Cheaters have always prospered

The discovery of the new designer steroid THG has created quite a commotion in the world of sports.

It seems Major League Baseball is directly beneath the THG spotlight. So much so, that many fans are starting to think that there are cheaters in baseball.

What? No way! Cheaters in baseball? Say it ain't so!

Hello, people, News Flash -- There has always been cheating in baseball.

What's with all this uproar about steroid use in baseball? Why are we making a big deal out of this now? Is it because the spotlight is shining directly on the sports biggest star, Barry Bonds? Is it because, MLB, for the longest time has denied that steroids have been widely used by its players and have not made any significant effort to find the truth?

Whatever the reason, I think we should sit back and put it all in perspective.

Baseball has a long history of cheaters.

What about Gaylord Perry, the self admitted spitball thrower? How about Albert Belle, the most notorious of all bat corkers? Or Norm Cash, who, following his breakout season of 1961, 41 homers and a .361 batting average, admitted that he had used a corked bat for the entire season?

What about Mark McGwire? He admitted to using androstenedione during his record-breaking year of 1998, when he shattered the single season home run record by hitting 70 taters. Although, andro was legal, it still builds strength, and, therefore, gave Mark an unfair advantage over other players.

Where were the torches and pitchforks when these players were caught cheating?

Players say that steroids keep them competitive with other players. If a player they are competing with for a certain position is taking steroids, how are they going to win the job if they aren't taking steroids? With this in mind, the origin of anabolic steroids can be traced back to the 1930's.

Oh, yeah, that's right, players didn't compete for jobs in the 1930s.

People are talking about adding asterisks to records for those records obtained during steroid use, or even more asinine than that, scratching records for good.

That makes a lot of sense. If we are going to do that, lets go back and take every win away from Gaylord Perry in which he took the mound with a runny nose. Let's just take away the entire year that Norm Cash had in 1961. Sammy Sosa has obviously used corked bats before. Let's put his home run total under the "Home runs with corked bat" category. Hey, maybe we can have a "Home runs with corked bat while taking steroids" category, which is the category some people would place Sammy in anyway.

Isn't the home run what everyone wants to see anyway. Only those who are baseball purists like to see pitching duels. Remember, chicks dig the longball!

I love baseball. The history. The moments that are so memorable, that they are passed down to kids and grandkids. The ballparks. The game. To a baseball fan, such as myself, it would be blasphemous to all of a sudden cast off baseball for something all of us baseball fans have overlooked before, cheating.

Now that a federal investigation has found that Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi have all received steroids from BALCO Labs, what's going to happen now? What should happen now?

Remember, Bonds hasn't been found guilty of anything. Even if he has taken steroids, does this mean he is just another average player putting up big numbers because he has taken steroids? I definitely say no.

Bonds has one of the quickest, if not the quickest bats in baseball. He is also one of the smartest hitters in the league. Anabolic steroids do NOT make you a better athlete, they build muscle mass. Bonds did not get his bat speed or his "smarts" from taking steroids.

So what do we do? I say we do nothing. Let's start with a clean slate. Let's let bygones be bygones so to speak. A type of "grandfather clause" if you will. I don't want to see asterisks, or new record categories. I don't want to see Jason Giambi hit a homerun, when my first thought would be, "he may not be on steroids now, but he hit most of his homeruns while he was juiced."

This said, however, baseball, cannot allow the use of steroids to go unabated. The only way to truly know if a player is taking steroids is for that player to fail a urine test. MLB needs to come out with a more stringent steroids testing program, which incorporates more unannounced urine tests. Tests that will be randomly given to players throughout the season and off-season.

Even with a new testing system in place, there is no guarantee that there will never be another "designer" steroid come along that is undetectable by the current testing methods. Therefore, a new system would do the following:

1. Stop most players who are currently juiced from using steroids.

2. Get the media and public off MLB's back for not having a useful and beneficial testing system. Which would mean less spotlight on steroids, and more on the game of baseball.

A new testing system will not, however, completely stop the use of steroids in baseball. Just like it does not completely stop the use of steroids in other leagues and organizations such as the NFL and track and field.

Are there cheaters in baseball? Sure. Is steroid use cheating? You bet. But before we start building the gallows to hang these players, and major league baseball, ask yourself these questions:

* Is what is going on in baseball now that much different than what has probably been going on for years in major league baseball?

* What difference will it make to you knowing who has taken steroids and who hasn't?

* Do you still love the game of baseball?

My answers -- probably not, none, absolutely.

I have one more thing to say --

PLAY BALL!