The Mark McGwire Saga: Do You Understand Steroids?

I know the excuse that "everyone is doing it" doesn't work now, like it didn't work in school when you wanted the latest fad and your mom looked at you like you had some sort of disorder.

The thing is though, almost everybody was doing it.

The purists screaming about how steroids damaged baseball and it's reputation haven't been paying attention. 

In the midst of the steroid era, baseball was getting it's best ratings. Abysmal as they were, they were good for "America's (old) past time."  Baseball has become Pacman. 

The video game, not the NFL defensive back with an affinity for strip clubs and guns.

It's still sort of relevant, and we all go to it for some nostalgia, but it is for the most part the wacky uncle nobody wants to deal with on a weekly basis. Once in a while it's fun, but too much is a bad thing. 

Baseball's only progression was steroids. 

In 2010 they're creeping into the Instant Replay era. In a game that takes entirely too long, they refuse to slow it down for things that are meaningful, like getting calls right.

The steroid issue though, is baffling.

To all those soap box preaching, pulpit beating purists screaming that these guys have disgraced the game, take a second and think about it. 

When baseball was enjoying it's peak popularity, there were the Black Sox, and the beer swilling Babe. Not exactly high character guys.

Throwing games and continued pubic drunkenness is no problem, but attempting to be better and match up with the competition, that's the disgrace. Some are going as far as to say that the steroid users aren't athletes. Excuse me, I thought steroids were categorized "performance enhancers," not performers.

They enhanced the performance of the players using them. The pitchers pitched faster, the hitters hit farther. They didn't magically take the steroids and get drafted into the Majors. They got drafted because they were incredible athletes. The steroids made them more than incredible. 

Steroids didn't pitch for them, or hit for them. 

It simply amplified what they had already did better than 99% of the world's population. If this weren't the case, you or I could go to the doctor, get steroids, and by month's end we'd be ready to attend Spring Training and be knocking them out of the park or throwing 100 mph heat. 

I'm not saying the steroid users were right for what they did, or even that they were justified, I'm simply saying that if they're that big of a disgrace, all baseball stats over the last two decades should simply be dismissed, World Series championships stripped and the 2010 season be considered the 1987 season.