What Happened to the Integrity of Major League Baseball?

Today, the sports world was rocked with the news that Alex Rodriguez has tested positive for taking steroids in 2003.

What the hell has happened to this great game?

Baseball, "America's Pastime," is losing its last shreds of integrity by the day, it seems.

This world has almost 7 billion people in it, and only 750 of them are on an MLB roster. That's got to be a great ego inflater.

In the 1990s, baseball reaches its most popular era ever. Uber-sluggers are competing with each other to see who can hit more home runs in a year. Mark McGwire prevails.

Almost 10 years later, it is revealed that not only Mark McGwire, but also Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmiero, Jason Giambi, and Jose Canseco all had taken steroids during their glory days.

As shocking as this all was, and even more disappointing to fans and a certain MLB Commissioner in their bubbles alike, this was not limited to sluggers of the day.

When the story broke that Roger Clemens, who was without a doubt a first-ballot Hall of Famer before this fiasco, had also taken performance-enhancing drugs, Major League Baseball was left shell shocked.

On the lighter side of things, athletes of this sport have become so greedy that they are rejecting a $25 million dollar or more contract to play a sport that only .0000001 of the world's population gets to be a part of.

Guys like Manny Ramirez are bringing gluttony to a new level. Sure, maybe these greedy guys aren't on drugs (or at least haven't been caught yet), but their greed is so blatantly disgusting it makes me detest free agency.

After recent news that Barry Bonds did in fact use performance enhancers, it took away any shred of reasonable doubt as to his guilt. A-Rod may be a jerk, his teammates may think he's a fraud, and he may be a self-centered piece of crap.

But, he was supposed to be the self-centered piece of crap who saved baseball. He is a self-centered piece of crap, but what was important is that he didn't use performance enhancing drugs, and he was supposed to take the title of Home Run King away from Barry Bonds.

Well, we thought he was the self-centered piece of crap with too much dignity and/or integrity to take performance-enhancing drugs. Think what it would mean for Major League Baseball to have a Home Run King not surrounded by a cloud of doubt.

But, now the MLB doesn't even have that going for it, because SI.com and ESPN.com are reporting that in 2003, Alex Rodriguez, heir apparent for the title of Home Run King, tested positive for anabolic steroids.

What's next?