roided up at this point?

We get it. There was an entire era of steroid users in baseball. That era is over. It is time to move on. Let the players who are retired be. The drug tests are stricter, and baseball is returning to its pre-steroids condition. Can we please move on?

Nobody questions when a NFL player fails a drug test, yet the media destroys the career, and sometimes the personal life, of any Major League player who used performance enhancing drugs. With or without proof.

Granted I’m biased because I am a baseball fan first and a football fan second, but I am of the opinion that most of the NFL is probably on HGH, or some sort of performance enhancing drug. I am not calling anyone out, but based on the size and speed of players, it seems they almost have to be on something.

Regardless, the double standard in sports is unbelievable. Nobody cares when a football player gets caught using performance enhancers. Yet baseball players are vilified.

The reasoning behind this is simple.

Baseball has always been considered the pure sport. We feel like we know the players because we see them 162 times a year, without a facemask to hide behind.

We invite these strangers into our lives for an entire summer, and we feel like we get to know them. We feel the ups and downs of the season with them. We feel like we are a part of the team with them. We grow a rapport, albeit an imaginary one, with them, and feel betrayed when they break our trust.

We think about baseball players as people, and football players as simply football players.

But that loyalty can’t be broken as easily as the media would lead us to believe. Barry Bonds is still beloved in San Francisco. And, no matter what, fans will still look back at the Sosa-McGwire home run chase of 1998 with awe. We can’t go back in time and undo the joy and excitement of ten years ago, no matter how hard the media tries.

Don't get me wrong, we want the game to be clean, but at this point most people likely groan and turn off the TV when Outside the Lines investigates the latest steroids rumor. We want this whole thing to go away, but the media won't let it die.

We’re constantly inundated with stories about things that do not matter. Be it steroids, or the unrest in the Cowboys’ locker room. Unless news breaks that Jessica Simpson’s weight gain is caused by her eating players the team cuts, I really don’t need to hear about the Cowboys until training camp. And, yes, that includes T.O. and his VH1 reality show.

Steroid stories, though, are even worse than football gossip. Fans have moved on. Yet weasely clubhouse attendants and personal trainers won’t let the stories die because they want to make a quick buck.

ESPN, and the rest of the media, are simply giving them the forum to do so.

-Juice