Well, at least that’s what was supposed to happen and then I started to wonder.

Could A-Rod getting caught really be good for baseball?

I’ll let you catch your breath before I continue on down this path. I am not about to suggest that I think steroids, there use and abuse has any place in this game. Not Coke, Greenies or HGH, not a single one of them is good for baseball.

But can we make their legacy something. By we, I am talking the royal we, you, us, baseball, the people that love it,cherish and celebrate it. The numbers are what they are…..don’t forget the Asterisk.

But something else has happened, something very genuine. I mean we can be serious for a moment, the steroid scandal is kind of like a bell. You can’t unring a bell, and you can’t pick and choose which numbers are legit. To be fair without the leak and/or release of the results of ever drug test ever conducted we’ll never know.

Ken Griffey Jr.? Are his 600 plus homeruns legitimate? Some would say of course they are, look at that sweet swing. True, but wouldn’t steroid use explain this knee conditions, and you can’t tell me with the ability to speed up the healing process wasn’t an option considering the amount of time he missed due to injury.

What about Howard, Ortiz, Thome, Pujols and Manny? What about Miguel Cabrera? He wouldn’t break into the Majors in 2003 but he’s 25 years old with 175 homeruns, should we question every last cheese puff or potential needle that entered his body in the minors?

All that being said my intention here wasn’t to muddy the waters around guys that have yet to have their so far good names dragged through the mud. My point is that we have to do what we can to clean up the game, but dirt digging and claims of indiscretions from 2003 aren’t going to do that.

Luckily I believe that A-Rod and his outing have done what Bug Selig couldn’t do, what Senator George Mitchell couldn’t do, what House Government Reform Committee was unable to do, what the Players Association has been unwilling to do. That is genuinely starting to heal baseball.

In the broadest sense this will help baseball from the point of view of the fans, players and owners. I’ll start with the fans, and then describe the betterment of the game from the other you points of view later. This could get a little long. So I promise I’ll break it up for you.

Let’s start with the Fans of the grand old game. Our first reaction to steriods was to be expected. We were outraged, upset and indignant. As a collective we acted exactly how social scientists would have predicted. We started tearing through the 5 stages of grief.

1 – Denial. There was no way all our home records were brought down by these Juicers? Was there?

2 – Anger. How could they do this to us? How could they do this to baseball?

3 – Bargaining. Every time we saw another name we’d make one of two deals. If one more star comes up Dirty I am done with this game! Or that has to be the last one right? I’ll give anything for this to be the last one.

4 – Depression. If you guys are like me you didn’t want to follow baseball anymore. You questioned yourself, you fandom. You still loved the game, but felt like you’d been hurt too many times.

Now this is where you come in.

5 – Acceptance. You can admit it, it’s ok, and I saw them too. I saw the articles, and was battered and bruised by the Colin Cowherd’s of the world that said. I don’t care, what’s done is done. Juicer or not, give me interesting, screw the integrity of the game. Who gives a flying flip if he did them or not? They were all on them, so what?

If was at that moment a rumble started, somewhere in the pit of a collective stomach. A rumble that said, the MLB isn’t baseball. It’s just a league. People were rejuvenated. See we had given the MLB power over our game; they were its care taker. Under their watch, it had fallen, fallen into a state of disrepair. Like a little kid with a skinned knee. He knew we must pick it up, dust it off. Start cleaning out the wound. You remember being seven, the rubbing alcohol is going to sting. In the long run, it’s worth it. Alan Bug Selig only wanted to talked Revenues and Attendance. What Bud failed to tell you is everything in an America was up, the Dow Jones was up, the Real Estate Market was up, and the Price of Gas was up. Revenue’s aren’t the indicator of a strong game of baseball.

