Time to Dust Off an Old Story

Of course Cardinal Fan is going to forgive Mark McGwire.  No surprise there.

But, as always seems to be the case when the media discusses McGwire, Sosa, steroids, et al, they bury the lede. According to the AP's Jim Salter:

It was a season [1998] that many said helped baseball finally recover from the damage caused by the 1994 labor dispute that forced cancellation of the World Series. Congress honored McGwire and Sosa. Interstate 70 through St. Louis was dubbed "Mark McGwire Highway."

Even then, there were whispers. McGwire admitted in 1998 that he used androstenedione, an over-the-counter muscle enhancer banned by the NFL, IOC and others. But it was his evasive testimony at the congressional hearing four years ago that seemed to sour many Cardinals fans. One of his questioners at the hearing, Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo. and from St. Louis, said McGwire's name should be stripped from the highway signs.

The implication being that we all "knew" what was going on in '98. But all we got were whispers -- whispers that were whispered very softly so as not to offend anyone or cause people to think that Big Mac's heroic home run chase was anything short of heroic. Whispers no one took seriously until big scary Bonds tarnished the home run record.
 
We wrote about this years ago. And it seems like every so often I have to dust off that old chestnut and re-run it.
 
We may have "known" way back then that Mac and Sammy and others were 'roided up. Do we have the right to claim the moral high ground if we didn't say anything in real time?
 
One more note:  A few members of the media have said that the reason they could not say anything in real time is because they had no solid proof for their assertions.
 
Take a cursory glance at the number of trumped-up charges and flat-out lies about the Clintons and Al Gore  that the media gleefully distributed in the late '90s without a second thought about things like fact-checking. And then wonder why they were so squeamish about telling tales about steroids in baseball.

Really, Baron?

In the aftermath of Mark McGwire's non-shocking admission this week, Baron Budhausen had this to say:

The use of steroids and amphetamines amongst today’s players has greatly subsided and is virtually nonexistent, as our testing results have shown. The so-called steroid era — a reference that is resented by the many players who played in that era and never touched the substances — is clearly a thing of the past, and Mark’s admission today is another step in the right direction.

Really, Baron? The Steroid Era is a "thing of the past?"

I think the Baron needs to accept a bit of wisdom from William Faulkner (perhaps the greatest American writer from south of the Mason-Dixon Line): The past is never dead. It's not even past.

Part of the reason we're still having this discussion is because very few people -- owners, players, fans, and media -- were willing to talk about the prevelance of steroid and other PEDs in the late '80s and early '90s.

Oh, we're willing to kvetch about it now. But in real time, too many of us (and, yes, I'm including myself in that mix) were having too much fun to worry about it in real time.

We'll be talking about 'roids in 2020. The Baron is dumb if he thinks otherwise.