Why don’t you reread what Brian wrote. He said it was the first time the World Series had been canceled, which is correct. In 1904, the World Series wasn’t inevitable as it is today. The National League didn’t have to play the American League in a championship series if they didn’t want to and vice versa. In fact, the New York Highlanders (Yankees) were forced to issue a challenge to the Giants in the event they won the A.L. pennant. Soon others like Charles Comiskey and A.L. president Ban Johnson got into the act. It wasn’t until December 1904 that the National League agreed to make it mandatory for its pennant winner to play the A.L. pennant winner in an official World Series. Therefore, there was no World Series in 1904 to be canceled because it was never scheduled.

What do I think the amount of people using was? Over half. If forced to hazard a guess, I’d say 2/3rds. And that’s just because there are some guys who are afraid of needles.

But, as to the main point of your article(which I clearly enjoyed reading), sure one of the side benefits of the steroid era is that it did finally get so ridiculous that they had to clean it up, and try to steam out amphetimines too. But that’s really looking hard for a silver lining!

If we take your theory into effect than everybody cheated… and if everybody cheated then no one did because the playing field was level.

As for the health issue. You think this is going to stop people from killing themselves with chemicals? There baseball players that smoke cigarettes which obviously has ‘long term negative effects’ and doesn’t even help them perform.

What about alcohol? Alcohol’s a huge killer… and it funds the National Pastime. Want to guess the top advertiser after the automotive industry for the great game of baseball? It isnt’ Big League Chew.

If you look at the list of names on the Mitchell Report there is no true correlation between production and usage. Anyone who had to watch Jason Grimsley pitch frequently will concur.

And please, comparing steroids to a book? Last I checked books didn’t elevate your risk of dieing. Steroids change your body chemistry. Adk the many, many relatives of people who have died from steroid abuse if they think it was worth it that, in the end, baseball then cleaned up(partially) it’s act.

I’m sure you don’t believe that football, or baseball, or pro wrestling, is completely clean. Or body building. Because people just don’t come out that way. It’s a horrible choice to force people to make, it’s why baseball players forced their union to stop stonewalling, because most people are intelligent enough to understand that doing something to your body that has shown to have long term negative effects isn’t something you want to have to do to complete your job.

To put it another way, let’s say you are a ooal miner, and you know the risk for black lung, so you wear your mask and filters. But say your mine works on a bonus quota system, and working without a mask would make you 1/3 to 1/2 again better in mining coal. So some guys start going without masks, and they are making more money than you. Management notices this, and promotes the maskless miners, and starts hiring young guys who come in and start taking over jobs on less productive miners who wear their masks. Your family depends on you and your ability to do this job, because you started right out of high school and don’t really have any training or education to do anything else. So you face a terrible choice of doing something you know the odds say will end up hurting you.

Fair system? And yes, I grew up in an old dead coal town…. :)

And no one was forced to cheat. Frank Thomas didn’t cheat and he did ok… Jim Thome didn’t cheat and he did ok, too.

Barry Bonds was great before steroids and nearly a lock for the Hall… ironically, the ‘roids may cost him his place in history as a truly great player.

The sad part is the indictment should be on the owners as much as the players. The Mitchell Report and a number of other sources have cited that owners knew and ignored this behavior. Not only did they ignore it… they packaged it up and sold it back. Home Run contest, anyone?

The way I look at it is this. If you went to a college class tomorrow and they said to you, we don’t want you to use your book to answer the questions on the test but we aren’t going to watch you take the test, what would you expect to happen? Sure, steroids were illegal BUT they weren’t even testing for it the major leagues until 2002. That’s 4 years after the destruction of the HR record.

I guess some people were ‘impressed’ with the Sosa/McGwire/Matt Williams era. I wasn’t. It was patently obvious that baseball players were suddenly blowing up to the size of football players.

It made a mockery of baseball and turned it into a video game. I’m pretty much a ‘libertarian’ kind of guy. Do whatever it is you want as long as it doesn’t effect me. Steroids FORCED other players to cheat too, so they wouldn’t be left miles behind. It’s by far the biggest disgrace baseball has had since they ended segregation.

Please though, no pushing steroids back into the distant past of the 60′s and 70′s. It started on the west coast with Brian Downing and the Oakland A’s, and spread all over. All it has done is make every guilty until proven innocent, which isn’t a great thing in my opinion. It’s killed people, it’s ruined lives. Players, Owners, Coaches and Sports writers all share some of the blame if they kept quiet. And everyone who was ‘impressed’ with Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire shares some too.

It’s part of this age of no accountability and a 10 second attention span.

Isn’t it ironic that the game was “saved” by the home run in the wake of the Black Sox scandal? Babe Ruth changed the way the game was being played and the fans loved him for it. Almost a century later, the same weapon “saved” baseball again. Chicks dig the long ball and always have.