Steroids in Baseball

This is not a new issue. Talk first surfaced publicly about the widespread use of steroids in Major League Baseball back in the 1980's, and it has only escalated from there. Players have been charged with steroid use over the years. Jose Canseco published a tell-all book detailing how he aided various teammates in using steroids over the years, including Mark McGwire. Now there is a big report (The Mitchell Report) about to be published with somewhere from 60-80 names of players who have supposedly been involved in this drug culture in the MLB, supposedly including Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte amongst other All Star players and the like.

So what does all of this mean for baseball? It certainly paints a different image of these players who have set records over the years. But really, what effect will it all have? Sure, some of these great players might be overlooked by the Hall of Fame when they are up to be nominated, due to the speculation that they might not have earned their records without the help of performance enhancing drugs.

But will the public stop watching? I don't know that that will happen. Until the general public stops paying the money to go to games, I don't forsee any major changes occurring. Essentially, baseball fans don't care enough about this issue to stop attending game. So what would drive MLB to change their ways? They are still making their money, arguably even making more money due to the gargantuan numbers of home runs being hit out of ballparks due to their use of performance enhancing drugs. So what truly will force them into the decisions to truly crack down on this epidemic and clear the name of the game?

I'm just not sure that anything will happen due to all of this. Maybe they'll do an additional random drug test or two, but overall, will they really start to make changes? It all comes down to the bottom line...to the money. They are making more money due to these players who are using steroids and other performance enhancing drugs, so why should they change?