PED’s will always be present. The NFL has had a program now for 2 decades. Players still cheat, and often get caught. As far as calling it a “slap on the wrist” I do not think calling it that is fair. 1 time and it’s four games, another positive and it’s a season. NFL players still do it, and it’s and ongoing problem.

MLB was complicit with their Union and the dopers in the game. Fans have every right to complain louder if they choose….The Players Union and MLB were more than happy to engage in and All Drug Smorgasboard in order to drive home runs, attendance, and most importantly TICKET PRICES. To be quite honest, I know no MLB fan who is anything other than dismissive about the issue.

I believe it is the people in the media trying to deflect the fact that they never demanded baseball be honest with them or the fans.

Surprised that no one has suggested that it’s because the NFL is basically an immoral sport. Bur I think it will get knocked off its pedestal some day - that’s what pedestals are for.

this one is simple… Baseball is America’s Pastime. and therefore has a cherished record book. There’s nothing more to it than that.

Throw a rock at the field durring a football game and you are going to hit someone on roids….I mean look at those guys. Right now the media doesn’t care about football and roids like they didnt care about baseball in the 90s. And the fans never care about roids we only want to be entertained. The media are bunch of hypocrits who think they are morally above the rest so they hop in these issues to make themselves look above it all. Football will have its day, its only a matter of time before the media turns on them.

I’ve been saying this since day one, so anyone who is “outraged” at these players using PEDs can spare me the feigned shock and horror. Get back to me when the same level of anger, disappointment, whatever, is shown toward the NFL players caught cheating.

I appears the STL sports writers are baseball biased when not pointing out that a 4 game suppension in football is 25% of the season where as a 50 game suppension in basrball is nearly the same at 30.8%.

The Probus blog has several point of merrit the writers missed.

NOSNALLA1, punishment within the game was not the article’s point. The difference in public outcry was, and it IS most certainly different.

it really is simple…baseball folks grdugingly and foolishly hold records much more sacredly and so-called “purists” want it kept pure. the baseball purism is kinda silly, there’s always been cheating, in every era. moreover, why worry about ancient records being preserved over 100 years, b/c so much changes…i.e. ballpark sizes, introduction of minorities to the game, changing height of the mound, etc.
football is a game of power and pain and we want to see that, so we don’t care as much.

page3d, These articles seem not address. the public out cry but the media reaction. The Strauss article states a 4 game football supension is only a slap on the wrist.

Mcwire was there at the request of congress to speak on the future of drugs in sports and specifically baseball and what can be done to clean it up. When he tried to speak on the future and not the past he was forever tainted.

NFL vs MLB is a no brainer, baseball records are the most coveted in all of american sports. You ask any sports watching fan what Babe’s HR total is verse Favre’s consective games played, more right answers will be for Babe. True NFL fans vs. True MLB fans are different breeds, NFL fans count Super Bowls, Tarkenton and Kelly were losers, MLB fans would never say that of Ted Williams.

The question asked is apples and oranges,… professional sports are not about to retract any records, wins, or titles like college would. No one is willing to throw a cash cow under the bus and the NFL is a big one! But if you disrespect baseball in actions and deeds the way Manny and Bonds did,… well that bus has no heart burn about rolling them over.

I’d say baseball writers are more prone to gossip. Nobody else cares.

Jim Thomas, what are you talking about? “..don’t necessarily play positions where steroids might help performance.” Wasn’t there some surprise when Roger Clemens was named as a PED user, “how could a pitcher benefit from the use of PEDs?” How many professional cyclists or track & field athletes “look like” PED users? I think there is a common misperception that only big muscular body-builder types are steriod users. I think that the continuing stories about athletes using PEDs prove that most athletes can gain an edge over their opponents by taking PEDs. Until all professional athletes submit to blood testing by a truely objective third party, there will be issues with PED use in all sports.

I think the Commish said it best. Baseball, unlike football, has many individual records that have been affected by a few years of steroid use. Many hallowed baseball records have been crushed in the last few years because of the steroid use. If passing or rushing records were to start falling en masse in the NFL because of steroid use, people would start screaming about the NFL too. Until that happens, no one will have reason to care.

There is concern over both, but some of just show it in a different way. Rather than rant, I show it by not supporting the Men Like Babies or the National Felons League. A few years ago, I was at many baseball games and dropped a great deal of money on party rooms, club seats, merchandise… I have not been to or watched a televised game in two years.

I now look at football and am dismayed by the Merrimann fiasco, Alazado…and then you add a murderer on the Rams and now Vick’s reinstatement, and I am now finished with football. I realize I am just a drop in the ocean, but I refuse to lend support to this problem. I encourage others to join me!

