February 7, 2009
One week away from the opening of spring training and major league baseball incurs yet another black eye over past times known as “The Steroid Era”. News from SI.com attests that Alex Rodriquez, present of the New York Yankees, tested positive for anabolic steroids in 2003 while a member of the Texas Rangers. Most of us fans would have never suspected A-Rod to be in the mix of the steroid scandal as he seemingly represented the “clean” athletes who accomplished tasks on their own merit.
It should be noted that no one should be presumed guilty before proven so but by sheer release of the story significant damage has been done. The public distrust of major league baseball players and management is already high in light of previous findings inclusive of presumed facts that our all time home run king Barry Bonds did so with the help of steroids, having A-Rod and his clean image tainted only makes the great game of baseball have a even more damaged image.
Couple the steroid scandal with the unrealistic salaries given and demanded by the star players could indeed lead many fans taste for the game to sour to a point of prolonged indifference. Our economic state with unemployment approaching record pace does not bode well for a profession reliant upon fans to spend already, when the impact of disregard for reality shown by exorbiant salaries and more stories of “cheating to win” get out one has to wonder why as a fan we would choose to spend hard earned dollars to support such large egos.
Major League Baseball needs to wake up quickly, it needs to formulate and enact image campaigns to repair relationships with the public before it falls too deep in the hole to recover. Those players who used anabolic steroids need to “come clean” with the public and admit thier actions, MLB management needs to acknowledge that indeed it turned both a deaf ear and blind eye to the issue as it happened which it did while basking in the glory of “Slammin Sammy” and “McGwire” bringing the league out of the public disregard over the baseball strikes and actual cancellation of a world series due to perceived monetary greed !
Nothing is going to make the ” Steroid Era” go away, we all allowed it to happen and need to acknowledge as such and move forward. For baseball historians put your damn “asterick” on the accomplishments made by players during the “era” but I am tired of hearing about it, having government spend taxpayer money to investigate it and having naysayers state they did not do things that ultimately will be proven that they did!
Move on Baseball before you lose the die hard fans too! Folks like me who love the game will always be fans, sickened a bit that our heroes did not accomplish tasks without help of enhancements in times past but yet we love the game so much we will still support. The risk at hand is the auxiliary fan who lives on the brink of support, those folks are the ones who will stop spending thier entertainment dollar on the sport if the image is not crispened……. wise up MLB or fans and revenue streams will be lost !
