Performance Enhancing Drugs Continue To Plague Major League Baseball

Baseball's steroids scandal will simply not die until Major League Baseball releases the names of all of the 104 players who tested positive in 2003. By keeping this list secret, innocent players suffer under a cloud of suspicion. If the public can't trust the word of Alex Rodriguez, who had repeatedly and emphatically denied the allegations, then no player can be trusted.

The use of performance enhancing drugs has ruined Major League Baseball's record books. Players who would do anything to succeed partnered with greedy owners who would do anything to bring the home run ball back to the game. The result is the destruction of a sport that relied on tradition and history. The steroid scandal is to baseball what the sub-prime mortgage mess is to investment banks. Century old institutions no longer exist because of the actions of a few.

Now, I understand that the 2003 testing was supposed to be sealed and anonymous, but the premise that players should not face punishment was absurd on its face. Many of these players are still playing today and it's clear that Major League Baseball's leadership knows the identities of some of the players or Bud Selig would not have blackballed Barry Bonds as he did. By not releasing these names, all players are grouped together and fans can't trust the records and performances of the era.

Until the innocent have been cleared, it's impossible to say who did what, so you have to assume everyone is guilty. These 104 names cast a long, long shadow over players you never would have assumed used steroids. I mean, just a few years ago would you have thought that Andy Pettite or Alex Rodriguez or Roger Clemens had ever in used steroids? Can a fan say with a 100% certainty that someone like John Smoltz or Luis Gonzalez or even Kerry Wood did not do steroids? Until the list is released, I don't think you can.

Looking at the Hall of Fame and the effect that steroids has had on it, you now have players who have hit at least 500 home runs who are suspected of having used steroids, and others who have hit more than 500 home runs who you now must doubt. Look at someone like Jim Thome. By all accounts he is a great guy and would never touch the drugs, but until that list of names is released, you have to wonder about him. No one would have suspected Andy Pettite either.

Major League Baseball needs to come clean with the 104 names who tested positive in 2003 in order to start dissipating the cloud of suspicion over those players who are innocent. If the question is whether Major League Baseball is past the steroid era, the answer has to be a resounding no.