That is like saying what is the great movie of all time? People will say the Godfather, Citizen Cane, Gone with the Wind, not a single one of them is in the top 50 in Revenue. According to Old Bud the best five films ever are as follows, Titanic, the Dark Knight, Star Wars Episode 4, Shrek 2, and E.T.; does that seem wrong to anyone else? As a matter of fact only 3 of the top 30 all time were shot before 1990. Only 5 of the top 50 were filmed before 1990, and in that top 50 we have movies like Night at the Museum, Dr. Seuss: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Home Alone, Meet the Fockers, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.. According to the American Film Institute only 5 movies made since 1990 crack the top 100 and none are in the top 50. Oh yeah and of those 5, one are in the top 50 in revenue.

Now that being said, A-Rod some how managed to take that group, you know the one that missed baseball and all it’s glory. His positive test some how seemed to bring together a group less interested in his persecution and more interested in saving their game. Restoring it so that when he was passed on, it was in a condition that their fathers would’ve recognized.

A-Rod was the one we could believe in. We hated him, but as I’ve said before we hated him for all the right reasons. He was really good and he was a New York Yankee. In baseball those two tend to combine into a lot of hate. But again the good kind, the I love my team and hate you cause your not on it kind. A-Rod was a player we all wanted to have on our team. Don’t get self righteous Sox fan, you acted like a spurned lover when we was traded to the Yankees.

But he looked Katie Couric in the eye and said, never. Never had he taken steroids, never had he thought about taking steroids. And at 553 home runs it would only be a matter of time until Bond’s was wiped off the books. Then it slipped, maybe never wasn’t a time that included 2001-2003.

Maybe never wasn’t as all inclusive a statement as we had thought after all. But I will tell you what never now means. Never will we give them our game back. We the fans now must hold the standards up and decide who measures up. We must demand more as the Owners, Commissioner, Players Association Heads, and Players themselves weren’t willing to do it.

If we can be fair, this A-Rod positive test was just galvanizing force we needed. How will this affect the owners? How is it a positive for the game as far as the PA and Players are concerned? Well that I will cover in my next article, so yeah there will be a part two and three.

But for now understand simply, it’s not there game it’s ours. They’ve proven they can take care of it anymore. So let’s take it back.

To quote Zach Del Rocha, who had a very different vision of an America, “It has to start somewhere, it has to start sometime, what better place than here, what better time than now.”

Miguel Tejada is expected to plead guilty Wednesday in federal court to a count of lying to Congress about his knowledge of Major League Baseball players using performance-enhancing drugs.

With the recent happenings in baseball in regards to steroids in the past few years it has come to everyone’s attention that steroids, or “roids” as they are often referred to, had become common place in baseball at some point a long time ago. Steroids are no longer the white elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. They are the one of the biggest topics in baseball and most difficult to deal with or understand.

Finding out that such greats from the 1980s and 1990s such as Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, and others had used steroids has been tough to stomach. Major league baseball has had a difficult time policing it, understanding it, addressing it, and penalizing it. It was finally addressed after the 2003 secret testing that occurred and revealed that over 5% of tests came back positive and the next year strong consequences were put in place for anyone that tested positive, but for decades before that MLB really did not pay attention to the matter.

It was a “clubhouse” thing that was always protected and swept under the rug. Almost EVERY team in baseball knew which of their players were juicing and which were not. It has been revealed in internal scouting reports for players like Paul LoDuca of the Dodgers. The Dodgers were well aware that he was on steroids but did nothing about it, well they did end up trading him the season following the report.

Not addressing it, not penalizing it, and not testing for it are all ways in which MLB and its teams condoned the use of steroids! I do agree that everyone is entitled to a choice and that those that choose to use steroids need to be accountable for their actions. But MLB did know that players were using steroids and choose to skirt the issue for as long as they could. And the player’s union is as much to blame as anyone, especially for the ways that they go about protecting players that use steroids!
Many questions arise when it comes to steroid use in baseball. What happens to a player’s records and stats? Are they to be barred from the Hall of Fame?

