Shocking? Hardly.....

Is it a surprise to anyone that follows the sport of baseball on a daily basis that Alex Rodriguez has admitted to using performance enhancing drugs? Not this baseball fan. This is just further proof that everyone (YES....EVERYONE) who played in the "steroid era" is guilty by association.

Because of players like Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, Ken Caminiti, Mark McGwire, Jason (and Jeremy) Giambi, Rafael Palmeiro....baseball is now a game of cheaters and men who are driven by the love of the game...but by the dollar bill. Now Alex Rodriguez is lumped into the bunch of former MVP's, world champions, batting champs, Cy Young Award winners and overall superstars of a tainted game. It's not shocking however to me that A-Rod is now included in that group. When the original Mitchell Report came out in December of 2007....the thing to do was look at the players listed in the report and look at the teams and players they played on/with in that year. Rodriguez was teammates with both Juan Gonzalez and Palmeiro as well David Segui while a Seattle Mariner. To think that A-Rod who was the star of each of those teams was never influenced by teammates to use roids is just absurd and therefore this latest development is not shocking at all.

What bothers me about the whole MLB steroid problem is there is too much attention/money spent/investigation on the past rather than just admitting that baseball had/has a drug problem in it's inner workings and finding a way to fix the problem. Why is it that we in the media will go to great lengths to find out who did what and when and for how long they did it.....rather than fix the problem.

People bring up the records. Baseball more than any other sport holds their records to be a sacred trust. That trust is not only broken...but it's no more and as far as the records....maybe an (*) is the answer. That would only ensure that arguments over who is the greatest hitter/pitcher/player of all time will continue for generations. Maybe even make a separate record book for the "steroid era." I'm not sure what the answer is when it comes to the records of baseball....but that's something that can be debated in time.

What can't be put off is the drug problem is baseball. Rather than spending another reported 20 million dollars on another Mitchell Report....why not spend it working on a drug policy where both the owners, MLB and the players union agree to move on from the past and vow never to disrespect the game on this level ever again.

The game is no longer a game. If anything proves that point.......it's the steroid era. A game turned into a business driven by the almighty dollar and in the end it's cost lives, it's disgraced legends, and in the end the fans pay the ultimate price. MLB is no longer a kid's game played by men.....it's a business run by thieves.

If I had any advice for MLB and the Players Union...focus on what's important now rather than what was then.

-RoCk