Steroids or Supplements?  It doesn't seem like an important question because all of the admitted users are guilty right?  Well, it does matter because one was legal and one was not. 

If one player ordered his steroids from Tijuana, injects them into his butt while another player goes to GNC and picks some supplements off of the shelf than there is a huge difference.  How can we decide that these two players are equally guilty when one was doing something illegal and the other was using something that the guy in the cubicle across from you is probably also using? 

Since we choose to call both players guilty than why are we not after the guy that drinks six Red Bulls prior to the game, or the guys that were popping amphetamines like vitamins.  Anybody who has read Ball Four in the last 30 years knows that amphetamines have been prevalent in the game for a long time.

It's hard to know who is guilty of what and that showed with David Ortiz's poor excuse of a press conference.  If he was using steroids or HGH than yes, he should be chastised and his career should be considered tainted.  If he was using supplements, as he stated, than he should be given a break. 

If what he said is true, that he, or his trainer, was able to walk into a store in the United States, purchase a supplement that is legal in the United States, and use it in a league that did not ban any drugs than why is he considered one of the players that uses performance enhancing drugs. 

If he did use a performance enhancing drug and it was shipped to another name at another address because it is illegal in the United States and his buddy Manny injected it into him or he rubbed it on his sore elbow than he does deserve the criticism that he got.  How do we know who did what?  We don't, we can only suspect. 

We know Jose Canseco and Miguel Tejada used steroids, we know that Rafael Palmiero tested positive for steroids, even though he claims that he thought he was taking a B12 shot, we know that Andy Pettitte used HGH and Jason Giambi used steroids.  We know that Alex Rodriguez used steroids for three years and Manny Ramirez was apparently trying to get pregnant. 

We don't know for certain what Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire took, if anything.  We also know that there are 103 players on a list that used something that could range from steroids to refusing to take the test so they would automatically default to a positive test to force true testing.

All of the players named above are all potential Hall of Fame players or significant players in the game so it leads to another question.  Do they belong in the Hall of Fame or should their records and statistics be removed from the history books? 

It unfortunate that the numbers are skewed now, 60 was a number that was known and admired for 34 years and 61 replaced it for 37 years. Seventy replaced that number and was replaced by 73 three years later. Seventy-three will probably stay there for a long time because now, coincidentally or not, no player is even approaching the number. 

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