Dark Age of Baseball

     Major League Baseball was on the rise. The players of the dark steroid era were depleting and the dawn of a new youth movement in baseball was opening up a new age of baseball. The shame of past steroid use was in the past.
     That was until Sports Illustrated dropped a bomb on all fans of the game. A report by SI said 104 players tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003. That was nearly 1/7 of the professional players that season.
     The worst of the report was that one of baseball's golden boys, Alex Rodriguez, who used his great swing and natural ability to hit homeruns, tested positive for performance enhancing drugs.
Baseball is still in the dark age.
     The Sports Illustrated report re-opened the era that Commissioner Bud Selig and the rest of MLB tried so fervently to close and keep closed. Barry Bonds was on trial and Mark McGuire was struggling to get hall of fame votes. Teams switched their philosophy from power and strength to defense and speed. All was well.
     But now, instead of focusing on players like Tim Lincecum and Dustin Pedroia, both major award winners and both under 5 foot 9, MLB and all its media outlets will be on a constant A-Rod watch, asking questions like “Should we trust Alex Rodriguez?” or “Will his production go down?”
     Obviously not. In an interview with ESPN's Peter Gammons, A-Rod said he used the performance enhancing drugs because “he was under extreme pressure to perform.” Later in the interview he says he was “naïve…”and “stupid.” Clearly.
     A-Rod was good enough to still hit huge home runs and drive is a game-changer without the steroids. He was stupid for thinking he needed them to be a better player. In 2007, A-Rod had his most productive season yet with 54 home runs and 158 runs batted in, without steroids.
     When A-Rod shot up, he let down himself and a nation of fans. Even though "everyone was doing it" and he though he needed them to keep up, he shouldn't have done it.
     It is almost certain Rodriguez will be chasing the Barry Bonds's supposedly tainted 762 home run record. Now A-Rod will have to do it with the same cloud of suspicion Bonds had to.
The Dark Age of Baseball continues.