Baseball: America's Best Pastime, Steroids' Best Marketer!

There's no hiding the controversy that has been surrounding baseball during this era and now with the latest headline being Alex Rodriguez admittance of using steroids baseball has done a Plaxico Burress and shot itself in the leg.

This era of baseball that has been dubbed "The Steroid Era" has tarnished the image of America's Best pastime. The pressure to perform better and put up bigger numbers has gotten into the minds of many players and has pushed them towards using performance enhancing drugs.

Some of baseball's biggest stars over the years like Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, and Barry Bonds have been questioned about the use of steroids and one after the other denied using the drug. That trend was broken when Alex Rodriguez came clean and admitted he did use the drug.

In an emotional interview on ESPN A-Rod came clean and apologized after Sports Illustrated reported that he failed a drug test six years ago. Rodriguez's name is just one mentioned on a list of 104 players who tested positive for steroids in 2003.

A-Rod signed a 10 year $252 million dollar contract with the Texas Rangers. Questions came about due to the size of the contract and baseball wondered if he was worth all that money thus leading to his use of steroids.

"Back then it was a different culture," Rodriguez said. It was very loose. I was young. I was stupid. I was naive and I wanted to prove to everyone that, you know, I was worth, you know and being one of the greatest players of all time."

Before his admittance on ESPN A-Rod had denied using steroids in an exclusive interview on CBS's "60 Minutes."

The main question in the mouths of baseball fans all sports fans in general around the world is..."Will the likes of Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, and Barry Bonds come clean and finally admit they used steroids?"