That’s right time to tear down the poster that Bud Selig has in his office.  That’s right baseball’s golden child is dirty.  Alex Rodriguez admitted on Monday that he used steroids.

Now I’m not glad that another player got caught disgracing the great game of baseball, but I am glad that another prominent player got caught.  I am a huge Giants fan and have been appalled by the treatment that Barry Bonds has been receiving over the past few years.

In 2003 baseball started testing for steroids.  Those tests were to determine how wide spread the use of steroids were in baseball.  If more than 5% of tests came back positive then baseball would implement mandatory testing starting the following year.  Well in 2003 104 players tested positive and mandatory testing was implemented in 2004.

A-Rod’s test from 2003 (which was supposed to be anonymous) was one of the 104 positive for steroids and those results were leaked out to Sports Illustrated last week.  When asked to comment A-Rod replied that he was not going to talk about that and that the reporter needed to talk to the players union.

In 2007 Bud Selig commissioned the Mitchel Report to further determine the use of steroids in baseball.  In that report some major names in baseball were fingered as having used steroids; Roger Clemens, Andy Pettite, Barry Bonds and Miguel Tejada to name a few.

I no longer have to hear about how Bonds’ record is tainted and that in a few years it will be back in the hands of a “clean” player as most A-Rod fans and baseball purists have often been whispering in the recent past.  The use of steroids is rampant in baseball and unfortunately the past 15-20 years are going to go down as the steroid ERA.

The players of the ERA are not the only players that have used drugs to enhance their play though.  In the 40′ through the 90′s it is widely accepted that players used “greenies” or methamphetamine pills to get the energy to play a long arduous 162 game season.  Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays have all been rumored to use the drugs to keep going.

In any competition athletes will do whatever they deem necessary to get to the top.  Unfortunately many of them go down the road of illegal drug use.  Hopefully baseball is getting a handle on the use of performance enhancing drugs but there will always be people that think they can beat the system.  Most don’t think they will get caught but in the end they always do.

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