The mere fact that all of the above mentioned writers may have had somewhat of a working relationship with McGwire during his stay here, be it of a negative or positive light, it compromises their judgment of Big Mac, and his wrongful place in the Hall of Fame.

If one single player gets into the Hall of Fame who the world knows (with proof) took steroids, then it will open floodgates for the capacity for forgiveness, and athletes (around the spectrum, who at least HALF of lead very “fast” or “big” lifestyles due to their paychecks in one way or another, and thus can have $ and public appeal to use to get AWAY with more) will keep plugging away at doing what they want to do, regardless of their status as a role model for kids, much less the law, or the “unspoken” law.

It’s funny: There are so many “unwritten” rules in the baseball fraternity, among them the fact you don’t speak out or rat out fellow players like Canseco did, however where are they “unwritten” rules about not cheating on the field?

Finished - you’re right and i respect what you’ve done. i’d love to do the same but i just enjoy going to games, cheering/drinking a cold one w/ my buddies and enjoying a day in the sun. maybe that makes me part of the problem.

the thing is this…i don’t care about the players. i don’t care if their heads start falling off from roids. that’s on them. i cheer for the cards and the rams, not albert or jackson, just the team. players come and go, teams don’t…at least i hope they don’t…

All I see on here are “comparative” arguments, i.e. “there has always been cheating” or “there will always be people illegally trying to get ahead”

That doesn’t make it ok!

If I kill a guy and say in my defense “Well people have been killing each other for years” or “Well at least I didn’t kill THREE people like that dude did last week” that doesn’t mean I should enjoy the privileges of the rest of the mostly law-abiding public.

Playing professional sports is by all means a privilege, and it should be held to a conscious moral standard, especially if evidence pronounces facts like the Mitchell Report. Otherwise, what’s to stop athletes from other things?

And don’t accuse sportswriters of being morality police—everyone—EVERYONE has a moral code. You who blast others for being mortality police have a moral code as well, it just has a more lax set of boundaries.

More often than not people I think people who accuse others of being “morality police” have deep rooted issues with parental figures or a deep rooted bitterness because they have been wronged with injustice in some form or another in the past and haven’t let it go or forgiven that person/peoples. Let it go.

Jim Thomas- PEDs make you bigger, faster, and stronger. Any position on a football field would benefit from them. The NFL testing is a joke. As long as their ratings are going good, nothing will change.

I think the main difference is in football they have had the guidelines, and while it is very few and fair between abusers get caught the rules are in place. In baseball the players union would not agree to testing and it lead to congress getting involved and made everyone look crooked while in football the testing was in place to begin with. Same amount of users, just handled much differently from the league and players.

I agree with Probus at the top of the comments in that NFL took a stance a long time ago and MLB stuck their head in the sand. But more importantly, what is a “Hall of Fame”? It is a museum designed to market a particular field - in this case, professional athletics. It is no different than the Smithsonian or Museum of Natural History. HOFs are designed solely to promote their particular sport. Players, media, and fans seem to invoke a sacredness to these ’shrines’, and only want to acknowledge the good. I love museums. I have visited countless through the years and can not wait to take my son to the types of places that focus on the history, evolution, grandeur, and downtrodden plights of a particular industry or field (especially sports).

Additionally, what are professional sports other than entertainment? We love to watch our teams do well and anguish when they lose. It is a real-life escape from real life. It creates a both civic and personal bonds. Professional (and other) athletics seem to unite and divide people more vigorously than TV, movies, music, politics, and even war. And maybe that is half the fun. But let’s not get too hung up on sanctity. Every field and every era has those who bend/break the rules for glory. If we applied that to every facet of life, who could say that they did not cheat on their taxes, or gave themselves a bogey when they made double, or over-embellished their resume. Heck, if we go that far, then look at popular music. Much of the music that many of us love was created by artist under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Yet we do not chastise the Beatles (or any other band) for that.

The bottom line is why should we care? Steroids made baseball more fun for a few years. It went so far as to give cycling a moment in the sun (did Lance juice or not?). We were entertained. Personally, I am torn about the Papi news of his PED use only because the Cardinals may have been denied the 2004 World Series. However, it is just a game. It is just entertainment. And now, it is just another storyline for sanctamonious writers to deliver a new story and tell us how terrible a person may be.

media members are, to put it nicely, two faced hypocrites as a general statement

michael h…if you’re referring to my comments, read them again. i’m not saying cheating is ok bc of the “everybody else is doing it” defense. i’m saying that the baseball community (players, fans, media) seem to think baseball is this pure place that has been soiled in the roid era. it is not, it’s always been a dirty place. my point is that baseball’s hallowed records are silly bc it’s not that hallowed. that’s the difference between baseball and football.

also…it always, always, looks goofy to compare sports to “real” life and “real” jobs. they’re not the same. it’s a completely different, incompareable world.

