Steroids: MLB = Bad, NFL = Good (Or So the Media Would Have You Believe)

(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Last night was Monday, July the 13th. We managed to have a night where seven of the best home run hitters in baseball and Brandon Inge got together in an attempt to put on a power display where batting practice pitchers grooved balls at 70—75 MPH and in turn the likes of Pujols, Fielder, Cruz, and Howard deposited them deep into the St. Louis sky.

None of these performances was close to those put on in the past by the likes of Abreu, McGwire, or Sosa during the steroid era.

Can I ask why baseball is the only sport with a steroid era? Now we can clearly discern that the game had and, some will argue, still has a steroid problem.

So the witch-hunt will continue around the steroid issue, but worse for baseball is once a year they come back to the scene of the crime. The day before the mid-summer classic they showcase and event that has a history that is reeking with the smell of so much Deca-Durabolin and Andro.

So instead of trying to figure out if it’s Winstrol, HGH, or Primobolan that’s to blame, let's take a giant step backwards and give baseball a bit of a rest.

Yeah, I said it: give it a rest already.

This is the part where you tell me that they don’t deserve a break and baseball has put itself in this position. Admittedly, I am not able to defend any of that, as you would be 100 percent correct.

Cause steroids are BAD!! That’s right they are the devil in sports, they are the single biggest evil facing sports today. Even worse, baseball highlighted and showcased these cheaters, liars, and all-around bad guys, right? I mean, they are quite simply the worst athletes and role models on the planet. I don’t need to explain the vilification of baseball to you.

You know the story all too well.

Over 100 positive tests, multiple all-stars and dare I say it, there might even be a guy or two in the Hall of Fame, although thus far we cannot prove that.

What I can say is that baseball isn’t the only sport with a steroid issue.

See, we all remember the Mitchell Report. The one where baseball spent $20 million to have senator George Mitchell basically talk to the trainers from the Mets and Yankees and identify that baseball players were in fact doing steroids.

After 20 months, on December 13th, 2007 the senator released his 409-page report that named 89 baseball players. It was released to much fanfare and media coverage. The report drew five conclusions:

1. Major League Baseball's 2002 response to steroid use resulted in players switching from detectable steroids to undetectable human growth hormone.
2. The use of performance-enhancing substances by players is legally and ethically "wrong."
3. While players that use illegal substances are responsible for their actions, that responsibility is shared by the entire baseball community for failing to recognize the problem sooner.
4. An exhaustive investigation attempting to identify every player that has used illegal substances would not be beneficial.
5. Major League Baseball should adopt the recommendations of the report as a first step in eliminating the use of illegal substances. (Credit: Wikipedia)

For all those reasons, baseball became the whipping boys for steroids in America. Everywhere you turned was a picture of a baseball being jacked up my a syringe full of a toxic goo that looked like it may have come from the Toxic Avengers.

So why was it when the San Diego Union Tribune dropped a steroid bombshell that includes Pro Bowlers and Hall of Famers, the issues was it quickly swept under the rug?

In their September 21st, 2008 addition Brent Schrotenboer dropped the list the Tribune had compiled.

Just so we are clear the performance enhancing drug list in the NFL goes back to 1962 and includes 185 names since then, it includes at least one player from each position (that’s right even kickers were doing it), and at least one player in each season over the past 47 years.

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