McGwire has yet to be elected and seems to be getting fewer votes each time they vote. I believe that he has one more shot at it and it does not look like he will make it. What happens to Bonds’ home run records? Or Alex Rodriquez’s ? What about other players like Mickey Mantle, who was infamous for his late night partying yet was able to play at a very high level throughout the season.

A then-controversial book called Ball Four by Jim Bouton was published in the 1970s that made a note of players popping “greenies.” This was the name for green pills that contained amphetamines. They are “pep pills,” dextroamphetamine sulfate to be exact. And Bouton noted that a lot of baseball players couldn’t function without them. They were banned substances then and now. He even goes as far as noting that he felt that AT LEAST half of all baseball players used them, at least!

I have no option but to believe that baseball players, and athletes from all other walks, have been using what are or could have been labeled as illegal performance enhancing substances forever. Heck, it would not surprise me to hear that Ted Williams, yes Teddy baseball, had taken something at least a few times during his career. It was apparently a widely accepted and protected thing. Most good ball players are used to special treatment because of their skills, think of the best jocks at your high school or college. And when they made it to the professional levels things were not any different.

So where does this big mess leave us as fans, owners, players, and employees of major league baseball? My guess is that the rest of the over 100 players that tested positive along with A-Rod back in 2003 will be made known soon. Then what? As far as stats and Hall of Fame potential go, it’s a hard decision to make when you consider all things. I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on how this should be handled.

I know I don’t. Odds are, even as someone who despises the Yankees, I won’t even crack “The Yankees best player is a cheater” remarks to fans of the Bronx Bombers. Why? Because the odds are actually pretty good that at least a handful of my favorite players also juiced at one time or another. The same goes for you.

You might be mad. You might even be heartbroken that the game you’ve loved since childhood has come to this. But let me assure you that deep down, you don’t care as much as you think you do and you will get over it—at least enough to enjoy the game for the rest of your life.

Although A-Rod is the big name this time, it was Roger Clemens last time, Barry Bonds before that, and the Rafael Palmeiro/Sammy Sosa/Mark McGwire debacle before that. The list goes on and on. There were 90 names in the Mitchell Report and over 100 players failed a drug test the same time A-Rod did. Of course, we may never know who they are since the list was meant to be confidential, but does it even matter? And what about all the users we don’t know about?

The best way to judge an era’s impact is to imagine how it will be looked upon in the future. When I’m 80 years old, sitting in my rocker daydreaming about this era, I won’t be smashing holes through my wall with my cane as a result. Like all of you, I’ll never completely forget the steroids and the related controversy, but more so, I’ll remember feeling like a 10 year old as I sat behind the Braves’ bench at Spring Training in Florida last year. I’ll remember meeting Nate McLouth last season at a Pirates game and getting him to sign my all-star shirt with his name on it. I’ll remember chatting with guys like Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, Gavin Floyd, Robinson Cano, Dustin Pedroia, and Jon Lester while they were still playing Double-A ball. I’ll remember paying almost $100.00 for MLB TV so I can watch every afternoon game of the season at work.

I wish steroids were never a part of the game. I really do. But, I accepted a long time ago that they had an impact and I’m over it. The way I see it, we will never know every name of every player who popped a pill or stuck themselves with a needle, so why even worry about it? Major League Baseball, and Congress for that matter, has made significant strides over the last couple of years and so I believe it is safe to say that the steroid era is over.

So be angry. Be disappointed. Be whatever you want. But, at end of the day, just ask yourself one question: How much do I really care?

Cheek swabs were given to the FBI in an attempt to match DNA with the blood stained evidence McNamee turned over to investigators in January. The report does not clarify which set of cheeks were involved, but McNamee and his lawyers are confident that the submission will help his case.

Roger Clemens’ lawyer Rusty Hardin has declined any information about the FBI requesting for a swab as well. Hardin was also quick to say his client is always willing to cooperate with law enforcement and forensic investigators.

Both cheeks have turned and the Saga continues……