Funny, I think they are comparable, because how many times do we relate our lives to sports?

“I’m going to take one for the team”

“He dropped the ball on that one”

“You hit that project out of the park”

“I broke up with my girlfriend I’m a free agent again!”

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. They are not the same, yes, but they are the same in that we need justice in each system: Real life and sports. People KNOWINGLY find ways to work around the system of the courts in real life: they are called criminals.

Baseball players, via agents and lawyers, are finding ways to work around (also using the element of time and time-weariness) getting into the Hall of Fame, which is a GRAND reward of a PRIVILEGE of a billion dollar company, MLB. Criminals and ball players are employing the same technique—working around the system. And both are, at the bottom of most of their priority lists, meanwhile being watched, emulated, adored, and mimicked by children (little league, video games), teens (steroids, school, college), and adults (sports analogies, jerseys, season tickets, talk radio) as role models.

By skewering the line between responsibility (not fessing up and letting others show the ways of your cheating–what does that teach kids?—and even more by us allowing the cheating to take place and even REWARD it by letting them enter HOF–what does that model for kids??? It models look the other way) and action, it is a very said state of affairs that we have come to in sports.

So don’t hand out the “they are two inseperable” fliers. They are connected. Heck, we are on a SPORTS FAN blog.

The reason for the difference in treatment is because the baseball media is so high-hat that they don’t believe anyone should do anything more wrong than get drunk. McGwire did nothing any more wrong than did the Babe, but the Babe is a hero and McGwire is going to be left out of the HOF because of the stupid BB writers of today. Steroids, nor any other type of drug, can make a ball player better than his natural talent. They may make you a little more stronger, but they won’t affect your timing and ability to hit the ball, to catch the ball, nor throw the ball. I contend that the only people who really give a darn about steroids are the writers. I contend that the average fan could care less as long as the player shows up, does his job and helps the team win.

Ray

Where would you draw the line then? How would your system work if you were in charge? Where should cheating be given consequences, if any? How do you think cheating, in any form, affects children by showing them that there are or are not consequences?

Ray…you’re way off….steroids do help. Steroids or HGH or PEDs, or whatever, make you stronger, faster and help you heal more quickly, and help the body remodel itself over time. More strength means that fly ball goes over the fence instead of getting caught at the warning track. More speed turns singles into doubles or turns an infield out into a single. Quicker recovery times make you more able to play everyday and extends careers. They don’t make your eyes better, they make your body better. Simple question…If illegal drungs didn’t help, why would players use them?

Come on, man!

Michael H…we can agree to disagree, thanks for your thoughts, I do respect them. I totally agree w/ you regarding kids. It’s a shame that some 14 year-old is contemplating using these drugs bc he or she wants to make the varsity team instead of the jv team. That is what is truly sad.

Ray, I agree with you in that I don’t care what these guys do, nor do I care what the drugs do to them. They’re grown men and can make their own decisions. I want my team, the Cardinals, to win, and I simply figure that the overwhelming majority of these guys cheat in some form or fashion, so hopefully, the Cards do too, in order to give them a chance to win.

It’s about time someone starts to expose the NFL for what it is. It’s crazy that the NFL can go so under the radar when they are actually one huge marketing campaign for steroids! If anyone thinks 90% of the NFL is NOT on steroids, then you are sadly mistaken. I’m a Giants fan in football and I’ll be the 1st to say their entire defense is absolutely “juicing”.

Generally speaking football is a game of Williams, Smiths, and Johnsons. There are star players, but most NFL players are in the league Not For Long. People understand that football is a game of mass, speed and destruction. If a player is willing to destroy his body through physical abuse, then its OK to destroy it through chemical abuse.

There is huge difference in average pay of the players.

Baseball is a game Oswalts, Ichiros, and Pujols. Star players are around for a longer time. Baseball is more of a game of finess. Extra muscle and speed distort the competitive balance of the game. Baseball players are not expected to destroy their bodies.

It’s certainly true baseball receives harsher treatment than football. Some reasons for it:

1. A more naive fan base;
2. Baseball’s record book has a much longer history, and therefore is much more valued than football’s;
3. Much of the self-righteous BBWA continues to make it an issue via their comments on how PEDs have affected their HOF votes.

I agree with Gordo–athletes have pushed the boundaries throughout the ages, and the HOF is loaded with less than stellar characters. This is just another chapter in the Greatest Sport Ever. It’s unfortunate the reaction to PED use is so overblown.

The national pastime for sportswriters has been ripping on baseball since the early 2000’s. It’s the in thing for them to do or when they don’t have anything else to write about. Football has always gotten a free pass.

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