Letters to the Editor
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Not fatigue, exactly. More like dishonesty and confusion.
Here's the problem I have with the so-called steroid scandal. Nothing you have read, heard or seen about the subject is honest in any way, shape or form.
Here's what I mean: MLB players have been using perfomance enhancing drugs openly for decades. Anyone who doubts this need only re-read "Ball Four" and see how "Greenies" (amphetamines) were distributed like candy in 1969. Bud Selig himself has acknowledged that when he visited the clubhouse of the Milwaukee Braves as a teenager in the late 50s, amphetamines were distributed openly. And by the way, amphetamines are a class 2 drug - considered to be much more harmful than steroids and regulated as such.
When players discovered in the 1980s that steroids suited their purposes even more than Greenies, many made the switch. And fans weren't dumb - we knew that Jose Canseco was on the juice a good 15 years before he told us. (Or were you confused about what the Boston fans meant when they serenaded him with chants of "Ster - oids" when he played the outfield in Fenway Park?) And it was obvious that players like Lenny Dykstra were using, because normal people simply don't bulk up in their early 30s and go from being a slap-hitting outfielder to a home run threat. It just doesn't happen. As for Mark McGwire? He acknowledged using a supplement that, because of it's steroid-like effect and signature, was commonly used to mask other PEDs ... right in the middle of his quest to break the home run record. So it's not like we didn't know.
And let's not forget the least honest people in the sports world right now: the legions of former players who work in broadcasting and who have yet to be put on the spot by the networks who have hired them. Because if the "journalists" at ESPN really wanted to get the story, all they'd have to do is have one of their crack reporters sit down with Kruk and ask him point blank: "Did you ever use steroids while you were playing? Did you know of any players that did? How about Lenny Dykstra?" But for some reason, ESPN doesn't seem to want to go down this road. Jeez, I just can't imagine why.
The steroid scandal (a/k/a the "please indict Barry Bonds before he does sonething foolish like breaking the all-time home run record" scandal) will spin to it's ugly and inevitable conclusion soon enough. Bonds - a gifted but intensely disagreeable and probably dishonest person - will be burned at the stake and baseball will try to get on with it's business. But they won't fool anyone with their nonsense. Because we all know the truth. It's been right in front of us all the time.